English Literature Undergraduate Programs | University of British Columbia

Custom-tailor a program that reflects your interests and which explores literatures and media from the English-speaking world in a wide range of genres.

Working in a large and diverse department and alongside award-winning instructors, you will study an extraordinary range of literatures in English. From medieval sagas and Renaissance science fiction, through 18th-century romances, and 20th-century poetics, and right up to contemporary, Indigenous, and global fiction, media and theory.

The English literature undergraduate program at UBC will enhance your writing and presentation skills, reading and analytical competencies, and critical and creative thinking.

The English literature undergraduate program prepares you for any profession in which analytical thinking and communication are essential.

Honours

Get exposed to wide-range critical theory, literary history, textual analysis, and contemporary and cultural studies.

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Honours

Get exposed to wide-range critical theory, literary history, textual analysis, and contemporary and cultural studies.

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Major

Study across historical periods, subjects, and contemporary literatures in all their global forms; build bridges and intersections on themes and topics with like-minded peers.

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Major

Study across historical periods, subjects, and contemporary literatures in all their global forms; build bridges and intersections on themes and topics with like-minded peers.

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Minor

The minor in English literature is an instrumental partner for many other undergraduate degrees across the university, whether in sciences or the humanities.

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Minor

The minor in English literature is an instrumental partner for many other undergraduate degrees across the university, whether in sciences or the humanities.

Explore our minor

First-Year and Second-Year Courses

Explore our exciting variety of first-year and second-year English courses in literature and writing, available to all UBC students.

First-Year and Second-Year Courses

Explore our exciting variety of first-year and second-year English courses in literature and writing, available to all UBC students.

First-Year and Second-Year Courses

Explore our exciting variety of first-year and second-year English courses in literature and writing, available to all UBC students.

The most important skill I have gained from studying English literature is the natural ability to engage with a text. To look at it, and then look at it again, and know how to question it, how to look at it from all these angles and derive new meaning from it. That sort of skill is invaluable whatever you do in life.

Thea Bergh

English Literature and Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies

My English degree equipped me with a versatile skillset that is valuable in many industries. I so appreciate the opportunity to seek out jobs in a variety of organizations—for skills in the federal government, performing arts, and public libraries—which always comes with new and exciting challenges.

Sarah Barton-Bridges

English Literature and Geography, Environment and Sustainability