About this course
Philosophy and English literature have tackled some of the biggest questions of our age: Is there a god? What is morality? What does it mean to be human?
On this joint honours course, you’ll examine these and other fundamental concepts from 2 complementary angles, enriching your understanding and appreciation of each discipline.
This BA degree will give you an excellent education in literature, theory, and critical thinking.
In your degree you can:
- learn about philosophical questions such as ethics, reason, and responsibility
- explore philosophy and literature through diverse times and places, from Viking to Victorian eras, and from Eastern to African settings
- study themes like the Islamic Golden Age, classical Indian philosophy, and holocaust literature
- study abroad at one of our partner institutions
- explore contested narratives, like race and culture in American literature
You’ll be taught in small groups in a relaxed and friendly environment, and benefit from the expertise of academic staff whose research feeds directly into the course content.
Compulsory modules provide a strong grounding in philosophical and critical thought, while optional modules give you the freedom to pursue your own interests in varied subjects like scriptwriting, short stories, and Islamic philosophy. You can take modules from other disciplines such as anthropology or psychology, studying a language, or choosing from a range of cross-disciplinary modules.
Year abroad
A year abroad will enhance your understanding of philosophy and English and let you experience a new culture. Discover more benefits and financial support options for studying abroad.
Apply using:
- Course name: Philosophy and English with a Year Abroad
- UCAS code: QV36
Year in employment
Enhance your employability by taking this course with a paid industrial placement year.
You'll spend this extra year applying the skills and knowledge you've learned so far.
We regularly review our courses to ensure and improve quality. This course may be revised as a result of this. Any revision will be balanced against the requirement that the student should receive the educational service expected. Find out why, when, and how we might make changes.
Our courses are regulated in England by the Office for Students (OfS).
Learn more about these subject areas
Course location
This course is based at Avenue.
Awarding body
This qualification is awarded by the University of Southampton.
Download the Course Description Document
The Course Description Document details your course overview, your course structure and how your course is taught and assessed.
Entry requirements
For Academic year 202526
A-levels
ABB including an essay writing subject*
A-levels additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. *Essay writing subjects include History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
A-levels with Extended Project Qualification
If you are taking an EPQ in addition to 3 A levels, you will receive the following offer in addition to the standard A level offer: BBB including an essay writing subject* and grade A in the EPQ
A-levels contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all applicants with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise an applicant's potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
International Baccalaureate Diploma
Pass, with 32 points overall with 16 points at Higher Level, including 5 at Higher Level in an essay writing subject*
International Baccalaureate Diploma additional information
* Essay writing subjects include History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
International Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
International Baccalaureate Career Programme (IBCP) statement
Offers will be made on the individual Diploma Course subject(s) and the career-related study qualification. The CP core will not form part of the offer. Where there is a subject pre-requisite(s), applicants will be required to study the subject(s) at Higher Level in the Diploma course subject and/or take a specified unit in the career-related study qualification. Applicants may also be asked to achieve a specific grade in those elements. Please see the University of Southampton International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme (IBCP) Statement for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
BTEC
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Diploma plus B in essay writing A level subject*. Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC National Diploma plus B in essay writing A level subject* Distinction in the BTEC National Extended Certificate plus AB to include an essay writing A level subject*
RQF BTEC
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
Additional information
* Essay writing subjects include History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
QCF BTEC
Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Extended Diploma plus B in an essay writing A Level subject* . Distinction, Distinction in the BTEC Diploma plus B in an essay writing A level subject* Distinction in the BTEC Subsidiary Diploma plus AB to include an essay writing A level subject*
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
Access to HE Diploma
60 credits with a minimum of 45 credits at Level 3, of which 30 must be at Distinction and 15 credits at Merit, to include 6 Distinctions in an essay writing subject*
Access to HE additional information
* Essay writing subjects include History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Irish Leaving Certificate
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2017)
H1 H2 H2 H2 H3 H3 including an essay writing subject*
Irish Leaving Certificate (first awarded 2016)
A2 A2 B1 B1 B2 B2 including an essay writing subject* at B1
Irish certificate additional information
* Essay writing subjects include History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Scottish Qualification
Offers will be based on exams being taken at the end of S6. Subjects taken and qualifications achieved in S5 will be reviewed. Careful consideration will be given to an individual’s academic achievement, taking in to account the context and circumstances of their pre-university education.
Please see the University of Southampton’s Curriculum for Excellence Scotland Statement (PDF) for further information. Applicants are advised to contact their Faculty Admissions Office for more information.
Cambridge Pre-U
D3 M2 M2 in three principal subjects including an essay related subject*
Cambridge Pre-U additional information
* Essay writing subjects include History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Welsh Baccalaureate
ABB from 3 A levels including an essay writing subject* or AB from two A levels including an essay writing subject* and B from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate
Welsh Baccalaureate additional information
Offers typically exclude General Studies and Critical Thinking. * Essay writing subjects include History, English Language and Literature, English Language or Drama and Theatre Studies.
Welsh Baccalaureate contextual offer
We are committed to ensuring that all learners with the potential to succeed, regardless of their background, are encouraged to apply to study with us. The additional information gained through contextual data allows us to recognise a learner’s potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience. Applicants who are highlighted in this way will be made an offer which is lower than the typical offer for that programme.
T-Level
Not accepted for this course.
Other requirements
GCSE requirements
Applicants must hold GCSE English language (or GCSE English) (minimum grade 4/C) and mathematics (minimum grade 4/C)
Find the equivalent international qualifications for our entry requirements.
