Course description

The highlights

• You will cover a varied range of theoretical approaches to literature: from the cutting-edge to the historically significant
• The modules are grouped by theme rather than historical periods, so you will see connections between texts from different times and places, from early-modern Europe to contemporary Africa
• We encourage original thinking and intellectual self-reflection and apply this to contemporary debates around issues like sustainability and decolonisation
• We’ll make sure you have an exceptional student experience, with more contact hours than most universities and staff that go the extra mile.

Understand how narratives shape our world

We can learn a lot from studying English literature. By rigorously assessing literary history, we can better understand cultural history and the narratives that continue to shape our contemporary world: from ‘fake news’ to gender or racial identity, human impact on the environment and freedom of expression.

On this MA English, we encourage you to think and write critically about some of these major concerns through the study of diverse and exciting literary texts, informed by intellectual, theoretical and historical context. We’ll provide a solid grounding in literary and cultural theory, which will complement the extensive research you will undertake yourself.

These are the key themes you will explore:

• Theory, culture and criticism
• The representation of landscape and changing attitudes to the natural world
• The role of humour, satire and the carnivalesque
• Global literature and travel writing
• Blasphemy, obscenity and censorship.

You will read literature from a variety of nations and gain an insight into the relationship between different cultures and perspectives. You will critically reflect on how your own and other people’s cultural values have been shaped in our increasingly globalised world.

A strong research core

You will develop advanced research skills during this programme, building on the ones you acquired during your first degree, and preparing you for further research at doctorate level if that’s something you want to do. In fact, you will have the opportunity to attend workshops on preparing for PhD and funding applications.

We’ve created a structure and set of assessments that help you develop increasing independence as you progress, so by the final trimester, you will be able to approach your Independent Study (dissertation) with confidence. For instance, you will study the ‘Theory, Culture and Criticism’ module, which blends research methodology with complex theoretical perspectives on literary study, arguing that they are inseparable.

In the final stage of the programme, you will use these theories and research methodologies to undertake your Independent Study, which needs to be a substantial piece of original research in an area of your choice. You will be allocated a supervisor to guide you, who has considerable research expertise.

A powerful set of skills

This MA develops a wide set of skills, including:

• intellectual curiosity
• advanced analytical thinking
• advanced written and verbal communication skills
• the ability to:
• appraise concepts and ideas
• create well-researched, well-structured arguments
• operate as an independent learner or researcher
• critically reflect on advanced personal learning and respond productively to constructive feedback.

These will not only help to make you a much better literary critic but also make you highly valuable to society, and highly employable

How you will learn

You will learn through lectures, seminars, workshops and field trips, but because this is a masters, there is an emphasis on self-directed study and one-to-one tutorials. You will also find materials for all modules online, in our virtual learning environment, and be able to contact tutors and fellow students here too.

Because of the nature of the English discipline, our teaching style is interactive, with classroom sessions always including plenty of discussion. This will help you to develop your confidence, your critical thinking and communication skills, as well as your understanding of the subject.

How you are assessed

For most modules, you can choose the topic of your assessments and propose your own essay questions. This enables you to pursue your own interests and take responsibility for your own learning.

Our assessments ensure you are gradually building skills and expertise throughout the programme. Essays remain a key form of assessment because they are an excellent test of your ability to form a coherent and focused argument. However, there are a variety of other written assignments that will help you write to different lengths and for different purposes, such as a literature review, a case study, and an appraisal.

Unlike many universities however, we also consider your broader understanding and knowledge throughout each module, not just your in-depth knowledge of a certain text. We do this by assessing your participation in seminars, as well as by asking you to complete activities such as:

• leading seminars and giving high-level presentations
• keeping diaries of the wider reading you’ve done
• writing reflective pieces on these activities.

Who you will meet

MA English has a research-active teaching team, which has particularly strong expertise in literary and cultural theory. The following people will be teaching you.

Dr Paul Whickman is the Programme Leader for MA English. He specialises in eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature, particularly the Romantic period and the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Having published on Byron and Shelley, Paul’s particular research interests are in literary blasphemy, eighteenth-century conceptions of press freedom, copyright and the aesthetics of dissent.

Dr Robin Sims is the Programme Leader for BA (Hons) English. His specialisms include literary theory, modernism and postmodernism, and he has published on psychoanalytic approaches to literature and on the construction of the Green Man in twentieth-century culture.

Professor Samuel Kasule is a Professor of Post-colonial Theatre and Performance. His specialisms include drama, postcolonial literatures and postcolonial theory. He has published on Black British theatre, postcolonial writing, and postcolonial performance and drama.

Dr Aled Ganobcsik-Williams is a Senior Lecturer in English whose specialisms include Romanticism, nineteenth-century literature, and modern and contemporary poetry. He has published on Romantic-period literature, contemporary poetry, and on student writing development in higher education.

Dr Alice Haines is a Lecturer in English Language with expertise in literary linguistics, including stylistics, cognitive poetics, narratology and pragmatics. Her research focuses on how readers recognise and appreciate humour in fiction and poetry.

Dr Amanda Blake Davis is a Lecturer in English Literature. Her research focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature and culture, with particular emphasis on Romantic poetry.

Dr Anna Burton is a Lecturer in English Literature. Her research is concerned with environmental perception and writing about nature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.