English Literature/Music

English literature and music is a combination that brings together two disciplines deeply concerned with the relationship between form and meaning, between the structures artists choose and the experiences they create. English literature develops your capacity to read texts with care and interpretive depth, attending to language, narrative, voice, imagery, and the cultural and historical contexts in which writing is produced and received. Music develops your understanding of how sound is organised in time to create aesthetic experiences, from the close analysis of scores and recordings to the history of musical traditions across cultures and centuries.

At the University of Glasgow, this part-time programme allows you to pursue both disciplines with genuine rigour while managing other commitments. You will explore all aspects of literature in English from early modern to postmodern, benefiting from expertise in American, Irish, and postcolonial literatures, critical theory, creative writing, and the relationship between literature and other arts, media, and science. The music strand develops your musical thinking through analysis, theory, history, and performance or composition, depending on your own practice and interests.

Glasgow has significant strengths in both English and music, and the combination is taught by researchers who are active in their respective fields. The programme includes a year abroad, which may involve study at a university where either literature or music is taught in a different cultural context.

Graduates from English literature and music programmes go on to careers in education, arts administration, arts journalism, broadcasting, publishing, cultural organisations, and research. Further study at postgraduate level in either discipline is available for those who wish to develop specialist expertise.