To provide students with the opportunity to develop an in-depth knowledge and understanding of English Literary Studies, enabling students to pursue specialised fields of study or to choose a flexible arrangement of topics which bypass traditional period or national boundaries.
English - Literary Studies highlights
Student Experience
The MA in English Literary Studies offers a number of special features. Some modules engage with art and culture through field work, while other modules use connections to the History subject area and to the archives in Armagh, Belfast and Trinity College Dublin.
Further Study Opportunities
Students and staff across the degree also take part in a number of discussion groups, workshops and conferences both within and outside the University. There is the opportunity to organise and/or participate in the School's annual PG conference ('Common Ground') and weekly research seminars.
Internationally Renowned Experts
You will be taught by staff with interests that range across the English subject area and who have research profiles of international standing.
Student Testimonials
"I applied for the masters in literary studies as I wished to expand on the research skills I had developed at undergraduate level. Literary studies provided me with both the opportunities to expand my investigative skills through tailored research-centred seminars and refine my area of interest through specialised modules. The modules on offer are fascinatingly diverse, covering literatures from Anglo-Saxon verse to 21st century Indian prose, and the teaching staff delivering seminars are world-class. Thanks to support and guidance from my lecturers, I gained the confidence and skills needed to pursue doctoral study, and I look forward to returning to Queen’s this autumn.”
Jasmine McCrory
"Studying the MA in English Literary Studies was an easy decision after a fantastic experience as an English undergraduate at Queen’s. I have always wanted to pursue an academic career and the enthusiastic and supportive English staff gave me the confidence to do so. The opportunities for independent research at MA level are invaluable; the Literary Research Methods module in particular is incredibly rewarding. It allowed me to engage with a variety of challenging theoretical paradigms which paved the way for many exciting class debates as well as equipping me with the skills to undertake further research at PhD level.”
Michelle McLaughlin
"Having studied at Queen's as an undergraduate, the decision to do an MA here in the School of English was an easy one to make! Specialising in Renaissance Literature, the opportunity to incorporate other modules from a wide range on offer was fantastic and made for a more exciting and diverse degree."
Students may enrol on a full-time or part-time basis. Full-time students take three modules per semester. Part-time students typically take one or two modules per semester.
Introduction
The PgDip in English Literary Studies offers a flexible system in which students can choose either specific topics to create a focused programme of study or widely diverse areas of literary study, according to their own preferences. The School's literary studies staff comprise the largest group within the School of Arts, English and Languages and are thus able to teach a broad range of material: modules span the earliest writings in English (studied in their own historical and cultural contexts but also in relation to new digital cultures), to contemporary American literature and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (incorporating literature and other aspects of culture, such as television and graphic arts). Other strengths of the School's expertise include Renaissance literature (particularly women's writing, the history of the child, and Shakespeare and World Cinema), eighteenth-century literature (women's writing, slavery and abolition, and Indian literatures in English) and nineteenth and twentieth-century literature (with specialisms including the fiction of Dickens, the fin de siècle and modernism).
All students on the programme take a subject-specific Literary Research Methods module that addresses the issues, challenges and research questions raised by advanced study in the subject. Students also select from a wide range of optional modules, permitting either specialism or diversity in the choice of study, from the earliest writings in English to the contemporary. Most modules are on offer annually, but there can be variation year to year subject to staff availability
Arts, English and Languages Email: j.livingstone@qub.ac.uk
The programme is taught by members of staff from across the English subject area. A full list of staff can be accessed here:
https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/ael/Connect/KEYSCHOOLCONTACTS/#as-english
Teaching Times
Mondays-Fridays. May also include study-skill days and field-trips to archives.
Learning and Teaching
Learning opportunities associated with this course are outlined below:
Additional Teaching Information
Mondays-Fridays. May also include study-skill days and field-trips to archives.
Teaching Times
Morning/Afternoon
Assessment
Assessments associated with this course are outlined below:
Essays, practical exercises and seminar presentations.
The information below is intended as an example only, featuring module details for the current year of study (2024/25). Modules are reviewed on an annual basis and may be subject to future changes – revised details will be published through Programme Specifications ahead of each academic year.