English language requirements
If English isn't your first language, you'll need to complete an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) to demonstrate your competence in English. You'll need all of the following scores as a minimum:
IELTS score requirements
- overall score
- 6.5
- reading
- 6.0
- writing
- 6.0
- speaking
- 6.0
- listening
- 6.0
We accept other English language tests. Find out which English language tests we accept.
If you don’t meet the English language requirements, you can achieve the level you need by completing a pre-sessional English programme before you start your course.
You might meet our criteria in other ways if you do not have the qualifications we need. Find out more about:
- our Ignite your Journey scheme for students living permanently in the UK (including residential summer school, application support and scholarship)
- skills you might have gained through work or other life experiences (otherwise known as recognition of prior learning)
Find out more about our Admissions Policy.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
Course structure
You’ll have the freedom to shape your degree to suit your interests by choosing modules from a wide range of options, including modules outside philosophy and English.
You’ll have the opportunity to broaden your studies beyond philosophy and English, by selecting:
You don't need to choose your modules when you apply. Your academic tutor will help you to customise your course.
Year 1 overview
Compulsory modules give you a firm foundation in the philosophical concepts of reason, argument, freedom and responsibility, and appearance and reality.
Your English modules are varied, and it’s up to you to select the modules that most interest you. Choices range from Victorian feelings, to world literature, to the voices and narratives of sex workers and asylum seekers.
You can also choose to take part in a group project, where you'll work with a small group of students to complete a research project led by one of your lecturers.
Year 2 overview
Your knowledge of philosophical concepts is extended by a further compulsory module in the history of philosophy, in addition to which you will take 7 optional modules. This flexibility allows you to build the course around your developing interests.
Year 3 overview
Along with completing your choice of optional modules, you'll consolidate your knowledge and skills by writing a dissertation on a topic of your choice in either of your main subjects.
Want more detail? See all the modules in the course.
Modules
The modules outlined provide examples of what you can expect to learn on this degree course based on recent academic teaching. As a research-led University, we undertake a continuous review of our course to ensure quality enhancement and to manage our resources. The precise modules available to you in future years may vary depending on staff availability and research interests, new topics of study, timetabling and student demand. Find out why, when and how we might make changes.
For entry in academic year 2025 to 2026
Year 1 modules
You must study the following modules in year 1:
Ethics
We all make moral judgements every day. Today you might have decided not to push into a queue because it would be unfair. You might think that murder is wrong but that it is still not permissible for the state to take an innocent life in retribution. You ...
Reason and Argument
One of the main reasons the study of Philosophy is valued by employers is that it develops an ability that is invaluable in all sorts of contexts: the ability to reason rigorously and correctly. All Philosophy modules aim indirectly to develop this skill,...
The Act of the Essay
This module focuses on the essay as a critical practice and a literary form. The essay is fundamental to literary criticism, and basic to assessment across your degree. But the essay is also a literary and popular-cultural genre in its own right: one that...
The Novel
‘A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and poses questions’. The contemporary novelist Milan Kundera describes the novel as an exploratory and engaging form, a way of telling stories that involves readers both in its searches and in the quest...
Truth, Knowledge, and Objectivity
The central goals of enquiry are to discover what the world is like and how we ought to live. A simple and initially attractive picture is that there is a world independent of us that we can learn about via experience, and via reasoning. But both parts of...
You must also choose from the following modules in year 1:
Applied Ethics
In both public and private life, we face difficult and pressing ethical questions every day. Should we give a proportion of our wealth to those in developing countries? Should we allow doctors to perform abortions or euthanasia and, if so, under what circ...
Faith and Reason
Debates between believers and non-believers are often fierce and can appear intractable, while the differences between them leads to social tension, conflict, and even war. Non-believers frequently charge believers with irrationality; in response, believe...
Freedom and Responsibility
Human beings have free will, and that is why they are responsible for their actions and choices. Or so we tend to think. But is it really so? Are our choices and actions not determined by factors outside our control—are they not the inevitable upshot of c...
Literary Transformations
Why have some stories gripped the imagination of writers, musicians, and artists across cultures and centuries? And what does the emergence and constant re-emergence of such stories tell us about ourselves and others, past and present? What do readers and...
Political Philosophy
States impose many demands upon their citizens through the law and the magistrates and police who enforce it. But are there good reasons why citizens should comply with these demands, or do they act merely out of a fear of punishment? Some states we seem ...
Puzzles about Art and Literature
Both individuals and society attach great importance and value to certain works of art, including poems, novels, films, plays, symphonies, and paintings. Most of us spend a considerable amount of our limited time and resources acquiring, creating, experie...
The Invention of English Literature: Medieval to Early Modern
Where did the idea of ‘English Literature’ as we know it today come from? When and how did writers first start thinking of themselves as English authors? How did the mechanisms of book production and the material forms of books shape readers’ understandin...
Theory & Criticism
The module asks big questions. What do we do when we interpret literature and culture, and how can we analyse our practices of interpretation? Can anything be a text, and if so what do we understand by ‘literature’? How does literature shape our identity,...
World Dramas
In this module, you will learn how to approach dramatic texts in a way that takes into consideration their place in the world as a complex political, economic, and cultural network. We will focus on questions such as: • What is the difference between r...
Year 2 modules
You must study the following module in year 2:
You must also choose from the following modules in year 2:
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art
You might watch a stunning film, hear a delightful song, enjoy a beautiful sunset, read a dreadful poem, attend an elegant dance, or see a garish building. Experiences like this can stimulate thoughts and feelings of great depth, and provide pleasure or d...
