Study Details: MA 1 year full-time,
2 years part-time
The MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture offers you an intensive and exciting survey of the literary culture of the 20th and 21st centuries.
You’ll be introduced to key authors, texts, ideas and critical methods from the period, and construct a distinct, individually chosen programme of study from a wide range of options. You’ll develop your research skills and apply these to a substantial piece of independent research.
Taught and supervised by world-leading scholars in one of the UK’s largest research centres in modern English, you’ll gain a foundation for doctoral research in modern literature, as well as transferable skills for related careers in teaching, publishing, arts management and journalism.
You’ll engage with the wider research culture of the Department of English and the Centre for Modern Studies, and there will be a diverse schedule of seminars, conferences and reading groups for you to attend. You’ll also be part of the Humanities Research Centre, a vibrant interdisciplinary hub which will enable you to form close social and intellectual bonds over the course of your study.
2:2 or equivalent. We will consider applications from students with lower qualifications, particularly if you have high marks in relevant modules or appropriate professional experience.
For fees and funding options, please visit website to find out more
Our postgraduates go into a wide variety of industries, from arts administration to law. Many of our alumni have also gone on to become successful novelists, poets and playwrights.
You'll address some of the major literary trends and cultural debates of modern and contemporary times. You'll consider the different ways that ‘modernity’ has been understood, focussing on the multiple art-forms and theories of art that this understanding yielded. You'll examine a broad swathe of writers, genres and intellectual disciplines. Typical subtopics include modernist difficulty, utopian fiction, confessional poetry, race and modernity, and neoliberalism. Typical authors studied include James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T S Eliot, Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein, Aldous Huxley, Samuel Beckett, Ralph Ellison, John Berryman, Paul Muldoon, and Zadie Smith. On the Postgraduate Life in Practice module, you'll learn valuable skills in research, writing, reflection, presentation, publishing and career development.
Core modules
Reading Modernity
Postgraduate Life in Practice
Dissertation
Option modules
You will also study three option modules. Examples can be found below. Some option module combinations may not be possible. The options available to you will be confirmed after you begin your course.
“They’ve Gotta Have Us”: African American Film and Literature after 1960
Cold War Cultures: Literature, Film and Theory in Post War Europe
The Sickness of Style
Auteures: Gender, Power, and Authorship in Film and Literature
Our modules may change to reflect the latest academic thinking and expertise of our staff, and in line with Department/School academic planning.
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