Contemporary culture is characterised by nothing if not a reawakened interest in the Gothic, be that in the form of the current vogue for horror film, in the heightened preoccupation with terror and monstrosity in the media, the extraordinary success of writers such as Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer, or in manifestations of an alternative Gothic impulse in fashion, music and lifestyle.
As the countless adaptations and retellings of texts such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818; 1831) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) in our own day attest, the Gothic, though once relegated to a dark corner of literary history, has assumed a position of considerable cultural prominence.
The MLitt in The Gothic Imagination at the University of Stirling provides students with the unique opportunity to steep themselves in the scholarly appreciation of this mode, providing a rigorous and intensive historical survey of its literary origins and developments, and charting its dispersal across a broad range of media and national contexts. In so doing, the course equips its graduates with the necessary theoretical vocabulary to address, and critically reflect upon, the Gothic as a complex and multi-faceted cultural phenomenon, while also preparing them for further postgraduate research in the rich and vibrant field of Gothic Studies. In addition to these subject-specific objectives, the MLitt in The Gothic Imagination also provides its graduates with several invaluable transferable skills, including critical thinking, theoretical conceptualisation, historical periodization and independent research.
- Degree type: MLitt, Postgraduate Diploma, Postgraduate Certificate
- Study methods: Part-time, Full-time
- Duration: Full-time; MLitt-12 months, Part-time: MLitt-27 months,
- Start date: September
- Course Director: Dr Timothy Jones
- The MLitt in the Gothic Imagination consists of four core modules, two option modules, and a dissertation. Across these components, the course aims to provide students with a rigorous grounding in the work and thematic preoccupations of the most influential Gothic writers, both historical and contemporary. Supplemented by relevant historical and theoretical material throughout, the course aims to provide as rich and varied an exposure to the academic study of the Gothic as possible.
- The first two core modules seek to provide a searching historical overview of the genesis and development of the Gothic aesthetic, taking students systematically from the circulation of the term ‘Gothic’ in the political and aesthetic discourses of the late seventeeth and eighteenth centuries, through the late eighteenth-century writings of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis and Charlotte Dacre, and into the nineteenth-century fictions of writers such as Charles Maturin, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, the Brontës, Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde.
- The second and third core modules, on Gothic in modern, modernist and postmodern writing, include texts by authors such as Gaston Leroux, Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, Djuna Barnes; Mervyn Peake, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison and Patrick McGrath.
- Option modules vary from year to year, depending on student interest and demand. Recent option topics have included the Gothic on the Romantic Stage; Nineteenth-century American Gothic; Transmutations of the Vampire; The Gothic in Children’s Literature; Monstrosity; The Female Gothic; Queer Gothic; and Gothic in/and Modern Horror Cinema.
- At the dissertation stage, students are encouraged to undertake independent, supervised research on any particular interest within Gothic studies that they might wish to pursue. Subject to the agreement of the course director, a creative writing dissertation may be undertaken at this stage.
If English is not your first language you must have one of the following qualifications as evidence of your English language skills:
- IELTS: 6.0 with 5.5 minimum in each skill
- Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE): Grade C
- Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English (CAE): Grade C
- Pearson Test of English (Academic): 54 with 51 in each component
- IBT TOEFL: 80 with no subtest less than 17
For more information go to English language requirements https://www.stir.ac.uk/study-in-the-uk/entry-requirements/english/
If you don’t meet the required score you may be able to register for one of our pre-sessional English courses. To register you must hold a conditional offer for your course and have an IELTS score 0.5 or 1.0 below the required standard. View the range of pre-sessional courses http://www.intohigher.com/uk/en-gb/our-centres/into-university-of-stirling/studying/our-courses/course-list/pre-sessional-english.aspx .
Two hours of seminars per module per week, plus individual consultations and supervisions with members of staff. Assessment is by means of a 4,000-word essay for each core module, and a variety of skills-based assessments (such as presentations; portfolios; blog-entries) for optional modules. All students complete a 15,000-word dissertation on a topic of their choice once optional and core modules have been completed.
With course-work assessed solely by means of independently devised, researched and executed essays, the MLitt in The Gothic Imagination equips students with a number of the skills and abilities that are prized and actively sought after by employers across the private and public sectors. These include the ability to process and reflect critically upon cultural forms; the ability to organise, present and express ideas clearly and logically; the ability to understand complex theoretical ideas; and the ability to undertake extended independent research.
Previous graduates of the course have gone on to pursue successful careers in such fields as teaching, publishing, research, academia, advertising, journalism and the film industry.
The 15,000-word dissertation that is submitted towards the end of the course allows students to devise, develop, support and defend their own academic ideas across an extended piece of written work; addition to the skills of independence, organisation and expression fostered by this exercise, the dissertation also provides an excellent point of entry into more advanced forms of postgraduate research, including the Doctoral degree.
