M.Phil. in Modern and Contemporary Literature
Overview
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John Ruskin, 'Aiguilles de Chamonix' |
The M.Phil. in Modern and Contemporary Literature is a nine-month course that runs from October to June. This exciting M.Phil. explores the rich array of literature in English from 1830 to the present, and encourages students to pay particular attention to the relationship of literary texts and their historical and intellectual contexts. The course structure is designed to enable flexibility in terms of period and specialism: you can choose to concentrate on nineteenth- or twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature, or take a selection of seminars in both. The flexible framework allows you to build a programme of specialised study in line with your own particular research interests. Guidance on developing your course of study will be given by a designated Faculty member who will also act each term as your dissertation supervisor.
Teaching on this three-term course consists of Core and Optional seminars, a Research Methods course, and a series of one-to-one supervisions. You will write essays in the first two terms, followed by a dissertation on the research topic of your choice. You will also have a wide choice of Graduate Research Seminar series to attend, each of which features speakers from both within the Faculty and from other universities.
The Faculty has over twenty-five members who teach and research in Modern and/or Contemporary literature (see Faculty list below). Their special interests extend into various areas, including aestheticism, nineteenth-century colonialism, Victorian social criticism, modernism, avant-gardes, travel literature, war literature, postmodernism, and postcolonial literature. Many of the Faculty members also contribute to an extensive range of lectures in areas of Modern and Contemporary literature, and these lectures are open to all students in the Faculty. In addition, you will be able to benefit from the exceptional research resources offered by the University Library , one of only five copyright libraries in the UK. Its holdings are supplemented by the English Faculty Library along with the libraries of the University’s various Colleges.
The M.Phil. in Modern and Contemporary Literature may be taken as a free-standing Masters qualification, or as preparation for doctoral study. Under normal circumstances, students will not be permitted to register in the Faculty of English for Ph.D. research in the field of Modern and Contemporary literature unless they have completed this M.Phil. course, or a similar Masters degree at another university, at an appropriate standard.
The Course
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| Dante Gabriel Rossetti, portrait of Christina Rossetti (1866) ©Fitzwilliam Museum |
Seminar courses run throughout the first two terms, Michaelmas and Lent. You will be able to choose two courses per term in addition to the compulsory Research Methods course.
In Michaelmas Term you are required to choose at least one of the two Core courses, and can take both. If you take one Core course in Michaelmas, you can opt for one of the two designated Modern and Contemporary options (see below), or (under particular circumstances) a shared option from the M.Phil. in Criticism and Culture or the M.Phil. in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Studies. In Lent Term you will be able to choose two courses from a pool of options that is shared between a number of M.Phils. You will have priority when choosing those options offered to the pool by the Modern and Contemporary M.Phil.
You may also seek special permission from the Convenor of the Modern and Contemporary M.Phil. to substitute in Lent an English Faculty option for one offered in another Faculty.
In addition to the taught seminars, you will be expected to attend at least ten sessions of your choice from any of the following strands of fortnightly Graduate Literary Research Seminars: Twentieth-Century and Contemporary; Nineteenth-Century; Eighteenth-Century and Romantic; Criticism and Culture; Literary Theory. These are relaxed but intellectually vibrant seminars that feature papers from graduates, Faculty staff and invited speakers.
Michaelmas Term 2012
Both of the Core courses detailed below are designed to provide training in the close-reading of literary style and form with regard to historical and intellectual context.
Core I: Texts and Contexts, 1830-1914
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Week 2. Prof. Steven Connor, 'Dickens and Fictional Capital: Getting, Spending, Borrowing, Lending'
Week 3. Prof. G. Beer, ‘Evidence and Imagination: Darwin Thinking’
Week 4. Dr. M. Hurley, ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins’
Week 5. Prof. A. Leighton, ‘Walter Pater: Singing-Master’
Week 6. Miss A. Hennegan, ‘Oscar Wilde and Decadence’
Week 7. Dr C. Warnes, ‘Mission Writing in South Africa’
Core 2: Texts and Contexts, 1914 to the Contemporary
Week 2. Dr A. Stillman, ‘Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot’
Week 3. Prof. D. Trotter, ‘The Reconfiguration of Empire’
Week 4. Dr A. Houen, ‘Novel Blasphemy?: Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and its Legacy’
Week 5. Dr R. Macfarlane, ‘Style and Excess’
Week 6. Dr M. Hrebeniak, ‘Ecologies of Text’
Week 7. Dr I. Patterson, ‘The Contemporary Lyric’
Research Methods Course
This is a compulsory element but is not formally assessed.