This module introduces students to the advanced methods and skills required in postgraduate studies of literature. It is taught through a course of lectures and/or workshops which will address key research questions and paradigms in literary studies, including manuscript and print traditions, textual criticism, methodologies and evidence in literary scholarship. Students will apply these methods and debates to particular case studies within literature.
Learning Outcomes
On completing the module, students will be able to demonstrate a clear grasp of key issues in literary studies including the theory and practical implications of literary editing, literary terminology and the history of the book. They will be able to retrieve information about resources, methods and skills necessary to their chosen specialised field of postgraduate studies in English and identify their own needs in terms of the pursuit of advance literary research.
Skills
This module will develop skills in:
Written and oral communication and presentation
Advanced application of theories and methodologies
Students will also develop skills which will be important for further research, including tracing source material through internet retrieval.
“World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural” (Louis MacNeice, from ‘Snow’).
With a nod to local contexts (Louis MacNeice in particular) and building on the diverse range of experiences of the student cohort, especially after their study abroad or placement, this module emphasises pluralism as a guiding principle of academic debate and social engagement. Co-requisite with the Liberal Arts dissertation module (LIB7002) this module concludes with a mini-conference or showcase event at which the students each present an aspect of their Liberal Arts experience or their dissertation topic.
Among the issues the students will examine will include the importance of diversity, disciplinary flexibility, vocational training; the interplay of research and teaching at the tertiary level, the role of the University, and the necessity of arts and humanities subjects in forming, knowing and reforming our world.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module student will:
(i) have an in-depth awareness of issues of plurality and diversity within the arts and humanities;
(ii) be able to contextualise their studies to date within a pedagogical framework defined by and dedicated to plurality;
(iii) understand how their learning to date, and their semester/year abroad, combine in diverse and multiple ways;
(iv) provide peer support and constructive feedback through group work and the concluding mini-conference;
(v) recognise and demonstrate the relations between cognate disciplines in the arts and humanities and their contribution to diversity in society.
Skills
(i) enhanced group and teamwork skills based on open and supportive communication and the ability to provide constructive peer feedback;
(ii) oral and presentational skills;
(iii) flexibility of thinking across disciplines and the ability to move between theoretical and practical applications of the module content;
(iv) ability to self-reflect on the learning process;
(v) demonstrable understanding of the relation between a student’s degree pathway and the concerns of the module and the Liberal Arts programme more broadly;
(vi) advanced ability to construct and present an appropriate and relevant case study.
This module will introduce students to Romantic-era print and magazine culture associated with the development of the mass media of the period which embodied emerging notions of nation, empire, identity, and the natural world. The polarized nature of public discourse in the wake of the revolutionary debates of the 1790s ushered in an exponential growth in the number of periodicals catering to the divergent kinds of readership formed in the period. Squibs, cartoons, news, reviews, poetry, short fiction, life writings – were often to be found within the covers of a single issue of a magazine – and could be seen as part of coherent publishing venture representing the voice of the journal/ editor/ publisher encompassing that of the canonically determined author. Periodical texts, largely dismissed as ephemeral in the literary canon, derived their significance from their proximate relationship to other works appearing alongside them even as they tilted at rival and opposed publications. Consequently, we will attempt to read these works in relation to the periodical culture of the period responding to events and arguments engendered by the ongoing war with France until 1815, calls for reform, issues of gender and class, the Irish question, and the growth of empire amongst other newsworthy topics. Four areas of critical focus for the module will be: the revolution controversy viewed through the medium of reviews; the formation of new periodicals and readerships; personality, anonymity, and pseudonymity in the magazines; the expression of new identities representing the otherness of nationality, gender, class, race and ethnicity during the period; and finally, scientific, environmental and natural history perspectives in the journals. The bulk of primary materials will be drawn from major databases particularly British Periodicals, British Library Newspapers, Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO) and Nineteenth-Century Collections Online (NCCO) all available via the McClay library, and these will be supplemented by modern editions and anthologies of selected authors who wrote for periodical press. An exemplary list of authors we may study on the module includes writers such as William Cobbett, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More, William Hazlitt, Thomas De Quincey, Charles Lamb, Felicia Hemans, and Sydney Owenson (among others) though many of the texts we will read remain anonymous/ unattributed to this day. Exemplary journals and newspapers of the period include the Edinburgh Review, Blackwood’s Magazine, Quarterly Review, Westminster Review, London Magazine, Two-Penny Trash, The Black Dwarf, the Morning Post, and the Times alongside many lesser-known titles.
