MA English Literature brochure
2
MA in English Literature English Literature at Anglia Ruskin was awarded an ‘Excellent’ in the last national assessment of teaching quality and 95% of the work submitted in the last Research Assessment Exercise (2008) was judged to be of international standard, with 60% judged to be either ‘internationally excellent’ or ‘world-leading’ (grade point average of 2.7). This places us amongst the top departments in the country for teaching quality and research expertise. The MA in English Literature is focused on three periods of literary history: the Renaissance, the ‘long’ nineteenth century and the twentieth/twenty-first century. Each of the three period-based modules investigates the social, cultural and critical contexts of literature. The fourth module is a research methods module which equips students with the skills needed to complete their dissertations. Teaching takes place on the Cambridge campus with excellent library facilities, bookshops, theatres and cinemas close at hand. In addition to the taught modules the Department runs a graduate research seminar series to which all staff and postgraduates are invited. How the MA is Organised: The MA in English Literature consists of four taught modules taken over one year by full-time students or two years by part-time students and a dissertation written at the end of the taught part of the course. Teaching runs in two 12 week semesters from September to December (modules one and three) and February to May (modules two and four). Each module meets weekly for the duration of the semester for one two-hour seminar. Classes are currently scheduled at the following times (but there may be the possibility of daytime delivery if demand is high enough): Semester 1 Semester 2 Monday 6-8 pm Module Three: Module Four: Re-reading Modernism, Research Methods Practising Postmodernism Thursday 6-8 pm Module One: Module Two: Renaissance Drama The Long and Cultures of Nineteenth Performance Century: Controversies and Cities Teaching: Teaching takes place in seminar groups which are run on a discussion rather than a lecture format. The MA Pathway Leader and the staff team are also available for one-to-one support and advice. Course Content Module One: Renaissance Drama and Cultures of Performance This module focuses on plays produced during the English Renaissance. These texts are approached through what can be known of the staging and printing conventions of their original period, together with related materials such as anti-theatrical writings and masques. The module also considers the differing contexts of the commercial theatres and the court as well as cultural contexts such as gender, politics and power. This historical study is complemented by a consideration of the production of Renaissance drama in 21 st Century performance contexts. Module Two: The Long Nineteenth Century: Controversies and Cities This module examines writing produced during the ‘long’ 19th Century which relates to, or engages with, major issues or conflicts of the period, and/or which testifies to the distinctive or representative experience of life in various cities between 1789 and 1914. The controversies are political, religious, social, cultural, and scientific: for example, the political ferment in Britain following the French Revolution and after the Napoleonic Wars. The dominant city is London, but Paris, Edinburgh, Manchester and Dublin also figure in important and distinctive ways. Module Three: Re-reading Modernism, Practising Postmodernism This module provides a survey of literature in the 20th /21st Century and analyses it in a framework of critical and historical contexts. It considers modernism and postmodernism both as cultural epochs and as aesthetic strategies and refers to the philosophies that underpin them. Issues of history, temporality, value, art, society, the city, print culture, the self, gender and sexuality are explored in a range of literary, theoretical and performance-based texts. Module Four: Research Methods This module covers the research methods necessary for completion of the MA dissertation. It covers topics such as developing research questions, critical practice and theory, archives, research methodologies, bibliographies, library searches, writing review essays, drafting proposals and structuring a dissertation. This module provides excellent preparation for the dissertation but also offers an opportunity to reflect on the nature of research and the discipline of English Literature. Independent Learning Module In consultation with the MA Pathway Leader students may replace one module with an Independent Learning Module. This module enables students to work independently on topics not provided within existing modules, subject to the availability of a suitable supervisor. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, projects in creative writing (accompanied by a critical reflection), textual editing, film and literature, science fiction and topics in contemporary theatre and performance. Please see the list of staff research interests as a guide to possible topics. Modules from other Pathways Students may also replace one module with a module from another of Anglia Ruskin University’s MA programmes (subject to approval). Popular choices include modules from the MAs in Creative Writing, Film Studies and Publishing. Major Project You may choose any topic that our Department is able to supervise and assess. Recent topics have included Intertextuality in Ishiguro; Ageing in Jean Rhys; the Shoreline in Victorian literature; and Animated Statuary in Renaissance drama. 944_ARU_ENG_LIT_MA_6ppdl_F.indd 1-3 9/3/11 15:52:36
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Current brochure for the MA English Literature degree course at Anglia Ruskin University
Transcript of MA English Literature brochure
MA in English LiteratureEnglish Literature at Anglia Ruskin was awarded an ‘Excellent’ in the last national assessment of teaching quality and 95% of the work submitted in the last Research Assessment Exercise (2008) was judged to be of international standard, with 60% judged to be either ‘internationally excellent’ or ‘world-leading’ (grade point average of 2.7). This places us amongst the top departments in the country for teaching quality and research expertise.
