Program Overview

The MA in Literary Studies at Aberystwyth offers you a stimulating engagement with English literature in all its depth and diversity, with the opportunity to develop particular expertise in one of a number of specialist areas. By studying the latest developments in critical theory and research methodology you will cultivate the necessary skills to undertake your 15,000 word MA Dissertation, an extensive piece of critical research in your chosen field. You will also develop a host of transferable skills which you may deploy in a range of other academic or employment contexts.

As a student on the MA in Literary Studies at Aberystwyth, you will benefit from the University’s superb library and information technology resources and have access to the unrivalled collections of the National Library of Wales, one of the five elite research libraries in the UK.

The MA in Literary Studies provides a number of modules on fascinating topics and periods of literary history, including Medieval Lives, Romanticism's Radical Cultures, Victorian Popular Fiction, Postmodern Genres and many more. An important part of the course is the writing of a 15,000-word Dissertation on a specialist topic chosen by you in consultation with a specialist supervisor. We will take great care in assigning you a supervisor whose interests match your own as closely as possible.

A significant part of the course is devoted to research skills, including: exploiting library resources; using electronic journals and databases; building a critical bibliography; researching and writing a proposal; and honing your oral presentation skills. You will also be taught to interrogate the different kinds of 'textuality', or aspects of the literary text, which need to be taken into account in the study of literature at postgraduate level and beyond.