Explore your passion for contemporary literature and the way it can be used to help our understanding of society. You will examine current developments and critical issues in the past 30 years of literature on a course that provides an international and cross-cultural outlook.
Whether your interests lie in the postcolonial world or you have a fascination with women's writing or contemporary gothic literature, this challenging course will allow you to study recent volumes of poetry, research cultures and explore novels and films relating to current debates. You will use key theoretical models and concepts to gain a greater understanding of how we study literature and the motivations and historical events that have driven the authors you choose to read.
Taught by a team with an international reputation for their research in diverse areas, ranging from Caribbean culture, history and literature to cultural representations of the 2007-08 credit crunch across literature, stage and screen, this course will expose you to new ideas and will encourage you to question them.
Check out our twitter feed @BeckettEnglish for up-to-date information on staff and student events, short courses and fun happenings around the school.
Research Excellence Framework 2014
Research Excellence Framework 2014: 38% of our research was judged to be world leading or internationally excellent in the Communication, Culture and Media Studies, Library and Information Management unit.
You will learn how to use a range of cutting-edge theoretical approaches to texts, while you will be able to draw upon the course team's research and teaching strengths in contemporary women's writing, postcolonialism and popular fiction.
You will acquire a well-informed, critical understanding of current developments, questions and critical issues in the field of contemporary literatures and develop the transferable skills needed to undertake independent research into contemporary literatures and associated criticism and theory.
*These modules rotate on an annual basis. Not all modules listed may be available in your year of entry.
You will graduate with the expertise and confidence to add your voice to the latest literary criticism. You could decide to explore your chosen area further, get your findings published and work towards an MPhil or PhD, and then pursue a career in academia. Having built on and developed a range of transferable skills such as advanced planning and critical engagement, you will also be well prepared for a variety of careers in the civil service, teaching, journalism or publishing.
This programme explores the richness and complexity of artistic invention from the late thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. You will have the opportunity for deep engagement with art-making both in Italy and northern Europe (France, Germany, Low Countries, England and Scotland) and be encouraged to challenge orthodoxies about the influence of one upon the other.
The programme is comprised of a core course designed to give you an overview of methods and approaches as well as seminar opportunities to engage directly with original works of art; and optional courses, enabling you to create your own Masters programme.
It also allows you to work in an interdisciplinary capacity, selecting courses from across the College of Arts, according to personal interests. Language and renaissance palaeography study are among the optional courses available. The programme convenor will work with you to ensure a sensible portfolio of courses is constructed, according to your personal aims and objectives.
Core teaching and research training are delivered during the first semester. Optional courses may be taken during the first and second semesters, followed by dissertation research. The dissertation provides an opportunity for you to identify an area of interest and to create a research project that allows in-depth critical exploration of it.
You will be taught by a team of experts in different aspects of Renaissance art history based at the University of Glasgow:
Object-based study sessions and field trips will introduce you to professionals working in museums and the heritage industry and you will have the opportunity to gain further experience of these sectors through a work placement. The dissertation will foster essential independent research skills and prepare you for doctoral research should you wish to pursue an academic career.
Warwick is one of the only taught Renaissance MAs in the UK to offer students a Venice Programme, giving them the opportunity to spend a full university term in Venice and to study in situ the city’s art, history and culture. Students will have the opportunity to spend a further period of 3 months (usually in the Summer term) at the University of Venice, as part of our ERASMUS Exchange Programme.
Warwick’s long-standing and dynamic Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, and its unusually large staff of Renaissance specialists, provides the opportunity for students at postgraduate level to approach Renaissance art, history, religion and literature from a distinctively interdisciplinary perspective Warwick is well-placed to offer teaching and research programmes in Renaissance Studies, both because of its own staffing resources and library provisions (which offers excellent electronic resources such as ITER, BIHR, Early English Books Online and The Making of the Modern World), and because of its proximity to major research collections at Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester, Stratford-upon-Avon and London. Warwick also has well-established links with other prestigious centres of Renaissance excellence, including the Warburg Institute in London, the Newberry Library in Chicago and the Folger Institute in Washington.
Warwick’s centre in Venice has been housed in the fifteenth-century Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava since 2007. This stunning building, in gothic style, belonged to a rich patrician family who exercised considerable political and economic power. Warwick’s Venice Programme offers unique opportunities for graduate study. The course opens with a term based in Venice studying Italian Renaissance art in situ, engaging directly with the city’s galleries, libraries, and museums, and exploring the history and culture of the Renaissance. There you will benefit from Warwick’s forty-year association with the city, and from the expertise of our specialists in Venetian art, history and culture. Seminars are combined with site-visits, study sessions in Venetian workshops (for example, in a traditional printing shop or bronze foundry), and behind-the-scenes visits to the warehouses of Venetian museums. We teach as much as possible in the presence of original objects, and within period settings. All teaching is delivered in English but Italian language lessons are offered to students as an optional extra at no extra cost.