Week 1. Dr M. Waithe, ‘Scholarly Method’
Week 2. Dr R. Macfarlane, ‘Electronic Resources’
Week 3. Dr S. Meer, 'Editing and Editions'
Week 4. Dr A. Houen, 'Academic Conferences'
Option 1: Dr A. Milne, ‘Parisian English-Language Modernism from Wilde to Beckett’
Option 2: Dr M. Waithe, ‘Victorian Work Ethics: Labour in the Literary Imagination, 1830-1914’
Lent Term 2013
In this term you can choose any two options from the following list. Students on this M.Phil. have priority in choosing the Modern and Contemporary Options (1 and 2).
Option 1: Dr J.-M. Schramm, ‘The Novel and Public Discourse in the Nineteenth Century’
Option 2: Dr T. Tate, ‘Memoirs of the Viet Nam/American War: American, Australian and Vietnamese Writers in English, 1968 to the Present’
Plus the following pooled options from other M.Phils:
Dr A. Houen, ‘Sacrifice in Film and Literature since WWII’
Dr R. Macfarlane, ‘The Post-Pastoral: Approaches To Nature Since 1945’
Dr A. Milne, ‘Modernist Poetics’
Prof. D. Trotter, ‘“Naturalism” in Literature and Cinema’
Dr Louise Joy, 'Romanticism and Childhood'
Dr G. F. Parker and Dr C. Russell, ‘Greece and Rome’
N.B. Core and Optional Courses listed here may be subject to change.
Examined Work
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| First edition of Virginia Woolf's The Waves (1931) |
• Two coursework essays, each of not more than 5,000 words. One of the essays to be written for one of the chosen Michaelmas Term courses, the other essay written for one of the chosen Lent term courses. Each essay contributes 25% to the overall degree mark. In Easter term the teaching will be centred around supervisions for the dissertation.
• A dissertation of 12,000 to 15,000 words on a research topic of your choice (but which must fall within the territory of the course, being literature in English from 1830-Present Day), contributing 50% to the overall mark. Students work on the dissertation throughout the nine months of the course, in consultation with their personal supervisor. At the end of the Michaelmas Term, students are required to submit a statement of dissertation research, along with a bibliography and an essay of 2,200 to 2,500 words on a topic directly related to the dissertation. The essay is a formative exercise and does not contribute to the overall mark.
Faculty Members: Modern and Contemporary Literature
Faculty
Faculty members whose teaching or research interests include Modern or Contemporary Literature:
Faculty Members:
Entry Requirements and Application Procedures
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| Rabindranath Tagore |
You may find it helpful to find out about funding for home students or funding for overseas students before you apply. You should also consult our guide for prospective graduates. All graduate students inCambridge are members of a College as well as of a Faculty of the University, and those applying through the Board of Graduate Studies for a place on the course will find themselves invited to list a number of Colleges in order of preference. It is a good idea to consult the prospectuses of a number of Colleges before you apply.
Applications which which can be made via the Board of Graduate website, are first considered by the Faculty. Potential supervisors are then consulted. Successful applications are then offered to the Colleges of the student's choice, and may be then passed on to the second or third choice. Since this can be a lengthy process it is very much in the interests of applicants to apply in good time (and before the deadline for applications of January 20th).
Applicants for funding should be aware that many funding bodies require a firm acceptance from the University before they will consider your application. If you hope to have a decision from the University in time to apply for funding, you should apply well before the January 20th deadline. You may find it helpful in drawing up your funding application to have had some discussion with the person assigned to be your supervisor.deadline. You may find it helpful in drawing up your funding application to have had some discussion with the person assigned to be your supervisor.
Applicants should normally have a first-class honours degree or high II.i , or its overseas/international equivalent (e.g. minimum 3.7 GPA). Applicants whose first degrees are in other disciplines are always considered, provided they can give an account of how their interest in literary study has developed. We welcome qualified UK, EU, and overseas applicants (those for whom English is not a first language will be required by the Board of Graduate Studies to provide evidence of linguistic proficiency).
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John Cage 'plexigram', On Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel Duchamp, II(1969) |
Enquiries should be addressed to:
The Director of Graduate Studies,
Degree Committee of the Faculty of English,
University of Cambridge
9 West Road
Cambridge
UK
CB3 9DP