African Freedoms and The Novel
In Africa, the ideal of freedom has the capacity to evoke multiple layers of struggle and aspiration: from state decolonisation and the end of official racial segregation, to gendered, national, economic and spiritual freedoms. Historically, the novel has...
Brief Encounters: Writing Short Stories
Many writers begin with the short story. Through writing short stories they are able to experiment, learn the fundamentals of narrative composition, and have the satisfaction of completing something to a high standard in a relatively short period of time....
Children's Literature
Children's literature is a rather slippery term encompassing a variety of genres, child/adult concerns, engagement with historical/contextual issues on, for example, gender; class; nonsense; the nature of time; slavery. Other issues addressed are subject...
Corpus Linguistics: Working with large-scale text data
In this module, we introduce corpus linguistics as an approach to and method for analysing large-scale text data. We will develop an understanding of building and curating datasets, annotating data, and using quantitative and statistical measures for lang...
Data Environmentalism
Data is material. It is produced by people, it is made possible by resource extraction, it needs power to survive, it inhabits and resculpts the landscape. The use of data, then, contributes to climate catastrophe, but that role can be hard to see, hidden...
Data, Culture, and Justice
Data organise our present and shape our future. Those data are never neutral because they are the product of human labour, of choices made by people about what data to record, how to record it, and who is best equipped to do that recording. Drawing on wor...
Decolonising Modernity
Literary history is often told in epochs. In particular, it can be useful to understand the world in relation to some or other idea of “modernity”: for example, English literary studies is often organised through conceptions of the early modern, the mode...
Epistemology: Knowledge and Evidence
Epistemology is dedicated to questions about the nature and structure of knowledge and justified belief. Some central questions in epistemology include: - What is knowledge? Why is it valuable? - To gain knowledge from a reliable source, does one n...
Ethics of Global Poverty
Ethics of Global Poverty examines the duties of affluent people towards those living in poverty around the world. Among the questions we will examine are: What obligations do we have to help strangers in need? What bases might such obligations have? Are s...
Ethics of Public Policy
This module involves the ethical evaluation of public policies. Note that it is not primarily concerned with how public policies are made and implemented, nor with non-ethical assessment of them, such as how effective they are in achieving their aims. The...
Experiment!
What does it mean to make literature new? What forms and reformations have offered starting points for rethinking literary convention? In this module, you will explore the revolutions, innovations, and boundary-crossings that have taken place in literatur...
Film, Realism and Reality: representing the world, from revolution to the everyday
This module will introduce you to some of the principal realist and documentary movements, asking how the simple aim to ‘show things as they really are’ has resulted in a range of creative and wildly different cinematic forms. It will consider the issue a...
Great Writers Steal: Creative Writing and Critical Thinking
Many writers have penned essays about fiction and memoir: E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, Milan Kundera, A.L. Kennedy, A.S. Byatt, to name just a famous few. Indeed, it seems essential at some p...
How the Arts Work: A Practical Introduction to Cultural Economics
How are the arts getting back to work again after Covid-19? This is a critically important question for everyone who cares about them, artists and audiences alike. If you’re a student considering a career in the arts you’ll want to know where fresh opport...
Images of Women
Cultural representations of women shed important light on notions of female subjectivity, sexuality and racial identity in the modern world. Medical discourses on gender, mental pathology and the rise of modern feminism are just some of the pivotal histor...
Inventing America
This module studies writing and visual representation in the early years of the republic of the United States. Focusing on the period from shortly before the American Revolution to the early years of the nineteenth century, this module will introduce stud...
Issues in Latin American Popular Music and Culture
The module aims to develop your critical awareness of Latin American music and dance cultures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the ways that scholars have approached them. Rather than a survey of Latin American music, the course will be th...
Kant’s Copernican Revolution in Philosophy
Among philosophers in the modern era, Immanuel Kant is widely acknowledged as the most important, original and influential. His challenging book, Critique of Pure Reason, asks what we can know about the nature of reality at the most fundamental level. Can...
Logic
Ever since Aristotle, philosophers have been interested in developing formal systems of logic to refine our ability to distinguish valid from invalid arguments and to further our understanding of the nature of logic and validity. The aim of this module is...
Metaethics: Facts and Feelings in Ethics
We all make moral judgments and think about moral questions. For instance, you might think that torture is typically wrong but wonder whether it may sometimes be right. Whereas normative ethics tries to answer these questions, metaethics is concerned with...
Metaphysics: The Nature of Reality
Metaphysics is the study of what kinds of things there and what they are like in the most general terms. We have both a common sense picture of the world and a scientific picture of the world, and sometimes these two appear to conflict. Part of the job of...
Moral Philosophy
Moral philosophy is concerned with questions of right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice. Such questions are familiar: can it be right to lie to someone to avoid hurting their feelings? Is it okay to favour my friends and family, or should I be impa...
Philosophy of Religion
Can there be a proof that God exists? Or might phenomena such as suffering serve to show that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being cannot exist? Such questions are central to the philosophy of religion; attempting to answer them leads us to ...
Philosophy of Science
We build our world on scientific knowledge, in fact we stake our lives on it. Every time we board a train, send an email or take a medical drug we reaffirm our trust in the products of science. But what, if anything, gives science the authority it seems t...
Queens, Devils and Players in Early Modern England
Early modern England is a period associated with Elizabeth I and the Tudor court, the plays of Shakespeare, blood and violence on the Jacobean stage, the discovery of new worlds, and the persecution of witches and heretics. The diversity and vitality of t...
