Course options
Key information
Duration: 4 years full time
UCAS code: Q20F
Institution code: R72
Campus: Egham
The course
BA Comparative Literature and Culture (with Integrated Foundation Year)
This course is available to Home (UK) students and students from the EU who meet the English Language requirements.
Our Integrated Foundation Year for Arts and Humanities is a thorough, skills-building course that will give you everything you need to start your study of BA Comparative Literature and Culture with confidence.
Arts and Humanities subjects, like Comparative Literature and Culture, provide key ways of understanding our complex world, its histories, and current debates facing contemporary society. Identity, political and social conflict, our interaction with new digital and genetic technologies, our stewardship of the environment are all issues where the voice of creative and critical thinking are key. Literary texts, films, plays and digital games offer important ways in which societies have debated - and continue to represent - their values and their futures.
Our Foundation Year sets you up so you’re ready to explore those debates and issues, providing you with opportunities to gain knowledge and understanding of how to approach studying the humanities, including your chosen degree subject. Learning from friendly, expert tutors, you’ll explore modules designed to give you a solid start to your study of arts and humanities subjects, helping you to grow critical skills to explore a range of literary, visual, and cultural forms, including plays, films, and digital media.
Once you have completed your Foundation year, you will normally progress onto the full degree course, BA Comparative Literature and Culture. There may also be flexibility to move onto a degree in another department (see end of section, below).
Comparative Literature and Culture offers you the opportunity to study literature from across the world, as well as exploring film, philosophy and visual arts. This course combines a fascinating breadth of material with a focus on contexts – places, periods, and genres – to explore how key cultural shifts transform how we see, represent, and make sense of our changing world. Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway is a unique and intellectually stimulating course that will develop you as a culturally-aware, creative and adaptable thinker.
We’ve developed this course so that you can tailor it to suit your own evolving interests, enabling you to choose from our exceptionally wide range of fascinating options. These span continents and centuries, from antiquity to the present day, covering novels, poetry, philosophy, cinema and art. You will read, watch, and compare texts from Ancient Greece to contemporary New York, from Cuba to Korea, from epics to crime fiction, and from tragedy to the avant-garde. Comparative Literature and Culture also enables you to study a variety of foreign texts originally written in many languages, all translated into English.
You will be taught by world-class experts who genuinely want to get to know you. We create a supportive environment, often using group work so you can try out new ideas and participate in lively discussions. Throughout your studies, you will receive personal guidance to ensure your course is aligned with your strengths, interests and career plans. As part of our close-knit international community, you will be able to get involved with an array of cultural initiatives that take place on campus and make the most of being within easy reach of London and its many events and attractions.
Studying Comparative Literature and Culture will broaden your horizons, interests and passions, and give you a critical edge in a competitive global marketplace.
On successful completion of your Foundation Year, you may be able to choose an alternative pathway which could include a joint or minor degree within Comparative Literature and Culture, or degrees within the Humanities (Classics, Drama, History, English (except pathways with Creative Writing), Media Arts, Philosophy, Liberal Arts). If you'd like to do this, you may take your Foundation Year Department Based Project in one of the other departments in Humanities.
From time to time, we make changes to our courses to improve the student and learning experience. If we make a significant change to your chosen course, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.
Course structure
Core Modules
Foundation Year
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This core Foundation module offers an inter-disciplinary introduction to a range of concepts of global significance highly relevant for students progressing onto humanities, arts and social science subjects. The lectures, seminars and readings will approach each concept from a variety of humanities, arts and social science perspectives and will involve students exploring different epistemological approaches, including but also beyond, those of their own degree subject.
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This module explores our understanding of the past, and our relationship to it. It considers the ways our sense of the past is constructed, maintained, and mediated by collective memory, tradition, and representation, before moving on to think about how we understand the past through evidence – the material traces that humans have left behind. It explores the distinction between ‘the past’ and ‘history’ and considers how both shape our present and influence our future.
Collective memory, tradition and representation produce a powerful sense of the past which can be significant in shaping people’s ideas about the present. This understanding is often at odds with the approach of historians, who seek to explore the past through evidence and draw conclusions about how people used to live from it. But this module is not just 'about' history: it is about how we know what we know and how this knowledge structures the world around us. We will explore both approaches to the past and consider the difficulties that arise when these ways of knowing produce different versions of that past.
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This module explores the ways in which experiences, identities and social issues are represented in British film. It considers the ways that filmmakers engage with contemporary society and the extent to which films respond to, or act as a catalyst for, social change.
Each week we will explore a different topic through the lens of a specific film. We will contextualise the representation offered and consider how it fits within the longer tradition of filmmaking on that subject.
