MA (English)

Course details

The MA in English at NUI Galway is ideal for students who wish to build on the foundations of their undergraduate degrees by pursuing more advanced studies in English at postgraduate level, yet who also wish to retain the intellectual breadth of addressing a variety of literature, past and present. This MA offers an intensive specialist training in the study of literary texts and theories, and students explore sources as perse as vellum manuscripts, serialised novels, contemporary bestsellers, digital texts or films.

English at NUI Galway has a number of particular research strengths in areas such as Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Book History, Theatre History, and Colonialism and Travel Writing; the MA in English allows students to take advantage of these and other areas while also pursuing their own topics of individual interest.

Key facts

Entry requirements

BA in an Arts, Humanities or Social Sciences discipline with a minimum result of H2.2 or an equivalent international qualification (e.g. BA with minimum GPA of 3.0 for North American applicants).

Course outline

Students complete six relevant seminar modules across Semesters 1 and 2, i.e. three modules each semester, for a total of 60 ECTS credits (for the full-time option). These modules will be assessed through a combination of written essays and other assessment formats, possibly including reflective journals, in-class presentations, book reviews, and/or take-home exams. In the summer session, students write a 15,000-word (30 ECTS credit) dissertation on a subject of their own choosing.

For the part-time option, students complete three relevant seminar modules in years 1 and 2 of the programme (30 ECTS credits per year for a total of 60 ECTS credits). In the summer session of Year 2, students write their 15,000-word (30 ECTS credit) dissertation.

Modules potentially on offer each year include ones on ‘Book History’, ‘Literature & Colonialism’, ‘Introduction to Digital Humanities’, ‘Textual Studies’, ‘Medieval Aesthetics and Poetic Art’, ‘Thinking About Theatre’, ‘Young Ireland to the Free State: Writing in English 1849-1922’, ‘Critical Approaches’, ‘Representations of the Book in Literature and Film’, ‘Early Modern Print and Manuscript Cultures’, ‘Approaches to Culture & Colonialism’, ‘Travel Literature’, ‘Aspects of Old and Middle English Literature’, ‘Irish Drama and Theatre’, ‘The Nineteenth-Century Century Literary Marketplace’, ‘Cinema & Colonialism’, ‘Nineteenth Century Periodicals And Serial Fiction’, and ‘Literature of North America’, among others.