Nineteenth Century Literature and Culture – (M.A.)

Contents

Programme Structure

The MA comprises five modules:

* Nineteenth-Century Literature: The Canon and Beyond
* Nineteenth-Century Culture
* Special Option
* Research Methods
* Dissertation

Nineteenth-Century Literature: The Canon and Beyond focuses on works by both the famous and the more obscure, examining the ways in which authors, whether celebrated or marginalised, interacted with and shaped their culture - and our own. The module offers the opportunity to re-examine writers who may be familiar (such as Scott, Austen, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, the Brontës, Dickens, Tennyson, Eliot, Hardy, James, Wilde), as well as to discover those who are perhaps not so well-known (such as James Clarence Mangan, Sydney Morgan, Frederick Douglass, Edward FitzGerald, Charlotte Smith, Isabella Beeton, Harriet Martineau, Felicia Hemans, Letitia Landon, John Clare, Marie Corelli, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, H Rider Haggard, Olive Schreiner, Michael Field, Jane Francesca Wilde).

Nineteenth-Century Culture will run alongside Nineteenth-Century Literature: The Canon and Beyond, complementing it by examining key events and cultural preoccupations in social history, empire, war, theology, philosophy, science, technology, art, and politics, immersing students in the atmosphere and debates of the period. Chester is ideally situated for visits to a wide range of locations, museums and galleries rich in nineteenth-century associations and artefacts, such as Dove Cottage and Brantwood in the Lake District, the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth, the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight, the Walker Gallery and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, the Imperial War Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

The SpecialOption Module offers students the opportunity to study in more detail an aspect of nineteenth-century literature and culture. Options may focus on, for example, the City, Orientalism, Women Writers, Revolution, Sensationalism, Irish or American literature, film and television adaptations, or the works of a specific author.

The Research Methods module is designed to prepare students for the Dissertation, and will include seminars and lectures on research methodology, the use of nineteenth-century source materials, periodicals, and archives. There will also be workshops in which students will present and discuss the initial research findings they will subsequently develop in the Dissertation.

The Dissertation allows students to pursue their own particular interest in the literature and culture of the period. Students will devise their dissertation proposal during the Research Methods module, and will then work under the guidance of a supervisor, who will provide advice and support in one-to-one tutorials.

Assessment

Each module is assessed by coursework, which may include essays, dissertations, research portfolios and seminar presentations. There are no formal examinations.