English Literature MA

Storytelling is part of every culture and reveals much about a person’s lived experience, values and aspirations within a given time.

Studying the English Literature MA at Brunel gives you the opportunity to uncover the richness of the history of English Literature – through selected periods, genres and diverse storytellers – through a set of underlying themes that act as windows into deeper understanding.

Whether your purpose is to explore a long held interest, build on previous studies or to benefit your career, studying a literature degree at Brunel will keep you close the one of the key literary capitals of the world.

Your journey will commence with an introductory module on ‘Reading, Writing and Research’ to help equip you with the required skills and competencies relevant to literary studies, so you will have the confidence to pursue self-directed study on any given topic.

You will then study four additional modules including ‘Authors’, where you will study one author or a well-recognised group of authors from a list that includes: John Keats and P.B. Shelley; the Brontes; Charles Dickens, or selected modernist authors such as Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield or postmodernist and experimental writers, B.S. Johnson and J.G. Ballard.

‘A British Literary Decade’ will immerse you in the literary and cultural aspects of one nominated decade from a range including the 1850s, 1890s, 1920s, 1930s, 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, crossing into neighbouring disciplines like history and politics along the way.

You will also have the opportunity to cover more contemporary works in ‘Postmillennial Literature’ including texts from a selected field, which includes:  Anglophile writing post 9/11; science fiction and fantasy; LGBT writing, or experimental fiction.

Finally, after a series of planning and skills workshops to prepare topic, under the guidance of a nominated supervisor, you will undertake critical reading towards a 15,000 word dissertation on an agreed area of English post-1789 literature.

Outside your classroom, you can look forward to a calendar of events and activities organised by the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing, including the annual Hillingdon Literary Festival: a free weekend of literary performances from internationally renowned authors, writing workshops and lively debates right here on the Brunel campus.

You can explore our campus and facilities for yourself by taking our virtual tour.

The English Literature MA will provide you with a deeper understanding of English literature’s rich past, as you develop key investigative research skills relevant to literary studies. You will study five compulsory modules, four of which will cover a range of texts and the fifth will be in preparation your dissertation. 

This course can be studied 1 year full-time or 2 years part-time, starting in September.

Please note that all modules are subject to change.

Read more about the structure of postgraduate degrees at Brunel

An English master’s will equip you with a set of enviable skills which are vital for careers in publishing, print and electronic media, the culture industries and education.

Your skills will also be attractive to employers within sectors where accuracy in the written descriptive word is a central feature, including law, the civil service, advertising, marketing, financial services and business.

Above all, an MA in English Literature will benefit your own writing, critique and self-expression.

If, at the end of the course, you decide to continue your studies to doctoral level, you will have the essential research skills, and the opportunity, to join a flourishing research culture at Brunel.

Your knowledge will be assessed using a variety of methods including written work (essays and a dissertation), oral presentations, seminar attendance and performance, and the organisation and planning of your dissertation.

Some of your assessments will be formative, providing you with feedback but not graded, to enable you to improve and work towards graded assessments.

Read our guide on how to avoid plagiarism in your assessments at Brunel.