The English Major is taught by an internationally distinguished staff member. Our core subjects develop ideas in literary history, literary theory and contemporary critical approaches while also providing a focused study of literary genres, periods and regions. In our subjects students will read a wide range of texts spanning some 500 years of literary history from Shakespeare to Alexis Wright. They will also encounter a variety of literary forms, from the short story to the novel, plays, poetry and memoir. Our students analyse literature in English from around the world, addressing key issues of identity, representation, conflict, desire, authorship and ethics. Critical and creative practices are often linked in our discipline, with understanding gained through one mode sustaining the other. By delving deeply into texts, students discover some of the complexities of language and the ways in which culture, thought and writing have shaped and continue to shape each other. They are encouraged to reflect on their own reading habits and to travel beyond the limits of lived experience, extending the capacity for empathy or learning to sit with difference. Reading in this way is a vital means of knowing ourselves as individuals and as part of our wider community.
Students taking an English major can choose electives from English or from other disciplines. Those especially complementary to an English Major include subjects from the Creative and Professional Writing major in the BA, including Professional Writing (CRA1PWR), Writing Fiction (ENG2WFI) and Creative Non-Fiction (ENG3WAB).
Individual English subjects are also available as electives for students enrolled in any course. The number of subjects that may be taken depends on the rules of the degree for which a student is enrolled.
