English at Manchester Metropolitan University is a dynamic and multi-faceted discipline: staff work in a wide range of specialisms and particular areas of strength are reflected in our three Masters Programmes.

The Department has a student body of around 500 undergraduates studying single honours BA English and 75 in their first year of joint undergraduate degrees in English and American Literature, English and Creative Writing and English and Film. There are also approximately 250 more taking its courses as components of other degrees. Both the specialist English degree and the English element of combined studies programmes (Combined Honours Programme / English with Modern Languages) emphasise the development of a range of student skills (in oral communication and teamwork and the use of information technology, for example) as well as writing.

Students from the Department have the opportunity to study abroad for a part of their degree programme, both in the US and Europe, and the Department currently sends a significant number of students on exchanges and receives the same number in return.

The Department offers a broad range of units in literature, theory, creative writing, film and cultural studies. Among staff interests which shape the teaching programme are Shakespeare in Performance, Post-Colonial Writing, Creative Writing, Critical Theory, Romanticism, Victorian Literature and Culture, Gothic, Contemporary Poetry, Myth, and 19th and 20th Century American Literature.

Within the Department there is an MA in Creative Writing, run from our  Manchester Writing School and available to study on campus and also by online distance learning; we offer specialist routes in the Novel, Poetry and Writing for Children. There are currently 180 students studying in the Manchester Writing School. We offer an MA in English Studies with specialist pathways in Contemporary Literature and Film, The Gothic and  Critical Theory.

The Department offers a suite of short (one term) Continuing Professional Development courses, all accredited at Master’s level.