During the Autumn term in Venice, students will take two modules examining the history and the art of the Italian Renaissance. Modules typically include: ‘Order and Disorder: Culture, Society and Religion in Early Modern Venice,’ ‘Venetian Art and its Histories’ or ‘Venetian Luxury & Display.’
During the Spring term in Warwick students take two further modules, both providing an opportunity to explore the dissemination of Italian culture in Renaissance Europe. There are a series of skills sessions on Palaeography and research resources which help students to acquire the skills necessary to undertake research and extended writing on the Renaissance and a weekly seminar in Renaissance Latin (post-beginners).
During the Summer term students work closely with their supervisor on researching and writing their dissertation which is on any topic of their choice related to the course. Work continues over the summer vacation and submission is due in September.
Previous graduates from this course have chosen to progress to PhD study at Warwick or another institution, and/or to pursue a career in academia (most recently at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore), museums or galleries, teaching and the armed forces.
Courses typically start in September/October of each year with a compulsory induction at Warwick before heading off to Venice for the first term. Further (academic) details may be requested from the Director of Graduate Studies, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/about_us/ ; or for more pragmatic queries, from the Centre's Administrator on [email protected]
This MA pathway combines close reading of texts by a wide range of male and female authors with interdisciplinary study of the broader culture of the 18th and early 19th centuries, examining the period’s dramatic changes in literature and literary theory alongside developments in philosophy, politics, history, and other art forms. We explore the popular culture of the coffee house and tavern, the political world on the street and in parliament, the vocations of women poets and polemicists, polite society and its management of the emotions, epistolary culture, religious dissent, and the metropolitan life of London. We also study the influence of the Enlightenment, the origins and impact of the Romantic movement, the role of literary manifestos and defences, generic innovation and experiment, periodical culture, Romantic science and medicine, relations between British and European Romanticism, the French Revolution and its aftershocks, and the literary and artistic culture of the Regency.
The pathway combines specially-designed core and elective modules with the opportunity to select further options from across the whole range of MA modules on offer in the Department of English. You may also opt to take a cognate elective module offered by other Schools in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and by other Colleges of the University of London.
The Department of English has notable research and teaching strengths in both the eighteenth century and Romanticism, with the highest concentration of staff in these fields anywhere in London and one of the highest in the UK. Recently appointed staff in Romanticism include Pamela Clemit, an authority on William Godwin and Mary Shelley, and David Duff, author of Romanticism and the Uses of Genre and editor of The Oxford Handbook of British Romanticism. They join Paul Hamilton, a renowned scholar and theorist of British and European Romanticism, James Vigus, author of Platonic Coleridge and series editor of the Henry Crabb Robinson Project, and Shahidha Bari, author of Keats and Philosophy and a well-known broadcaster.
Staff working on eighteenth-century topics include Markman Ellis, author The Coffee-House: A Cultural History and The History of Gothic Fiction, Chris Reid, an expert on Burke, Sheridan and the history of oratory, Tessa Whitehouse, author of The Textual Culture of English Protestant Dissent 1720-1800, Isabel Rivers, founder of the Dissenting Academies Project, and Barbara Taylor, author of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination. Matthew Mauger and Richard Coulton both work on the cultural history of London, their joint publications including (with Markman Ellis) The Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf that Conquered the World and (with Chris Reid) Stealing Books in Eighteenth Century London. For further details see individual staff pages.
You choose three modules from a list of options that changes from year to year (one can be from the range of modules offered across the MA English Studies curriculum). In 2017-2018 we hope to offer the following. If members of our specialist research staff win research funding it will mean that their module won’t run, so for that reason this list is indicative only.
You may, subject to availability and the approval of the School, take one of your option modules from across a range offered by other Schools in the Humanities and Social Science Faculty, or from other Colleges of the University of London.
In addition to taught modules, we run a range of research seminars to which all MA students are invited. Some of these are linked to our interdisciplinary Research Centres, such as the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, the Centre for Religion and Literature in English and the Centre for the History of the Emotions.
The MA in English Language and Literary Studies is ideal for you if you would like to combine your studies of English Language with the study of literature and literary theory. This MA is taught jointly by the Department of Linguistics and English Language and the Department of English and Creative Writing, allowing a great deal of flexibility to follow your own interests.
It consists of six credit-bearing modules, including at least two from each department, at least one research methods course and a dissertation. Support for your studies is provided by the non-credit Postgraduate Academic Study Skills module, which runs in terms 1, 2 and 3.
You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.
Core
Optional
Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research.
Coursework and dissertation
