Masters Degrees in United States Society & Culture, United Kingdom

This multidisciplinary MA comprises a broad range of specialist modules in the humanities and social sciences, bringing together the academic expertise of the institute with United States specialists from other UCL departments and University of London colleges. The programme's graduates have established careers in research, journalism, teaching and policy formulation and implementation in both government agencies and NGOs.

Degree information

Students will develop analytical and critical perspectives in multidisciplinary aspects of US history, politics, cultural studies and international relations, depending on their chosen areas of specialisation. They will gain key research skills, enhance their capacity for oral and written presentation, and develop their knowledge of up-to-date scholarship and theoretical/conceptual debates in United States studies.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits. The programme consists of one core module (15 credits), five optional modules (75 credits), and the research dissertation (90 credits). Please note: All optional modules are subject to availability.

Core module
-Researching the Americas: The USA

Optional modules - students choose five optional modules from a selection that includes the following:
-Confronting the Colossus: US Anti-imperialism, 1945-present
-The Culture Wars: Arenas and Issues in Contemporary US Political Conflict
-From Emancipation to Massive Resistance: Race, Racism and the African American Freedom Struggle 1865-1960
-From Skid Row to Obamacare: The Politics of Social Welfare in the United States Since 1900
-From the Civil Rights Revolution to Obama: Race, Racism and the African American Freedom Struggle in Modern America
-Politics of US Foreign Policy
-Post-Cold War US Foreign Policy
-US Presidents and the Presidency
-Race and US Foreign Policy
-From the New South to the Modern South: The (Re)Making of an American Region

Of the 75 optional module credits, students can choose a maximum of 30 credits from other departments or from other University of London colleges, subject to the Programme Director's approval.

Dissertation/report
All students write a dissertation of 15,000 words (90 credits) on a research topic of their choice linked to the subject area of one of their taught modules.

Teaching and learning
The programme is delivered through a combination of seminars, lectures, presentations, research skills training, independent reading and research. Assessment is through written assignments (which may include essays, term papers and analytical exercises, depending on selected options), group and seminar presentations, and the dissertation.

Fieldwork
Many of our Master's students undertake fieldwork in order to carry out research for their dissertation projects. There may be travel costs associated with fieldwork. The institute has limited funds available to students to help towards the costs of fieldwork. These funds are awarded on a competitive basis on the criteria of academic performance to date, the quality of the research proposal and the importance of fieldwork for completing the research.

Careers

Graduates of this programme will be well placed to use their skills and knowledge to find employment in government, business, journalism, finance and international NGOs, and teaching, or to engage in doctoral research in this field.

Top career destinations for this degree:
-Junior Research Executive, UKTV
-Justice Committee Support Assistant, House of Commons
-Administration Manager, University College London (UCL)
-Interpreter and Translator, National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI)
-PhD US History, University College London (UCL)

Employability
Our graduates enter wide-ranging occupations, the most subject-specific becoming university lecturers in the UK and US. Students have drawn on broader skills of communication, research, and presentation developed through the programme to obtain posts in the civil service (mainly Foreign Commonwealth Office), other public services, think tanks (such as the Henry Jackson Society), university administration, secondary school teaching, and management positions in the private sector. Those interested in careers in national government, and think tanks have particular opportunities to interact and develop networks with representative members of these communities who participate in our rich US events programme.

Why study this degree at UCL?

The Institute of the Americas occupies a unique position at the core of academic study of the region in the UK, promoting, co-ordinating and providing a focus for research and postgraduate teaching on the Americas, including Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States.

The institute actively maintains and builds ties with cultural, diplomatic and business organisations with interests in the Americas, and provides resources to the wider academic community, serving and strengthening national networks of North Americanist, Latin Americanist and Caribbeanist scholars.

Students benefit from tuition by world-leading scholars in an academic environment at the cutting edge of research in the humanities and social sciences.

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The MLitt in American Studies is the only Masters programme in Scotland that provides an interdisciplinary focus on how the United States developed. Why did American culture, politics, and business become so dominant in the 19th and 20th centuries, and in what directions might it be headed in the 21st century?

Why this programme

◾The programme is linked to the Andrew Hook Centre for American Studies, which hosts visiting speakers for seminars, conferences and other special events.
◾The Centre also welcomes applications for partial or full fees-only Gordon Scholarships in American Studies.
◾From early in the 17th century, Glasgow has been a gateway for economic, social, and cultural exchange between Scotland and North America. The University has been at the forefront of teaching and research in American history and literature since the late 19th century.
◾This programme draws upon a variety of academic fields such as literature, history, theology, music, history of art, politics, archaeology, anthropology and media studies.

Programme structure

You will take two core courses and choose three optional courses. The programme draws on a wide array of subject areas: literature, history, film and television studies, popular music, art history, religious studies, archaeology, and politics; to foster understanding of the overarching themes, as well as complexities, of American life.

