The MA in Modern Literary Cultures offers you the chance to explore the representation of different cultural themes across a diverse range of texts and historical periods. In 2010-11 you will have the chance to explore debates about desire and sexuality in the 1890s, questions of class identity in twentieth-century literature and film, and vampire narratives from the Nineteenth Century to the present day.

Download the brochure: MA English Literature

New Modules for 2010-2011

 

Dandies, Decadents and New Women: Fin de siècle Literary Culture 1880-1900

This module offers an in-depth study of literature of the end of the nineteenth century through a close examination of a range of texts - novels, plays, poetry, art, non-fictional prose – produced on the cusp of the modern age. It explores how these texts engage with, and reflect upon, an astonishing array of beliefs and obsessions: the emergence of the `New Woman’; fears of the dark spaces of the city (most famously played out in the `Jack the Ripper’ case); developments in psychology; new thinking on desire and sexuality; imperialism and Empire; `decadence’; degeneration; the emergence of a new `celebrity’ culture and the shock of the `new’. In seminars we will interrogate various strands of this highly-volatile period and examine the relations between the primary texts and the social and cultural contexts out of which they emerge. Authors for consideration will include such (in)famous and controversial figures as Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Guy de Maupassant, 'Michael Field', Henrik Ibsen, Charlotte Mew and Marie Corelli. The module is intended to give you a good grounding for further study of this period.

 

Reading the Vampire: Science, Sexuality, and Alterity in Modern Culture

This module investigates vampire narratives in literature from early vampire stories such J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s lesbian vampire tale Carmilla and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the most famous vampire narrative of all, to the twentieth-century vampire chronicles of Anne Rice and the romantic blockbusters of Stephanie Meyer. Since their animation out of folk materials in the nineteenth century, vampires have been continually reborn in modern culture. They have enacted a host of anxieties and desires, shifting shape as the culture they are brought to life in itself changes form. Reading the Vampire embeds vampires in their cultural contexts, exploring their relationship to modernity; the influence of key thinkers such as Darwin, Marx, and Freud will be addressed, together with issues of gender, national identity, technology, consumption, and social change. The module will provide a forum for the development of innovative research and examine these creatures in all their various manifestations and cultural meanings.

 

Sex, Class and Violence: Studies in Literature and Film

The module explores the ways in which the British working classes are represented in literature, film and television during the twentieth century. We will concentrate upon questions of class-identity, considering how this idea has been theorised and how this allows us to understand the class position of the writer, the class position of the reader, and the ideological positions relating to the text. We will explore the ways that the cultural representation of the working classes changes during the twentieth century and consider how this reflects the changing structural relations in British society. We will also consider the way that cultural representations of the working classes inform and shape wider political debates about a range of social questions. Finally we will consider the relationship between working-class writing and the literary canon, and ask whether it is possible to talk about a tradition of writing by, or about, the working class? 

 

Entry requirements

We require at least an upper second class honours (or equivalent) degree with a significant element (at least 50%) of Literature. Graduates with an Honours Degree in any discipline who have other wise demonstrated potential to succeed at postgraduate level in Literature will also be considered. IELTS requirement - 6.5.

Study routes

• Part-time 2 years
• Full-time 1 year

Location(s)

• de Havilland campus