This course critically explores the history of literature in relation to the social, cultural and political circumstances from which it emerges.

Making use of London’s museums, galleries, and libraries as an integral part of its teaching and learning, the course particularly focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, on London as both a site for the subject of writing, and on the relations between writing and other areas of cultural production, particularly film and the visual arts.

Members of staff teaching on the course are active in research and publication. Recent work includes books and articles on modernism, Victorian poetry and the novel, contemporary fiction, the gothic, urban theory, gender and sexuality, science fiction, critical theory, photography and literature, post-colonialism, and the avant-garde.

Course Structure and Content

The MA course has four core modules. Subjectivities and Institutions and Histories provide the historical and theoretical framework for understanding and analyzing the key issues and debates within the discipline. Knowledge, Cultural Memory, Archives and Research investigates the concept of research across a number of disciplines, and combines this with training in the more practical aspects of research methodologies. The fourth core module is the dissertation of 10–12,000 words, which is normally written at the end of the course, and is on an appropriate topic of your choice. In addition, you have a variety of exciting and engaging modules from which to select your options.

Current students can find more information about the modules in their course handbooks.

Modules

• 1ENL7A1 Subjectivities: Modern and Contemporary Fictions
• 1ENL7A2 Institutions and Histories: Modern and Contemporary Fictions
• SENL700 Knowledge, Cultural Memory, Archives and Research
  
• SENL701 Dissertation
  

Optional Modules

• 1ENL7A4 Victorian Explorations
• 1ENL7A5 Re-Reading Modernism
• 1ENL7A6 Reading the Nation
• 1ENL7B2 London Vortex: 20th Century Literature and the City
• 1ENL7A9 Reading Contemporary Culture: Politics and Prizes
• 1CUS7A4 Sexuality and Narrative
• 1CUS7A1 Urban Cultures
• 1ENL7A0 Special Author/Topic 

Entry Requirements

You are required to have a good Honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject. If your first language is not English you will need an IELTS score of 7.0 or equivalent.

How to Apply

Apply via UKPASS with code P021675

 For an informal discussion about our MA English Literature programme please contact the course director: Dr Leigh Wilson,  wilsonl@westminster.ac.uk