The culmination of the MLitt in American Studies is your dissertation. You will choose a topic based on the breadth of perspectives that you have explored and conduct original primary source research. You will be supported in your research and writing by an assigned supervisor with expertise in your specific field of interest.

Core courses
◾Approaches to American studies
◾Topics and methods in American studies.

Core and optional courses

Core Courses


Approaches to American studies

An introduction to the different disciplinary approaches and methodologies for the study of North America, organized around a defining theme that is revised annually. Defining themes of the past have included American Identities, the Frontier and the American West, and Freedom. This core course also incorporates research training in American Studies, geared toward the requirements of the rest of the programme, especially the dissertation.

Topics and methods in American studies.

This course is based around the Hook Centre's series of visiting speakers - who are all leading national (and sometimes international) figures in American Studies. Students keep a notebook detailing their developing understanding of, and reflections upon, American Studies as an academic discipline throughout this series. They produce an essay at the end of the module, as well as participating fully in occasional seminars to discuss themes and issues raised by the series and to reflect upon these in light of readings of some 'classic' texts in American Studies.

Optional courses vary from year to year; they may include:
◾American counterculture
◾Thomas Paine as an enlightenment revolutionary
◾Media, war, and security
◾People of plenty: the politics of consumption in the US since 1890
◾History of critical writing on film and television
◾The American way of war
◾Poverty and inequality in the modern world
◾ American material culture
◾The Mind of the Contemporary American Novel


Courses available in recent years have included: American communities; The politics of race in America; Modernity and technology; American society and culture in the 1920s and 1930s; and, The Vietnam war in American history and culture; and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton and Dialogues of American Literary Modernism.

Career prospects

The skills you gain: critical, analytical, and written and oral communication skills, as well as the specific understanding of American history and culture; offer you a broad range of career choices.

The programme provides you with an excellent foundation to study for a PhD and to establish an academic career. Other graduates have used their specialist knowledge of America in their media, business and teaching careers.

Positions held by recent graduates include Teacher and Alumni and Development Officer.

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The American Studies MA attracts high calibre students from a variety of academic backgrounds, though commonly the study of literature or history has formed a substantial component of their undergraduate degree. Although many students have previously specialised in some aspect of American Studies, this is not a prerequisite for the course.

Course Structure

Core modules may include:
• Approaches to American Studies
• Researching Contemporary America
• Research Management and Personal Development Skills

Optional modules may include:
• American Labour History
• Darwinism and Creationism in America
• Fictions of America
• In the Midst of War: The United States and South East Asia, 1940 - 1968
• Policing the City and the Frontier
• Recent Queer Writing
• Representing the South: Literature, Film and History

Assessment

The core modules are assessed by written work of 4,000 words and through exercises in research and presentation skills. Optional modules may be assessed in a variety of ways, including essays and examinations. You will submit a dissertation of 15,000 - 20,000 words by the end of the summer period.

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The MA in English and American Studies prepares students for undertaking further research in the discipline, but it is also aimed at those who wish to broaden and deepen their critical engagement with English and American literature and culture. The structure of the MA is flexible, which means that you can choose to combine your interests in English and American culture, or you can choose to focus more exclusively on one or the other . The division of English, American Studies and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester provides a thriving environment, with its vibrant research culture, its close links to the Centre of New Writing, its involvement in the Manchester Literature Festival and its access to the world-class John Rylands research library.

While this MA offers you a range of exciting modules that are chronologically or geographically specific, all modules are informed by recent theoretical and historical developments that allow you to think about categories like `literature', `culture' and `history' in nuanced and fresh ways.

You can also choose 30 credits from our MA Modern and Contemporary Literature (subject to availability) to further extend the scope of your study.

Teaching and learning

In your first semester, you will choose 2 of 3 core modules (30 credits each), which will lay the groundwork for your coursework as well as preparing you to think about your dissertation. The core modules address questions that are at the heart of literary and cultural studies, and will give you conceptual tools relevant to all of the modules offered in the second semester. The core modules are entitled:
-The Times of Literature
-Space, Place and Text
-American Studies: Theories, Methods, Practice.

In the second semester, you will choose 4 out of 6 modules, each of which is weighted at 15 credits, allowing you the choice of a greater number of courses. You diversify your engagement with the field with these courses, each of which tackles a range of periods and literary/cultural productions. Some of the courses offer you the chance to engage with the holdings of the John Rylands Library. Each focuses on a body of work, or on a topic or critical question, situated in a particular context. The courses are:
-Treacherous Love: Translating the Medieval Past
-Shakespeare: Theory and Archive
-Before Sexuality: Bodies, Desires and Discourses, 1660-1900
-Revolutionary Poetics: 1789-1840
-Radical Subcultures
-Doing History in Public: Struggling over the American Past.

