English and History

Why study English and History?

This joint degree enables students to combine the study of history with that of English language and literature. The intersection between language, culture, and history is currently the focus of active debate within both the disciplines and you are encouraged throughout your course to relate literary and historical ideas in the investigation of your chosen periods, topics, or authors. The course is centered around the twin assumptions that historical documents are just as much ‘texts’ as are poems, plays or novels, and are therefore subject to literary interpretations, and equally that poems, plays and novels represent historically grounded ways of interpreting a culture.

The joint school in English and History offers you a very wide choice of options. It is largely open to you to design the course of study which meets your own interests: tutors in your college will offer advice and help you to select the subjects best suited to your strengths. The course trains you to set different kinds of writing, in different languages, in their full social, historical, literary and linguistic contexts. You will read widely in poetry, fiction, drama and criticism and will learn to analyse and to write critically about what you have read.

A History course already enriched by a strong cultural input is an ideal companion to the study of English literature. Whether your interest is in early or Middle English, the Renaissance, or the later periods, intellectually fruitful combinations are possible. The joint degree includes two explicitly interdisciplinary papers taught jointly by specialists in the two subjects.

The English and History degree will equip you with analytical and writing skills that are readily transferable into many other situations and many professions. It opens up the opportunity to go into a great variety of careers.

How is the course taught?

College teaching is the bedrock of the undergraduate experience at Oxford: your tutor will arrange a combination of classes and tutorials so that you benefit from discussing your ideas with your peers as well as in the tutorial situation. University lectures are provided by both Faculties, and supplement and complement the work you will do in your college.

You normally have one tutor for one paper, and this means that the tutor gets to know you and your work well and is able to guide your progress through a paper. A tutorial generally involves you, another student and your tutor for the paper in question. A tutorial gives you the chance to explore, and clarify your ideas about the author or subject. Oxford places considerable emphasis on the production of regular written work, normally in the form of essays. This ensures that you have brought your ideas on a subject to a point where you are able to express them cogently on paper. This kind of training is also excellent preparation for many of the kinds of careers available to you after university.

What can I study as part of the course?

In your first year, you will take introductory and methodological courses in both subjects (on the History side, there is some choice in which course you take here). Together with these, you will choose one History course from a selection of periods of British history ranging from 300 A.D. to the present day, and one English course from a selection of periods of literature, namely Old English, Middle English, Victorian, or Modern.

In your second and third years, there are some opportunities to weight the course towards the History side. The centrepiece of the course is the two interdisciplinary papers you take, chosen from a list of three or more. In addition to these, you can choose from a wide range of options from both schools, including period papers not offered in the first year, and more specialised options from both schools. There is a huge degree of choice in these papers; students can either choose to specialise in a specific period or topic, or can pick and choose from the wide range of options.

In addition, you can offer a dissertation on any topic of your choosing. Up to three of the papers you offer can be assessed by coursework rather than exam.

How does the admissions process work?

You apply through UCAS, as for any other university. The full information is contained in the University's Undergraduate Prospectus. The prospectus also contains information about different colleges; all colleges publish their own prospectuses too, which are either available direct from the college or available on-line.

To become a student at Oxford you need to be accepted by a particular college, though you apply through a central admissions system. If you don't know which college to name as your preference you can make an open application: details of this are also in the undergraduate prospectus. Offers of places are made at each college on the basis of your school or college record, samples of your school work, your HAT results (see beneath for further details), an interview, and your past or future results in A levels (or whatever other exams you may be taking); more flexible criteria operate for mature students.

Candidates are shortlisted for interview on the basis of their academic record and promise, as detailed in our selection criteria. Interviews take place in December. You may be interviewed in the course of the same visit by other colleges apart from the one of your first choice; this helps to ensure that the best applicants get into Oxford regardless of the strength of the competition at different colleges. We continue to work to refine our selection procedures, and our updated criteria and processes should be consulted on the website before you make an application.

Most students will have an A level in English literature or English Language and Literature. (Candidates offering English Language A level without English Literature are advised to contact their preferred college to discuss their situation before they apply.) Students applying for joint degrees will generally include in their A levels, or equivalent qualifications, the two subjects they wish to study.

All candidates will also take a written test, the HAT, normally at their own schools/colleges. Further information about the test is available from the History Faculty website.

The English and History degree is not offered at all colleges. You can check which colleges are offering places for this Joint School course in the current Prospectus, on the University’s admissions website, or by contacting individual colleges.

If you possibly can, it really is a good idea to visit Oxford in advance of your application, in order to get a sense of the place and to look round possible colleges to which you might apply. All colleges hold open days during the course of the year. Details of these are generally available on the college's web-page or may be obtained from the Admissions office at each college.

The Faculty of English holds at least one open day a year, normally in September, where applicants can receive information about the joint school. Details may be obtained from the Faculty Office.