English MA

University of Derby

On this course, you will cover a varied range of theoretical approaches to literature: from the cutting-edge to the historically significant. The modules are grouped by theme rather than historical periods, so you will see connections between texts from different times and places, from early-modern Europe to contemporary Africa. We encourage original thinking and intellectual self-reflection and apply this to contemporary debates around issues like sustainability and decolonisation. We’ll make sure you have an exceptional student experience, with more contact hours than most universities and staff that go the extra mile. We can learn a lot from studying English literature. By rigorously assessing literary history, we can better understand cultural history and the narratives that continue to shape our contemporary world: from ‘fake news’ to gender or racial identity, human impact on the environment and freedom of expression. On this MA English, we encourage you to think and write critically about some of these major concerns through the study of diverse and exciting literary texts, informed by intellectual, theoretical and historical context. We’ll provide a solid grounding in literary and cultural theory, which will complement the extensive research you will undertake yourself. These are the key themes you will explore: theory, culture and criticism; the representation of landscape and changing attitudes to the natural world; the role of humour, satire and the carnivalesque; global literature and travel writing; and blasphemy, obscenity and censorship.