Students with an interest in American Studies take 6 modules in total, including, in semester one, the core course 'American Studies: Theories, Methods, Practice' plus the choice of one of the other core courses (as listed above).

Finally, students will write a 15,000-word dissertation, worth 60 credits, supervised by an academic member of staff.

Coursework and assessment

Students are required to take 180 credits of units as listed above.

The list of units on offer will be updated annually. Students may also choose up to 30 credits worth of units from another MA programme in place of one of their optional units, subject to the approval of the Programme Director.
Students will also attend seminars on such topics as how to study at MA level, how to research and write a Master's thesis, and career options.

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The MA in American Studies offers you the opportunity to develop an expertise in American literature and social and cultural history. Your studies will equip you with the methodological training you need to pursue your interest in America from different disciplinary perspectives.

The world-leading department has particular strengths in race, gender and identity, civil liberties, American cities, American landscape and the environment, popular culture, and comparative American Studies.

The MA in American Studies develops the critical powers you acquired as an undergraduate and provides the rigorous preparation needed for future employment or as preparation for doctoral research.

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American culture has often been seen as distinctive and unique, producing some of the world’s greatest writers and artists. This exciting and varied degree will allow you to develop a deeper understanding of American literature and its cultural context by looking at specific writers, genres or periods alongside drama, film and photography.

You’ll study core modules developing your research skills and questioning what it means to study literature today, and you’ll undertake an independently researched dissertation on a topic of your choice. You’ll also pursue some of the topics that suit your interests when you choose from a range of optional modules exploring different aspects of American literature and culture, from the 19th century to contemporary writing.

In addition, you’ll be able to broaden your understanding by choosing to take one of your options from the wide range of non-American modules in English Literature that we offer.

Leeds was the first university in Britain to establish a Chair in the field of American Literature. It’s an interest that we continue to uphold with staff researching topics such as American literary culture, masculinity and gender, American film, globalization, postcolonial literature, Jewish narratives and African-American writing. You’ll benefit from all of their expertise and develop your knowledge in our excellent research libraries – a stimulating environment in which to prepare for further study or gain valuable transferable skills.

This degree is also available as a part-time option.

Course content

In Semester 1 you’ll study a core module which will develop your understanding of research methods in literary study, as well as what it means to study literature and culture in the 21st century. You’ll also choose the first of your optional modules to explore topics that suit your interests in more depth.

You’ll then continue to pursue your interests in Semester 2, with two further optional modules. One of your optional modules can be from outside the programme, allowing you to explore topics from Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature to modernist or postcolonial writing.

Throughout the year, you’ll be working on your research project/dissertation, which allows you to research in depth a topic in American literature and culture of your choice. You’ll be able to submit this up to the deadline at the end of the course in September.

If you study this degree on a part-time basis, you’ll take the same number of modules over a longer period, meaning you take fewer modules in each year.

Course structure

Compulsory modules

• Studying English: Research Methods 30 credits
• Research Project 60 credits

Optional modules

• Fictions of Citizenship in Contemporary American Literature 30 credits
• Feeling Time 30 credits
• The African American Tradition: Eight Major Works 30 credits

For more information on typical modules, read American Literature and Culture MA Full Time in the course catalogue

For more information on typical modules, read American Literature and Culture MA Part Time in the course catalogue

Learning and teaching

Most of your modules will be taught in small-group seminars, where you will discuss particular topics in each module with your tutor and the class. Independent study is also an important element of this course, allowing you to develop and then demonstrate valuable skills in independent research and analysis.

Assessment

Most option modules are assessed by one 4,000 word essay. The research project/dissertation is 12,000-15,000 words in length.

Career opportunities

This degree will allow you build on your knowledge and acquire transferable skills that are very attractive to employers.

You’ll have sophisticated research and analytical skills that allow you to consider complex information from different sources, and you’ll also be able to communicate and defend your views clearly either verbally or in writing. You’ll also be comfortable working independently or in a team and have good cultural awareness.

If you’re interested in pursuing further postgraduate study, this degree offers excellent preparation for PhD-level research through the dissertation and research methods modules. However, you’ll also have the skills to succeed in careers in publishing, advertising, broadcasting, journalism, law and teaching.

Careers support

Leeds for Life is our unique approach to helping you make the most of University by supporting your academic and personal development. Find out more at the Leeds for Life website.

We encourage you to prepare for your career from day one. That’s one of the reasons Leeds graduates are so sought after by employers.

The Careers Centre and staff in your faculty provide a range of help and advice to help you plan your career and make well-informed decisions along the way, even after you graduate. Find out more at the Careers website.

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This is a truly interdisciplinary programme on which you will benefit from the expertise of historians, literary critics, art critics, film theorists and ethnographers.