Since the very earliest days of the cinema, films have captured the public imagination and this module will explore the broader role of film in society. We will consider the cultural significance of film as a form of leisure and as a method of communication and education. We will explore the nature of the relationship between filmmakers and the audience, consider questions of funding and censorship, and place film within the broader context of today’s media.
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In this module, students closely examine, compare and contextualise a range of texts that deal with the theme of learning. The core texts: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus (2003); Willy Russell’s play Educating Rita (1980); and Alan Parker’s film, Fame (1980), will be accompanied by a range of extracts from a broad variety of text types, from poetry to philosophy to legal documents. Each week, we will consider a key issue raised by the core text under discussion alongside extracts from other texts. Students will be encouraged to use the methods of Critical Discourse Analysis in their close reading, comparison and contextualisation of the texts.
The module aims to provide students with a flexible and adaptable framework that enables them to read, understand and interpret texts from any discourse area closely, analytically and critically. It will support their understanding of the ways in which different text types function and enable them to identify the way genres provide frameworks for audiences to comprehend discourse, assess the means by which apparently similar aspects of the world can be appreciated and understood from different perspectives or positions, and explore the ways in which discourse is used to constitute a sense of being and identity.
The module will also provide opportunities for students to reflect on their own experiences of and beliefs about learning, and to consider their own learning methods and processes as the Foundation Year progresses. This will support the transition to their degree courses, giving them agency in the process as they think carefully about how they learn, how they might learn more effectively, and how that is affected by cultural, social and economic forces.
- Department Specific Skills
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The aim of the project is to enable students to engage in theoretical work on an agreed specific area relevant to one of the departments within the Humanities. Topics will be proposed by supervisors from which students can state three (rank ordered) preferences or students may propose their own topic subject to agreement. The allocation of project topic and supervisor is carried out with the intention of enabling students to work on their preferred (highest ranked where possible) area. Projects will be completed on the basis of a specification agreed with their supervisor and progress will be monitored against the specification. The project will culminate with a joint Poster Presentation with all students on the Foundation Programme.
Year 1
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This module introduces students to the theories and practices of textual analysis and comparative textual analysis as well as to the major debates about theories and practices of comparative literature in a transnational context. Students will read a small number of core literary texts - influential within comparatism and diverse in cultural, temporal and linguistic origin - alongside a range of historically, geographically, culturally, generically and stylistically varied textual extracts. The core literary texts will be read in their entirety, with particular attention to: the construction and interpretation of genre; transnationalism and translation; cultural and historical context; and questions of authorship, influence and canonicity.
Year 2
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Comparing short stories from different periods and geographical areas is a great way of exploring how literature evolves structurally and thematically in response to different ideas and contexts. In this module we read short stories – and look at examples of visual art - from the eighteenth century to the present day to discover what structural and symbolic elements characterize major movements of Western art including the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism and Postmodernism. All non-English-language texts are in English translation. These are explored both individually and in comparison, developing skills in close reading and comparative critical analysis and the ability to recognize and contrast different features of fiction and to situate evolving literary aesthetics in their historical context.
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This module provides an account of some of the major theoretical trends and currents which inform our thinking and practice of Comparative Literature and Culture. Reading canonical and contemporary texts alongside each other, students will ask questions such as: How should we understand and respond to art in the twenty-first century? Who counts as a subject and how should we understand racial, sexual and species difference? And, how should we conceptualise culture in a globalised world?
Year 3
- All modules are optional
Optional Modules
For more information on optional modules available, please see the list here.
Teaching & assessment
In your Foundation Year, teaching methods include a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops, individual tutorials, and supervisory sessions. Outside of the classroom you’ll undertake guided independent reading and study. You will also be assigned a Personal Tutor, who’ll be with you for the duration of your degree, and will have regular scheduled sessions to support learning and the development of study skills. Assessments are varied; quizzes, short written exercises, essays, examinations, poster preparation and presentation, blog/vlogs, short digital films, dissertations and personal development plans. In addition the Foundation Year offers a full range of skills-based training and also the opportunity to take a micro-placement to enhance your employability.
Once you progress onto your full degree course, you’ll continue to be taught through a combination of lectures and small seminar groups, where you will be able to try out new ideas by giving presentations and participating in lively discussions in a supportive environment. Private study and preparation remain essential parts of every course, and you will have access to many online resources and the university’s comprehensive e-learning facility, Moodle, which provides a variety of supporting materials. The course has a modular structure. You will take 120 credits’ worth of modules each year.