Learning Outcomes
This module will introduce students to the media culture of Romantic-era periodicals. They will learn to use major databases that have been revolutionizing research in the field. They will engage with a diverse range of topics, writers and texts as detailed in the contents.
Skills
This module will develop the following skills:
- ability to engage in complex forms of literary and cultural analysis
- the ability to search, read and critically examine periodical works
- digital skills required to work with databases
- the ability to work closely with peers and the tutor in a structured learning environment
- oral engagement through discussion and class presentation
- formal written presentation of individual research work in the area
This course offers students instruction in reading literary texts in historical contexts. Students can choose from a range of strands and historical periods to suit their individual interests. Within these periods they will be taught how to read literary texts in close relation to the cultures in which they are produced. Issues covered will include the complexity of context; the changing nature of historicist paradigms; the ethics of historical reading; the various documentary sources that can be read alongside literary works; the relationship between context and literary form.
Learning Outcomes
Having completed this module, students will have developed an appropriate knowledge and understanding of historicist literary practice. They will be able to read a variety of texts from a particular historical period in relation to their context. Students will be able to understand the ethical and political pitfalls and practices of historical reading, and will be introduced to secondary criticism that examines these issues. They will also develop the skills to read these texts with an eye to their formal complexity, and to think about how that complexity might work with, and against, historicist reading, Students will be introduced to a number of digital resources that will encourage their independent research in the historical period they choose to study.
Skills
Having completed this module students will be able to:
• Analyse literature in both a historical and critical context.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the complex relationship between formal development and social transformations.
• Understand the ethical and political challenges facing historicist criticism
• Develop independent research topics with assistance from module staff
• Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of critical thinking, group discussion, written communication, and individual academic research.
• Demonstrate advanced research skills, in particular the use of digital platforms to explore the past.
Children and childhood are important thematic concerns of Shakespeare’s plays and these plays have been adapted for children in diverse ways throughout history. This module will explore these longstanding connections between Shakespeare and childhood. It will consider a range of Shakespearean plays (including Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, Richard III, King John, The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, The Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, As You Like It) and themes (including sovereignty, disruption, authority, violence, storytelling, temporality) via a focus on childhood and the related topics of boyhood, girlhood, youth and age. It will conclude by looking at appropriations of Shakespeare for, by and foregrounding children from the nineteenth century to the present day, including illustrated children’s books, young adult fiction and film.
Learning Outcomes
Students taking this module will increase their knowledge of Shakespeare’s texts, contexts and appropriations. They will be able to engage with questions of Shakespeare and ‘value’ in relation to cultures of childhood at significant historical junctures. They will also gain knowledge of the history of childhood and of key issues in theoretical approaches to this topic.
Skills
This module will refine students’ skills in analysing texts within various cultural contexts and will improve their written and oral communication skills. Students will develop skills in identifying topics for further research and in planning and completing an independent research project.
This module will provide students with a comprehensive introduction to Decadence, a literary movement that flourished in the late nineteenth century in France and Britain, and was a vital influence on the development of twentieth century literature. Decadent literature emerged as a challenge to conventional morality and literary value; conservative commentators bemoaned what they perceived to be the decadence of their contemporary culture. Decadent writers embraced this pejorative label, developing art that revelled in decay, the grotesque, the morbid, the erotic, the artificial, the excessive. Beginning with the French Decadence of the Second Empire and moving through into British aestheticism, classic writers of the fin de siècle like Wilde, the adoption of decadent tropes in popular fiction, the emergence of modernism, and the development of American Decadence in the Jazz-Age this module will introduce students to a range of both canonical and forgotten texts. Students will cover Decadence in its myriad forms, from essays to short stories, novels, plays, short poems, and periodicals. Student should expect to explore such issues as: the linguistic idea of decadence; Hellenism; impressionist and symbolist poetry; Decadent Gothic; Decadence and Philosophy; Decadent periodicals; Decadence in America; Decadence and Science; Decadent temporality; The New Woman; Camp Decadence; deviant sexualities; Decadence and Modernism.
