English Literature and Culture

This MA English Literature and Culture gives you the chance to study the literature, culture and theory of modernity from the nineteenth century to the present day, so that you are exposed to a rich background of cultural study on this period. You will encounter a compelling assortment of texts, objects and images, and engage with a wide range of contexts, themes and ideas on a degree course taught by world-leading academic researchers.

Why choose this course?

- You will be taught by active researchers in the literatures and cultures of the Romantic, Victorian, modern and contemporary periods who bring their different specialisms, ideas and insights to this course.

- It is ideal if you want to pursue your passion in this subject area, advance your career in the cultural industries, or more generally improve your writing and research skills.

- It benefits from guest lectures from visiting writers and critics, and a close connection with Birkbeck's research centres and institutes.

What you will learn

This course introduces you to some of the most significant debates, ideas and events that have shaped the concept of modernity from 1800 to the present. It addresses a range of themes including: the impact of the industrial revolution, debates about the changing role of women, the rise and fall of colonialism across a long arc of history, concepts of the Anthropocene, trauma theory, postmodernism and posthumanism.

You will explore how we read, interpret and interrogate our concept of what it means to be ‘modern’ working with literature and many other cultural forms including painting, book illustration, film and other visual media, critical theory, philosophy and digital materials.

How you will learn

This MA English Literature and Culture offers you a supportive and flexible learning environment. You can choose to study this course full- or part-time, and on campus or online. It has an evening timetable with classes taking place in the evening.

You will be taught via a combination of lectures and seminars and one-to-one supervision for your dissertation, which is supported by a dedicated dissertation skills course that runs in the summer term.

This course is part of our new Birkbeck Flexible Master’s UK, which gives you the choice of how you want to study - on campus, online or via flexible learning, which combines both.

Highlights

- Birkbeck was ranked 2nd in the UK for its English Language and Literature research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

- We are at the heart of literary London, in Bloomsbury, WC1 and at the geographical centre of London’s research library complex. Senate House Library has an outstanding collection of literary periodicals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while the nearby University College London Library also has an important James Joyce archive. The Poetry Library at London’s South Bank Centre is rich in twentieth-century poetry.

- Birkbeck is active in the arena of literature and culture. We host the internationally acclaimed Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies and the Centre for New Writing, which regularly features visiting poets, writers and publishing professionals.

- We offer a number of bursaries for postgraduate students.

Careers and employability

On graduating successfully from this MA you will have gained an array of important transferable skills, including:

- postgraduate-level training in writing research-based essays

- an advanced critical ability to examine cultural objects in their formal, historical and theoretical contexts

- the ability to use world-leading research libraries and archives.

You will find graduates following career paths in:

- journalism

- professional writing

- arts administration/research

- civil service

- law and business professions

- publishing roles

- teaching in schools or as lecturers in further and higher education

- museum and cultural heritage work

- curation.