Bachelor of Arts (English)/Bachelor of Science

La Trobe University

In the English major you will encounter a variety of literary forms, from the short story to the novel, plays, poetry and memoir and read a wide range of texts spanning some 500 years of literary history from Shakespeare to Alexis Wright. The subjects available to you in this major will help you develop ideas in literary history, literary theory and contemporary critical approaches while also providing a focused study of literary genres, periods and regions. Critical and creative practices are often linked in the English discipline, with understanding gained through one mode sustaining the other. By delving deeply into texts, you will discover some of the complexities of language and the ways in which culture, thought and writing have shaped and continue to shape each other. In this major you will be taught to analyse literature in English from around the world, addressing key issues of identity, representation, conflict, desire, authorship and ethics. You will be encouraged to reflect on your own reading habits and to travel beyond the limits of lived experience, extending the capacity for empathy or learning to sit with difference. Reading in this way is a vital means of knowing ourselves as individuals and as part of our wider community.

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

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