English

What makes the Cambridge English course so special?

Cambridge English engages with the first-hand study of literature written in English from the fourteenth century to the present day. In the first two years (Part 1), students take the same six papers. These papers provide a foundation in all periods and genres of English Literature from 1300 to the present whilst training students in the discipline of Practical Criticism. Each student must also take either a paper in a foreign language of her choice (the options extend from Latin and Old English to French and Italian), or a paper in English language. Students can also, optionally, submit samples of their creative writing as part of the overall assessment process. In the third and final year (Part 2), students sit compulsory papers in Tragedy (from the Ancient Greeks to the present) and Literary Criticism. They also offer a compulsory dissertation (7,500 words) on any topic in English of their choice, and choose a paper from a multitude of options ranging from Old Norse to post-1970 literature, Shakespeare in performance to Postcolonial literature, Chaucer to Literature and Visual Culture. As the fifth and final component of their Part 2 course, students offer either a second dissertation, or a second paper from the options summarised above. Cambridge has always encouraged inter-disciplinary approaches and it is possible to combine the study of English with that of other languages and other subjects, such as Philosophy, History of Art or History, while remaining within the framework of the English Tripos.

Why choose Newnham for English?

Much of the teaching in the first two years takes place within the College. Students are usually taught in pairs, with some larger classes. Lectures and classes are also organised by the Faculty of English, and these involve students from all Colleges. In the final year, students are assigned to specialists throughout the University in accordance with their choice of papers and dissertation topics. Newnham has one of the strongest College libraries in Cambridge with particularly extensive holdings in English. The College is only a few minutes' walk from the University Library and the English Faculty, which houses the Faculty library and lecture rooms. The College maintains active connections with leading authors; Newnham students have recently had the opportunity to work with Germaine Greer, and continue to enjoy regular reading and writing workshops with our affiliated writers Deborah Chancellor, Jenny Diski and Michelle Spring. Newnham has a long and proud tradition in English, with many writers and actors to its credit, and we are proud to have amongst our alumni Sylvia Plath and A. S. Byatt, Miriam Margolyes and Emma Thompson.

Newnham has an active Arts Society, which invites writers, film-makers and artists to give talks at the College and a college paper called N-Vie. Our students engage in a wide range of extracurricular activities, including acting, music, painting, photography and sports. Students have the opportunity to get involved in college and university politics, as members of the JCR committee. Studying English provides you with excellent analytical, research and communication skills. Our students tend to follow a great variety of career paths, including further study towards academia (MPhil and PhD), PGCE, journalism, arts management, creative writing and acting. Consultancy, general management, law and the civil service are also popular choices. Many of our graduates choose to do internships in journalism and publishing, or decide to teach English abroad.

Admissions

The College normally admits around six students to the English degree each year. It is one of the largest arts subjects in the College. The ratio of applicants to places in recent years has been between three and four to one.

The admissions process consists of two subject interviews and a written test on the day of the interview. Nearly all applicants will be taking English Literature (or English Language and Literature) at A-level. At the interview, you will be expected to be able to talk about texts you have read (both post- and pre-1800), and it is important to be able to talk about several. At each subject interview applicants will be asked to analyse a short literary passage that is most likely to be unfamiliar to them. The written test will typically present two short texts for commentary and comparison. We are keen to assess the clarity and sharpness of applicants' writing when confronted with passages that may well be unfamiliar to them. Applicants' performance in the test will be given equal weight to their performance in any single interview.

We don't expect you to have previous knowledge of any of the texts you will be given over the course of the day. The exercises we set are not designed as a test of technical knowledge; rather, we want to get a sense of your ability to think, reason, and develop clear lines of argument. For a quick training session in literary criticism, you might like to visit "Converse", the literary website of the Cambridge English Faculty, which provides sample readings of poetry and useful tips on how to hone your close reading skills. "The Virtual Classroom", also hosted by the English Faculty website, offers literary exercises and quizzes, as well as a sample class on Medieval literature. "Converse" and "The Virtual Classroom" can be accessed via the web resources section of the English Faculty home page at www.english.cam.ac.uk/resouces.htm

Can you tell me more about the English Fellows?

When you come to Newnham you will meet a wide variety of lecturers/supervisors with expertise in differing areas. We all want to help you make the most of your time here and help you towards achieving your degree in English.