Queering the Digital
In this module, we will investigate and reflect on the various entanglements between Queerness and digital technologies. Drawing from foundational concepts in Queer theory and gender studies scholarship, this module deconstructs and reconceptualises domin...
Revolutions in English Literature
Revolutions would break, remake, and reform societies on both sides of the Atlantic from the disruptions of the English Civil War to the global conflicts of the Napoleonic Empire. Revolutions may be those sudden changes in political life that men have tra...
Romantics and Victorians
In 1831 the philosopher John Stuart Mill struggled to define the ‘Spirit’ of the nineteenth century. ‘It is’, he wrote, ‘an age of transition. Mankind have outgrown old institutions and old doctrines, and have not yet acquired new ones.’ If the nineteenth...
Scriptwriting
Dialogue, pace, setting, and story. Understanding the nuts of bolts of scriptwriting is not only key to a successful piece of theatre, cinema, or radio, but to all forms of creative writing or literary analysis. This course will introduce you to the art o...
Self and Agency in the History of Philosophy
As modern science developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, philosophers asked what place there is for individual, human agency in a law-governed, mechanistic world. And, as traditional social structures were overturned in this period, philosophers asked ...
Songs of the Earth: Landscapes and Environments of Early Medieval England
How did people in early medieval England think, feel, and write about the world they inhabited? In what sorts of ways did literature and other forms of texts shape their engagements with landscapes, environments, and the beings – real and imagined – with ...
Speech Acts
How do writers activate and amplify the sonic properties of language? Why do artists use vocal performance of text in video art? How can text ‘perform’ on the page (or onscreen), and what does it mean for language to be performative? What does writing for...
Sweatshops, Sex workers, and Asylum Seekers: World Literature and Visual Culture after Globalisation
What can the voices and narratives of sex workers and asylum seekers depicted in world literature and visual culture tell us about the conditions and pressures of life in the contemporary world? How might considerations of narrative technique, genre, and ...
The Early Modern Body
In this module, students will explore a wealth of different texts and different discourses, from the literary to the scientific, on humanity and the human body in the early modern period. Starting with a glimpse of ancient and modern visions of the body, ...
The Life and Afterlife of the Vikings
Blood, violence, terror, raids, pirates, rape and pillage are just some of the words associated with the Vikings in both the medieval and modern imagination. Their fearsome reputation is underlined by nicknames such as ‘Blood Axe' and ‘Skull-splitter', bu...
The Mind, The Brain, and Consciousness
Philosophy of mind explores questions about the nature of the mind and mental states – states such as perceptual experiences, beliefs, desires, and emotions. What is the mind? Is it an immaterial substance? Is it the brain? Is it something like a computer...
Vienna and Berlin: Society, Politics and Culture from 1890 to the Present
This module will introduce you to the social, political and cultural history of Vienna and Berlin in the 20th century, German using a wide range of sources which will include literature, film and architecture. Topics covered may include the following:...
Year 3 modules
You must choose your modules from the following modules in year 3:
Burning Worlds, Drowning Worlds: Oil Cultures, Climate Crisis, and Traumatic Desires in World Literatures
We keep being barraged with a deluge of unnerving news - about environmental crisis, multi-level pollution, exceeding desertification and inundation of centuries-long places of human habitation, floods, forest fires, relentless rise in sea-level due to t...
American Gothic
As the Puritan colonialist John Winthrop said at Holyrood Church in Southampton before embarking for Boston, American was to be ‘as a city upon a hill’, a beacon of progress and enlightenment for the world. But from the beginning, America has been shadowe...
Animal Forms: poetry and the non-human
What can animals teach us about the human and non-human? What do the creative forms we use to describe them show us about human form and the other? In this module, you will read a range of poetic and critical material which explores the porous boundaries ...
Authoring Austen: Writing, Reception and Adaptation
Jane Austen’s global appeal in the twenty-first century has been shaped by the ways that she has been read in the 200 years since her death. In this module, you will read Austen's novels, letters, and unpublished juvenile fiction, and explore some of the ...
Business, Morality, and Markets
Business can be understood narrowly as the part of life in which we exchange services and goods. But in contemporary society, many of us spend a large part of our lives conducting business—either working within firms or for ourselves—and all of us engage ...
Classical Indian Philosophy: Self, Knowledge, and Liberation
Philosophy flourished in classical India for well over a millennium, with figures in this tradition producing works that are on a par with those of figures in ancient Greece and late antique and medieval Europe. In fact, figures in classical India contri...
Contemporary Theories of Justice
The aim of this module is to familiarise you with several important, but competing, theories of justice. Such theories give guidance on important questions of distributive justice (who ought to get what, when and why?), and provide, to varying degrees, gr...
Creative Writing in Schools
Are you interested in helping young people study English? This module will introduce you to teaching creative writing in secondary schools by providing training in effective classroom management and guidance on designing lesson plans for studying fiction ...
English Dissertation
Undertaking independent research into an aspect of literature or creative writing which particularly interests you is a cornerstone of your degree. A dissertation gives you the opportunity to study a subject in much greater depth than usual and, with gui...
Environmental Cinema and Media
There is now an overwhelming scientific and political consensus that climate change is occurring as a result of human activity and that there is an urgent need for action to address the causes and effects of this. This module will consider the place of f...
Fantasy Film and Fiction
Fantasy film and fiction spans a wide range of texts, from Gothic 'classics' and feminist fairy tales, to Utopian literature and musicals. Analysing fantasy texts alongside psychoanalytic and cultural theories will enable you to engage with questions conc...
