MA Modern and Contemporary Literature / Course details

Year of entry: 2024

Course description

"The teachers and classmates that I have encountered on this course are very supportive.

When I told my instructor that I had difficulties understanding the readings, they suggested that I go to their office hour sessions to have further discussions on the topics."

Nadia / MA Modern and Contemporary Literature Student

Our MA Modern and Contemporary Literature master's course offers an opportunity to become part of a dynamic group of researchers working in 20th and 21st century literature, culture and theory.

You will undertake an intensive and challenging investigation of the broad field of modern and contemporary writing. Units provide opportunities to study modernisms, postcolonial writing, cultural theory, radical subcultures, American culture, contemporary fiction and much more.

We focus on the relationships between texts and the various political and historical contexts in which they are produced and in which they circulate. Via detailed engagements with aesthetic form, we consider the connections between cultural and political practice, with particular focus on representations and constructions of sexuality, class, gender and race.

Special features

Literature events

Manchester Literature Festival holds literary events across Manchester throughout the year, many in partnership with the University.

The Centre for New Writing also hosts a regular public event series, Literature Live, which brings contemporary novelists and poets to the University to read and engage in conversation. This series attracts an impressive line-up of speakers, such as Jeanette Winterson, Colm Toibin, Hanif Kureishi, Hilary Mantel and Audrey Niffenegger.

Unique collections

John Rylands Library on Deansgate is part of the University and offers the opportunity to see and work with a range of rare resources and archival treasures.

Centre for New Writing

Manchester is home to the Centre for New Writing, a major hub for new writing excellence and home to award-winning teaching staff including Women's Prize for Fiction winner Kamila Shamsie and the much-garlanded Jeanette Winterson.

Teaching and learning

You will learn through a variety of teaching methods, depending on the units you take, including lectures, seminars and independent study.

You will also attend seminars on topics such as how to study at MA level, how to research and write a master's thesis, and career options.

Coursework and assessment

You will be assessed through a variety of methods depending on the units you take, including written assignments.

Course unit details

You will undertake units totalling 180 credits. Core and optional units combine to make 120 credits, with the remaining 60 credits allocated to the dissertation.

You will take four units, including at least one of the three possible core units:

  • Key Issues in Literary and Critical Theory
  • Modernisms
  • Reading the Contemporary

You may also choose up to 30 credits worth of units from another MA course in place of one of your optional units, subject to the approval of the Programme Director.

You will write a 12,000-word dissertation supervised by an academic member of staff.

Course unit list

The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.

TitleCodeCredit ratingMandatory/optional
Dissertation (MA) ENGL60000 60 Mandatory
Key Issues in Literary and Critical Theory ENGL70032 30 Mandatory
Historicising the Contemporary: Literature and Politics 1970-2000 ENGL60081 30 Optional
Queer Cinema and Beyond ENGL60152 30 Optional
Modernisms ENGL60452 30 Optional
Postcolonial Literatures, Genres and Theories ENGL60461 30 Optional
Critical Thinking in Gender and Sexuality Studies ENGL60971 30 Optional
Key Issues in Literary and Critical Theory ENGL70032 30 Optional
Forms of Fiction ENGL70041 30 Optional
Literature and the Contemporary Literary Industry ENGL71212 30 Optional
Reading Poems: Lyric and the Anthropocene ENGL71611 30 Optional
Approaches to Literary Studies: Historicism and the Archive ENGL71822 30 Optional
Displaying 10 of 12 course units

What our students say

Find out more about the student experience by reading MA Modern and Contemporary Literature student Nadia's blog post about her time on this course at Manchester.

 

Facilities

You will have access to one of the UK's five National Research Libraries at Manchester, as well as 24/7 study facilities at the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons and cultural assets such as the John Rylands Library, the Whitworth and the Manchester Museum.

Find out more about our facilities .

Disability support

Practical support and advice for current students and applicants is available from the Disability Advisory and Support Service. Email: dass@manchester.ac.uk