Ildiko Csengei. M.A. (Debrecen), Ph.D.
[Subject Coordinator]
Director of Studies Third year students and Lecturer
Ildiko Csengei is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Faculty of English and Director of Studies in English for Part II (third-year students). Ildiko works on the literature and culture of the eighteenth-century and the Romantic period. Her main areas of research and teaching interest are sensibility and sentimentalism, moral philosophy, medicine and science in the long eighteenth century, the history of sympathy, Romanticism and war, literary criticism and theory and psychoanalytic approaches to literature. She published articles on tears in Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling, fainting and the female psyche in the sentimental novel, physiology in the age of sensibility, William Godwin’s mourning of Mary Wollstonecraft, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and the Bildungsroman. Ildiko has recently finished a book on sensibility and she is now working on a new monograph on the psychological and emotional experience of war during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period.
Mary Newbould, B,A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Special Supervisor
Mary Newbould teaches and works on the 'long' eighteenth century, with a particular interest in parody and adaptation, in visual culture, and in the work of Laurence Sterne. Mary's teaching and research interests are nonetheless wide-ranging, from Pope, Swift, and early eighteenth-century print culture; to eighteenth-century theatre and the novel; to book illustrations and late eighteenth-century caricature. Mary has published a range of articles about these and related topics, and is currently working on a book about literary adaptation in the long eighteenth century, focussing mainly on Sterneana.
Anne Barton, B.A. (Bryn Mawr), Ph.D., F.B.A.
Special Supervisor
Prof. Anne Barton is a Fellow of Trinity and is an expert on Shakespeare and his age. Her most recent books include (edited) Four Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and Essays, Mainly Shakespearean. For Newnham, Anne teaches Tragedy for third year students.
Adelene Buckland, B.A. (Hons) (Birmingham), M.St. (Oxon), D.Phil. (Oxon)
Special Supervisor
Adelene Buckland is a Lecturer in Literature at UEA. She is also a Research Associate of the Cambridge Victorian Studies Group. Her main field of interest is Victorian literature and science. Her monograph, Novel Science: Fiction and the Geological Imagination is forthcoming with Chicago UP in 2011.
Germaine Greer, B.A.(Melbourne), M.A. (Sydney), Ph.D.
Special Supervisor
Germaine is a legend in her own lifetime, regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices since her book, The Female Eunuch became an international bestseller in 1970. She is a scholar of both English Literature and Art History. She is very much a public intellectual, writing on a range of subjects as a journalist and frequently invited on radio and television panels.
Pam Hirsch, Cert.Ed., B.A. Hons (CNAA), M.A. (Essex), Ph.D. (CNAA), M.A.
Special Supervisor
University Lecturer at Cambridge University in English Literature and Film History and a Fellow of Newnham. Pam mainly teaches nineteenth and twentieth century literature, including postcolonial literature. She has published on Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot and George Sand. Her most recent and fourth book is a literary biography of a twentieth century writer entitled, The Constant Liberal: The Life and Work of Phyllis Bottome (2010) which has been reviewed highly favourably in the TLS, the Literary Review and the Spectator as well as in academic journals. At Newnham Pam is a member of the Literary Heritage Working Party, which encourages Newnham alums who have made a career as writers to give manuscripts or memorabilia to College. Pam also helps students to run the Arts Society, which invites writers, film-makers and artists to give talks at the College.

Michelle Spring, B.A. (Victoria), M.A. (Essex)
Special Supervisor in Expository Writing
Michelle was raised on Vancouver Island. She worked for many years as an academic in Cambridge and published several influential academic books before turning to crime. She has now written four Laura Principal thrillers, and one free-standing thriller, The Night Lawyer. All of them are socially acute and psychologically satisfying, as well as being great page-turners. She can help you plan and structure your work.
Deborah Chancellor
Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow,
Deborah is a children's writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her work includes Code Breakers(Barrington Stoke, 2009) and a collection of illustrated children's stories, Reading Heroes (Parragon, 2008). She has adapted 365 stories from the Bible (Children's Everyday Bible, Dorling Kindersley, 2002). Deborah's non-fiction ranges from historical biography (The Perfect Rebel: Emily Wilding Davison, forthcoming from Barrington Stoke) to topical issues (Moving to Britain, Franklin Watts, 2008) to matters of general interest (Everything You Need to Know, Kingfisher, 2007). She has written extensively for a variety of publishers, and has been translated into several languages. Deborah will help students to improve all forms of writing, including their own creative work.

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Subjects

English

What makes the Cambridge English course so special?

Why choose Newnham for English?

Admissions

Can you tell me more about the English Fellows?