Course descriptionThe MA in English Studies at Lincoln is a taught postgraduate programme which aims to give students a critical understanding of current developments in contemporary literature, a sample of the diversity and variety of English studies now and the skills needed to equip them for further research.
The core first level of the course, ‘English Now’, uses fiction, life writing, drama and poetry written in the UK and Ireland since 2000 as a focus for exploring the state of English literary studies in the 21st century, while the second level of the course consists of three specialist units on the literature of the past from a set of options which prepare students for a 20,000 word dissertation on a subject chosen and researched by the student.
‘English Now’ is divided into two single semester units on contemporary writing from the UK and Ireland, addressing first poetry and drama, then life writing and fiction published since 2000. The two core units use 21st century literature firstly as an opportunity to consider the relationship between literature and its context; secondly as a way of raising current theoretical issues and concerns; thirdly as material for exploring formal issues; and finally as a focus for a consideration of the ‘singularity of literature’ – that which makes literature a unique human activity. These units are combined with a research skills module which completes the PG Certificate level.
At the second (PG Diploma) level the course turns from contemporary writing to the literature of the past addressing either themes that run across time or topics that are focussed on a specific period. Students choose two options from a list including literature and the environment, Renaissance poetry and patronage, utopias and dystopias, literature and Thatcherism, Tennyson and Clare, contemporary American fiction, European literature in translation and representations of the Great War. Each of these leads to a small research project which is designed to prepare students for the final part of the programme, a 20,000 word dissertation on a subject chosen by the student by negotiation with a panel of supervisors, and researched and written up in the final months of the Masters.
The English Now units run consecutively in semesters A and B, the two specialist options concurrently with them in sequence from the beginning of Semester A to the end of semester B. The dissertation proposal is submitted at the end of semester B and the dissertation itself at the end of the academic year in September.
Part time students will take the PG Certificate level English Now units in Year 1 and the specialist options in Year 2 (PG Diploma), followed by the Master’s dissertation.