English Literature and American Studies

English literature and American studies is a combination that traces some of the most important literary and cultural traditions of the English-speaking world across the Atlantic and across time. English literature gives you the tools to read fiction, poetry, and drama with precision and depth, engaging with texts from the medieval period to the contemporary. American studies brings an interdisciplinary lens to the United States, reading its literature, history, politics, and culture together to understand what is distinctive, contradictory, and globally influential about American experience.

This extended degree at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle runs over four years and includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement. The extended structure and the richness of the practical and international elements embedded within it make this an unusually substantial degree for students who want both intellectual breadth and real-world experience. The sandwich and placement years provide direct professional exposure in environments relevant to the creative industries, education, or media, while the year abroad gives you the opportunity to study in the United States or another partner institution and to engage with American culture at first hand.

With a typical tariff of 104 points, the programme is accessible to students who show genuine engagement with literature and cultural studies.

You will develop close reading and analytical writing skills across a wide range of literary and cultural texts, engage with critical theory and the debates that shape how literature and culture are studied, and explore the intersections between literary imagination and the historical, social, and political contexts that produce it. The dual focus on British and American traditions gives you a comparative perspective that enriches your reading of both.

Graduates from this programme move into careers in publishing, education, journalism, media, broadcasting, arts administration, public affairs, and the civil service. The placement and sandwich year often open direct routes into employment, and the year abroad adds a dimension of international experience that is valued across many sectors.