Learning Outcomes
By the completion of this module students should be able to:
*understand the concept of ‘decadence’ in broad historical and philosophical terms
*identify the components of literary Decadence as they pertain to British, American, and French literature from 1860-1940
*analyse stylistic feature of Decadent literature
*apply a range of methodological frameworks to Decadent literature
*develop sophisticated, independent research practices.
Skills
• Analyse Decadent literature in both a historical and critical context.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the complex relationship between formal literary innovation and social transformations.
• Examine the relationship between elite cultural forms and popular genre fiction (Gothic, Science Fiction).
• Explore how literary texts challenged, and conformed to, dominant understandings of race, gender, and class.
• Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of critical thinking, group discussion, written communication, and individual academic research.
This is a Special Topic module offered by a visiting Fulbright Distinguished Scholar. The contents of the module, which will change on an annual basis, depending on the academic area of expertise of the Visiting Scholar, will examine an aspect of modern Irish literature. The specific module content will be announced as early as possible each academic year. Students who sign up for this module will, as normal, have the right to switch to another module if the content does not suit their academic plans.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students will achieve a detailed and complex understanding of an aspect of modern Irish Literature in English. Students will also acquire the ability to analyse a range of Irish literary texts, and further their understanding of appropriate historical and cultural contexts and particular critical approaches. Students will also be able to identify and analyse significant aspects of Irish literary texts and will have developed their skills in written and spoken argument with ability to draw on appropriate primary and secondary evidence.
Skills
Students will acquire and / or develop the skills of:
• close critical reading of primary material;
• the synthesis and weighing of different, sometimes competing, interpretations of literary texts;
• contextualisation of primary texts in relation to a range of historical and cultural narratives.
A Space for Radical Openness? Writing the Margins in Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature
Overview
In her essay “Choosing the Margin as a space of Radical Openness”, bell hooks argues that the margin is, rather than simply a site of disempowerment, a “space of radical openness … a profound edge”, a “place of resistance … for oppressed, exploited, colonized people”. For her, conventional assumptions that the marginalised require correction or reform risk “co-opt[ing] or undermin[ing]” counter-hegemonic perspectives; the margin ought not to be viewed as a position “to give up or surrender as part of moving into the centre—but rather … a site one stays in, clings to even, because it nourishes one’s capacity to resist”. This module explores a range of marginalised perspectives—those of women, the precariat, immigrants, the working class, criminals, those condemned as ‘immoral’, those marginalised because of their sexuality, ethnicity or skin colour—across a diverse range of drama and fiction depicting twentieth-century British and Irish life.
Learning Outcomes
Students taking this module will increase their knowledge of writing from and representations of marginalised groups in British and Irish society, including those marginalised because of their sexuality, gender, religion, class and race. They will gain a strong understanding of the difficulties facing these groups and the narrative and aesthetic strategies they use to challenge inequality and othering. Those on the course will also gain understandings of more theoretical approaches to these issues and how those perspectives can be applied to the core texts.
