MA brochure cover  MA in MODERNISM

           and modern writers

 

The object of the course is to enable students to study Modernism within the context of the historical, cultural and technological changes which we refer to as ‘modernity’. It also offers study of some of the major authors of modern literature in more depth than at undergraduate level, with scholars who have international reputations in their fields, and in relation to such issues as colonialism, national identity, fascism and psycho-analysis. It aims to develop advanced skills in literary study, and to provide instruction in methods of research. The emphasis is on writing 1890-1939, though there is also scope to work on more recent writers, on theory, and on European modernism. The Department has research strengths in the period, with internationally recognised specialists in Yeats, Conrad, Joyce, and the culture of Modernism.

The course is designed for intending research students, but is also suitable for those who simply wish to develop their knowledge and critical skills beyond first-degree level. The core course concentrates on historical and theoretical issues in Modernism, while the optional courses study individual authors or look at issues including feminism, narrative, and the city. An introduction to research methods is part of the course, and training in computing is available. Excellent scholarly resources are at hand in the College library, the University Library in Senate House, and the British Library.

 

 

 

 

 

    Structure of MA     Teaching and assessment      Entry requirements      Short Course Descriptions 
    Course Teachers     Funding            Contacts       Courses offered in 2005-6          Core course

 

PLEASE NOTE      In 2006-7 this MA will be replaced by the MA in Literatures of Modernity, which offers some of the same material as this course, as well as elements on Postmodernism and Postcolonialism.   There will be a new website for this course.   Click here

Structure of MA 

Length of Course    50 weeks, full-time; 102 weeks, part-time

There are five elements:

(i) *  Modernism, Modernity and History (core, full unit, two terms);

(ii) Option 1:   EITHER: Two of the following half units, one to be taken in each term:

* James Joyce: Modernism and Irish History;
* Joseph Conrad: Modernism, Colonialism and Gender;
* Virginia Woolf: Modernism and Subjectivity;
* Yeats, Pound, Eliot: Modernist Poetry;
* American Modernism.
 (NB. Not all of these options will automatically run every year)

OR: one of the following full units:

*  Contemporary Women’s Narratives;
*  Contemporary Londons;
*  Representing the City.

(iii) Option 2 (choice as in (ii) above;

(iv) *  Dissertation;

(v) *  Methods and Materials of Research.

Teaching

All courses are taught by a series of two-hour seminars over the first two terms. Seminars are timetabled, as far aspossible, for late afternoon or early evening, to permit part-time students in employment to attend. Preparation is assigned by the tutor and includes regular class presentations by students.

Methods of Assessment

With the exception of element v, which is not directly examined, courses are examined by essay, with one essay of 3,500 – 4,500 words submitted for every half-unit taken. The first set of essays, for the previous term’s course components, is submitted in draft form at the beginning of Term 2; these essays can then be revised and re-submitted with the essays for the second term’s courses at the beginning of Term 3. (There may be some variation on this pattern where an option is taken from another programme.) After completion of the coursework component (in year 2 in the case of part-time students), students write a dissertation of 12-15,000 words (excluding bibliography and appendices) on an approved topic, to be submitted at the end of the year’s study. Students are offered advice and feedback on all work submitted.

Entry requirements

Normally at least a good second-class BA in Single or Joint Honours English or a related discipline, is required of UK applicants, and a degree of equivalent standard of overseas applicants, who must have a high level of competence in spoken and written English.

SHORT COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Modernism, Modernity and History  (Tim Armstrong)
The core course comprises four five-week sections: Modernism and the avante-garde; Modernity, mass culture and technology; Race, gender and primitivism in Modernism; Modernism and politics. It offers an introduction to various modernist movements (Futurism, Imagism, Surrealism) and to the ways in which Modernism has been conceptualized in relation to modernity.  Full course description

James Joyce, Modernism and Irish History  (Andrew Gibson)
A study of Joyce’s writings from Dubliners to Ulysses in the context of Irish history in the period from the Battle of the Boyne to 1922, with particular emphasis on issues of colonialism and cultural nationalism in Ireland.

Joseph Conrad: Modernism, Colonialism and Gender   (Robert Hampson)
A study of a full range of Conrad’s writings, early and late, with particular emphasis on the colonial encounter in his fiction, the racial ‘other’, and the relations between colonialism and gender.

