Our English MA gives you flexibility or the opportunity to specialise. The Dissertation is the only compulsory module. After that, you can choose to focus on other modules in English, unrestricted to a particular time period or genre. Alternatively, you can combine English with electives from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and the interdisciplinary Transformative Humanities framework. For example, you might be able to choose modules linked to Medical, Digital, or Environmental Humanities, or pick something from Theology or Visual Culture.

Most modules are taught in seminar groups, with around 20 hours of contact time over the academic year. Given the emphasis on research-led work, you will be expected to do a considerable amount of preparation for the seminars including short presentations and workshop-related activity.

As an MA student you will be allocated a dedicated Academic Advisor. Your Advisor will be able to help you settle into postgraduate study and answer questions about academic practice, such as essay writing. If you want to progress to a PhD, your Advisor can steer you through applications, writing proposals, and references. You will also have access to central University support services, such as the Academic Skills Centre.

Over the first two terms you will develop your ideas towards your dissertation. A series of workshops will introduce you to key research skills, such as planning a longer project, working with archives and sources, and digital tools and methodologies. As well as preparing you for your MA dissertation, these workshops provide invaluable training for further PhD study and develop a range of highly transferable skills in analysis, writing, and information management relevant to onward careers. You will refine your dissertation plans with an initial proposal on which you will receive feedback, before you move into formal supervision and the project proper.

Your dissertation is your opportunity to write 12, 000 words on your specialist area, which could be based on a theme, genre or period. You will be assigned a supervisor who will guide you through your project, which you will work on intensively after other module teaching has finished. If you did a dissertation at undergraduate level, you possibly wrote this concurrently with your other work; in the MA, your dissertation will become your sole focus, enabling you to produce deep and detailed research. You will ordinarily submit the Dissertation in September, so you will likely be working on it for a longer period than at undergraduate level.