Skills
In this module, students will gain a range of subject specific and transferable skills. Students will:
• develop their understanding of intersectionality in literary studies, including how class, race and gender oppression's are represented and challenged by a range of renowned writers
• refine their skills in textual analysis
• enhance their skills in assessing secondary scholarship and popular sources
• develop their ability to engage in independent research projects
• improve their skills in academic writing and argumentation
• hone their skills in group discussion and oral presentation
• develop their knowledge of British and Irish societies and cultures over the course of the twentieth century
This module covers an array of fiction that engages with African and European religious traditions and the complex historical and contemporary encounters between them. The module is oriented to the postcolonial period, beginning with literature published in and around decolonisation and continuing to the present. Ranging widely in geography, it addresses writers from across sub-Saharan Africa, such as Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania. Areas for discussion include representations of traditional cultures and religious practice; reassessments of the European missionary enterprise; appropriations and rewritings of biblical narratives; engagements with African initiated churches and African Islam; and explorations of African religious modernities. In addition to its specialist focus, the module will also develop students’ understanding of postcolonial theory and major debates in African literary studies.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module, students will have analysed a range of postcolonial African fiction that engage with religious practices and interreligious encounter. They will have gained an understanding of the complexity of the concept “religion” and developed a critical vocabulary for its study. Students will have developed a familiarity with postcolonial theory and an ability to engage in theoretically informed close readings of sub-Saharan African Anglophone texts. They will be able to demonstrate a knowledge of key debates in African literary studies and an awareness of the literary, cultural and wider historical contexts relevant to the field.
Skills
In this module, students will gain a range of subject specific and transferrable skills. Students will:
- develop their understanding of African and postcolonial literary studies
- refine their skills in textual analysis
- enhance their skills in assessing secondary scholarship and popular sources
- develop their ability to engage in independent research projects
- improve their skills in academic writing and argumentation
- hone their skills in group discussion and oral presentation
Via film, performance and translation, Shakespeare has a long history in Asia. This module explores how Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted in Asian cultures and contexts. The module allows students to study the texts of the original plays as well as the various forms in which they have been reimagined. Hence, we concentrate on the texts of Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet while, at the same time, studying their film and theatre adaptations/equivalents. We will be working, in particular, with some excellent online resources, including the MIT Global Shakespeares (Video and Performance Archive) website, which features hundreds of Shakespeare productions from around the world. Other parts of the module cover film adaptations of the plays from China, Japan, India and Singapore. This is a module designed not only to introduce an important area of Shakespeare and adaptation studies but also to stimulate you to explore further. The presentations are designed to encourage you to find examples outside of the module and to reflect upon them in class. Shakespeare and Asia provides you with new knowledges of global Shakespeares, hones your writing and presentation skills, introduces you to theories and methodologies, develops your skills in reading and interpreting film and performance and enables you to understand the complex dynamics of postcolonial history.
Learning Outcomes
New knowledges of global Shakespeares.
A knowledge of how key Shakespearean texts are adapted in Asian cultures and contexts.
Acquisition of theories and methodologies relevant to Shakespeare and literary studies.
An understanding of the ways in which texts are reimagined in performance and on screen.
An understanding of the complex dynamics of postcolonial history.
Skills
The development of skills in the reading of literary texts.
The development of skills in interpreting film and performance.
The honing of your writing and presentation skills.
This module will analyse discourses of crime and deviance across fictional and non-fictional discourse arena including traditional media, social media, television and film, and literary fiction. A broad critical language studies (CLS) approach will be taken, additionally informed by insights from literary linguistics, forensic linguistics, cultural criminology and legal studies. The module will be organised into core themes (crime in the media/crime in the courtroom/crime in fiction) and will focus on key topics which include trial by media, adaptation, novelization and ‘true crime’. Themes of gender, class, and age will be addressed in these areas. The module will be available to students on the 4th year of the MLibArts programme and students undertaking the MRes in Arts and Humanities, which does not currently offer a taught module from English Language and Linguistics.
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, students will have refined their broad critical understanding of the construction of crime across contexts. Students will engage in a range of historical and social debates, analysing the recurrence of key themes and ideas in areas of critical language studies. Students will relate these key themes to ongoing developments in culturally complex language settings, and through traditional as well as emerging digital mediums.
Skills
During this module, students will have the opportunity to practise the following skills: * Critical analysis of key debates on criminality in several contexts. * Engagement with interdisciplinary debates regarding perceptions of crime and deviance in various contexts, including the media, the justice system, films, and television. * Application of learning to key social and political debates. * Writing critically and reflectively.
