MA, 1 year full time/2 years part time
Subject overview
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Sussex is ranked among the top 20 universities in the UK for English in The Times Good University Guide 2013 and in the top 30 in the UK in The Complete University Guide 2014.
In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 95 per cent of our English research was rated as recognised internationally or higher, and over half rated as internationally excellent or higher.
English at Sussex has a well-established international reputation for producing research that develops and extends the boundaries of the subject.
English runs a wide range of innovative MA degrees, taught by faculty working at the forefront of English studies.
We support research centres such as the Centre for Modernist Studies and the Centre for Early Modern Studies, which focus on interdisciplinary research and teaching, and attract high-profile speakers from around the world.
We have a diverse and thriving community of postgraduate students who contribute to an outstanding research culture.
Programme outline
This MA explores the writing, visual expression, material and other cultural artefacts generated by Europe’s transforming intellectual and social environment between 1450 and 1750. It engages with issues such as humanism, eloquence and government, the idea of Europe, sexuality and desire, the West’s engagement with Islam, new ideas of the body and the self, the Renaissance library, and popular culture.
This course offers you the opportunity to work with local and national archives and galleries, Sussex’s own Travers Collection (and other Special Collections) and with rare books.
This MA is associated with the Centre for Early Modern Studies.
Assessment
You are assessed by four 5,000-word term papers and a dissertation of 15,000 words.
We continue to develop and update our modules for 2014 entry to ensure you have the best student experience.In addition to the course structure below, you may find it helpful to refer to the 2012 modules tab.
Full-time courses can also be followed part time over two years, with taught seminars in the autumn and spring terms.
Autumn and spring terms: you take four options from a list that may include Public Shakespeare • Race and Colonialism in Early Modern English Literature • The History of Domesticity: Literature, Public and Private, 1700-1800 • The Idea of the Renaissance • The Renaissance Body.
Summer term: supervised work on the MA dissertation.
Current modules
Please note that these are the core modules and options (subject to availability) for students starting in the academic year 2012.
Idea of the Renaissance
30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1
The Renaissance is an idea that is less than 150 years old but has had a permanent influence in the formation of cultural history past and present, west and east, high and low. It is poised around a notion of cultural change which is nonetheless notoriously difficult to date, around a geographical exclusivity which is nonetheless assumed to be of universal significance, and around an idea of artistic purity which is nonetheless bound up with the central processes of political power and patronage. This module is both an introduction to the ideas and myths of the Renaissance and also an opportunity to consider the practice, place and value of cultural history as an inter-disciplinary study.
The module is built around the examination of early printed books, both those in the Library's Travers Collection (and other Special Collections) and through the electronic database Early English Books Online. Seminars will take place in the reading room of the Special Collections at the Library. You will receive training in the handling of rare books and in the use of databases.
We will attempt to ask a variety of questions from a series of different positions and look at the Renaissance as seen by historians, art historians, students of literature, philosophers, and so on. Issues examined will include the history of the book, censorship and the press, the religious transformations of the Reformation, humanism and government, rhetoric and imitation, writing the past, Renaissance and Reformation geographies: the idea of Europe and Christendom.
Texts will include a balance of primary and secondary material. Shakespeare's Richard II, Love's Labours Lost, Julius Caesar and Cymbeline will be studied on this module.
Public Shakespeare
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
This module is designed to explore Shakespeare's career in London as a public dramatist, eager to engage with a wide audience and to tell stories that had a contemporary relevance to the lives of the citizens of London. We will concentrate particularly on the public and political significance of the plays, but also their relevance to the ordinary lives of the public who went to see them. Another aim is to examine the plays in their historical contexts and to see whether the subsequent stage history of Shakespeare bears any relationship to the meanings the plays might have borne when Shakespeare wrote them. Subjects that will be examined include: the representation of English, British and other histories in a variety of Shakespeare's poetry and plays; the political significance of Shakespeare's varying conceptions of national identity throughout his career, paying particular attention to questions of kingship and legitimacy; inheritance; rebellion; republicanism and other forms of government; virtue and rights; the law; and public morality. Works studied will include Hamlet, The Henry VI trilogy, Measure for Measure and The Winter's Tale.
