Masters applications for 2023 entry are now closed.
Applications for September 2024 will open on Monday 25 September. Applications are now open for programmes with a January 2024 start. View our programmes »
| UCAS code |
1234 |
| Duration |
1 year full time
2 years part time |
| Entry year |
September 2025 |
| Campus |
Streatham Campus
|
| Discipline |
English
|
| Contact |
|
Overview
- Specialise in World Literatures whilst also deepening your knowledge across a varied choice of optional modules.
- Develop an enhanced understanding of literature and media in their historical and cultural contexts and foster your communication and analytical skills.
- You will join a vibrant postgraduate and research community and be taught by world-renowned academics actively involved in a variety of research areas.
- Exeter is an UNESCO City of Literature, and you will have access to our outstanding Special Collections: the richest collection of twentieth-century literary papers by writers associated with the southwest of England in any university library, including: Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier, John Betjeman and William Golding.
Our English research environment is 100% world leading
Top 50 in the world for English Language and Literature
A thriving and supportive writing community - our team of prize-winning and best-selling authors will help you develop your creative writing skills
Top 15 in the UK for English
Our English research environment is 100% world leading
Top 50 in the world for English Language and Literature
A thriving and supportive writing community - our team of prize-winning and best-selling authors will help you develop your creative writing skills
Top 15 in the UK for English
Entry requirements
We are looking for graduates with a 2:2 Honours degree with 53% or above in their first degree in a relevant subject area. While we normally only accept applicants who meet this criteria, if you are coming from a different academic background which is equivalent to degree level, or have relevant work experience, we would welcome your application.
Applicants will be asked to submit a sample of academic work. We require roughly 2000 - 3000 words of prose (this could be in the form of a critical essay or part of a critical essay that you have already produced for an undergraduate degree).
Entry requirements for international students
English language requirements
International students need to show they have the required level of English language to study this course. The required test scores for this course fall under Profile E. Please visit our English language requirements page to view the required test scores and equivalencies from your country.
Course content
This MA is devoted to the study of World Literatures and embraces the particular strengths of the Department of English and Creative Writing at Exeter. Students on this programme choose 60 credits of modules and a Dissertation in World Literatures. Remaining credits are selected from an expansive list of options, depending on your interests.
The programme is specifically designed for those seeking high level training prior to embarking on doctoral research, recent graduates wishing to extend and enhance their studies by a year before taking up a career, individuals already in employment who are interested in career development, and those who simply wish to broaden their intellectual horizons.
Please note that this course requires you to read and analyse complex English literary texts, but we do not teach English language skills on these modules. You will need a near-native level of English to participate fully in classes and complete assessments successfully.
The modules we outline here provide examples of what you can expect to learn on this degree course based on recent academic teaching. The precise modules available to you in future years may vary depending on staff availability and research interests, new topics of study, timetabling and student demand.
120 credits of compulsory modules and 60 credits of optional modules
Compulsory modules
All students must take EASM023 Dissertation and two of the five modules from the list below
a - all students must take two of the following modules: EASM150, EASM152, EASM167, EASM169, EASM184
| Code | Module |
Credits |
|---|
| EASM023 |
Dissertation | 60 |
| EASM150 |
Empire, Decadence and Modernity: Literature 1870-1910 See note a above | 30 |
| EASM152 |
Criticism and Theory: Critical and Literary Theory in a Global Context see note a above | 30 |
| EASM167 |
World Cinema / World Literature see note a above | 30 |
| EASM169 |
Publishing and Power: Black and Asian Literary Networks in the UK see note a above | 30 |
| EASM184 |
World Literature and Postcolonial Studies see note a above | 30 |
Optional modules
Students must choose 60 credits from the list of option modules.
| Code | Module |
Credits |
|---|
|
MA ELS World Literatures options 2024-5 |
| EASM151 |
Modernism and Material Culture |
30 |
| EASM157 |
The Literature of Cold War America |
30 |
| EASM180 |
Crossing Medieval Boundaries |
30 |
| EASM192 |
Global Voices: Shakespeare and the Early Modern World |
30 |
| EASM109 |
Bodies Politic: Cultural and Sexual Politics in England, 1603-1679 |
30 |
| EASM171 |
Expanding Queerness: Critical Debates in Theory, Literature, Film and Television |
30 |
| EASM174 |
Writing Women in the English Middle Ages |
30 |
| EASM191 |
Environments of Early Modern Drama |
30 |
Fees
2025/26 entry
UK fees per year:
£12,500 full-time; £6,250 part-time
International fees per year:
£25,300 full-time; £12,650 part-time
Scholarships
We invest heavily in scholarships for talented prospective Masters students. This includes over £5 million in scholarships for international students, such as our Global Excellence Scholarships*.
For more information on scholarships, please visit our scholarships and bursaries page.
*Selected programmes only. Please see the Terms and Conditions for each scheme for further details.
Teaching and research
Learning and teaching
We believe in collaborative, small group learning and teaching for your modules will be delivered in seminar groups. Each module has one two-hour seminar per week, with independent work set that involves intensive, self-motivated research and writing.
You will be encouraged to discuss your ideas and interact with your fellow students and academic staff through our Visiting Speaker seminar series, postgraduate conferences and Research Centre activities. You will be expected to play an active role in debating and presenting your work. Throughout your programme you will develop and enhance your communication, analytical, and critical thinking skills.
Seminars will be supported, where relevant, by film screenings, field trips and archival trips.
