You are here: Manchester Confidential › News.
The Department of English at MMU has recently widened its range of Masters courses to play to the strengths of its researchers and teachers and it looks as if what they offer catches the spirit of the times. Some of their courses directly address contemporary culture, exploring up-to-the-minute topics in literature, film and television and exploring a range of theoretical standpoints about how we live now.
Have we ever been more fascinated with the dead, the undead, and all the paraphernalia of the paranormal?
Something wicked this way comes
New to this suite of postgraduate courses is a pathway specifically geared to the Gothic. It is the only MA in Gothic Studies in England – and looks likely to be popular. With gothic horror permeating our culture through writers like Margeret Atwood, Peter Ackroyd and Angela Carter, television series like Buffy and a succession of films from Hollywood, Europe and beyond, have we ever been more fascinated with the dead, the undead, and all the paraphernalia of the paranormal?
The course digs up the bones of the Gothic in writers like John Webster before immersing itself in classic texts from Horace Walpole, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe and many more. The course then shows how we are still haunted by the Gothic – from Iain Sinclair, Sarah Waters and Cormac McCarthy to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Twin Peaks and The League of Gentlemen.
The way we live now
MMU’s pathway in ‘Contemporary Literature and Film’ has set itself a challenge – to keep up-to-date when it explores how contemporary culture is represented and to question how we go about defining the contemporary. It currently takes the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 as its starting point, looking at how novels like Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs and films like Good Bye Lenin dealt with the topic.
9/11 is also addressed (through novels like Don DeLillo’s Falling Man and a range of feature films which were based on the attacks on the Twin Towers). On the way, the course takes topical issues – how we perceive the natural world, how we construct our ideas of childhood, what it means to be cosmopolitan, and what it means to live in a cosmopolitan city – looking at a range of written and filmed material.
The theoretical perspective
MMU’s Department of English has long had a recognized expertise in contemporary critical theory. A third MA pathway has been developed in Critical Theory for students who wish to sharpen their theoretical teeth: semiotics, post-structuralism, the nature and meaning of subjectivity and of the text itself: all these are considered through a thorough engagement with Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida. There’s also a detailed study of what we mean by ‘Modernity’, taking in writers from Marx and Engels, Nietzsche and Freud.
All three of these pathways are supported with a range of optional units covering topics as diverse as contemporary queer cultures, ethics, American Gothic literature and postcolonialism. Students who don’t want to follow any one pathway can opt to take a ‘general’ route through the MA, and all students get a solid training in postgraduate research skills.
Said one recent MA English Studies graduate: "I found all the teaching staff very approachable and extremely knowledgeable in their subject area; the units were all engaging, challenging me to broaden my critical and literary horizons."
The courses are open for applications right through until the start of term in late September, and further details can be found at:
www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/english/postgrad/You are also welcome to contact the MA Team direct:
Like what you see? Enter your email to sign up for our newsletters which are chock-a-block with more great reviews, news, deals and savings.
After putting password in our system often we forget it. But don't worry it can be recover by a…
Read morePostal services in goverment sector are pretty awesome. Now USPS offering excellent services in…
Read moreKnow your username(which is same as your employee number) Now click this link. And complete your…
Read more© Mark Garner t/a Confidential Direct 2021
Privacy | Careers | Website by: Planet Code | SEO by The eWord