Fiction and Fictionalism
We are all familiar with fictions from Romeo and Juliet to Jaws, from The Hobbit to Harry Potter. Despite this familiarity, the nature of fiction and of our engagement with it appears puzzling. On the one hand, fictional characters do not exist. On the ot...
Framing the Past:Stardom, History and Heritage in the Cinema
This module explores cinema’s relationship to the past, whether distant, as in that of ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt, or from a more recent history.
German-Jewish Writing Across the Twentieth Century
The turbulent history of Austrian and German Jews during the twentieth century was accompanied by the production of a diverse and influential body of German-language literature by Jewish authors. Prior to World War Two, Jews played a crucial role in the c...
Happiness and Wellbeing
It seems clear that people’s lives can go well or badly. But what is it for one’s life to go well? Does it consist in feeling good more often than feeling bad? Or getting most of what you want? Or does it consist in achievement, friendship, knowledge and ...
Heidegger and the Philosophy of Being
This module aims to introduce and explain some central themes of Heidegger’s early masterpiece, Being and Time. It will explore central concepts such as Being-in-the-world and authenticity and how they relate to established philosophical issues, including...
Holocaust Literature
How has the Holocaust been represented? We will examine a range of responses to the Holocaust from the 1940s to the present day, including memoirs of camp survivors and experimental texts. Focusing on the limits of representation we will approach question...
Islamic Philosophy
There is a rich and often overlooked tradition of Islamic philosophy, or 'falsafa'. This module focuses on the classical period of the Islamic Golden Age, from Al-Kindi, via Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna), to Ibn Rushd (also known as Averroes). The cla...
Language and the City
One of the socially and culturally most significant consequences of transnational mobility is that urban populations in particular are increasingly multilingual: in global cities such as London, New York and Berlin there are speakers of hundreds of differ...
Nietzsche
Reading the works of Friedrich Nietzsche is both exciting and troubling. He sets out to undermine the basis of many of our beliefs about values. Christianity, he believed, has had a powerfully negative effect on the potential of human beings. His method o...
Philosophy Dissertation
Students taking this module undertake research on a philosophical topic of their choice (subject to approval by the Department), and write a dissertation of 8,000 words on that topic.
Philosophy and Ethics in Psychology and AI
The science of psychology and the project of artificial intelligence raise profound philosophical issues as they attempt to understand, simulate and even go beyond human thought. Some concern the kind of explanation that these ventures seek: If we underst...
Philosophy of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender
In this module you will explore some major philosophical questions related to sex, sexuality and gender. We will consider general questions about the nature of sex, sexuality and gender: What makes an act sexual? What is a sexual orientation? What is gend...
Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer is one of the great original writers of the nineteenth century, and a unique voice in the history of thought. His central concept of the will leads him to a pessimistic view of existence: he regards human beings as striving irrationally and ...
Sex, Pleasure and African Literature
Contemporary African literature is about pleasure and beauty, as much as it is about the continent’s struggle for social justice and decolonisation. In the past two decades, African novels have won critical acclaim by telling stories about modern lives th...
Shakespeare Then and Now
Has Shakespeare aged well? From the boys in wigs on the Elizabethan stage to the digital wizardry of the twenty-first century, the technology as well as the ideology that informs Shakespearean performance keeps evolving—sometimes in unexpected ways. This ...
Songs of the Earth: Landscapes and Environments of Early Medieval England
How did people in early medieval England think, feel, and write about the world they inhabited? In what sorts of ways did literature and other forms of texts shape their engagements with landscapes, environments, and the beings – real and imagined – with ...
Telling True Stories: Narrative Non-Fiction
Narrative non-fiction is one of the most exciting areas of contemporary writing. After many years of being seen as having lower artistic status than fiction, a hugely diverse range of memoir, autofiction, essay collections, and historical writing has draw...
The Ethics of Climate Change
The climate crisis is one of the most urgent issues facing humanity. Climate change is having an increasing impact on individual lives, and on social and political relations and institutions. This module examines the moral and political philosophical issu...
The Origins of Climate Crisis: Ecology in Victorian Literature
Are we living in an age of climate change or climate crisis? In her 2019 speech to the World Economic Forum, Greta Thunberg famously declared “Our house is on fire”: a statement underscored by the Australian bushfire crisis of 2020 and the mass devastatio...
Truth, Opinion, and Ideology
It is commonplace to hear people say such things as, "You should believe that the climate is changing—that's what the evidence tells us", or "You ought not to believe that the earth is flat—that's just not true". These judgements concerning what people ou...
Utopias and Dystopias in Literature and Culture
From Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia to Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, utopias have always been haunted by the spectre of the dystopian. If utopias imagine alternative ways of organizing society, dy...
Writing Queerness
Once upon a time, no one called themselves queer; now it names everything from a kind of person to a type of weather. Queerness seems necessary, ubiquitous, paradoxical – but why? Ranging from the eighteenth century to the present day, this module will ex...
Writing the Novel
The essential elements of writing a novel include crafting beginnings and endings, constructing characters, manipulating structure and plot, and developing an intimate relationship with language. Writing exercises and discussions of work in progress will ...
Learning and assessment
The learning activities for this course include the following:
- lectures
- classes and tutorials
- coursework
- individual and group projects
- independent learning (studying on your own)
Course time
How you'll spend your course time:
Year 1
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 1:
How we'll assess you
- debates
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- oral presentations
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 1:
Year 2
Study time
Your scheduled learning, teaching and independent study for year 2:
How we'll assess you
- debates
- dissertations
- essays
- individual and group projects
- oral presentations
- written exams
Your assessment breakdown
Year 2:
Academic support
You’ll be supported by a personal academic tutor and have access to a senior tutor.
