Program Overview

For their first year of study students attend the same weekly seminars as students taking the Taught MA in Biography. These provide the critical awareness of the subject which is an essential prerequisite for dissertation work and they are one of the most distinctive and valuable elements of the MA. They take place as follows:

• Autobiography (September to December)
• Special Paper in Biography (January to June)
• Research Methods (January to June)

The modules on Biography and Autobiography are designed to combine the study of classic biographies and memoirs with contemporary writing. In addition, the Research Methods module provides an invaluable and innovative training, especially devised for biographers.

Guest seminars on the course are led by leading biographers, critics, publishers and agents. Teachers and speakers on the course have included Andrew Motion, Kathryn Hughes, Frances Wilson, Frances Spalding, Jeremy Lewis, Rupert Shortt, Caroline Dawnay, Andrew Lownie and  Miranda Seymour.

Research students are expected to produce, as a valuable preliminary to their own research project, written coursework for the Research  Methods module (an annotated bibliography and a short biography, with supporting material, produced according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography format), and one other piece of written work, but the full amount of termly written work required for the taught course is not compulsory. During the early part of the course, research students refine their research proposal under the individual supervision of the course director for eventual discussion with the Research Officer. Once the research proposal has been accepted students concentrate on individual research and the preparation of a dissertation, under the supervision of the course director.