MA Literature & Culture
Graduate Taught (level 9 nfq, credits 90)
This MA programme provides the opportunity to deepen your knowledge and analysis of English-language literature and culture, with specialised pathways in American Literature; Gender, Sexuality & Culture; Medieval Literature & Culture; Modern & Contemporary Literature; and Renaissance Literature & Culture.
This MA provides an intensive combination of taught course units and supervised research to develop our students' skills and confidence as scholars and critics of literature and its contexts. Our chief aim is to enable our students to develop as scholars, researchers, writers and critics in their chosen specialism, equipped with a range of critical skills and methodologies for understanding and analysing literature and culture across multiple historical, social and intellectual contexts.
Choose from a wide range of specialised modules and pathways.
Benefit from expert tuition in a supportive and open learning environment.
Develop your own research topic with one-to-one supervision from a member of our world-class staff.
Be part of a School with a long tradition of excellence and impact in literature that hosts writers-in-residence of international renown.
Be part of the Schools vibrant and welcoming postgraduate community, with weekly School research seminars, an active, dynamic English Graduate Society, and regular conferences, symposia and other events that our MA students are encouraged to get involved in.
Further information on the MA in Literature & Culture is available on the UCD School of English, Drama & Film website: http://www.ucd.ie/englishdramafilm/study/postgraduate/literatureandculture/
This programme is of interest to anyone who has a passion for literature and cultural production in English. It will suit those who want to put a capstone on their BA work, but also those who are considering a PhD.
Vision and Values Statement
The MA in Literature & Culture provides the opportunity to deepen your knowledge of English-language literature and its contexts. This MA provides an intensive combination of taught course units and supervised research to develop our students' skills and confidence as scholars and critics of literature and its contexts. Our chief aim is to enable our students to develop as scholars, researchers, writers and critics in their chosen specialism, equipped with a range of critical skills and methodologies for understanding and analysing literature and culture across multiple historical, social and intellectual contexts. On this MA students are also encouraged to engage critically with key issues and debates in relation to gender, race, class, sexuality and alterity across diverse historical, cultural and geopolitical contexts. Our programme values informed analysis, rigorous research, and methodological innovation. Our teaching practice encourages engagement with existing knowledge and research combined with an openness to new perspectives and self-reflective, socially and politically engaged critical practice. We foster and model these values in seminars and individual supervisions that prioritise challenging, high level discussion and debate within a mutually supportive and respectful environment.
On this MA, students choose one of our five specialised MA pathways, all drawing on the extensive, internationally recognised expertise of our academic staff: American Literature; Gender, Sexuality & Culture; Medieval Literature & Culture; Modern & Contemporary Literature; and Renaissance Literature & Culture.
Programme Outcomes
Demonstrate their facility as readers, thinkers and writers, with advanced skills in detailed textual analysis and close reading
Demonstrate a developed awareness of historical contexts, theoretical positions and the range of literary and/or cultural production appropriate to their chosen specialization
Demonstrate an enhanced knowledge of literary and cultural analysis, including methodology, in their chosen disciplines and fields
Make connections across different time periods and cultures, and identify key aesthetic/cultural/social movements in their chosen specialization
Articulate their knowledge, arguments and ideas clearly and effectively through essays, presentations and proposals
Demonstrate mastery of advanced techniques in the use of archival and digital resources
Be effective independent researchers, who can identify a viable research topic and develop this into a research project