English (MA) [full-time/part-time]

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Course Overview

Scholarships are available for this programme.

The MA in English is ideal for students who wish to build on the foundations of their undergraduate degrees by pursuing more advanced studies in English at postgraduate level, yet who also wish to retain the intellectual breadth of addressing a variety of literature, past and present. This MA offers an intensive specialist training in the study of literary texts and theories, and students explore sources as diverse as vellum manuscripts, serialised novels, contemporary bestsellers, digital texts or films.

The MA in English has two main strands: the taught classes (from a wide selection of modules) and the independent research project (the dissertation). This two-fold dimension enables students to develop their knowledge and skill with the guidance of lecturers in the taught coursework and to develop a substantial autonomous research and writing project.

English at NUI Galway has a number of particular research strengths in areas such as Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Book History, Theatre History, and Colonialism and Travel Writing. The MA in English allows students to take advantage of these and other areas while also pursuing their own topics of individual interest.

Key Facts

Entry Requirements

Additional Requirements

Course Outline

Students take one core taught module (Writing and Research). In this module students study some indispensable works of literary theory and criticism, develop their critical thinking and refine their skills in writing, research methods and the use of libraries and other scholarly resources. Students learn how to design, revise and carry out a credible dissertation plan. Students choose a further five elective taught modules from a wide range of options in the areas of literature (e.g., Shakespeare, Old and Middle English, American literature, Dickens, travel literature), literary theory (e.g., narratology) and cultural and social theory as well as in the cognate areas of film studies, drama, Irish studies, digital humanities and journalism (e.g., textual studies, book history, colonialism, film theory, Beckett, Wilde, digital film, Irish modernity). The coursework takes place during term, and work on the dissertation spans the second semester for full-time students, or fourth semester for part-time students, and the summer after coursework has been concluded. The dissertation is 15,000 words long and is submitted in early August.

Modules potentially on offer each year include ones on Book History, Literature & Colonialism, Introduction to Digital Humanities, Cinema & Politics, Textual Studies, Medieval Aesthetics and Poetic Art, Thinking About Theatre, Young Ireland to the Free State: Writing in English 1849–1922, Critical Approaches, Representations of the Book in Literature and Film, Early Modern Print and Manuscript Cultures, Approaches to Culture & Colonialism, Travel Literature, Aspects of Old and Middle English Literature, Irish Drama and Theatre, The Nineteenth-Century Century Literary Marketplace, Nineteenth Century Periodicals and Serial Fiction, and Literature of North America, among others.

Module details for full-time course

Module details for part-time course

Curriculum Information

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Course Fees

Fees: EU

Fees: Tuition

Fees: Student levy

Fees: Non EU

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