The MA in English Literature is focused on three periods of literary history: the Renaissance, the ‘long’ nineteenth century and the twentieth/twenty-first century. Each of the three period-based modules investigates the social, cultural and critical contexts of literature. The fourth module is a research methods module which equips students with the skills needed to complete their dissertations.
Teaching takes place on the Cambridge campus with excellent library facilities, bookshops, theatres and cinemas close at hand. In addition to the taught modules the Department runs a graduate research seminar series to which all staff and postgraduates are invited.
How the MA is Organised:The MA in English Literature consists of four taught modules taken over one year by full-time students or two years by part-time students and a dissertation written at the end of the taught part of the course. Teaching runs in two 12 week semesters from September to December (modules one and three) and February to May (modules two and four). Each module meets weekly for the duration of the semester for one two-hour seminar. Classes are currently scheduled at the following times (but there may be the possibility of daytime delivery if demand is high enough):
Semester 1 Semester 2
Monday 6-8 pm Module Three: Module Four: Re-reading Modernism, Research Methods Practising Postmodernism
Thursday 6-8 pm Module One: Module Two: Renaissance Drama The Long and Cultures of Nineteenth Performance Century: Controversies and Cities Teaching:Teaching takes place in seminar groups which are run on a discussion rather than a lecture format. The MA Pathway Leader and the staff team are also available for one-to-one support and advice.
Course ContentModule One: Renaissance Drama and Cultures of PerformanceThis module focuses on plays produced during the English Renaissance. These texts are approached through what can be known of the staging and printing conventions of their original period, together with related materials such as anti-theatrical writings and masques. The module also considers the differing contexts of the commercial theatres and the court as well as cultural contexts such as gender, politics and power. This historical study is complemented by a consideration of the production of Renaissance drama in 21 st Century performance contexts.
Module Two: The Long Nineteenth Century: Controversies and CitiesThis module examines writing produced during the ‘long’ 19th Century which relates to, or engages with, major issues or conflicts of the period, and/or which testifies to the distinctive or representative experience of life in various
cities between 1789 and 1914. The controversies are political, religious, social, cultural, and scientific: for example, the political ferment in Britain following the French Revolution and after the Napoleonic Wars. The dominant city is London, but Paris, Edinburgh, Manchester and Dublin also figure in important and distinctive ways.
Module Three: Re-reading Modernism, Practising PostmodernismThis module provides a survey of literature in the 20th /21st Century and analyses it in a framework of critical and historical contexts. It considers modernism and postmodernism both as cultural epochs and as aesthetic strategies and refers to the philosophies that underpin them. Issues of history, temporality, value, art, society, the city, print culture, the self, gender and sexuality are explored in a range of literary, theoretical and performance-based texts.
Module Four: Research MethodsThis module covers the research methods necessary for completion of the MA dissertation. It covers topics such as developing research questions, critical practice and theory, archives, research methodologies, bibliographies, library searches, writing review essays, drafting proposals and structuring a dissertation. This module provides excellent preparation for the dissertation but also offers an opportunity to reflect on the nature of research and the discipline of English Literature.
