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.
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.
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.
Develop your knowledge of literature and literary linguistics. You’ll be supported by our expertise in areas including Renaissance and contemporary literatures in English.
This course is taught completely online, so you can study while working, wherever you live. Most class texts can be accessed electronically through the University libraries. You’ll complete one 30-credit core module, optional modules worth 90 credits and a dissertation worth 60 credits.
You’ll examine early modern texts, language and culture. Staff expertise includes palaeography, rhetoric, news writing, the sermon, drama, and issues of political, sectarian and national identity between 1400 and 1700. Modules (including modules from History) can be tailored to suit your interests. You’ll complete one core module, optional modules and a dissertation.
Study eighteenth-century literature to develop a broad range of advanced skills. The focus is on the interface between historical and literary approaches, and you’ll be introduced to current academic debates and research methods in the field. Spanning eighteenth century prose and poetry, Romantic poetry, prose, and drama, and Gothic literature, there’s an incredible range to choose between.
We’re based in a brand new building at the heart of the campus. There are computer workstations especially for postgraduates and a DVD library with viewing facilities. Our theatre workshop is a fully equipped teaching/performance area with excellent film-viewing facilities and audio suites.
The University Library subscribes to the major periodicals and full-text electronic archives, including Early English Books Online and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. Special collections include an outstanding collection of Restoration drama, the Hope Collection of eighteenth-century periodicals, the Jack Rosenthal scripts collection, and papers of contemporary writers such as Anita Brookner, Marina Warner, Fay Weldon and Peter Redgrove.
There are a number of studentships and fee bursaries available, funded by the University. Deadlines for funding applications are usually in winter/early spring. For details, see our website.
If you intend to progress to a PhD, your course can be tailored to include essential research training. The same applies to students on the online course.
Part-time students usually take one taught module in each semester. In the second year, you’ll also take a dissertation module. For most courses, you’ll need to come in for one half-day per week. The MA Creative Writing is taught in the evening. Some modules, such as Theatre and Performance, may require greater time commitment. We try to be as flexible as possible to accommodate the different needs of our students.
Research Methods in English Studies.
May include:
NB: All MA students can take optional modules from the online course, with the agreement of their course tutor.
Explore diverse forms of contemporary theatre with this practical course. You’ll study areas including devised performance and live art, community and applied theatres, new playwriting, classic texts on the contemporary stage, and documentary and verbatim theatre. Our teaching team has strong links with many major venues, theatre companies and practitioners, with Sheffield recently named best theatre city outside London.
Improve both your research and performance skills by working with practising theatre-makers and arts organisations. We have a fully equipped theatre workshop and studio spaces, a publicly licensed drama studio, and excellent editing and recording facilities.
You’ll examine early modern texts, language and culture. Staff expertise includes palaeography, rhetoric, news writing, the sermon, drama, and issues of political, sectarian and national identity between 1400 and 1700. Modules (including modules from History) can be tailored to suit your interests. You’ll complete one core module, optional modules and a dissertation.
Study eighteenth-century literature to develop a broad range of advanced skills. The focus is on the interface between historical and literary approaches, and you’ll be introduced to current academic debates and research methods in the field. Spanning eighteenth century prose and poetry, Romantic poetry, prose, and drama, and Gothic literature, there’s an incredible range to choose between.
We’re based in a brand new building at the heart of the campus. There are computer workstations especially for postgraduates and a DVD library with viewing facilities. Our theatre workshop is a fully equipped teaching/performance area with excellent film-viewing facilities and audio suites.
The University Library subscribes to the major periodicals and full-text electronic archives, including Early English Books Online and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. Special collections include an outstanding collection of Restoration drama, the Hope Collection of eighteenth-century periodicals, the Jack Rosenthal scripts collection, and papers of contemporary writers such as Anita Brookner, Marina Warner, Fay Weldon and Peter Redgrove.
There are a number of studentships and fee bursaries available, funded by the University. Deadlines for funding applications are usually in winter/early spring. For details, see our website.
If you intend to progress to a PhD, your course can be tailored to include essential research training. The same applies to students on the online course.
Part-time students usually take one taught module in each semester. In the second year, you’ll also take a dissertation module. For most courses, you’ll need to come in for one half-day per week. The MA Creative Writing is taught in the evening. Some modules, such as Theatre and Performance, may require greater time commitment. We try to be as flexible as possible to accommodate the different needs of our students.
You’ll be taught through practical workshops, productions and seminars. You’ll be assessed on performance practice, written coursework and a dissertation.