Course leader
Giulia Felappi is the course leader.
Careers
100% of our Philosophy graduates were in employment or further study within 15 months of graduating, according to the most recent Graduate Outcomes Survey, 2021/2022 (published in 2024).
As a philosophy student you’ll graduate with a wide range of transferable skills such as research, critical thinking and analysis. Career skills are embedded at every stage of our courses and certain modules offer specific teaching in reasoning and communication.
Your English studies will also develop your communication skills further, such as writing in different ways for different formats and making presentations.
Our graduates have secured roles including:
- project management
- teaching
- human resources (HR) coordination
- digital marketing coordination
- editorial assistance
- journalism
- data analytics
This degree is also a good foundation for further study at masters or PhD level.
Careers services at Southampton
We are a top 20 UK university for employability (QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2022). Our Careers, Employability and Student Enterprise team will support you. This support includes:
- work experience schemes
- CV and interview skills and workshops
- networking events
- careers fairs attended by top employers
- a wealth of volunteering opportunities
- study abroad and summer school opportunities
We have a vibrant entrepreneurship culture and our dedicated start-up supporter, Futureworlds, is open to every student.
Work in industry
You can choose to spend a year in employment during this course.
Fees, costs and funding
Tuition fees
Fees for a year's study:
- UK students pay £9,250.
- EU and international students pay £24,200.
The Government has recently announced changes to UK tuition fees from September 2025 onwards. We will update our website to reflect this shortly.
What your fees pay for
Your tuition fees pay for the full cost of tuition and standard exams.
Find out how to:
Accommodation and living costs, such as travel and food, are not included in your tuition fees. There may also be extra costs for retake and professional exams.
Explore:
Bursaries, scholarships and other funding
If you're a UK or EU student and your household income is under £25,000 a year, you may be able to get a University of Southampton bursary to help with your living costs. Find out about bursaries and other funding we offer at Southampton.
If you're a care leaver or estranged from your parents, you may be able to get a specific bursary.
Get in touch for advice about student money matters.
Scholarships and grants
You may be able to get a scholarship or grant to help fund your studies.
We award scholarships and grants for travel, academic excellence, or to students from under-represented backgrounds.
Support during your course
The Student Hub offers support and advice on money to students. You may be able to access our Student Support fund and other sources of financial support during your course.
Funding for EU and international students
Find out about funding you could get as an international student.
How to apply
What happens after you apply?
We will assess your application on the strength of your:
- predicted grades
- academic achievements
- personal statement
- academic reference
We'll aim to process your application within 2 to 6 weeks, but this will depend on when it is submitted. Applications submitted in January, particularly near to the UCAS equal consideration deadline, might take substantially longer to be processed due to the high volume received at that time.
Equality and diversity
We treat and select everyone in line with our Equality and Diversity Statement.
Got a question?
Please contact our enquiries team if you're not sure that you have the right experience or qualifications to get onto this course.
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44(0)23 8059 5000
Related courses
Philosophy and English (BA) is a course in the Philosophy and English subject areas. Here are some other courses within these subject areas:
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Study
- View all courses
- Taught postgraduate study
- Pre-sessional English courses
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Subjects
- Acoustical engineering
- Audiology
- Biomedical and medical engineering
- Civil engineering
- Every day I’m completely immersed in an environment that’s creative in all aspects
- Everything I learn feels so relevant, even If it’s a subject rooted in the past
- Maritime engineering
- Photonics and optoelectronics
- Social statistics and demography
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PhDs and research degrees
- Create your own research project
-
Find a PhD project
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- A study of rolling contact fatigue in electric vehicles (EVs)
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- Advancing intersectional geographies of diaspora-led development in times of multiple crises
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- Against Climate Change (DACC): improving the estimates of forest fire smoke emissions
- All-in-one Mars in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) system and life-supporting using non-thermal plasma
- An electromagnetic study of the continent-ocean transition southwest of the UK
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- Antibiotic resistance genes in chalk streams
- Being autistic in care: Understanding differences in care experiences including breakdowns in placements for autistic and non-autistic children
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- Bloom and bust: seasonal cycles of phytoplankton and carbon flux
- British Black Lives Matter: The emergence of a modern civil rights movement
- Building physics for low carbon comfort using artificial intelligence
- Building-resolved large-eddy simulations of wind and dispersion over a city scale urban area
- Business studies and management: accounting
- Business studies and management: banking and finance
- Business studies and management: decision analytics and risk
- Business studies and management: digital and data driven marketing
- Business studies and management: human resources (HR) management and organisational behaviour
- Business studies and management: strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship
- Carbon storage in reactive rock systems: determining the coupling of geo-chemo-mechanical processes in reactive transport
- Cascading hazards from the largest volcanic eruption in over a century: What happened when Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupted in January 2022?
- Characterisation of cast austenitic stainless steels using ultrasonic backscatter and artificial intelligence
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- Cost of living in modern and fossil animals
- Creative clusters in rural, coastal and post-industrial towns
- Deep oceanic convection: the outsized role of small-scale processes
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- Environmental and genetic determinants of Brassica crop damage by the agricultural pest Diamondback moth
- Estimating marine mammal abundance and distribution from passive acoustic and biotelemetry data
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- Exploring the trans-local nature of cultural scene
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- Faulting, fluids and geohazards within subduction zone forearcs
- Faulting, magmatism and fluid flow during volcanic rifting in East Africa
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- Green and sustainable Internet of Things
- How do antimicrobial peptides alter T cell cytokine production?
