English and History

On this course you will study great works of literature from Ovid to Ali Smith and from Shakespeare to Bernardine Evaristo, Salman Rushdie, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, enriching your learning with explorations into creative and environmental writing, detective fiction, world literature, drama, children’s literature, film, Victorian, Romantic, and contemporary literature.

As an English Literature student at Lincoln Bishop, your engagement with literature won’t stop at the seminar door. The English team are all research-active lecturers who are passionate about the study of literature and its positive impact on the individual and wider society. We actively support a range of organised events and visits to enable wider participation in literary culture, including visiting speakers, a research seminar series, subsidised film and theatre trips, workshops and celebrations, poetry readings, and literary awards. Among these is Lincoln Bishop’s Tennyson Poetry Award which invites students to craft an original poem inspired by the works of Lincolnshire born Victorian Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson. Situated in the heart of historic Lincoln, our course offers further opportunities to explore the city’s rich literary heritage, from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales – which reference the medieval legend of Little Hugh of Lincoln – to the contemporary work of Benjamin Zephaniah, who spent his later years in Lincolnshire and is annually celebrated with our Benjamin Zephaniah Day.

Our specialisms in social, political and cultural history mark us out as different to History courses elsewhere. Here at Lincoln Bishop you are encouraged to see the past from different, often challenging perspectives in order to gain a greater understanding of what happened and why. Students on this course explore a range of fascinating topics spanning a number of historical eras, in a wide variety of local, national, and global contexts. Modules cover subjects as diverse as medieval Europe; the Vietnam War and Cold Wars; sexuality, race, class, and gender identity in the past; early modern reformation and revolution; the British Empire; the history of magic, witchcraft and folklore; the history of the city; the Atlantic slave trade; the French and Haitian Revolutions; and the histories of crime, punishment, popular protest, and modern dictatorship.