This course opens up a number of key questions. How do popular literary genres open up debates about censorship, politics and literary value? How did writers at the end of the nineteenth engage with dramatic social change, from ‘The New Woman’ and new masculinities, to science (evolutionary and ‘psychic’) and the rise of the New Imperialism? This module considers the ways writers forged new genres and adapted older forms to capture a period in political flux. It explores a wide range of literature (detective fiction, science fiction, ghost stories, fairy tales, imperial adventure and journalism, as well as realist novels). Mapping changing urban and rural realities and engaging with class as well as gender, the module considers the ways popular genres found ways of re-imagining the world, the nation and the self.
Learning Outcomes
Having completed the module, students will have an appreciation of the ways in which the literature of the fin-de-siècle was embedded in wider cultural movements and debates about progress, as well as an understanding of the ways in which fiction is shaped by its commercial contexts. They will be able question period and literary definitions, and engage with relationships between late nineteenth-century critical writings and more recent theoretical approaches.
Skills
Students will have developed their skills of independent research, their ability to work as part of a group, and their oral presentation skills. They will have learnt how apply theoretical approaches (including the sociology of texts and the history of reading) to the study of popular literature.
‘There are no peoples however primitive without religion and magic. Nor are there, it must be added at once, any savage races lacking either in the scientific attitude or in science’ (B. Malinowski, 1926, 79). The difference between what is deemed magic and what is deemed religious or scientific must be related to the culture within which each were produced, and to the social and historical contexts within which each developed. Many of the distinctions modern scholars make in defining magic and religion or magic and science did not appear as distinctions in the early medieval worldview, such as supernatural versus natural, faith versus reason and magic versus scientia. This course will consider how these systems of thought interacted with each other in the Anglo-Saxon period under the influence of Christianity, by focusing on a range of magical, philosophical, theological and scientific texts. Did Christianity, with its other-worldliness and its emphasis on Biblical authority, stifle interest in the natural world, as the old stereotype maintains? The module will begin with an introduction to Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse manuscripts (palaeography and codicology) and their material context. It will then explore the Anglo-Saxons’ concerns with time, healing, miracles, prophecy, geography, natural philosophy, celestial portents and magical rituals, as exemplified in different texts and genres including hagiography, exegesis, homilies, law-codes, scientific manuals, charms, medical remedies, prognostications, poetry and riddles. This course will allow students to study a fascinatingly rich and often overlooked body of texts.
Modern English translations will be provided for all the texts.
Learning Outcomes
On completion of the course students should be able to:
• Demonstrate a critical awareness of the interplay between magic, science and religion in the early medieval period;
• Show a familiarity with the Anglo-Saxons attitude towards medicine, astronomy, prognostication, miracles and the natural world;
• Be familiar with a range of early medieval texts, genres and cultural concepts;
• Demonstrate the ability to engage with both contemporary critical concepts and their applicability to Anglo-Saxon texts;
• Show evidence of independent research and study skills;
Skills
This module will enable students to:
• Rethink and challenge the modern distinctions of magic, science and religion;
• Develop an informed sense of the complexity of the intellectual and historical concepts of religion, magic and science in the early medieval period;
• Acquire an understanding of various Anglo-Saxon literary texts and genres in relation to their cultural context and audience;
• Apply independent thought and academic research skills.
The module will examine key figures and movements in Irish poetry through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. It will begin with the study of Yeats, and assess the different ways in which Yeatsian influence pervades the century. Reactions against the Revival, in the work of modernists such as Devlin and MacGreevy will be considered, as well as the work of Kavanagh and MacNeice from the 1930s through to the 1960s. In the post-1969 period, particular attention will be paid to poetry from the North of Ireland, and the emergence of a generation of writers – Heaney, Longley, Mahon, Muldoon, McGuckian in the years of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’. Recent poetry from Ireland, and the work of a younger generation – Morrissey, Flynn, Quinn, Wheatley and others – will provide an opportunity to assess the landscape of present-day Irish poetry.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of the module, students will have: the ability to situate Irish poetry in its complex historical and political contexts; an understanding of the debates surrounding the politics of form in Irish poetry from Yeats to the present day; a refined and heightened grasp of the forms and themes of poetry; an awareness of the workings of literary influence in the Irish tradition; an understanding of the critical debates surrounding the reception of Irish poetry.
