Department of English Undergraduate Program

The Department of English offers units of study at both Pass and Honours level in the separate subject areas of English and Australian Literature. Pass units of study are offered at both Junior and Senior levels, while Fourth Year Honours in English or Australian Literature is offered as an additional full year of study.

Entry Requirement for English Major

If you wish to take a Major in English you will need to complete at least twelve credit points (two units of study) at Junior level and at least thirty-six credit points (six units of study) at Senior level in the order set out below.

It is possible to take more units in English, if you wish. Subject to degree regulations, students may take up to 78 credit points in English (18 junior and 60 senior) out of the 144 required for the degree. The number and variety of units of study on offer by the Department makes this easy to do. On the other hand, students may wish to take only one or two units of study in English, to supplement other areas of interest. To do this, they may require permission to waive entry requirements into the units they choose. The form for this is available on the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences website, and students will need to get the approval and signature of the Department’s Undergraduate Coordinator.

You may cross-list units of study from other subject areas as part of your English major, up to a value of 18 credit points. In addition, several English units of study are cross-listed to other subject areas such as Media and Communication, Gender Studies, and Medieval Studies. The complete list of cross listed units can be found by following this link.

Major

For details of individual units of study click click here.

Junior Level Units
The English Department’s first year units are designed to give a grounding in the discipline and to assist in the acquisition of essential skills. ENGL1009, Reading English Texts, has been especially created to develop new students’ skills in close reading and literary interpretation and to give them a knowledge of literary history and literary genre. ENGL1009 is not mandatory but strongly encouraged as it is designed to prepare students for later study, such as a Major in English. Along with this unit, English offers three units which focus on British Literature, Australian literature, and Film respectively: ENGL1026 Constructing the Fictive Self; ENGL1008 Australian Texts: International Contexts; ENGL1011 Introduction to Film Studies. Completing two of these units will qualify students to undertake a major in English.

Senior Level Units
The English Department organises its senior level offerings into two generically distinct groups of units of study, Core and Extension, in order to create a meaningful progression within the English major from larger units introducing major issues of literary theory and practice through to more focused and demanding units extending these and allowing students to specialise in congenial topics or periods:

(1) Core Units: large, team-taught units of study taught as 2 x 1hr lectures + 1 x 1hr tutorial, with 4000-4500 words of assessment. 7 Core units of study will be on offer each year, mostly though not exclusively in the first semester, with 14 different Core units on offer over a two-year cycle.

(2) Extension units: smaller classes extending work done in the larger Core units of study and normally taught by a single member of staff in any one of a number of teaching modes:
2 x 1hr lectures + 1 x 1hr tutorial + 4000-4500 words
or 1 x 1hr lecture + 1 x 2hr seminar + 4000-4500 words
or 1 x 1 hr lecture + 1 x 1 hr tutorial + 6000 words
or 1 x 2 hr seminar + 6000 words

There will be 28 Extension units of study on offer over the two year cycle, with the bulk of the units falling in the second semester.

NB: It is expected that the 2012 program will be repeated in 2014.

CORE
The Core units are designed to represent the discipline by offering a single broad unit in each of the major literary genres and periods, with further units on important studies within the discipline: literary theory; literary nationhood; language/grammar; Australian Literature.

Students majoring in English must choose at least three of the Core units of study, though they may do more and are encouraged to do so. (A major may comprise Core units only.) Not only are they required to do at least three Core units, but to ensure progression and coverage they must have done three Core units before they embark on their Extension units.

The Core units offered over the 2012-2013 cycle of the curriculum are as follows:

EXTENSION
The Extension units of study offer more specialised work developing out of the broader, more representative Core units. Their topics relate more directly to the interests and expertise of individual staff members.

The Extension units offered in 2013 are as follows:

2013 Semester One
ASLT2619 Australian Gothic
ENGL3635 Old Norse
ENGL2659 18th-Century Literature: Scandal and Sociability
ENGL2664 Transpacific Literature

2013 Semester Two
ASLT2618 Anatomy of the Hoax
ENGL3633 Old English
ENGL2656 Metaphysicals to Milton
ENGL2627 Screening Sexuality
ENGL2638 Literature and Cinema
ENGL3651 Christopher Marlowe
ENGL3612 Metaphor and Meaning
ENGL3642 Dreams and Visions
ENGL2640 Shakespeare
ENGL3658 Narrating Trauma
ENGL3655 The Literary in Theory (Honours prerequisite)

The Extension units offered in 2012 (and likely repeated as such in 2014) are as follows:

2012 Semester One
ASLT2616 Australian Stage and Screen
ENGL3635 Old Norse
ENGL2663 Modern Irish Literature
ENGL2635 Contemporary American Literature

2012 Semester Two
ASLT2609 Australian Writing and the Postmodern Age
ENGL3633 Old English
AMST2602 Regionalism and American Culture
ENGL2651 Transatlantic Negotiations
ENGL2603 Imagining America
ENGL2611 Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries
ENGL3643 Canterbury Tales
ENGL3615 Street Narratives
ENGL3657 The Brontës
ENGL3655 The Literary in Theory (Honours prerequisite)

For more information about a major in English, you should consult the Undergraduate Coordinator. For more information about Honours in English, you should see the Honours page or contact the Honours Coordinator.

For details of individual units of study click click here.

A Major in Australian Literature

For details of individual units of study [[For details of individual units of study click click here.

In addition to the English major, the Department of English offers a separate major in Australian Literature, whose units of study have their own code (ASLT). Students majoring in Australian Literature are required to complete the six senior ASLT units on offer over their two senior years.

The distinction between Core and Extension does not apply to Australian Literature majors, who take their ASLT units of study when they are available. The only pre-requisite for the Australian Literature major is 12 junior credit points or three junior units of study, including ENGL1008.

Students majoring in English who choose ASLT units will be required to respect the progression requirements relating to Core and Extension units of study within the English major, as described above.

For more information about Australian Literature, you should consult the Australian Literature Undergraduate Coordinator.