MA English - Literary Studies
Queen's University Belfast
Key Information
Campus location
Belfast, United Kingdom
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
1 - 3 year
Pace
Full time, Part time
Tuition fees
GBP 19,100 / per year *
Application deadline
Request info
Earliest start date
Request info
* international fee
Introduction
To provide students with the opportunity to develop 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 that bypass traditional period or national boundaries.
English - Literary Studies Highlights
Internationally Renowned Experts
- You will be taught by staff with interests that range across the English subject area and who have research profiles of international standing.
Student Experience
- The MA in English Literary Studies offers a number of special features. Some of the American Literature and Culture topics will engage with contemporary examples of American art and culture through fieldwork. Some modules use connections to the History subject area and to the archives in Armagh, Belfast and Trinity College Dublin.
Career Opportunities
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.
Queen's postgraduates reap exceptional benefits. Unique initiatives, such as Degree Plus and Researcher Plus bolster our commitment to employability, while innovative leadership and executive programmes alongside sterling integration with business experts help our students gain key leadership positions both nationally and internationally.
Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award for extra-curricular skills
In addition to your degree programme, at Queen's you can have the opportunity to gain wider life, academic and employability skills. For example, placements, voluntary work, clubs, societies, sports and lots more. So not only do you graduate with a degree recognised by a world-leading university, you'll have practical national and international experience plus wider exposure to life overall. We call this Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award. It's what makes studying at Queen's University Belfast special.
Gallery
Curriculum
Course Structure
Students may enroll on a full-time or part-time basis. Full-time students take three modules per semester. Part-time students typically take one or two modules per semester.
The MA in English Literary Studies offers a flexible system in which students can choose either specific topics to create a focused program 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 literature in English), and nineteenth and twentieth-century literature (with specialisms including the fiction of Dickens, the fin de siècle and modernism).
All students in the program 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 variations from year to year subject to staff availability. Finally, after two semesters of taught modules, all MA students on the program then complete a 15,000-word dissertation, which they choose and design and then work on in conjunction with an academic supervisor.
Modules
- Literary Research Methods
- Contemporary Literature in Crisis
- Debating Modernity in Contemporary Indian Literature
- Dickens in Context
- Magic and Science in Medieval Writings
- Narratives of Atlantic Slavery
- Shakespearean Childhoods
- Trauma and Memory
- African Fiction: Race, Rites and Religion
- Decadence and the Birth of Modernism
- Fictions of Female Community 1660-2007
- Popular Fiction at the Fin de Siècle
- Shakespeare and Asia
- A Space for Radical Openness? Writing the Margins in Twentieth-Century British and Irish
- Literature
- Irish Women's Writing
- Adaptation: Texts, Screens, Culture
- Special Topic Irish Writing
- Irish Poetry
- America's Aftermaths
- Incorrigibly Plural
- Discourses of Crime and Deviance
- Migrating Identities
Summer Period (June-September)
Dissertation (60 CATS)
Learning and Teaching
Learning opportunities associated with this course are outlined below:
- Additional Teaching Information
Mondays-Fridays. Morning/Afternoon. May also include study-skill days and field trips to archives.
Assessment
Assessments associated with the course are outlined below:
- Essays, practical exercises, and seminar presentations
- Essays
- Seminar presentations
Admissions
Program Tuition Fee
Scholarships and Funding
How do I fund my study?
The Department for the Economy will provide a tuition fee loan of up to £6,500 per NI / EU student for postgraduate study.
A postgraduate loans system in the UK offers government-backed student loans of up to £11,836 for taught and research Master's courses in all subject areas. Criteria, eligibility, repayment and application information are available on the UK government website.
International Scholarships
English Language Requirements
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