Course description
Programme Content:
The syllabus consists of four taught modules followed by a dissertation. Students select three modules from a range which varies from year to year depending upon student choices and staff availability. Modules focus on nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century literature and culture, exploring literature in relation to popular and working-class culture, analysing the interaction between literature, cinema, and theory, and examining issues of identity, gender and power. The compulsory module in Research Methods will prepare students for their dissertation and for further independent research. Full-time students normally take two modules per semester; Part-time students normally take one module per semester. Modules are assessed by coursework, normally either two 2,500 words essays or one 5,000 words essay; ‘Research Methods’ is assessed by coursework and oral presentation. On completion of the four taught modules MA students start working on their dissertation of 15,000-20,000 words.
Modules
-Gothic: Modernity and Monstrosity (Semester 1) – Dr. Scott Brewster
-Reading the City: Literature, Social Exploration and Urban Understanding – London 1820-1900 (Semester 1) – Professor Brian Maidment
-Relocating the Gangster (Semester 2) – Dr. Glyn White
-Culture and the popular front in Britain, 1935-1939 (Semester 2) – Dr. Ben Harker
-Research Methods [Compulsory] (Semester 2) – English staff
In previous academic years the following modules have been offered:
-Theory and Text
-Contemporary Literary and Cultural (Post)Feminism: Contextualising Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Waters
-Modernism, Feminism and Virginia Woolf
-Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century
-The Novels of Thomas Hardy: Readings and Cultural Response
-Dickens and Modernity
-Post-war British Poetry
-Twentieth Century Political Theatre
-Beckett and Modernity
Duration
MA: 15 months full-time including dissertation; 24 months part-time, plus 12 months for dissertation
PgDiploma: 12 months full-time; 24 months part-time
Programme Start Date: September
Career progression
Many students who have followed this programme use it as part of their career development in teaching, librarianship or similar jobs. Others use it as a means of access to doctoral study or further research.