Curious about studying English Studies and French - BA (Hons)at University of Stirling? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Stirling Campus
Full Time
Sep 2027
4 Year
Texts are all around us – from books and magazines to TV, email and the internet. The ability to analyse them and their often subtle meanings is a skill that can open doors in a wide range of professional fields. English Studies at the University of Stirling offers you the perfect chance to dedicate yourself to reading and enjoying a range of great novels, plays and poems from across the world. Your own creative writing can form part of this degree, too – as we believe it aids your understanding of literary style and technique and develops your imagination. You’ll also have the opportunity to take a range of language-based courses which will inform your understanding and appreciation of literary texts. These are just some of the factors that make our BA a little different from other English courses.
This module is designed for all students with a school-leaving qualification in French. It will develop students' core written and spoken language skills and will provide an introduction to contemporary French/Francophone culture through examination of a number of texts/films. This module is split into 3 components: written language, spoken language and culture (mati?). Mati? seminars are supplemented by lectures focusing on the texts and film studied and their historical context. This module is particularly relevant to students who plan to add an international element to their degree by mastering a foreign language as well as students who plan to have a career in education (primary or secondary).
This module introduces students to the study of English literature at undergraduate level by focusing on reading and analysing different genres of literature, including poetry, fiction and drama from Chaucer to the present day. The course has an overarching emphasis on how genres change and develop over time, and how literary texts respond to each other: it will also consider genre itself as a complex and contested area. It thus introduces students to one of the key approaches approaches to literature upon which they will be able to build during the rest of their degree.
This module introduces you to different approaches to literary studies, within a broadly theoretical context. We will be exploring the concept of literary theory and considering how different theoretical positions can shape our responses to literary texts. We will encounter a range of fascinating novels, short stories, non-fiction, poems and drama, from Shakespeare to the present day.
French for Beginners is an intensive course and is the first step towards joining the Advance stream at the end of semester 3. After Semester 3, there is no further differentiation between former Beginners and non-former Beginners.
This second module of Introductory French is an intensive course and a direct follow-up to the previous FREU9B1 module. It is the next step towards joining the Advanced stream at the end of semester 3 (FREU9A4), from which point on there is no further differentiation between former-Beginners and non-former Beginners.
This module is a direct continuation of the previous module FREU9A1 and, as such, continues the development of your core written and spoken language skills. The module has two components: language and culture and will provide an overview of French/Francophone culture in the long nineteenth century (1789-1914), with particular reference to the French Revolution, the French Atlantic slave trade, the Franco-Prussian war and the First World War, all of which are approached through the study of short texts and films.
This module continues to develop the linguistic and analytical skills fostered by the previous module FREU9A3. It comprises two components: language and culture. It focuses on the culture and history of the French and Francophone world from the 1960s to the contemporary period. You will explore the way Francophone societies in Europe and North America changed following the Second World War and the beginning of the period of decolonisation, through the study of literature and film as durable forms of cultural expression. The aim of studying these cultural artefacts is to develop your intercultural understanding of those nations and individuals who are French-speaking; it is also an opportunity to further expand your language proficiency, enabling you to build on your comprehension of spoken and written French and acquire new vocabulary and linguistic structures.
This is an intensive course which builds on the foundations laid by courses FREU9B1 and FREU9B2. This module is the last module prior to joining the Advanced stream (FREU9A4) from which point there is no further differentiation between former-Beginners and non-former Beginners.
The overall purpose of this module is to introduce students to the concept of technical innovation in literary studies, within a broadly historical context. The module is structured around the concept of revolutions, both literal and literary, and covers a broad historical sweep, from the Peasants? Revolt to the present day, and will focus on understanding literary and historical context as integral to the understanding of literary texts. The module will build on the close reading and theoretical skills obtained in ENGU901 and ENGU902.
This module continues to develop the linguistic and analytical skills fostered by the previous module FREU9A2. It comprises two components: language and culture. It focuses on the culture and history of the French and Francophone world during the period from the start of World War II to the main period of French decolonisation in the early 1960s. This is achieved predominantly via the study of film and literature as durable forms of cultural expression. The aim of studying these cultural artefacts is to develop your intercultural understanding of those nations and individuals who are French-speaking; it is also an opportunity to further expand your language proficiency, enabling you to build on your comprehension of spoken and written French and acquire new vocabulary and linguistic structures.