Why has the ‘Gothic’ been so prevalent in the fields of literature, art, architecture, film and music in the past 250 years? What does this tell us about ourselves, and the society in which we live? How has the genre changed, and how is it possible for us to define our identities within, and in relation to, the Gothic?

These are some of the questions you will be invited to consider on this course, which gives you the opportunity to study the fascinating subject of Gothic culture, in all its many forms, where it all began: on the site of Horace Walpole’s Gothic mansion in Strawberry Hill, South West London.

You will also be trained at postgraduate level in the research methods of these disciplines, preparing you for advanced study in the humanities disciplines.

Why St Mary's?

Students on this course have on-site access to the historic Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill, the birthplace of Gothic fiction and architecture.

There is also the unique resource of the Strawberry Hill Library, with collections relating to Horace Walpole, and to Gothic culture in general.

Taught by experts in the fields of literature, film, cultural studies, art and architecture, the course will encourage you to read and reflect on the tradition that starts with Horace Walpole and ends - for the time being - with True Blood and the Twilight saga.

Course Content

The course covers Gothic culture from 1750 to the present day, and also provides a grounding in critical theory and research methods suitable for advanced study.

Module Information
Semester One:
› Academic Orientation
› Researching Modernities
› Gothic Origins 1750-1850

Semester Two:
› The Modern Gothic
› The Contemporary Gothic
› Research Methods and Dissertation

Please note: All information is correct at the time of publication. However, course content is regularly updated and this may result in some changes, which will be communicated to students before their programme begins.

Career Prospects

The course is designed for those who have recently graduated in English, history, film studies, cultural studies, or a related discipline, as a sound route towards starting on doctoral studies and a career in academia. It is equally suited to those coming back to formal education after a period of time, and full support is given in the acquisition of the kind of research, analytic and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

The content of this course makes it of relevance to those wishing to pursue careers in heritage and arts management - and of course the kind of research, evaluation and advocacy you’ll be practicing are essential skills in today’s jobs market.

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This interdisciplinary Master’s programme provides an opportunity for you to deconstruct the American experience at an advanced level.

It interrogates, challenges and moves beyond the Exceptionalist rhetoric and nation-states ideology of traditional American Studies to consider the USA, and its neighbours, in an insightful, challenging and relevant way.

You develop specialist knowledge and research skills in a range of disciplines by navigating complex historical, cultural, geo-political and environmental issues. A sophisticated awareness of the reach (and the limitations) of US hegemony, as well as issues of cultural collision, media penetration, region and identity, give our graduates an intellectual grounding well-suited to many careers, in addition to a solid foundation for graduate work at MPhil or PhD level.

About the Centre for American Studies

American Studies at Kent dates back to 1973 and, over the last few decades, has developed a strong research culture; this matches the commitment of the University to interdisciplinary study as well as the mandate of American Studies to explore the American experience in ground-breaking ways.

Our team of scholars maintains close links with a number of North and South American research institutions and archives, and the University’s Templeman Library houses impressive collections on slavery, Native American culture, and photography/visual materials.

We treat the American experience in a critical and reflective manner, and offer an extremely good base for postgraduate study. While able to supervise a wide range of American topics, the Centre currently operates three specialist research clusters of particular interest to candidates:

- The American West
- The Study of US Environmental Issues
- The Study of Race, Ethnicity and Borders.

Course structure

You take a compulsory 30 credit module ‘Transnational American Studies: Research and Approaches’. This is a year-long module designed to introduce key modes of analysis in transnational and interdisciplinary study as well as consider different methodologies, themes and intellectual debates. Assessment includes an extended essay, seminar presentation and a critical review of an academic research paper.

You also select 90 credits from a range of optional modules, spread across at least two disciplines. Optional modules vary year to year and below is a selection of recent modules on offer:

- American Cold War Propaganda

- Geiger Counter at Ground Zero: Explorations of Nuclear America

- From Wounded Knee to the Little Bighorn Casino: The Vietnam War in American History

- American Narrative in the Age of Postmodernism

- American Modernism

- Boundary Busting and Border Crossing

- Myth, Image, Fashion and Propaganda in the Cuban Revolutionary Era

- History and Memory

- American Foreign Policy

The remaining 60 credits are made up with a Dissertation. Written over the summer term, this 12,000 word extended study allows students to work on their own research project based on primary research. You have the opportunity to present your ideas as part of workshop sessions on researching American Studies in the core course and receive supervision from an academic specialist.

Modules

The following modules are indicative of those offered on this programme. This list is based on the current curriculum and may change year to year in response to new curriculum developments and innovation. Most programmes will require you to study a combination of compulsory and optional modules. You may also have the option to take modules from other programmes so that you may customise your programme and explore other subject areas that interest you.