Race and Colonialism in Early Modern English Literature
30 credits
Spring teaching, year 1
This module examines the relationship between English literature and the wider world in the Renaissance. You will consider ideas of race; the theory and practice of colonialism; new knowledge and how it was dealt with; religious conflict, doubt and change; strangers within and outside the realm; and the relationship between factual and fictional writing.
Style: The Necessary Failure
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
Style is what draws us to works of art, but it is also something that we find very difficult to define or describe. It is understood variously as belonging to groups or to individuals; as being difficult or easy; as something superficial to the work of art, or else as the substance of its depths; as either apolitical, or as the sign and guarantor of political commitment. This module will pursue the problem of artistic style across a number of periods and artistic media, including literature, visual art, and cinema. Readings will include works of aesthetic theory and philosophy, film theory, literary theory and criticism, and art history. We will think about style as a historically shifting category of artistic experience by engaging a number of case studies in which style becomes an object of contention, controversy, or disagreement.
The Renaissance Body
30 credits
Autumn teaching, year 1
In early-modern England the body was a major intellectual preoccupation and a focal metaphor informing and shaping cultural structures and artefacts. This period, too, like the cusp of the 21st century, had a very distinctive conception of the person as a construct or artifice, as the product of social intervention and cultural organization. Engaging with interpretative models from the fascinating interdisciplinary field of cultural theory of the body, you will explore the aesthetics of embodiment through a range of literary and visual texts, unravelling the dense significance of the corporeal imagination of the Renaissance. Key themes include: body borders, the supernatural and society; gendered voices, sex and agency; the medical imagination; diabolic inversions (the witch's body); heroic and monstrous masculinities; transvestitism; mystical monarchy; diseased bodies; revolutionary corporealities; body, soul and mind; consuming bodies and eating communities; the fabricated body; and pornography.
Entry requirements
UK entrance requirements
A first- or upper second-class undergraduate honours degree in a relevant subject.
Overseas entrance requirements
- Overseas qualifications
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If your country is not listed below, please contact the University at E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk
Country Overseas qualification Australia Bachelor (Honours) degree with second-class upper division Brazil Bacharel, Licenciado or professional title with a final mark of at least 8 Canada Bachelor degree with CGPA 3.3/4.0 (grade B+) China Bachelor degree from a leading university with overall mark of 75%-85% depending on your university Cyprus Bachelor degree or Ptychion with a final mark of at least 7.5 France Licence with mention bien or Maîtrise with final mark of at least 13 Germany Bachelor degree or Magister Artium with a final mark of 2.4 or better Ghana Bachelor degree from a public university with second-class upper division Greece Ptychion from an AEI with a final mark of at least 7.5 Hong Kong Bachelor (Honours) degree with second-class upper division India Bachelor degree from a leading institution with overall mark of at least 60% or equivalent Iran Bachelor degree (Licence or Karshenasi) with a final mark of at least 15 Italy Diploma di Laurea with an overall mark of at least 105 Japan Bachelor degree from a leading university with a minumum average of B+ or equivalent Malaysia Bachelor degree with class 2 division 1 Mexico Licenciado with a final mark of at least 8 Nigeria Bachelor degree with second-class upper division or CGPA of at least 3.0/4.0 Pakistan Four-year bachelor degree, normally with a GPA of at least 3.3 Russia Magistr or Specialist Diploma with a minimum average mark of at least 4 South Africa Bachelor (Honours) degree or Bachelor degree in Technology with an overall mark of at least 70% Saudi Arabia Bachelor degree with an overall mark of at least 70% or CGPA 3.5/5.0 or equivalent South Korea Bachelor degree from a leading university with CGPA of at least 3.5/4.0 or equivalent Spain Licenciado with a final mark of at least 2/4 Taiwan Bachelor degree with overall mark of 70%-85% depending on your university Thailand Bachelor degree with CGPA of at least 3.0/4.0 or equivalent Turkey Lisans Diplomasi with CGPA of at least 3.0/4.0 depending on your university United Arab Emirates Bachelor degree with CGPA of at least 3.5/4.0 or equivalent USA Bachelor degree with CGPA 3.3-3.5/4.0 depending on your university Vietnam Masters degree with CGPA 3.5/4.0 or equivalent If you have any questions about your qualifications after consulting our overseas qualifications, contact the University at E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk
English language requirements
IELTS 7.0, with not less than 6.5 in each section. Internet TOEFL with 95 overall, with at least 22 in Listening, 23 in Reading, 23 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
Visas and immigration
Find out more about Visas and immigration.