Skills
The following skills will be developed and enhanced through the module: the ability to analyse the nuances of poetic form through close reading of individual poems; the ability to relate poetry to its historical, social and political context; the ability to trace and analyse literary influences; the ability to assess and intervene in critical debate about Irish poetry.
The majority of films have a literary source. They are not ‘original’ texts, but ‘adaptations’ – rewritings and re-imaginings of another kind of literary source. This module takes the literary text in all of its generic forms – the novel, drama, short story, genre fiction, YA fiction, biography, memoir and autobiography – and theorises the ways in which it has been adapted for cinema and television. The module begins by examining three ‘shared texts’ – Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599-1601), variously adapted on film by Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branagh and Michael Almereyda, Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853), made into the 2013 film (dir. Steve McQueen), and Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2018), adapted into a ten-part BBC series (2020). We will discuss the politics and aesthetics of adaptation and the multiplicity of ways in which works of art interact and find a new cultural relevance. Beyond our three ‘shared texts’, this module is shaped by PGT interests. Students choose what we discuss in class according to the kinds of adaptations that most appeal to their interests. For example, students might choose to examine other canonical texts (such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice [1813] or Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women [1868]), other historical/autobiographical texts (such as Lynn Barber’s An Education [2009] or Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark [1983]) or other contemporary novels (such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale [1985] or Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting [1996]) which have been adapted in film or television. Alternatively, students might choose to focus on the ways in which a particular period, genre or author is adapted, how issues of nation and nationality feed into the transition from text to screen, or the place of race, class, age or sexuality in the adaptive encounter. The possibilities are endless – this is a module designed to follow student interests, not the other way around. As such, this module allows PGTs to utilise their own examples in order to think about intertextuality and the relationship between the page and the screen. Adapting the Literary Text provides opportunities for original research and supports the experience of sharing of knowledge and resources between MLS colleagues.
Learning Outcomes
A detailed knowledge of the processes of adaptation and its central place in film and television today.
A greater knowledge of the afterlives of texts and the ways in which they are made relevant to new audiences across time and cultures.
A detailed understanding of particular adaptive texts and the ways in which particular examples transfer to the screen.
A detailed understanding of adaptation theory and methodological approaches to the adapted text.
Skills
Enhanced skills in reading adaptation and in close reading of literary texts, film and television.
Enhanced skills in understanding the adaptive process and the ways in which literary texts are imagined for new audiences.
This module engages with a range of Dickens’s writings from several stages of his career, examining his output as novelist and journalist. Particular attention is paid to the social, political and cultural issues affecting mid-Victorian England, including class; technological innovation and industrialisation; privilege and meritocracy; the experience of the metropolis; sanitary reform; and domestic ideology. Conditions of production and reception will also be examined, in order to reflect upon Victorian publishing, reading, and critical practices. The module will also consider the dialogue between Dickens’s prose and the works’ original illustrations.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module students will be able
- to demonstrate an advanced knowledge of Dickens’s fiction and journalism
- to interpret nineteenth-century texts with originality, through close reading
- to evaluate current scholarship on nineteenth-century prose and its contexts
- to apply advanced knowledge with independent judgement in the course of research, essay writing, and class presentations
Skills
In this module, students will gain a range of subject specific and transferrable skills. Students will:
- develop their understanding of Dickens and the context around his artistic output
- refine their skills in textual analysis
- enhance their skills in assessing secondary scholarship and internet sources
- develop their ability to engage in independent research projects
- improve their skills in academic writing and argumentation
- hone their skills in group discussion and online presentation
Normally a strong 2.2 Honours degree (with minimum of 55%) or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University in English, World/Comparative Literature, or joint or combined Honours with one of these disciplines as a major subject.
Applications may be considered from those who hold a 2.2 Honours degree (with minimum of 55%) or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University in a subject other than English or World/Comparative Literature (e.g. Classics, Law) if previous expertise in textual analysis or cultural history can be demonstrated.