Assessment

Assessment for this course includes an extended essay, seminar presentation and a critical review of an academic research paper.

Programme aims

This programme aims to:

- provide you with a thorough grounding in the techniques and approaches necessary for advanced research in American Studies.

- promote interdisciplinarity as a conceptual mode of theory and analysis (encourage you to ‘operate across disciplines, learning how to integrate a variety of approaches in formulating and solving problems, and using diverse materials and information sources.’

- encourage critical reflection and engagement with public debates relating to aspects of American society.

- consolidate the strengths of our long-running undergraduate programmes whilst interrogating, challenging, and moving outside the exceptionalist rhetoric and nation-state ideology of conventional American Studies (develop a ‘synthesising impulse…which can work across, as well as interrogate traditional discipline boundaries in innovative ways’.

- promote a curriculum supported by scholarship, staff development and a research culture that provides breadth and depth of intellectual inquiry and debate.

- assist you to develop cognitive and transferable skills relevant to their vocational and personal development.

Research areas

Staff interests broadly fit within the parameters of American literature, American history, American film and American politics, although we actively welcome interdisciplinary projects that investigate several areas of study. Current strengths in American Studies at Kent are: Native American literature and culture; African-American history; slavery and the Atlantic world; the American West; US environmental issues; US visual culture; Disney and recreation; American realist fiction; modern American poetry; US immigration politics; American science fiction; Hollywood; US foreign policy.

The American West
Kent is the only UK institution to operate a research cluster on the American West, with five members of the Centre specialising in trans-Mississippi studies. The research cluster engages in pioneering work on Native American literature, Western films and video games, female frontiering and several other elements of the Western experience.

The Study of US Environmental Issues
US environmental history is a relatively new field of study, but of increasing importance. Our two environmental specialists work on wildlife management, animal studies, nuclear protest and concepts of ecological doomsday.

The Study of Race, Ethnicity and Borders
The Centre has a long history of studying race and ethnicity. Currently, six members of the team cover a range of topics that include African-American political, cultural and social history, Native American literature, Latin American relations and immigration writing and politics.

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Members of the Centre for American Studies provide supervision in many aspects of American Studies. Supervision is team-based and reflects the active research interests of the Centre.

About the Centre for American Studies

American Studies at Kent dates back to 1973 and, over the last few decades, has developed a strong research culture; this matches the commitment of the University to interdisciplinary study as well as the mandate of American Studies to explore the American experience in ground-breaking ways.

Our team of scholars maintains close links with a number of North and South American research institutions and archives, and the University’s Templeman Library houses impressive collections on slavery, Native American culture, and photography/visual materials.

We treat the American experience in a critical and reflective manner, and offer an extremely good base for postgraduate study. While able to supervise a wide range of American topics, the Centre currently operates three specialist research clusters of particular interest to candidates:

• The American West
• The Study of US Environmental Issues
• The Study of Race, Ethnicity and Borders.

Visit the website https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/8/american-studies

National ratings

School of English
In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, research by the School of English was ranked 10th for research intensity and 15th for research power in the UK.

An impressive 100% of our research-active staff submitted to the REF and 95% of our research was judged to be of international quality. The School’s environment was judged to be conducive to supporting the development of world-leading research.

School of History
In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, research by the School of History was ranked 8th for research intensity and in the top 20 in the UK for research power.

An impressive 100% of our research-active staff submitted to the REF and 99% of our research was judged to be of international quality. The School’s environment was judged to be conducive to supporting the development of world-leading research.

Study support

Postgraduate resources
American Studies benefits from excellent library resources, and is especially strong in literature, film and history. Specialist collections include slavery and anti-slavery, a large collection of works on photography and contemporary images, and a slide library with well over 100,000 classified slides. The Library also houses the British Cartoon Archive. Kent is within easy reach of London’s major library resources.

Postgraduate students have access to the resources provided by the Centre for American Studies and its related departments. The Centre runs regular research events each year. Other schools and departments such as English, Film, Politics and International Relations, and History also host research seminars that students are welcome to attend.

Dynamic publishing culture
Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. Among others, they have recently contributed to: Journal of American Studies; American Review of Canadian Studies; European Journal of American Culture; and American Indian Quarterly. Details of recently published books can be found within the staff research interests section.

Researcher Development Programme
Kent's Graduate School co-ordinates the Researcher Development Programme (http://www.kent.ac.uk/graduateschool/skills/programmes/tstindex.html) for research students, which includes workshops focused on research, specialist and transferable skills. The programme is mapped to the national Researcher Development Framework and covers a diverse range of topics, including subjectspecific research skills, research management, personal effectiveness, communication skills, networking and teamworking, and career management skills.