Independent Learning ModuleIn consultation with the MA Pathway Leader students may replace one module with an Independent Learning Module. This module enables students to work independently on topics not provided within existing modules, subject to the availability of a suitable supervisor. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, projects in creative writing (accompanied by a critical reflection), textual editing, film and literature, science fiction and topics in contemporary theatre and performance. Please see the list of staff research interests as a guide to possible topics.
Modules from other PathwaysStudents may also replace one module with a module from another of Anglia Ruskin University’s MA programmes (subject to approval). Popular choices include modules from the MAs in Creative Writing, Film Studies and Publishing.
Major ProjectYou may choose any topic that our Department is able to supervise and assess. Recent topics have included Intertextuality in Ishiguro; Ageing in Jean Rhys; the Shoreline in Victorian literature; and Animated Statuary in Renaissance drama.
944_ARU_ENG_LIT_MA_6ppdl_F.indd 1-3 9/3/11 15:52:36
Contact
Click www.anglia.ac.uk
To apply please visit www.anglia.ac.uk/apply
Email [email protected] Call 0845 271 3333
MA English LiteratureFaculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences
www.anglia.ac.uk
Assessment:We assess each of three period-based modules as follows: Renaissance Drama and Cultures of Performance and Re-reading Modernism, Practising Postmodernism have a short mid-semester written assignment and a longer essay at the end of the semester; The Long Nineteenth Century: Controversies and Cities has an essay and a presentation. The Independent Learning Project is assessed by an essay, or equivalent. The Research Methods module is assessed by an annotated bibliography, critical review essay and dissertation proposal. Essay consultation workshops are built into the MA programme. The dissertation is assessed on the basis of a 15,000 word piece of research.
Entry Requirements for the MA:We ask for a good honours degree in English Literature or a related area. We will, however, interview anyone who does not meet these requirements but believes they have the academic ability to work at postgraduate level. Please contact the Pathway Leader of the MA in English Literature if you wish to discuss your suitability for the course. We ask for an IELTS score of 7 if English is not your first language. Our students include those returning to study after a period away, recent graduates and international students. Many of our students work in addition to taking the MA part-time or full-time.
Jeannette Baxter: twentieth-century literature, especially the post-war novel; Holocaust literature; contemporary fiction; the relationship between literature and the visual arts.
Sarah Annes Brown: Shakespeare and Renaissance poetry; Classical reception; the Victorian novel; allusion and adaptation; literature and the uncanny.
Laura Dietz: creative writing, science in contemporary literature.
John Gardner: Eighteenth/ Nineteenth century literature and culture; Essayists; Pamphleteers; Text and Image; Poetry to 1900.
Eugene Giddens: Renaissance drama; gender; textual studies.
Mary Joannou: Victorian and twentieth-century women’s writing; the 1930s; the women’s suffrage movement; autobiography; working-class writing.
Colette Paul: Creative Writing, especially the short story; Alice Munro; narrative theory.
Katy Price: poetry since 1900; literature and science; popular science; the history of physics and astronomy; modernism and mass culture; science fiction.
Valerie Purton: Victorian literature, especially Dickens and Tennyson; Darwin and 19C literature/science debates; post-colonial literature; medievalism.
Samantha Rayner: Medieval literature; Arthurian literature; Publishing and Book History.
Alison Searle: Renaissance Drama, Dissenting Culture, Epistolarity, Theories of the Imagination.
Julia Swindells: the Georgian Playhouse and the long eighteenth century; Victorian literature; post-colonial literature; theories of autobiography; working-class and women’s writing; history of the Labour movement.
Jeff Wallace: modernism, especially D.H. Lawrence; literature and science from Darwin to the present; contemporary writing; humanism and posthumanism; abstraction.
Rowland Wymer: Shakespeare and Renaissance drama; science fiction; film; critical theory.
Tory Young: modernism; Nancy Cunard; contemporary fiction; postfeminism; narrative theory.
Please consult the Department’s website for further details of staff research interests and publications.
The Staff Team:
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