All applicants are required to submit a piece of written work which may be assessed to determine if an offer of admission can be made. The piece of written work should demonstrate literary analysis, taking a specific literary text or a number of texts as its core focus. A personal statement expressing interest in the subject is not sufficient.
The University's Recognition of Prior Learning Policy provides guidance on the assessment of experiential learning (RPEL). Please visit http://go.qub.ac.uk/RPLpolicy for more information.
Applicants are advised to apply as early as possible and ideally no later than 16th August 2024 for courses which commence in late September. In the event that any programme receives a high number of applications, the University reserves the right to close the application portal. Notifications to this effect will appear on the Direct Application Portal against the programme application page.
International Students
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English Language Requirements
Evidence of an IELTS* score of 6.5, with not less than 5.5 in any component, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University is required.
*Taken within the last 2 years.
International students wishing to apply to Queen's University Belfast (and for whom English is not their first language), must be able to demonstrate their proficiency in English in order to benefit fully from their course of study or research. Non-EEA nationals must also satisfy UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) immigration requirements for English language for visa purposes.
If you need to improve your English language skills before you enter this degree programme, INTO Queen's University Belfast offers a range of English language courses. These intensive and flexible courses are designed to improve your English ability for admission to this degree.
Academic English: an intensive English language and study skills course for successful university study at degree level
Pre-sessional English: a short intensive academic English course for students starting a degree programme at Queen's University Belfast and who need to improve their English.
Graduates from these programmes have a good employment record. Professions including publishing, journalism, public relations, teaching, IT, library science, corporate advertising, the Civil Service, business, industry and the media all recruit from our range of graduates. Some students choose to continue their studies to PhD level on a chosen, specialised topic in one of the pathways in English Literary Studies.
Queen's postgraduates reap exceptional benefits. Unique initiatives, such as Degree Plus and Researcher Plus bolster our commitment to employability, while innovative leadership and executive programmes alongside sterling integration with business experts helps our students gain key leadership positions both nationally and internationally.
Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award for extra-curricular skills
In addition to your degree programme, at Queen's you can have the opportunity to gain wider life, academic and employability skills. For example, placements, voluntary work, clubs, societies, sports and lots more. So not only do you graduate with a degree recognised from a world leading university, you'll have practical national and international experience plus a wider exposure to life overall. We call this Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award. It's what makes studying at Queen's University Belfast special.
1EU citizens in the EU Settlement Scheme, with settled status, will be charged the NI or GB tuition fee based on where they are ordinarily resident. Students who are ROI nationals resident in GB will be charged the GB fee.
2 EU students who are ROI nationals resident in ROI are eligible for NI tuition fees.
3 EU Other students (excludes Republic of Ireland nationals living in GB, NI or ROI) are charged tuition fees in line with international fees.
All tuition fees quoted relate to a single year of study unless stated otherwise. Tuition fees will be subject to an annual inflationary increase, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
There are no specific additional course costs associated with this programme.
All Students
Depending on the programme of study, there may be extra costs which are not covered by tuition fees, which students will need to consider when planning their studies.
Students can borrow books and access online learning resources from any Queen's library. If students wish to purchase recommended texts, rather than borrow them from the University Library, prices per text can range from £30 to £100. Students should also budget between £30 to £75 per year for photocopying, memory sticks and printing charges.
Students undertaking a period of work placement or study abroad, as either a compulsory or optional part of their programme, should be aware that they will have to fund additional travel and living costs.
If a programme includes a major project or dissertation, there may be costs associated with transport, accommodation and/or materials. The amount will depend on the project chosen. There may also be additional costs for printing and binding.
Students may wish to consider purchasing an electronic device; costs will vary depending on the specification of the model chosen.
There are also additional charges for graduation ceremonies, examination resits and library fines.
How do I fund my study?
The Department for the Economy will provide a tuition fee loan of up to £6,500 per NI / EU student for postgraduate study. Tuition fee loan information.
A postgraduate loans system in the UK offers government-backed student loans of up to £11,836 for taught and research Masters courses in all subject areas (excluding Initial Teacher Education/PGCE, where undergraduate student finance is available). Criteria, eligibility, repayment and application information are available on the UK government website.