Careers

Recent postgraduates now work in media, publishing and a variety of businesses in the UK, Europe and the USA. Teaching is also a popular option, as are marketing and public relations. A Master’s in American Studies gives you an intellectual grounding suitable for graduate work at MPhil or PhD level.

Find out how to apply here - https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/apply/

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Visit our website for more information on fees, scholarships, postgraduate loans and other funding options to study American Studies at Swansea University - 'Welsh University of the Year 2017' (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017).

The MA by Research in American Studies helps to develop an understanding of the forces that have moulded and continue to shape America, and helps us to make sense of our contemporary world. The comparative study of the history and culture of the United States addresses themes such as immigration, democracy, slavery, imperialism, multiculturalism, religion, the economy and, more recently, terrorism. These issues do not just concern the past; they are directly relevant to the world we live in.

MA by Research in American Studies

The MA by Research in American Studies is ideal for those who want:

- an MA qualification in areas where taught programmes are not offered;

- the experience of a research degree without committing to a PhD at the outset.

Research proposals are invited on any topic in American Studies for which staff in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies can provide supervision. It is a good idea to enter into discussions about your research project in American Studies with the Department's Director of Postgraduate Research, Professor Roland Axtmann ([email protected]), before drawing up an initial proposal and starting the application process.

Department of Political and Cultural Studies

The Department of Political and Cultural Studies (PCS) boasts a dynamic research environment with a committed staff all of whom are research-active. Academic members of staff have a very considerable range of research interests on which we offer supervision for research degrees in American Studies.

An MA by Research in American Studies gives you the chance to pursue a major research project based around your own passions and interests in American Studies, leading to a qualification which can open the door to an academic career or boost employment prospects outside academia. It will give you the freedom to explore a topic of your choosing and develop a methodology under the close supervision of two experienced academics but without attending regular classes as required in taught programmes.

Typically as a student of the MA by Research in American Studies programme you will work closely with your supervisors, meeting them regularly, in many instances fortnightly, in the first term and at regular intervals thereafter. Meetings are logged and goals agreed each time.

Students enrolled in the MA by Research American Studies are required to attend skills and training courses at College and University level. You may also be expected to give presentations to other research students and staff at departmental seminars and attend the postgraduate conference of the College of Arts and Humanities which is held in October.

Departmental Research Expertise

At any one time, the department has over forty research students who work together with their supervisors on their projects.

In the area of American Studies, staff have expertise in the American Civil War; US foreign policy; the US ‘War on Drugs’; US politics and government; surveillance and urban America; American conservatism; the Spanish Civil War; American military history; the American West; New South; 20th century American literature, film and popular culture.

Discover more about the Department of Political and Cultural Studies:

http://www.swansea.ac.uk/politics

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What drives US foreign policy? What is its impact on the wider world? This programme allows you to advance your learning on US foreign policy based on Warwick’s concentration of academic expertise in this area.

The course attracts applications from a range of disciplines (e.g. history, sociology, media studies and area studies) and the majority of our MA students will have studied at least one module on the USA in their first degree. You will explore a variety of topics in the core module, including: values and ideas; the dominance of presidential policy-making; the threat and use of US military force; the impact of US foreign economic policy; the significance of US ‘soft-power’; and the effectiveness of US counter-terrorism.

The transferable skills you acquire will equip you for careers in policy analysis, journalism, political advising, law, business or the media. Should you choose to progress to PhD research in this area, you will join a growing community of scholars from Warwick dedicated to the study of the USA and its role in the world.

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This is an innovative and interdisciplinary MA programme, combining taught modules and a dissertation, which allows you to share your year between Canterbury and Paris.

The programme allows you to choose from the full range of our MA literature modules. The list of what’s on offer is regularly added to by academics keen to explore new areas of thinking with students and to draw you in to our established areas of research strength.

Following a similar path to our English and American Literature MA, the Paris option allows you to spend your first term at our Canterbury campus with full access to its excellent academic and recreational facilities. For the spring term you relocate to our Paris centre, studying in a historic corner of Montparnasse - close to the famous Latin Quarter, the Sorbonne University and the glorious Jardin du Luxembourg.

Visit the website https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/223/english-and-american-literature-canterbury-and-paris

About the School of English

The School of English has a strong international reputation and global perspective, apparent both in the background of its staff and in the diversity of our teaching and research interests.

Our expertise ranges from the medieval to the postmodern, including British, American and Irish literature, postcolonial writing, 18th-century studies, Shakespeare, early modern literature and culture, Victorian studies, modern poetry, critical theory and cultural history. The international standing of the School ensures that we have a lively, confident research culture, sustained by a vibrant, ambitious intellectual community. We also count a number of distinguished creative writers among our staff, and we actively explore crossovers between critical and creative writing in all our areas of teaching and research.

