This degree offers a detailed investigation of the range of theoretical and critical approaches that have shaped English and film studies in recent years. The programme combines a mixture of close textual and visual analysis with an exploration of the critical theories that are applied to film and literature. You will also be encouraged to reflect on how the two disciplines – film and literature – can overlap.As a student of English you will look at imaginative writings in their cultural and historical contexts. It may mean walking through the London of Defoe, Dickens, Virginia Woolf or Monica Ali. It may mean discovering the impact of the French Revolution on English art or the impact of the colonial experience on colonisers and colonised. You will also learn about the history of critical and theoretical approaches to literary texts and question the notion of ‘literature’ itself. You’ll discover how history, philosophy and psychology shape literary criticism and theory and how literature itself is taken on board by those disciplines.Film Studies is a genuinely interdisciplinary academic field. An encounter with films of different genres, styles, periods and national industries is the core of the subject, and as a film student you will naturally devote a lot of time to viewing films, reading and writing about them, and discussing their meaning and importance. However, this is just the beginning. Film Studies is a ‘gateway subject’ that inevitably fosters an understanding of visual aesthetics, narrative forms and technological ability, but that also leads students into areas of study as diverse as history, politics, philosophy, technology and performance.