University of York

University of York

Master of Arts in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture

The Master of Arts in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture in Language and Culture Studies is offered by University of York.

Program Length: 1 YEAR.

Master of Arts in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture offered by the University of York

Explore key issues central to modernity through literature


The MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture offers you an intensive and exciting survey of the literary culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. 

You’ll be introduced to key authors, texts, ideas and critical methods from the period, and construct a distinct, individually chosen programme of study from a wide range of options. You’ll develop your research skills and apply these to a substantial piece of independent research.

Taught and supervised by world-leading scholars in one of the UK’s largest research centres in modern English, you’ll gain a foundation for doctoral research in modern literature, as well as transferable skills for related careers in teaching, publishing, arts management and journalism.

You’ll engage with the wider research culture of the Department of English and the Centre for Modern Studies, and there will be a diverse schedule of seminars, conferences and reading groups for you to attend. You’ll also be part of the Humanities Research Centre, a vibrant interdisciplinary hub which will enable you to form close social and intellectual bonds over the course of your study.

You'll study the development of ‘modernity’ in association with particular genres and writers, and assess the importance of political movements and new identities to modern writing. You'll investigate the cultural meanings and associations of important developments in literary technique in the 20th century. You'll develop an understanding of the interplay of modern writing with a range of cultural issues, and learn some of the ways in which modern historical and technological development affected notions of writing.

You'll study one core module (20 credits) and choose three modules (20 credits each) from a range of options offered by the Department of English and Related Literature and other arts and humanities departments. You'll study two short research skills training modules (10 credits each), and complete a research dissertation (80 credits). The total number of credits for the course is 180.

Modules
The core module addresses some of the major literary trends and cultural debates of modern and contemporary times. You'll consider the different ways that ‘modernity’ has been understood, focussing on the multiple art-forms and theories of art that this understanding yielded. You'll examine a broad swathe of writers, genres and intellectual disciplines. Typical subtopics include modernist difficulty, utopian fiction, confessional poetry, race and modernity, and neoliberalism. Typical authors studied include James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T S Eliot, Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein, Aldous Huxley, Samuel Beckett, Ralph Ellison, John Berryman, Paul Muldoon, and Zadie Smith. On the Postgraduate Life in Practice module, you'll learn valuable skills in research, writing, reflection, presentation, publishing and career development.

Core modules 
Reading Modernity (20 credits)
Postgraduate Life in Practice I (10 credits)
Postgraduate Life in Practice II (10 credits)

Option modules
Bad Feelings: Negative Affect in Contemporary Literature (20 credits)
Narrative, Fiction, Theory (20 credits)
Modern Theatre and the Political Imagination (20 credits)
Sugar, subjectivity, sexuality and style: The fiction of Elizabeth Bowen (20 credits)
There are also a wide range of further option modules offered across all the Department's MA programmes which are available to you.

You may also choose available modules from other arts and humanities departments.



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