English at Sussex is a rich and vital subject, offering great scope and breadth. From our inception we have been at the forefront of literary studies, and our distinctive degree fuses a continuing commitment to innovation with the best of our history. The quality of both our degree and our teaching has been recognised both nationally and internationally. We aim to provoke, to challenge, and to inspire. Studying English at Sussex involves being introduced to a range of recent – and often controversial – critical approaches.

Our courses cover the whole range of English Studies, from Medieval and Renaissance Literature to contemporary Avant Garde poetry, incorporating the study of Drama, American Literature and English Language. The School, students and faculty, share a commitment to explore and understand the ways in which language and texts create and shape our world. The School comprises around 40 distinguished members of faculty, many recognised internationally for the quality of their teaching and research, together with a lively student body. We focus upon high quality, small group teaching and flexibility in both curriculum and assessment – the size of our faculty allows us to offer an exciting level of choice but also support and advice for each individual student. The result is a unique programme that can be tailored to your own interests, in an inspirational atmosphere in which to study.

Courses in the School of English are taught through a combination of lectures, small group seminars and practical workshops. Students of English, English language and American studies will begin their first year with core modules based around the twinning of lectures and seminars.

As your degree progresses, more teaching is concentrated in small group seminars and more choice is offered, allowing you to shape your degree according to your particular interests and to develop your oral and presentation skills, and your ability to work in groups. In Drama studies theory and practice complement each other, and practical elements of the programme are explored in workshops based in dedicated rehearsal spaces, leading to major performance projects in the second and third years.

Assessment includes coursework, ranging from short essays to dissertations, presentations, portfolios, performances (for Drama) and unseen exams. Longer pieces of written work in your final year reflect your ability to study independently and devise your own topics. As the degree progresses, your marks will also carry greater weight – you will have to pass your first year, but only work done in years two and three count towards your final degree result.

We are among the UK’s leading research centres in the study of American literature and history. International faculty, including both American and European scholars, provide you with a range of critical perspectives. We offer you the opportunity to specialise in your preferred field: literature, culture or history.

• American studies at Sussex is ranked 9th in the UK in The Complete University Guide 2013-14. Over the past five years Sussex has consistently ranked among the top ten universities in the UK for American Studies in The Guardian University Guide, The Complete University Guide and The Times Good University Guide.
• American studies at Sussex was rated 1st in the UK for research in the latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008). 95 per cent of our research was rated as recognised internationally or higher, and one-third rated as world leading. 

American studies is the interdisciplinary study of the literature, history and culture of the Americas. Sussex enjoys a prestigious reputation for excellent research and teaching in this area. The School of English offers a 4 year joint degree in English and American studies as well as opportunities to study American literature from colonial times to the present day.

Year Abroad
All American studies students (whether joint honours with English or single honours American Studies) spend their third year at one of over forty top-rated US and Canadian partner universities, enabling them to specialise in a diverse range of literary and cultural studies. Whether students are interested in creative writing, African American culture, American modernism, Chicano or Native American literary studies, the year abroad offers a unique and unsurpassed experience. For more information refer to Study abroad for American Studies.

Drama studies offers you an exciting mix of critical thinking, creative writing and performance practice. Our modules explore canonical plays, avant-garde performance, theatre theories and contemporary practice. Our teaching and research are have been recognised nationally and internationally:

• Drama at Sussex scored 90 per cent in the teaching category of the 2012 National Student Survey (NSS).
• Sussex is ranked 15th in the UK for drama studies in The Complete University Guide 2013-14, 11th in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2013, and 13th in the UK for performing arts in The Sunday Times University Guide 2012.
• In the latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008), 95 per cent of our drama research was rated as recognised internationally or higher, and over half rated as internationally excellent or higher.

Available as a Joint Honours degree with English, Film studies or a modern language, drama at Sussex provides a range of modules that explore canonical texts as well as their counter-traditions. Our faculty encourages research in avant-garde performance, theatre theories and contemporary practice as well as the study of historical periods and their impact upon the development of drama in the 21st century. Performance in its broader sense is studied as a range of political, social and culturally transformative practices. Students make regular theatre trips across the region and to London and work with a range of professional artists.

Each year, you will choose a variety of seminar and workshop-based modules, both core and optional. The first year is introductory, developing key skills in critical thinking, academic writing and making theatre. In the second year, study progresses, focusing upon twentieth century plays and a number of international companies as well as creative writing for the theatre, culminating in a full-scale performance project. Our final year offers options linked to faculty research interests such as ethics, theatre and the political, the postdramatic and the performing body. Your degree will culminate in a major theatre production, an independent research project developed with a supervisor, and/or study of early modern drama and its contemporary staging.

You will develop skills in writing, research, critical analysis and debate as well as the ability to generate creative ideas and material for performance. The knowledge you gain is transferable to a wide range of professional contexts. As a result, our students enter different career pathways in the theatre industry (such as acting, directing and producing), teaching, the media (film and TV), law and journalism as well as continuing on to further study or professional training.

Resources
Practical work takes place in the Debating Chamber, a fully equipped, flexible performance venue, in the Creativity Zone, a unique, technology rich creative space reconfigurable for practical and multi-media teaching and performance, and in the Silverstone Studio for workshops and smallerscale productions. From 2014, Drama students will make use of the newly refurbished Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts(ACCA), located on campus. The ACCA will provide large-scale performance, teaching, research and workshop spaces to promote exciting new creative work across the arts.

The study of Drama at Sussex will help you to develop the intellectual and practical skills to learn independently, to write expressively, and to communicate what you have learnt to others. You will develop these through various methods of teaching (small-group seminars and practical workshops) and types of assessment (including coursework, portfolios, independent research projects and practical performance).

Like every other English speaker, you are already an expert on the English language. So why study it? The problem is: you probably don’t know what you know – or what you don’t know. That’s the thing about language: it’s a human phenomenon that comes as naturally to us as walking or humming a tune or recognizing faces – and just as hard to explain in terms of how we do it, how we learned to do it, and why we do it the way that we do.

Here at Sussex, the study of English language is the linguistics of English. This involves studying all aspects of the language: its structure, its history, its use – how it exists in our individual minds, in our society, and crossculturally. Here are some of the questions we like to think about:

• What do the ways in which we use English tell us about what it means to be members of an English-speaking culture? 
• What does it mean to be an ‘English speaker’ in these days of globalization? 
• Does globalization actually mean that ‘Englishes’ are becoming more alike?
• How is it that we mean more than we say – and that others can understand the things we meant but didn’t say?
• How are belief systems created and reflected through language? 
• How is language used to persuade, to vilify, to forge bonds between us?
• Do you use it differently from a politician, a nurse, a television presenter?

How and why?
The structure of human languages reveals much about what it means to be human. Is there anything special about the structure of English as compared with other languages? English has changed much since the days of Beowulf. You can hear English changing now. The words that you use and that accent with which you say them has shifted even over the last few years. How did you get that accent? Why do languages change given that change makes effective communication so much harder? We go from being languageless infants to being experts in the use of a complex system of sounds, words, and rules. Children learn their mother tongue so easily and without explicit instruction, yet it is so hard to learn a second language later in life, which we will probably never speak with the same fluency as our first language. How do humans learn language?

If you find these questions as interesting and exciting as we do, come and study English language at Sussex.