Is history just another text? To what extent is literature history? How do the stories we tell about ourselves alter the material facts of our lives? This core module sets out to explore these questions by studying aspects of Scottish literature, history, and identity since the defining moment of the Union of the English and the Scottish Parliaments in 1707. Writing and History: Scotland and Empire examines the pressures that produced some of Scotland?s finest writing in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, partly opposed to and partly in step with the concept of Great Britain. It deals with the competing narratives, the contradictory accounts, and the exchanges between centralising and marginalising forces raised by this experience.
This module will provide you with the technical tools and vocabulary to describe in detail how language choices produce particular effects, create meanings and convey ideologies in literary texts. Alongside the acquisition of skills, the module will encourage you to reflect on what it is that makes texts literary, as well as broader debates about the benefits and limitations of stylistic analysis. Whilst the module will be largely focused on stylistic analysis, you will also learn the role of context in a literary stylistic approach.
This module is an introduction to literary theory, and it invites you to question what we think we?re doing as readers, writers and critics. It will both sharpen your existing skills and open you to a whole new set of questions and debates, ranging across a wide terrain of fresh and sometimes challenging ideas. Where does ?meaning? come from? How does a literary text represent the world? What difference does difference (class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality) make to our reading of texts and cultural practices? Why are some texts valued more than others? The module introduces a selection of the most influential movements in literary and cultural theory of the past century, from the seminal linguistic theories of Saussure, to the readerly prohibitions of the New Criticism, and intense cultural debates sparked by figures such as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler. We will also consider some of the practical implications of theory for literary analysis and interpretation. You will need to engage closely with the primary theoretical texts in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. You will be taught by experts who research in this area.
This dedicated language module builds on the linguistic skills, written and oral, you developed during the second year. It is intended to be relevant to all students and it deals with general skills of comprehension, writing and speaking. The blogs and passages you study each week are selected as relevant examples of journalistic and discursive prose which feature a variety of registers; they are also chosen to provide you with an awareness of current affairs in the French-speaking world which will be of benefit in writing blogs and compositions, and in your spoken language classes. In dealing with the longer passages, you will be invited to improve your skills in extracting the gist of an argument in French, and you will prepare for your own compositions by noting and examining how the articles are structured. Writing blogs and compositions in French are interlinked components of the same fundamental skills, and the class will allow you to develop your accuracy, range, and the ability to exploit the possibilities of your written French.
This module provides generic, subject-specific and language-specific (French or Spanish) education on employability and careers skills of relevance to students whose degree involves the study of French or Spanish
Students will have only optional modules in this year.
For many students, the dissertation is the culmination of their undergraduate study. This module will enable you to undertake your dissertation project: a sustained piece of research on a clearly defined topic that you will choose in consultation with a superviso
The module aims to strengthen students' dissertations, by focussing on the key skills needed for effective writing and research, including: skills in written English; using library, archive and IT resources, distinguishing and choosing appropriate methodological approaches to research, considering ethical and legal issues such as plagiarism or the use of questionnaires, formulating a research proposal, writing a literature review and a research proposal.
This module is designed to prepare students for the dissertation in semester 8. It will focus on the key skills required to devise and develop a research project: using library, archive and IT resources effectively to support research; distinguishing appropriate methodological approaches to research; formulating a research question; writing a proposal; referencing accurately and professionally; and presenting research findings to an audience. It supports students through the process of defining and scoping the dissertation topic which they will research in semester 8.
The Final Year Project involves the writing of a substantial dissertation, the culmination of the various Honours degree programmes offered by the Division of Literature and Languages (English Studies).
FREU9L7 written and oral language work builds on the foundations laid down in the preceding years of study. The module deals with advanced skills of written and oral expression and comprehension, as well as with translation of both journalistic and discursive prose. The topics covered in written and langage parl?lasses also aim to further develop students? awareness of French and Francophone current affairs, through in-depth engagement with advanced written and oral/aural materials including editorial-style journalism, online media coverage and journalistic blogs.
This dedicated language module builds, not only on the foundations of grammar, syntax and lexical range laid down over the preceding years of study, but also on the advanced language skills of translation, composition and oral debate and presentation honed in your final semesters of study. The module incorporates advanced skills of written and oral expression and comprehension, through translation into English, composition in French and oral/aural work including individual presentations. Through the module you will develop an in-depth understanding of and engagement with political, social and cultural topics of relevance to France and the wider Francophone world.
4.2
