English: Contemporary Literatures

This course provides an opportunity for you to explore a range of challenging literary texts and to interrogate a number of influential theoretical models and conceptual frameworks that provide ways of understanding the diversity of twentieth-century English Literature.

You will appraise key aspects of psychoanalytic theory and its connection with poetic processes and subjectivity, as well as investigate the cultural significance of gender and authorship at particular historical moments, and evaluate the interface between modernist and contemporary poetry. You will learn to confidently employ key critical terms (such as 'Modernist', 'Postmodernist', 'Gothic', etc.) as aesthetic and generic categories in literary criticism and debate key developments in post-colonial writing and theory. On completion of the course you will be able to demonstrate expertise in the use of both traditional and new technology resources available for literary research.

You will complete eight modules for the award of the MA degree: three core and five specialist.

The course is available full-time and part-time, with teaching taking place in the evening for both options.