English - Literary Studies

Overview
To provide students with the opportunity to develop an in-depth knowledge and understanding of English Literary Studies, enabling students to pursue specialised fields of study (via guided pathways in specialist areas) or to choose a flexible arrangement of topics which bypass traditional period or national boundaries.

Course Details
The MA in English Literary Studies offers a flexible system in which students can choose either specific topics to create a focused programme of study or widely diverse areas of literary study, according to their own preferences. The School's literary studies staff comprise the largest group within the School of Arts, English and Languages and are thus able to teach a broad range of material: modules span the earliest writings in English (studied in their own historical and cultural contexts but also in relation to new digital cultures), to contemporary American literature and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (incorporating literature and other aspects of culture, such as television and graphic arts). Other strengths of the School's expertise include Renaissance literature (particularly women's writing, the history of the child, and Shakespeare and World Cinema), eighteenth-century literature (women's writing, slavery and abolition, and Indian literatures in English) and nineteenth and twentieth-century literature (with specialisms including the fiction of Dickens, the fin de siècle and modernism).

All students on the programme take a subject-specific Literary Research Methods module that addresses the issues, challenges and research questions raised by advanced study in the subject. Students also select from a wide range of optional modules, permitting either specialism or diversity in the choice of study. Most modules are on offer annually, but there can be variation year to year subject to staff availability. Finally, after two semesters of taught modules, all MA students on the programme complete a 15,000 word dissertation, which they choose and design and then work on in conjunction with an academic supervisor.

Summer Period (June-September)
Dissertation (60 CATS)

Year 1
Core Modules
• Literary Research Methods (20 credits)
• Dissertation English Literary Studies (60 credits)

Optional Modules
• Narratives of Atlantic Slavery (20 credits)
• Fictions of Female Community, 1660-2007 (20 credits)
• A Space for Radical Openness? Writing the Margins in Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature (20 credits)
• African Fiction: Race, Rites and Religion (20 credits)
• Irish Women's Writing (20 credits)
• Romantic-era Magazine and Print Culture (20 credits)
• Migrating Identities (20 credits)
• Incorrigibly Plural (20 credits)
• Trauma & Memory in Contemporary Irish Literature (20 credits)
• Decadence and the Birth of Modernism (20 credits)
• Contemporary Literature in Crisis (20 credits)
• Love Poetry (20 credits)
• Shakespeare and Asia (20 credits)
• Discourses of Crime and Deviance (20 credits)
• Popular Fiction at the Fin de Siècle (20 credits)
• Magic and Science in Medieval Writings (20 credits)
• Irish Poetry (20 credits)
• Adaptation: texts, screens, cultures (20 credits)
• Special Topic Irish Writing (20 credits)
• Dickens in Context (20 credits)

Graduate
A 2.1 Honours degree or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University in English, World/Comparative Literature, or joint or combined Honours with one of these subjects as a major subject.

All applicants are required to submit a piece of written work which may be assessed to determine if an offer of admission can be made. The piece of written work should demonstrate literary analysis, taking a specific literary text or a number of texts as its core focus. A personal statement expressing interest in the subject is not sufficient.

The University's Recognition of Prior Learning Policy provides guidance on the assessment of experiential learning (RPEL). Please visit http://go.qub.ac.uk/RPLpolicy for more information.

Applicants are advised to apply as early as possible and ideally no later than 16th August 2024 for courses which commence in late September. In the event that any programme receives a high number of applications, the University reserves the right to close the application portal. Notifications to this effect will appear on the Direct Application Portal against the programme application page.

How to Apply
Apply using our online Postgraduate Applications Portal and follow the step-by-step instructions on how to apply.

Practical exercises
Essays
Seminar presentations

3 years (Part Time)
1 year (Full Time)

Teaching Times
Mondays-Fridays. May also study-skill days and field-trips to archives.

Entry Year: 2024/25

Career Prospects
Introduction
Graduates from these programmes have a good employment record. Professions including publishing, journalism, public relations, teaching, IT, library science, corporate advertising, the Civil Service, business, industry and the media all recruit from our range of graduates. Some students choose to continue their studies to PhD level on a chosen, specialised topic in one of the pathways in English Literary Studies.

Further Study Opportunities
Students and staff across the degree also take part in a number of discussion groups, workshops and conferences both within and outside the University. There is the opportunity to organise and/or participate in the School's annual PG conference ('Common Ground') and weekly research seminars.