Course description
NOTE: This course is in phase-out mode and is no longer accepting applications for admisssion.
Current students needing assistance with course planning for completion of the course requirments should contact the Arts & Music Student Centre
The English literary studies program was inaugurated in 1854, making the Faculty of Arts one of the first faculties in Australia to offer studies in English literature. The School of Culture and Communication is recognised nationally and internationally as one of the most exciting and progressive program of its kind. Academic staff maintain a strong commitment to scholarly values and actively encourage and support students in their passion for literature and writing. Staff are dedicated to fostering learning experiences students will remember their whole lives. In recent decades the program has been at the forefront of disciplinary innovation and current theoretical approaches to critical literary studies. Students of English literary studies have an excellent and flexible preparation for careers in the media and publishing, advertising, education and professional writing. Students who are interested in expanding their interests and knowledge in English are provided with an articulated structure of higher degree study options at the University of Melbourne.
English literary studies is the study of literary texts written in the English language from the medieval to the contemporary era. Traditional ways of thinking, writing and talking about texts have been transformed in recent decades by heightened awareness of the assumptions underlying literary criticism. English subjects may be oriented towards the texts themselves, the historical and cultural contexts in which such texts are produced, or the theoretical issues involved in reading texts. A number of subjects approach the task of criticism from methodologies which originate in Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, historicist or psychoanalytic thought.