A joint honours degree in English and Film was offered for the first time in 2006 and, new for 2011, is our joint honours degree in Film and Philosophy. In addition, students taking a degree in English alone are able to select a number of Film modules as options.
Film has been called the art form of the Twentieth Century, and continues to be a major force in contemporary culture. However, it remains in creative interaction with older arts. Above all, literature and film have been involved in a mutually enriching relationship since the birth of cinema in 1895. Moreover, films are often derived from literary sources, and literary texts increasingly draw on the cinematic devices. Film adaptations can extend or alter our perceptions of fiction or drama, but film also has its own language and styles, which range from the avant-garde to the popular, from aesthetic experiment to pulp commodities.
Our Film courses respond to changing patterns of student interest in literature, culture, and the representational and time-based visual arts. The degree programmes locate Film Studies in a clear relationship to English and Philosophy, taking full advantage of the range of critical and analytical skills that are applicable to both disciplines, and examining the cross-over of techniques and theoretical perspectives between film and literary art which has helped to shape both of those arts for more than a century.
The joint degree provides an extensive critical, aesthetic, and theoretical approach to the study of film. It exposes students to the diversity of film by requiring knowledge of a variety of periods, genres, and regional and world cinemas. Taking English/Philosophy and Film Studies will enable students better to appreciate the workings of both literature and film in their own right, as well as to explore the diversity of the ongoing relationship between the two modes of representation, which is one of the most influential transactions between words and images in our culture.
This programme offers the opportunity to study English or Philosophy and Film in equal depth and complements particular aspects of the English or Philosophy side of the degree. Understanding either medium often requires transferable analytic skills. The Degree emphasises the value of interdisciplinary study, equipping students with sound knowledge of both disciplines and a range of critical skills applicable to exploring either or comparing both.
The Film element gives a grounding in the specialist language of cinema analysis, focusing on individual films or directors, movements, genres and national cinemas. It will train students to explore film within its historical and cultural contexts, but also to engage with a range of theoretical perspectives.
All Joint Honours students may submit a Level 4 dissertation on any aspect of the degree in which they are interested in pursuing independent study. This may specialise in either English or Film, or an interdisciplinary combination of both.
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