Study at Cardiff | Postgraduate

English Literature (MA)

Course Aims

The course aims to take you on to a role in research, the arts and the media, or employment requiring high-level skills in analysis or advanced subject knowledge.

Special Features

• The opportunity to explore in depth a number of related specialist courses and modern critical ideas, while gaining experience in research methodology.
• There is a fortnightly critical theory reading group.
• A highly successful programme that combines taught classes with research methodology and fosters specialist knowledge.
• Both a stand-alone degree and preparation for PhD study.

Course Description

A dynamic, full-time one year programme with a choice of open and specialist pathways, enabling you to put together the MA that best suits your personal and professional interests. Students take two courses per semester, each assessed by a 4,000-word essay (or equivalent assessment). After Easter, students write a 16-20,000 word supervised dissertation.

The degree is structured into two parts. In Part One, students choose four modules (two per semester) from a range of specialist options and research pathways and also attend classes on bibliographic and research methods and a critical theory reading group.

All modules are taught by two-hour seminars focusing on the close analysis of specific texts. All modules are assessed by a 4,000 word essay (or equivalent assessment), with title devised by students in consultation with the module tutor.

Part Two of the degree (the dissertation stage) is designed to enable students to undertake an extensive piece of individual research under supervision on a specific topic they have chosen.

The following information briefly outlines the MA pathways and also the module options. For further information and access to detailed module descriptions please see the school website.

Course Structure

• Advanced Studies in English Literature – the Open Pathway
• Editorial and Intertextual Studies
• Medieval/Renaissance/Shakespeare Studies
• 19th Century Studies
• 20th Century Studies

Each pathway draws from a pool of module options.
The following lists are indicative:

• Violent Death in Renaissance Drama
• Bibliography and Textual Studies
• Modern and Contemporary American Drama
• The Myth of King Arthur
• Shakespearen comedy
• Postcolonial/Global
• Constructing Shakespeare
• Gothic and Gender
• Tolkien’s Medievalism
• Middle English Romance and Its Afterlife
• Neo-Victorian Metatextualities
• The Cultural Politics of Gender and Race
• Poststructuralist Theory and the Critique of Modernity
• Modernisms
• Slavery and Nineteenth-Century Literature
• Experimental Fictions: 1950 to today
• Gender in Modern British and Irish Poetry
• Derridean Thought

In addition, students attend classes on research methods and scholarly presentation, as well as a critical theory reading group. These classes are unassessed but compulsory. There are opportunities to present papers.

Skills Acquired

Much of the study undertaken at Master’s level will have been at, or informed by, the forefront of an academic or professional discipline. Students will have shown originality in the application of knowledge, and they will understand how the boundaries of knowledge are advanced through research. They will be able to deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, and they will show originality in tackling and solving problems. They will have the qualities needed for employment in circumstances requiring sound judgement, personal responsibility and initiative in complex and unpredictable professional environments.

Career Prospects

In 2010, 73% of postgraduates in the School were in a form of employment within six months of graduation while 20% were engaged in further study.

Employers included: local government departments, police forces, secondary schools, language schools, universities, banks, solicitors and utility companies.

Career destinations included: lecturing, teaching, research assistant, writing, arts administration, journalism and publishing.

Entry Requirements

A first or Upper Second class Honours degree or equivalent. Suitable for graduates in English Literature and Humanities.

Those for whom English is not a first language will be required to have English language proficiency at IELTS 7.0 level. This does not apply to those for whom English is their first language.

In addition to the application form we require the following supporting documents:

• Two academic references
• Copies of two essays on a literary topic (undergraduate essays are welcome)
• Photocopies of all relevant supporting documentation (e.g. degree certificates, transcripts)

Next intake: October each year

More information

• Learn more about Cardiff School of English, Communication and Philosophy
  
• How to apply
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