The Research Excellence Framework 2014 has produced very strong results for the School of English at Kent. With 74% of our work graded as world-leading or internationally excellent, the School is ranked 10th out of 89 English departments in terms of Research Intensity (Times Higher Education). The School also received an outstanding assessment of the quality of its research environment and public impact work.

Modules

The following modules are indicative of those offered on this programme. This list is based on the current curriculum and may change year to year in response to new curriculum developments and innovation. Most programmes will require you to study a combination of compulsory and optional modules. You may also have the option to take modules from other programmes so that you may customise your programme and explore other subject areas that interest you.

EN818 - American Modernism 1900-1930 (Teaching Period I) (30 credits)
EN832 - Hacks, Dunces and Scribblers: Authorship and the Marketplace in the Eig (30 credits)
EN835 - Dickens, The Victorians and the Body (30 credits)
EN852 - Colonial and Postcolonial Discourses (30 credits)
FR866 - Literature and Theory (30 credits)
EN871 - Origins of Modern Poetry (30 credits)
FR820 - Paris: Reality and Representation (30 credits)

Assessment

Assessment is by a 5-6,000-word essay for each module and a 12,000 word dissertation.

Programme aims

This programme aims to:

- extend and deepen through coursework and research your understanding of a body of literatures in English, with special emphasis on modern and postcolonial literatures, and on literary and critical theory

- enable you to develop an historical awareness of literary traditions

- develop your independent critical thinking and judgement

- introduce you to bibliographic method and scholarship and to foster in you the research methods that facilitate advanced literary study

- provide a basis in knowledge and skills if you intend to teach English and American literature, especially in higher education

- develop your understanding and critical appreciation of the expressive resources of language

- offer opportunities for you to develop your potential for creative writing (where such a module is taken)

- offer scope for the study of literature within an interdisciplinary context, notably that provided by history

- develop your ability to argue a point of view with clarity and cogency, both orally and in written form

- develop your knowledge and understanding of relevant aspects of contemporary Paris and the cultural history of the city as reflected in modern European, English and American literatures and other artistic media.

Research areas

Research in the School of English comes roughly under the following areas. However, there is often a degree of overlap between groups, and individual staff have interests that range more widely.

Eighteenth Century
The particular interests of the Centre for Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century converge around gender, class, nation, travel and empire, and the relationship between print and material culture. Staff in the Centre pursue cutting-edge approaches to the field and share a commitment to interdisciplinary methodologies.

The Centre regularly hosts visiting speakers as part of the School of English research seminar programme, and hosts day symposia, workshops and international conferences.

Nineteenth Century
The 19th-century research group is organised around the successful MA in Dickens and Victorian Culture and the editorship of The Dickensian, the official publication outlet for new Dickens letters. Other staff research interests include literature and gender, journalism, representations of time and history, sublimity and Victorian Poetry.

American Literature
Research in north American literature is conducted partly through the Faculty-based Centre for American Studies, which also facilitates co-operation with modern US historians. Staff research interests include 20th-century American literature, especially poetry, Native American writing, modernism, and cultural history.

Creative Writing
The Centre for Creative Writing is the focus for most practice-based research in the School. Staff organise a thriving events series and run a research seminar for postgraduate students and staff to share ideas about fiction-writing. Established writers regularly come to read and discuss their work.

Medieval and Early Modern
The Faculty-based Canterbury Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies has a distinctive brand of interdisciplinarity, strong links with local archives and archaeological trusts, and provides a vibrant forum for investigating the relationships between literary and non-literary modes of writing in its weekly research seminar.

Modern Poetry
The Centre for Modern Poetry is a leading centre for research and publication in its field, and participates in both critical and creative research. Staff regularly host visiting speakers and writers, participate in national and international research networks, and organise graduate research seminars and public poetry readings.

Postcolonial
Established in 1994, the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Research has acquired an international reputation for excellence in research. It has an outstanding track record in publication, organises frequent international conferences, and regularly hosts leading postcolonial writers and critics. It also hosts a visiting writer from India every year in association with the Charles Wallace Trust.

Careers

Many career paths can benefit from the writing and analytical skills that you develop as a postgraduate student in the School of English. Our students have gone on to work in academia, journalism, broadcasting and media, publishing, writing and teaching; as well as more general areas such as banking, marketing analysis and project management.

Find out how to apply here - https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/apply/

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The United States remains the most powerful nation in the world, in terms of its economic, military and cultural influence. A glance around us will reveal the enduring appeal and enormous popularity of things American.

This degree will offer you an exciting as well as sophisticated programme which will encourage you to reflect critically upon the predominance of the United States over the last century or so in political, cultural, historical and literary terms and contexts. As a result, you will reflect on the unique status of American Studies as a truly inter-disciplinary subject area.

