Internationally recognised scholars in English Literature teach this intensive research-focused Masters degree. You’ll work with cutting-edge research-active staff to push forward the latest developments in literary criticism.

The English division in the Department of Humanities has a number of exciting and interdisciplinary research groups, with particular strengths in the Early Modern period, the Long Eighteenth Century, Modernism, Gender, and Popular Culture.

You’ll have the opportunity to develop your own scholarly interests by researching and writing a 20,000 word dissertation. Recent MRes projects have encompassed a range of subjects including a feminist critique of the Tomb Raider video game franchise, the female authorship of eighteenth-century medical tracts, and an examination of loss in the works of Joseph Conrad.

Whether taken for the love of literature, or for personal or professional development, the MRes will enhance skills such as communication, self-management and project planning

The MRes is a postgraduate degree that allows you to embark upon a closely-supervised research project. At the same time, you will participate in taught modules that comprise a framework designed to aid the acquisition of a wide range of transferable skills that are at once generic to all researchers and specific to your chosen discipline.

By progressing through this robust and dynamic framework of research training, and building on your strong undergraduate degree, you will gain an understanding of research methods, contemporary digital literacies, and acquire expert professional skills in communication, self-management, and project planning.

Our assessment is carefully designed to promote and nurture student-centred learning, and is tailored to the diverse needs of our students. Assessment encompasses traditional and innovative modes, including a 20,000 word dissertation (or equivalent project), oral and written presentations, critical reviews, and portfolios of work.

This MRes reflects – and is informed by – staff interests across periods, locations, and theoretical approaches: from the Early Modern period to contemporary writing; British, American and transnational literature; class, gender, and sexuality.

Northumbria’s Humanities department works with a range of cultural partners including New Writing North, the co-operative movement, Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums and Shandy Hall, providing students with direct industry exposure and live project opportunities.

Many staff are well-known figures in their own research fields and the department boasts a significant number of staff at professorial level.

Humanities at Northumbria is composed of three subject teams: History, Literature & Creative Writing, and English Language & Linguistics, and is also developing strengths in the fields of American Studies and Heritage Studies.

The Humanities department is made up of a community of learners all the way through from first year undergraduate to final year PhD level. All Humanities staff are engaged in research and actively create the knowledge that is taught in the department.

English Literature MRes students, as part of Northumbria’s Humanities department, will have access to the new Institute for Humanities which houses a range of specialist research resources.

he MRes is perfect for people wishing go on to study a PhD, while ensuring that those students who move on to work as researchers outside the university system will have the skills necessary to meet the needs of the public services, the professions, and of employers generally.

The course offers a qualification that may enhance promotion prospects in some professions – most notably teaching, professional research, museums/archives, public policy, and project management.

Helen Maria Storey came to Northumbria as a mature MRes student. She says, “I would never have achieved what I have done without the support of Northumbria University and the staff encouragement to continue.

…[I enjoyed most] the opportunities to meet acclaimed academics at seminars and conferences that I never would have had the chance to meet.

Don't think about it, just do it!"