For more information about the admissions process at Sussex
For pre-application enquiries:
Student Recruitment Services
T +44 (0)1273 876787
E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk
For post-application enquiries:
Postgraduate Admissions,
University of Sussex,
Sussex House, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9RH, UK
T +44 (0)1273 877773
F +44 (0)1273 678545
E pg.applicants@sussex.ac.uk
Related programmes
Fees and funding
Fees
Home UK/EU students: £5,5001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £5,5002
Overseas students: £13,0003
1
The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2
The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3
The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
To find out about your fee status, living expenses and other costs, visit further financial information.
Funding
The funding sources listed below are for the subject area you are viewing and may not apply to all degrees listed within it. Please check the description of the individual funding source to make sure it is relevant to your chosen degree.
To find out more about funding and part-time work, visit further financial information.
Chancellor's International Scholarship (2014)
Region: International (Non UK/EU)
Level: PG (taught)
Application deadline: 1 May 2014
25 scholarships of a 50% tuition fee waiver
Fulbright-Sussex University Award (2014)
Region: International (Non UK/EU)
Level: PG (taught)
Application deadline: 15 October 2013
Each year, one award is offered to a US citizen for the first year of a postgraduate degree in any field at the University of Sussex.
Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust for Postgraduate Study (2014)
Region: UK
Level: PG (taught), PG (research)
Application deadline: 1 October 2013
The Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust are offering bursaries to Postgraduate students following any postgraduate degree courses in any subject.
Santander Scholarship (2014)
Region: International (Non UK/EU)
Level: PG (taught)
Application deadline: 1 May 2014
Two scholarships of £5000 fee waiver for students studying any postgraduate taught course.
USA Friends Scholarships (2014)
Region: International (Non UK/EU)
Level: PG (taught)
Application deadline: 3 April 2014
Two scholarships of an amount equivalent to $10,000 are available to nationals or residents of the USA on a one year taught Master's degree course.
Faculty interests
Faculty research interests are described briefly below and on the right. For more detailed information, visit the School of English. The following list includes all the English faculty, and other contributors to English MA degrees.
The journals Renaissance Studies, Textual Practice, The Oxford Literary Review and The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory are edited within the School of English.
Dr Sara Jane Bailes Contemporary experimental theatre, live art and visual practices, ideology and performance.
Dr David Barnett Post-war European drama and theatre, post-Brechtian political theatre.
Professor Peter Boxall Modern and contemporary fiction and drama.
Dr Sara Crangle Co-Director of the Centre for Modernist Studies. 20th-century literature.
Professor Brian Cummings 16th- and 17th-century literature and history.
Dr Sue Currell American literature and culture 1890-1940, 20th-century mass culture.
Dr Alistair Davies Modernism and post-modernism, 20th-century English and American literature.
Dr Denise DeCaires Narain Postcolonialist writing; feminist cultural theory; contemporary women’s writing in English, especially poetry.
Dr Matthew Dimmock 16th- and 17th-century literature and history, national identity, Islam.
Professor Andrew Hadfield Renaissance literature and politics, Britishness, Shakespeare, Spenser, and national identity.
Dr Doug Haynes European and American modernism, postmodernism.
Dr Margaret Healy Renaissance literature and culture, the political stage, Shakespeare, Dekker, medicine and literature.
Professor Tom Healy Head of School. 16th-and 17th-century writing and cultural history.
Dr Vicky Lebeau The convergence of psychoanalysis, literature and cinema; and feminist theory.
Dr William McEvoy British playwriting and directing; theatre, writing and ethics.
Dr Daniel Kane 20th-century American literature, the avant-garde, poetry since the 1960s.
Dr Maria Lauret American feminist fiction and theory; race and ethnicity.
Professor Stephanie Newell West African literature and popular culture, postcolonial theory.
Dr Rachel O’Connell Late 19th- and early 20th-century British literature; gender, queer, and disability studies.
Dr Catherine Packham 18th-century literature and philosophy; political economy and moral philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment.