Course detail

This degree offers a tightly integrated programme with a selection of modules that will enrich your research methods and approaches in the American Studies subject-area. Whilst concentrating on the core aspects of American Studies you will be encouraged to pursue your research through avenues of related subjects (History, Literature and Film) forming a holistic, yet inter-disciplinary, approach. The modules offered emphasise a cross-fertilisation of subject areas, promoting an international perspective towards America, such as global concerns and transnational considerations, thus shifting from the original constructs of America, ‘American uniqueness’ and ‘exceptionalism’ (Brian Edwards, Globalising American Studies, 2010).

This programme is, therefore, well-suited to those students who prefer diversity to the narrower focus of a single-subject Master’s degree.

The suite of taught modules have been carefully constructed to take you on a series of journeys - from a discussion of American Studies itself as an approach, and then from the immediate localities, regions and borders of the United States, to the wider national and international settings. This will offer multi-perspective interpretations of the United States, internally, with its neighbours and with the rest of the world.

You will engage in an inter-connected sequence of debates which will lead you to a greater understanding of the complexity of the United States as a cultural construct as well as a geographical and political entity.

Format

American Studies has a historical, literary, cultural and evidence-based approach which requires wide, critical reading and intelligent synthesis of ideas and information. It requires you to construct arguments in writing. You will receive critical and constructive comments on your progress as an integral part of teaching and learning, through individual meetings with tutors, feedback on written work or specific coursework tutorials.

We place importance on presentations so, as a transferable skill, you will present seminar papers extensively throughout the course of your modules. These will be used as a basis for feedback and will then feed into your written work. These exercises will develop your critical abilities as well as widen your familiarity with, and confidence in handling, a range of sources, preparing you for the modules’ summative assessment stage, and the final dissertation.

This programme places a strong emphasis on the development of independent research and writing. The programme’s assessment strategies are designed to develop independent research skills; the ability to structure and write a sophisticated critical essay and longer academic monographs, and the opportunity to pursue your own intellectual interests within each module’s thematic scope.

How to apply

For information on how to apply, please see the following link:
https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/how-to-apply/

Other sources of funding

Information on alternative sources of funding can be found here:
https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/student-services/money/funding-my-course/postgraduate-/postgraduate-funding-/

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The MA by Research in American Studies gives you an opportunity to develop your research interests in the history, politics, literature and/or culture of the United States in a supportive environment, with the guidance of a supervisor who is an expert in their field. At CCCU, we have a small team of experienced American Studies MA by Research supervisors who are committed to supporting research students to reach their potential.

Visit the website: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/study-here/courses/postgraduate/american-studies-by-research.aspx

Course detail

You will study your own research area under the guidance of an experienced supervisor in your field. We recommend that you contact potential supervisors when you are developing your research proposal so that we can advise you on the feasibility of your project and provide support and guidance through the application process.

Suitability

The programme is aimed at both recent graduates and returners to education who are passionate about a research area related to the United States. If you enjoyed researching and writing your undergraduate dissertation, have a desire to expand your knowledge of a US topic that has sparked your interest, or you want to pursue an established interest through a formal degree, then an MA by Research in American Studies may be for you.

Students who complete an MA by Research often go on to MPhil or PhD study in American Studies or a related discipline, such as History, Political Science, or English Literature.

Format

The emphasis of this programme is on independent research. That said, you will have regular meetings with your supervisor, and you will have the opportunity to attend sessions with the Graduate School’s Researcher Development Programme.

All supervisory teams will include access to an experienced supervisor. For information on our supervisors’ fields of interest, please see our staff profiles: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-and-humanities/school-of-humanities/american-studies/our-team.aspx

You will also be invited to attend the regular American Studies Research Seminar—a guest speaker programme—which will allow you to network with academics in the field, and hear about some of the cutting edge research taking place in American Studies both in the UK and Internationally.

Assessment

The MA by Research is awarded by dissertation.

Supervised by a panel of experienced researchers, you'll meet regularly with your first supervisor and present your work in progress to the full panel halfway through your registration period. Following advice from this Review meeting you'll complete the writing up of your 25-30,000 word dissertation.

What can I do next?

On this programme you will gain research, written communication, time-management, and independent study skills that are invaluable to a range of careers.

You could also continue to further study, such as an MPhil or PhD.

How to apply

For information on how to apply, please follow this link: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/study-here/how-to-apply/how-to-apply.aspx

Funding

-Masters Loans-

From 2016/17 government loans of up to £10,000 are available for postgraduate Masters study. The loans will be paid directly to students by the Student Loans Company and will be subject to both personal and course eligibility criteria.

For more information available here: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/study-here/funding-your-degree/funding-your-postgraduate-degree.aspx

-2017/18 Entry Financial Support-

Information on alternative funding sources is available here: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/study-here/funding-your-degree/2017-18-entry-financial-support.aspx

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