Our different approach to literary media means that this course raises conceptual questions about how we define literature and culture and what ideological issues are raised by doing so. It gives you a chance to consider how a literary canon can be created or contested, and explores what value judgements are made in the process. Notions of censorship, conformity, transgression and innovation are explored alongside a theoretical consideration of the material and institutional contexts in which culture is produced.
The course enables you to combine the skills of literary analysis developed during an undergraduate degree with a series of new theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of English in a range of different media. It invites you to explore the proposition that literature exists in a number of different forms, from film to print fiction, and from the internet to television. In other words, the course de-privileges the idea of the printed text and considers it alongside the kinds of narrative that exist in other media.
Our team includes leading national and international scholars in the fields of modern and contemporary literature, media studies, cultural studies and new media writing. In addition, the Faculty of Media & Communication has a number of practising media professionals whose experience of working within the media industries complements the academic expertise of our researchers. This combination of academic rigour with professional practice is ideally suited to helping you develop transferable skills during your Master’s degree.