- How do calcifying marine organisms grow? Determining the role of non-classical precipitation processes in biogenic marine calcite formation
- How do neutrophils alter T cell metabolism?
- How well can we predict future changes in biodiversity using machine learning?
- Hydrant dynamics for acoustic leak detection in water pipes
- If ‘Black Lives Matter’, do ‘Asian Lives Matter’ too? Impact trajectories of organisation activism on wellbeing of ethnic minority communities
- Illuminating luciferin bioluminescence in dinoflagellates
- Imaging quantum materials with an XFEL
- Impact of neuromodulating drugs on gut microbiome homeostasis
- Impact of pharmaceuticals in the marine environment in a changing world
- Improving subsea navigation using environment observations for long term autonomy
- Information theoretic methods for sensor management
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- Integrated earth observation mapping change land sea
- Interconnections of past greenhouse climates
- Investigating IgG cell depletion mechanisms
- Is ocean mixing upside down? How mixing processes drive upwelling in a deep-ocean basin
- Landing gear aerodynamics and aeroacoustics
- Lightweight gas storage: real-world strategies for the hydrogen economy
- Machine learning for multi-robot perception
- Machine learning for multi-robot perception
- Marine ecosystem responses to past climate change and its oceanographic impacts
- Mechanical effects in the surf zone - in situ electrochemical sensing
- Microfluidic cell isolation systems for sepsis
- Migrant entrepreneurship, gender and generation: context and family dynamics in small town Britain
- Miniaturisation in fishes: evolutionary and ecological perspectives
- Modelling high-power fibre laser and amplifier stability
- Modelling soil dewatering and recharge for cost-effective and climate resilient infrastructure
- Modelling the evolution of adaptive responses to climate change across spatial landscapes
- Nanomaterials sensors for biomedicine and/or the environment
- New high-resolution observations of ocean surface current and winds from innovative airborne and satellite measurements
- New perspectives on ocean photosynthesis
- Novel methods of detecting carbon cycling pathways in lakes and their impact on ecosystem change
- Novel technologies for cyber-physical security
- Novel transparent conducting films with unusual optoelectronic properties
- Novel wavelength fibre lasers for industrial applications
- Ocean circulation and the Southern Ocean carbon sink
- Ocean influence on recent climate extremes
- Ocean methane sensing using novel surface plasmon resonance technology
- Ocean physics and ecology: can robots disentangle the mix?
- Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Assessing the utility of coastal enhanced weathering
- Offshore renewable energy (ORE) foundations on rock seabeds: advancing design through analogue testing and modelling
- Optical fibre sensing for acoustic leak detection in buried pipelines
- Optimal energy transfer in nonlinear systems
- Optimal energy transfer in nonlinear systems
- Optimizing machine learning for embedded systems
- Oxidation of fossil organic matter as a source of atmospheric CO2
- Partnership dissolution and re-formation in later life among individuals from minority ethnic communities in the UK
- Personalized multimodal human-robot interactions
- Preventing disease by enhancing the cleaning power of domestic water taps using sound
- Quantifying riparian vegetation dynamics and flow interactions for Nature Based Solutions using novel environmental sensing techniques
- Quantifying the response and sensitivity of tropical forest carbon sinks to various drivers
- Quantifying variability in phytoplankton electron requirements for carbon fixation
- Resilient and sustainable steel-framed building structures
- Resolving Antarctic meltwater events in Southern Ocean marine sediments and exploring their significance using climate models
- Robust acoustic leak detection in water pipes using contact sound guides
- Silicon synapses for artificial intelligence hardware
- Smart photon delivery via reconfigurable optical fibres
- The Gulf Stream control of the North Atlantic carbon sink
- The Mayflower Studentship: a prestigious fully funded PhD studentship in bioscience
- The calming effect of group living in social fishes
- The duration of ridge flank hydrothermal exchange and its role in global biogeochemical cycles
- The evolution of symmetry in echinoderms
- The impact of early life stress on neuronal enhancer function
- The oceanic fingerprints on changing monsoons over South and Southeast Asia
- The role of iron in nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis in changing polar oceans
- The role of singlet oxygen signaling in plant responses to heat and drought stress
- Time variability on turbulent mixing of heat around melting ice in the West Antarctic
- Triggers and Feedbacks of Climate Tipping Points
- Uncovering the drivers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease progression using patient derived organoids
- Understanding recent land-use change in Snowdonia to plan a sustainable future for uplands: integrating palaeoecology and conservation practice
- Understanding the role of cell motility in resource acquisition by marine phytoplankton
- Understanding the structure and engagement of personal networks that support older people with complex care needs in marginalised communities and their ability to adapt to increasingly ‘digitalised’ health and social care
- Unpicking the Anthropocene in the Hawaiian Archipelago
- Unraveling oceanic multi-element cycles using single cell ionomics
- Unravelling southwest Indian Ocean biological productivity and physics: a machine learning approach
- Using acoustics to monitor how small cracks develop into bursts in pipelines
- Using machine learning to improve predictions of ocean carbon storage by marine life
- Vulnerability of low-lying coastal transportation networks to natural hazards
- X-ray imaging and property characterisation of porous materials
- Funding your research degree
- How to apply for a PhD or research degree
- How to make a PhD enquiry
- Support while studying your PhD or research degree
- Exchanges and studying abroad
- Undergraduate study
-