Dr Jason Price Popular theatre histories and practices; politics and performance.
Dr Vincent Quinn Lesbian and gay studies, the history of sexuality, 18th-century studies, Irish studies, and the history and theory of biography.
Dr John David Rhodes Italian cinema, modernist and avant-garde cinemas of Europe and the US, queer art cinema.
Professor Nicholas Royle Modern literature and literary theory, especially deconstruction and psychoanalysis; the uncanny.
Martin Ryle 19th- and 20th-century fiction; the politics of ‘culture’, with especial reference to education; and topographical and travel writing.
Dr Minoli Salgado Postcolonial literature and theory, memory and migrant identity, the short story, Rushdie, and Ondaatje.
Professor Lindsay Smith 19th-century literature and painting; photography in Victorian culture.
Dr Keston Sutherland Contemporary and 20th-century English and American poetry; Marxism and Frankfurt School critical theory.
Professor Jenny Bourne Taylor 19th-century literature and culture; literature and science; illegitimacy and the family.
Dr Pamela Thurschwell Co-Director of the Centre for Modernist Studies. Psychoanalysis, 19th- and 20th-century interest in the supernatural.
Professor Norman Vance 19th-century literature, religion and society; Anglo-Irish literature.
Professor Marcus Wood Satire in the romantic period, the representation of slavery, and colonial and postcolonial literature and theory.
Careers and profiles
Our graduates have gone on to careers in teaching and education, publishing, website production and marketing, journalism and writing, the charity sector, and NGOs. A number of our graduates go on to further study and careers in academia.
Abigail's career perspective
‘The MA in Early Modern Literature and Culture at Sussex gave me a great year exploring a range of literature from the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as the opportunity to learn important research and writing skills. I took a variety of courses on assorted subjects, from the works of Shakespeare and Spenser, to representations of early modern marriage and the literary culture associated with the Bible.
‘An important aspect of my postgraduate experience at Sussex was participation in the Centre for Early Modern Studies, which organised guest lectures, reading groups and research trips.
‘After I completed my MA I stayed on at Sussex to do a PhD, on the poet Edmund Spenser, after which I spent a year as a Tutorial Fellow before leaving to take up a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of York. I’m currently working on a book on conversion narratives (the stories that people tell about their changes of faith) in early modern England as part of that appointment.
‘The skills and research interests I developed during my MA have had a direct effect upon the work I currently do, from the beginnings of a fascination with early religious culture and the idea of literary communities, to learning about the processes behind detailed research and the devising of well-honed arguments.
‘The MA also introduced me to a community of scholars and researchers in the field, opening out a forum for conversations across a variety of fields and disciplines, which has proved invaluable.’
Dr Abigail Shinn
Research Fellow
University of York
For more information, visit Careers and alumni.
School and contacts
School of English
Over the last 30 years, English at Sussex has played a key role in shaping the direction of the discipline in Britain and throughout the world. The School of English offers you exciting potential for engaging with English as a world language and literature.
School of English, Postgraduate Admissions,
University of Sussex, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9QN, UK
T +44 (0)1273 678468
E englishpg@sussex.ac.uk
School of English
Postgraduate Open Day 2013
4 December 2013, 1pm-4pm
Bramber House, University of Sussex
- talk to academic faculty and current postgraduate students
- subject talks and presentations on postgraduate study, research and funding
- choose from our exciting range of taught Masters and research degrees
- find out how postgraduate study can improve your career prospects
- get details of our excellent funding schemes for taught postgraduate study.
To register your interest in attending, visit Postgraduate Open Day.
Can’t make it to our Postgraduate Open Day? You might be interested in attending one of our Discover Postgraduate Study information sessions.
Discover Postgraduate Study information sessions
If you can’t make it to our Postgraduate Open Day, you’re welcome to attend one of our Discover Postgraduate Study information sessions. These are held in the spring and summer terms and enable you to find out more about postgraduate study and the opportunities Sussex has to offer.
Visit Discover Postgraduate study to book your place.
Other ways to visit Sussex
We run weekly guided campus tours every Wednesday afternoon, year round. Book a place online at Visit us and Open Days.
You are also welcome to visit the University independently without any pre-arrangement.