Virginia Woolf, Modernism and Subjectivity   (Betty Jay)
A study of a range of Woolf’s writings, investigating the construction of the subject in the light of psychoanalytic theory and feminism, and Woolf’s place within Modernism.

Yeats, Eliot, Pound: Modernist Poetry  (Stephen Regan)
This course examines the work of three of the most important modernist poets, with particular emphasis on aesthetics and politics, questions of audience and the role of the poet in culture.

American Modernism   (Tim Armstrong)
This half-unit, taught at the Institute of United States Studies, Senate House, considers American writing between the wars. The main focus of the course is the fiction of Cather, Dos Passos, Faulkner and others, but it also considers drama, poetry, film, and music, including work of the Harlem Renaissance.

Contemporary Women’s Narratives    (Betty Jay)
The course divides into three sections: Feminism, Postcolonialism and Psychoanalysis; Feminism and the Postmodern; Memory / History / Diaspora. It considers such topics as primitivism; the psychoanalytic body; deconstructing gender; feminism and epistemology; the politics of location; experiments in autobiography and biography.

Contemporary Londons    (Andrew Gibson)
This course introduces students to a specific range of contemporary representations of London, its history and geography, focussing on specific aspects of contemporary London literature and popular culture, and the significance of postmodern geography, urban theory and the theory of representation for thought about the city.

Representing the City
This course is part of the MA in European Cultural Studies (all texts are taught in English translation). It considers the theorization and representation of the city in European culture in the period from 1850 to the present, examining writers from Baudelaire and Zola to Benjamin and Butor.

Methods and materials of research:
A compulsory, non-examined course, taught in ten weekly one-hour seminars in the first term. Topics include: use of library resources, footnoting and bibliography, and literary and linguistic computing. 

Click here for more detail of courses offered in 2005-6

Course Teachers

The Programme Director is Professor Tim Armstrong, author of Modernism, Technology and the Body: A Cultural Study (1998), Haunted Hardy: Poetry, History, Memory (2000), and Modernism: A Cultural History (forthcoming, Polity); editor of American Bodies (1996) and Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems (1993); and co-editor of Beyond the Pleasure Dome: Writing and Addiction from the Romantics (1994). His research interests include modernism and modernity, literature and technology, American literature, and twentieth-century poetry.

Professor Elleke Bohemer (course director T2) is an internationally-recognized expert in postcolonial literature. Her publications include: Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial, 1890-1920: Resistance in Interaction (2002); Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature 1870-1918 (1998); Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors (1995); Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation (2005).

Professor Andrew Gibson, author of Reading Narrative Discourse (1992), Towards a Postmodern Theory of Narrative (1996), Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel (1999), and Joyce’s Revenge (2002); editor of Pound in Multiple Perspective (1993), Reading Joyce’s Circe (1994), Joyce’s Ithaca; and co-editor of a number of other books including Beyond the Book: Theory, Culture and the Politics of Cyberculture (1996).

Professor Robert Hampson, whose main areas of special interest are Conrad, Kipling, Ford and contemporary poetry; he is an Assistant Editor on the Cambridge Edition of Conrad’s Works, and author of Joseph Conrad: Identity and Betrayal (1992) and Cross-Cultural Encounters in Joseph Conrad’s Malay Fiction (2000); co-editor of Conrad and Theory (1997). He has published extensively on Conrad and edited both Conrad and Kipling for Penguin, and co-edited a collection of essays: New British Poetries.

Dr Betty Jay, co-editor of The Discourse of Slavery: Aphra Behn to Toni Morrison (1994), editor of E. M. Forster: A Passage to India (1998) and author of Anne Brontë (1999). Her research interests include psychoanalytic, feminist and post-colonial theory, and the twentieth-century novel.

Funding and Accommodation

Students entering this programme will normally either be recipients of an AHRB studentship or overseas studentship or self-financing. A number of College MA studentships are available on a competitive basis. All applicants will automatically be considered for these awards.

While accommodation cannot be guaranteed, the campus is well provided with student residences. Overseas applicants are given priority in allocation.

Contacts and Further Information

For application forms write to:      Postgraduate Secretary, English Department, Royal Holloway,
University of London,  Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX.    Or download a form (PDF file) here.

For further information, contact the Course Director, Professor Tim Armstrong  (t.armstrong@rhul.ac.uk ).

 

Royal Holloway is a College of the University of London. It was founded in 1886 and further strengthened in the mid-1980s by amalgamation with Bedford College.

 

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