English Literary Studies MA

Why Lancaster?

  • Develop your own critical voice with support from widely published scholars and critics.
  • Be inspired by our rich programme of literary events on campus, online, and in the city’s historic Castle Quarter
  • Study on campus in the University Library’s bespoke Postgraduate Study Space, or in the Castle Quarter within the University’s Postgraduate Study Hub at The Storey, the city’s Victorian-build arts venue.
  • Get involved with our four student-run literary journals: Cake, Lux, Flash, and Errant
  • Present your work at the Department’s Master's Literary Studies Conference, usually held in the impressive surroundings of the Castle.
  • Enjoy the benefits of our partnership with the archive-rich Wordsworth Grasmere, including internship opportunities

Offering options ranging from the medieval to the present day; this degree allows you to curate your study according to your own interests, thus charting your own course through literary studies and create your own programme.

Acts of reading

Literary studies at Lancaster means not only a deep and close engagement with literature itself but the opportunity, if you wish, to explore how literature opens onto many other worlds – politics, ecology, philosophy, psychology, theology, film, and fashion, etc. To support this, you can if you wish take one a module from outside of the Department -- in, say, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Politics, Sociology or Film Studies (subject to availability).

Literary study here also entails the conviction that reading is not passive but active, something which acts upon both the texts that we read and the world in which we live. Neither those texts nor the world are left the same as they were before. This means that as well as encouraging and nurturing all kinds of established forms of literary scholarship, such as archival work, historicism, close reading, and literary theory, we also welcome experimental or creative forms of literary criticism.

Supportive community

You will be taught in weekly small-group seminars, and have regular one-to-one tutorials with a supervisor when working on your Dissertation, a long-form project exploring a topic of your own choosing – this could be a traditional scholarly work, or creative-critical, or indeed a study of how literature works in the world(s) outside the university.

We also encourage you to meet in person with all your tutors to discuss your work. And you will have an academic advisor who you meet to review your progress.

Many of our special literary events, such as talks from visiting scholars and authors, take place in the Castle Quarter, with the Department’s October Lecture and May Gathering being usually held at Lancaster’s ancient Priory. In addition, we have a unique partnership with the archive-rich Wordsworth Museum at Grasmere, which includes internships, an annual study retreat day, and free entry at any time of the year.

Department Bursaries and Prizes

Thanks to a generous endowment, the Department is able to offer

  • The Bailrigg Awards – these are awards of up to £150 and are open to any student in the Department who is suffering financial hardship endowment.
  • Three end-of-programme prizes for students on this MA .
MA Award
Full-time, Part-time Study Mode
1 - 2 years Duration

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