English and American Studies – (M.A.)

This is a flexible, interdisciplinary course – offered jointly by the Schools of American and Canadian Studies, and English Studies – this gives you the opportunity to undertake research into specific aspects of 19th- and 20th- century English and American literature and culture.

In the wake of “the American Century”, this is an exciting moment to be studying North America. To what extent will the US be forced to renegotiate political, financial and cultural relationships long characterised by dominance? How should the Obama Presidency be understood within the history of race relations and the struggle for civil rights? How will cultural responses to changing political, media, and built environments work within and against established forms and traditions? The American Studies MA Programme is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary course, which enables you to focus on the study of the history, literature, politics, film and culture of the United States, as well as the literature, culture and society of Canada.

The English Studies programme blends compulsory elements, which extend and develop research skills and explore research issues such as the nature of archival study, genre and textuality, the relationship between print and manuscript, and questions of cultural and political context, with an optional element that enables period-specific specialisation. Authors and areas to be studied on these period-specific modules may include: early modern drama, including Shakespeare and Jonson; John Donne, John Milton, Katherine Phillips and 17th century poetry; Daniel Defoe, Jane Austen and the novel; Lord Byron and Romantic poetry; Oscar Wilde and Victorian and fin-de-siecle literature; James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Modernism; DH Lawrence and regional literature; and a range of contemporary poets and novelists, such as Ian McEwan, Paul Muldoon, Alice Oswald, and Derek Walcott.

Recent international events have generated renewed interest in the special relationship between Britain and North America, thus making it the ideal time to study the political, cultural and intellectual inter-relationships between these countries.

In the first semester students take one core module in English studies and one in American studies. Maintaining this balance, students then pick a second semester option from each School. Recent American literature courses include American Enlightenment/American Gothic; New York, New York; Fictions of America; Queer Agency in North American Writing; Representing the South: Literature, Film and History; Border-Crossing Literature, Film and Television and Herman Melville. English Studies options include Modernism: Inside and Outside; Literature in Britain Since 1950; and Popular Literature in the Late 18th and 19th Centuries.