You’ll be equipped with key skills in imaginative understanding, critical thinking, and confident communication. You’ll expand and deepen your understanding of texts and artworks from a uniquely wide array of contexts while developing your intellectual and professional skills via your interaction with outstanding academics in both literature and history of art. 

You’ll establish firm foundations in both disciplines through your engagement with different documents and sources. At the same time, you’ll encounter works of art at first hand in the collections of the internationally recognised Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, which includes works of modern European art and also outstanding works from Africa, Asia and the Americas. 

In your second and third years, you’ll select from a range of optional modules in order to pursue your own interests in more depth. This will enable you, for example, to explore the medieval period through texts such as Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and through monuments such as the great cathedrals, including, of course, those of Norwich and Canterbury. Or you might choose to examine the 20th century through the history of modernist texts and modernist art, by studying movements such as Surrealism. 

As you progress through the course, you’ll be encouraged to engage with different methods and approaches and to develop informed views of your own. You will consolidate your independence as a scholar through the completion of a research dissertation in your final year. 

You’ll have the opportunity to study the world-famous collection of art held in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, itself a celebrated icon of modern museum architecture. This means you will have access to important artworks from Asia, Africa, the Pacific, the Americas, and Europe. You will be able to study relevant objects at first-hand, while learning about the processes of collecting objects for museums. 

This course is delivered by UEA’s world-leading department of Art History and World Art Studies in cooperation with The School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing. 

Art History and World Art Studies is part of a close network of internationally renowned centres for the study and display of art: the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. Our main areas of research are the history of art and architecture in Europe and North America; the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America; the archaeology and anthropology of art; and museum studies and cultural heritage. 

Norwich is England's first UNESCO City of Literature, and it boasts a vibrant literary community. Great literature has been produced here from the 14th century, when Julian of Norwich became the first woman to write a book in English, right up to 20th and 21st century work by UEA graduates like Nobel Laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan and Costa Award winning author Emma Healey. 

UEA’s School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing is famed for the quality, rigour and adventurousness of its teaching. 

AFTER THE COURSE

As a History of Art and Literature graduate, you’ll be ready for a wide range of careers in the art world, art publishing, the heritage industry, academia, teaching, and business. You’ll be equipped with sought-after skills such as independent and critical thinking, time management, teamwork, organisation and research skills, public speaking and more. Your experience of studying in a world-famous art museum will give you an edge in the sector. You will also be well placed to study for a postgraduate degree either here at UEA or at another university. Our Careers Service is here to support you with advice on writing CVs and internships. In the department we work closely with the Careers Service to provide workshops and put on seminars with successful alumni. 

CAREER DESTINATIONS

Recent graduates have entered a number of fields, including: 

• Museums and art galleries 

• Commercial art galleries 

• Event management 

• Publishing 

• Journalism 

• Teaching/lecturing