We use a range of assessment models to suit different learning styles, from online comprehension tests and individual and group presentations, to coursework and examinations. You will take a study skills course during your first year, designed to equip you with and enhance the writing skills you will need to be successful in your degree. This course does not count towards your final degree award but you are required to pass it to progress to your second year. In your final year you will have the opportunity to write a research-led dissertation.
Entry requirements
A Levels: CCC
Required subjects:
- At least five GCSEs at grade A*-C or 9-4 including English and Mathematics.
T-levels
We accept T-levels for admission to our undergraduate courses, with the following grades regarded as equivalent to our standard A-level requirements:
- AAA* – Distinction (A* on the core and distinction in the occupational specialism)
- AAA – Distinction
- BBB – Merit
- CCC – Pass (C or above on the core)
- DDD – Pass (D or E on the core)
Where a course specifies subject-specific requirements at A-level, T-level applicants are likely to be asked to offer this A-level alongside their T-level studies.
Other UK and Ireland Qualifications
EU requirements
English language requirements
All teaching at Royal Holloway (apart from some language courses) is in English. You will therefore need to have good enough written and spoken English to cope with your studies right from the start.
The scores we require
- IELTS: 6.5 overall. Writing 7.0. No other subscore lower than 5.5.
- Pearson Test of English: 61 overall. Writing 69. No other subscore lower than 51.
- Trinity College London Integrated Skills in English (ISE): ISE III.
- Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) grade C.
Your future career
As a culturally-aware, creative and adaptable thinker, graduating from Royal Holloway will help you stand out in a crowded global marketplace.
Students of Comparative Literature and Culture are attractive to employers because they think quickly and flexibly, communicate effectively, have a rich cultural and transnational awareness and the ability to analyse closely and range broadly.
By the time you graduate, you will have:
- developed your critical and analytical thinking and expression
- learned to analyse, evaluate and process effectively many different kinds of information
- honed impressive written and oral communication skills
- enhanced your ability to solve problems in sophisticated and flexible ways
- developed independent research skills
- acquired teamwork and leadership skills that are highly valued by prospective employers
- gained a critical appreciation of cultural life and cultural diversity
We work closely with Royal Holloway’s Careers and Employability Service to provide tailored events which get you thinking about life after you graduate. These range from one-to-one advice from our subject consultant, to a variety of talks and industry-themed careers weeks.
Our highly-successful micro-placement scheme will help you to fine-tune your job-seeking skills and boost your careers by enabling you in your second year to compete for a prestigious two-week internship, offering you the chance to gain invaluable experience and network with prospective employers.
You may also like to take advantage of other work experience opportunities, for example by participating in Royal Holloway’s Community Action volunteering programme or by becoming a Student Ambassador. Your Personal Advisor will be on hand to support you as you decide on your career path.
On graduation, you will be ready to pursue a career in a wide range of areas including publishing, marketing, the media, journalism, arts administration, fashion, international management, the civil service, accountancy or teaching. Alternatively, you may choose to continue your studies.
“Comparative Literature and Culture has helped me develop several key skills, including my analytical skills and my ability to work in a team. I’ve also developed as a person” Hope Dinsey
“I’d recommend Comparative Literature and Culture to anyone who is interested in broadening their horizons and being open to all kinds of literatures, media and cultures – in fact, I’d recommend it to anyone, full stop! The lecturers are truly passionate about their subjects and so knowledgeable, but they’re also approachable and engaging; it’s a pleasure to be taught by them.” Natalie Ford
Fees, funding & scholarships
Home (UK) students tuition fee per year*: £9,250
Eligible EU students tuition fee per year**: £25,900
Foundation year essential costs***: There are no single associated costs greater than £50 per item on this course.
How do I pay for it? Find out more about funding options, including loans, scholarships and bursaries. UK students who have already taken out a tuition fee loan for undergraduate study should check their eligibility for additional funding directly with the relevant awards body.
*The tuition fee for UK undergraduates is controlled by Government regulations. The fee for Integrated Foundation Year courses starting in September 2025 in the academic year 2025/26 will be £9,250 for that year. The fee for UK students in 2026/27 and beyond has not yet been set.
**This figure is the fee for EU students starting a degree in the academic year 2025/26.
Royal Holloway reserves the right to increase tuition fees annually for overseas fee-paying students. The increase for continuing students who start their degree in 2025/26 will be 5%. For further information see fees and funding and the terms and conditions.
*** These estimated costs relate to studying this particular degree at Royal Holloway during the 2025/26 academic year and are included as a guide. Costs, such as accommodation, food, books and other learning materials and printing, have not been included.
