Our course will develop your ability to understand, analyse and appreciate a far-reaching range of texts, their contexts, and their cultural resonance. You will be encouraged to express your own thoughts and to strengthen your skills and self-awareness as a critical thinker and writer.

Join us on Instagram @HumLib_cccu

There is one small pre-arrival task to complete: this is a short reading entitled “Desiree’s Baby” (1892) by Kate Chopin - see link here: desirees-baby (katechopin.org). Themes to consider as you read might include: race, slavery, patriarchy, power, identity, and family.

Apart from the above story, we encourage you to read as widely as possible in your own areas of interest over the summer, and also to take a look at some of the texts we recommend below. You may also want to purchase the textbook for your two compulsory modules, which is the Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors, Volumes 1 and 2, 10th edition, 2018, and begin to familiarise yourself with the material included there.

To help you get settled, we will have a course of events scheduled for Welcome Week, during which you will be able to meet your classmates, your Personal Academic Tutor and your Peer Mentors, get the full details of your timetable, and learn how to navigate Blackboard, the online learning portal used for learning materials for all your modules. We can’t wait to begin discussing books with you.

Your welcome and induction will be the week commencing 16 September 2024 and we look forward to meeting you on campus then!

The best thing you can do over the summer is read some books you enjoy!

Perhaps you want to start thinking about some of the themes covered in our modules?

Then why not:

• Think about the narrative voice in your favourite novel, and imagine the story being told from a different point of view – how might that influence how you feel about the characters?
• Find a literary blog or podcast. You might try, for example, the New Yorker Fiction podcast (Fiction Podcast | The New Yorker) or ‘Bonnets at Dawn’ (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bonnets-at-dawn/id1245449210). Does this offer you a different way of responding to/interacting with literature outside of academic study? What would you say are the main opportunities these media have to offer?
• Watch a film or TV adaptation of a novel you have read. Does this adaptation feel ‘right’ and authentic to you? Try to pinpoint why, or why not.

If you would like to get into the mindset of studying Literature at University, here are some titles you might want to look at. Please note, these are not set texts for the Course and you do not need to buy them!

• Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Literature like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines. Quill, 2003.
• Ian Littlewood, The Literature Survival Kit: What Every Reader Needs to Know. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
• John Peck and Martin Coyle, Practical Criticism: How to Write a Critical Appreciation. Palgrave Macmillan, 1985.

It is useful to note that the University Bookshop offers 10% discount on most titles in print and have some price-beating book bundles. They also price match Amazon on core texts recommended in the module handbooks you will receive when you start in September.