Tuition fees and funding
-
Scholarships
-
Postgraduate scholarships for UK students
- Black Futures scholarship
- GREAT Scholarships 2025 – Egypt
- GREAT Scholarships 2025 – France
- GREAT Scholarships 2025 – Ghana
- Horizon Europe fee waiver
- Innovation and Social Impact Scholarships
- Postgraduate Taught Diversity Scholarship (Environmental and Life Sciences)
- Southampton Business School Postgraduate UK Scholarship
- Southampton Genomics Talent Scholarship
- Southampton History Patricia Mather and Helen Patterson Scholarship
- Southampton MA Holocaust scholarships
- Southampton Philosophy David Humphris-Norman Scholarship
- Southampton Photonics Impact Scholarship
- Southampton UK Alumni Music Scholarship
- The National Institute for Health and care Research South Central INSIGHT Programme
- The South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership Social Science PhD Studentships
- Undergraduate scholarships for UK students
- Competitive scholarships for international postgraduates
- Competitive scholarships for international undergraduates
- Merit scholarships for international postgraduates
- Merit scholarships for international undergraduates
-
Partnership scholarships for international students
- Scholarships, awards and funding opportunities
- Becas Chile Scholarship
- Chevening Scholarships
- China Scholarship Council Scholarships
- COLFUTURO Scholarships
- Commonwealth Master's Scholarships
- Commonwealth PhD Scholarships
- Commonwealth PhD Scholarships for high income countries
- Commonwealth Shared Scholarships
- Commonwealth Split-Site Scholarships
- FIDERH Scholarships
- Fulbright Awards
- FUNED Scholarships
- Great Scholarships 2024 – Mexico
- Great Scholarships 2024 – Nigeria
- Marshall Scholarship
- Saïd Foundation Scholarships
- British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM
- Southampton Canadian Prestige Scholarship for Law
- Xiamen University PhD Scholarships
- Scholarship terms and conditions
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Postgraduate scholarships for UK students
-
Scholarships
- Short courses
- Lunchtime evening and weekend courses
- Clearing
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- Student life
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Research
- Our impact
- Research projects
- Research areas
- Research facilities
- Collaborate with us
-
Institutes, centres and groups
- Active Living
- Advanced Fibre Applications
- Advanced Laser Laboratory
- Advanced Project Management Research Centre
- Antibody and Vaccine Group
- Astronomy Group
- Autism Community Research Network @ Southampton (ACoRNS)
- Bioarchaeology and Osteoarchaeology at Southampton (BOS)
- Bladder and Bowel Management
- Cell and Developmental Biology
- Centre for Defence and Security Research
- Centre for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
- Centre for Digital Finance
- Centre for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (CEEES)
- Centre for Empirical Research in Finance and Banking (CERFIB)
- Centre for Geometry, Topology, and Applications
- Centre for Global Englishes
- Centre for Global Health and Policy (GHaP)
- Centre for Green Maritime Innovation (cGMI)
- Centre for Health Technologies
- Centre for Healthcare Analytics
- Centre for Human Development, Stem Cells and Regeneration
- Centre for Imperial and Postcolonial Studies
- Centre for Inclusive and Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CISEI)
- Centre for International Film Research (CIFR)
- Centre for International Law and Globalisation
- Centre for Internet of Things and Pervasive Systems
- Centre for Justice Studies
- Centre for Linguistics, Language Education and Acquisition Research
- Centre for Machine Intelligence
- Centre for Maritime Archaeology
- Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture (CMRC)
- Centre for Modern and Contemporary Writing (CMCW)
- Centre for Political Ethnography (CPE)
- Centre for Research in Accounting, Accountability and Governance
- Centre for Research on Work and Organisations
- Centre for Resilient Socio-Technical Systems
- Centre for Transnational Studies
- Child and Adolescent Research Group
- Clinical Ethics, Law and Society (CELS)
- Computational Nonlinear Optics
- Cyber Security Academy
- Data Science Group
- Digital Oceans
- EPSRC and MOD Centre for Doctoral Training in Complex Integrated Systems for Defence and Security
- Economic Theory and Experimental Economics
- Economy, Society and Governance
- Electrical Power Engineering
- Environmental Hydraulics
- Gas Photonics in Hollow Core Fibres
- Geochemistry
- Global Health (Demography)
- Global Health Community of Practice
- Gravity group
- Healthy Oceans
- High Power Fibre Lasers
- Hollow Core Fibre
- Human Genetics and Genomic Medicine
- Infection
- Infrastructure Group
- Institute of Developmental Sciences
- Institute of Maritime Law (IML)
- Integrated Photonic Devices
- Integrative Molecular Phenotyping Centre
- Interdisciplinary Musculoskeletal Health
- International Centre for Ecohydraulics Research (ICER)
- Language Assessment and Testing Unit (LATU)
- Laser-Direct-Write (LDW) Technologies for Biomedical Applications
- Law and Technology Centre
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- Magnetic Resonance
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- Multiwavelength Accretion and Astronomical Transients
- National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC)
- National Centre for Research Methods
- National Infrastructure Laboratory
- Nature-Based Ocean Solutions
- Nonlinear Semiconductor Photonics
- Ocean Perception Group
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- Optical Engineering and Quantum Photonics Group
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- Physical Optics
- Primary Care Research Centre
- Quantum, Light and Matter Group
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- Southampton Centre for Nineteenth-Century Research
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- Southampton Imaging
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- Stefan Cross Centre for Women, Equality and Law
- String theory and holography
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English
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Modern Languages and Philosophy (1 language: French or German)