Modules
On your modules, you will be assessed via a range of activities including archival projects, individual or group presentations, essays, close reading exercises and more. The final assessment piece will be your dissertation, the culmination of your programme of study. You will conceive, plan, research and write an independent 15,000-word piece that will display your subject knowledge and methodological skills. The dissertation is your opportunity to explore a topic that interests you in greater detail, something which may form the basis of further research such as a Ph.D. project.
Research areas
When you study on the MA World Literatures, you will join a world-leading English and Creative Writing Department that regularly hosts talks, workshops, and conferences spotlighting prestigious visiting speakers and the Department’s own experts. As members of our learning community, postgraduate students are warmly included in such events. These activities are coordinated by the Department’s many research groups and centres. You will benefit from staff at the forefront of their fields, stretching from medieval literature all the way up to contemporary culture.
Research Centres
Dedicated research centres and groupings within our department include:
Research Groups
Community
You will join a vibrant postgraduate and research community. All our staff belong to one or more research group which plan and develop research initiatives across the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
The Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences also houses the Digital Humanities Lab, a state-of-the-art facility offering unique spaces, equipment and training for staff and students. A specialist team conducts and supports innovative Digital Humanities research, offers training and teaching, and undertakes the digital preservation and display of historic material and artefacts using advanced technologies. For more information view our Digital Humanities Lab page.
At Exeter, research is at the heart of what we do, and we hope you will become an active member of our research community.
To find out more about our staff research interests have a look at our staff profile pages.
Read more
Chris Campbell
Amina Yaqin
Jane Poyner
Nadeen Dakkak
Kate Wallis
Chris Campbell
Chris’s research focuses on the intersections of world literature, postcolonial theory and environmental criticism. He is particularly interested in Caribbean literature and culture, world-ecology and postcolonial ecocriticism, and histories of broadcast culture and decolonization. From a broader perspective his research interests include: world literature as literature of the modern world-system; literary and cultural theory; the environmental humanities; colonial/postcolonial Cyprus; and west country writing. He teaches modules concerned with postcolonial and world literary studies, contemporary literature and the environmental humanities.
Profile page
Amina Yaqin
Amina’s work has shaped critical debate across gender studies, postcolonial theory, Muslim Studies and Urdu literary culture. Her key publications include Gender, Sexuality and Feminism in Pakistani Urdu writing (2022); Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation after 9/11 (co-authored with Peter Morey, 2011) and the co-edited volume Contesting Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim Prejudice in Media, Culture and Politics (2019). Currently, she is Co-Investigator on an AHRC/UKRI funded interdisciplinary project ‘Empathy, Narrative and Cultural Values’ engaging with how South Asian communities experience health and education in the West Midlands region.
Profile page
Jane Poyner
Jane’s primary research interests are in South African literary and cultural studies of the apartheid and post-apartheid eras. She has worked extensively on the writing of the South African novelist and Nobel Prize winner, J. M. Coetzee. Her most recent book, The Worlding of the South African Novel: Spaces of Transition, explores the transitional period from apartheid to democracy in South African literary history. It considers representations of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission; urban space; utopia and black intellectualism; art and visual culture, and the intersections between environmental injustice and HIV/AIDS).
Profile page
Nadeen Dakkak
Nadeen’s research is focused on the literary and cultural implications of migration to the Arab Gulf States. She is interested in how experiences of migration for work in the Gulf as well as experiences of exclusion and belonging amongst long-term multi-generational migrant communities are tackled in works of literature and popular culture. She is also interested in how Gulf spaces are imagined and depicted by migrant writers and has also looked at popular culture productions that have emerged from the Gulf in response to experiences of marginalization amongst migrant workers. She works on Arabic fiction as well as fiction published in English or available in translation.
Profile page
Kate Wallis
Kate’s research examines contemporary African literature (emphasis on Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somaliland, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda), Africa-based publishers and festivals, material cultures of the book and global literary networks. She is also an editor and literary producer with 20-years experience of working in the publishing industry. She was previously Head of Humanities at Palgrave Macmillan, responsible for paperback publishing across history, literature, theatre and language. She worked for four years as an Editor and Producer at Kenya’s leading literary publisher Kwani Trust and is currently a Director for Kigali-based publishing company Huza Press.
Kate co-founded www.africainwords.com and regularly curates workshops and festivals including producing Africa Writes in 2015 (the UK’s largest festival of African literature at the British Library) and founding and co-producing Africa Writes–Bristol and Africa Writes–Exeter. She is part of the Steering Group for Exeter’s UNESCO City of Literature programme and the University of Exeter’s Creative Industries Strategy Group.
Profile page
Careers
A postgraduate degree in English equips you with a range of skills that will put you in a great position to succeed in a variety of careers. Alongside in-depth subject knowledge, you will develop advanced and highly transferable skills in researching; analysing and assessing primary and secondary sources; written and verbal communication; managing and interpreting information; developing ideas and arguments; teamwork; problem solving and the ability to make informed decisions. For some of our students the MA is a step on the path to doctoral study, for others it opens a range of career paths in areas such as teaching, publishing, media, journalism, advertising and communications.
In recent years the positions some of our graduates have gone on to include:
- Copywriter
- Marketing Assistant
- Assistant Editor
- Publishing Assistant
- Editorial Assistant
- Freelance Journalist
- Writer
Careers and employment support
While studying at Exeter you can also access a range of activities, advice and practical help to give you the best chance of following your chosen career path. For more information visit our Careers pages.
Read more
