Objectives
Beginning with a consideration of the various attempts to define the elusive category of ‘the literary’, students will examine critically a number of key concepts such as close reading, genre, historicism, and the ‘singularity’ of literature. They will consider the impact of the new media and technologies, the relationship between literature and cultural studies, the notion of a radical aesthetic, literary value, and the place of literature within the university and the world at large. The aims of the MLitt are: * to give students a grounding in key literary texts (for example, Joyce’s Ulysses) * to give students a grounding in the research methodologies and critical practices of English Studies at an advanced level * to cater to individual students’ interests by providing option modules in topics such as Modern British and European Drama and Popular Fiction and Theory, 1890 – Present * to address fundamental questions about the nature of literature and ‘the literary’
Course description
Structure and Content
In the Autumn Semester you will take one core module and one option module:
What is Literature? This core module asks questions about the impact of the cultural and technological changes that are taking place all around us and that are often held to herald ‘the end of literature’ or ‘the end of the book’. In this module you will consider what it is that defines the elusive category of ‘the literary’ and how you might think of the place of literature within the university and the world at large.
Students will also take one option from the list below in the Autumn Semester.
In the Spring Semester students will take one core and one option module.
The Spring core module is:
Innovations and Transitions in Fiction: Renaissance to the Present: This module explores the rise of the novel and the possibilities of the novel form in the context of recent debates about genre, the novel and digital technology.
The option modules that are currently on offer for both semesters are:
Popular Fiction 1890 to the Present
Modern British and American Drama from
Ibsen to Bond
Love and Sex in Pre-Modern Narrative Poetry
Queer Fictions
Research Methods
All MLitt postgraduates share a regular Research Methods core module with other Master’s students from the named Master’s programmes. This seminar, presented by different members of staff, will offer insights into the different approaches, problems and solutions to be met with in advanced literary study. It is designed to provide the research skills requisite for the dissertation, and beyond that, for advanced postgraduate study. It is also a forum for you to meet with other students, exchange views and share experiences.
Dissertation
The most significant piece of work on the programme will be a dissertation of 15,000 words on a subject of your choosing in consultation with a member of the Department. You may choose to develop work initiated on one of the modules you have studied. Those who do not embark on the dissertation may be awarded a Diploma.
Delivery and Assessment
Assessment in each semester will be based on coursework and essays. The core modules are assessed by two essays of 4,000 words each. Methods of assessment for each of the non-core option modules will vary but will often consist of a single essay. Teaching will take the form of regular tutorials in small groups. Though all the modules will offer close and careful supervision, you are expected to take proper responsibility for your own studies. The aim in all cases is to foster student-led learning in expert, stimulating and congenial company.
Career Opportunities
As texts of all kinds become more prominent and powerful in our everyday lives, the ability to analyse them rigorously and appreciate their often elusive meanings becomes more highly prized. The skills of textual criticism and critically informed ‘close reading’ that you will learn on this programme will enable you to recognise ideology and bias, to see through the spin of political and cultural debate, as well as to understand why it is both problematic and necessary to think of literary texts as distinctive.
Completing a Master’s degree as a prelude to further academic research is an increasingly common pattern of study for young scholars, and is a route encouraged by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Advanced education in the Arts, the practical experience of research and the production of a dissertation are significant transferable skills for many careers in business and the professions.
