Master of Arts - English Literature

Coventry University (Part of Coventry University Group)

Program Description

MA English Literature is an exciting opportunity to study local and global literatures, from the Renaissance through to present day. Engaging with cutting-edge critical theories and through embodied learning, students will consider the importance of literature for the regional and global concerns of the twenty-first century. The analytical, critical and research skills developed on this course prepare students for entry into a wide range of careers.

MA English Literature explores the interrelations between literature and the environments in which it is produced and received. It employs a broad understanding of the word ‘environment’ to include wilderness, wasteland, urban, suburban and domestic spaces. It seeks to understand the role of literature in collective human and non-human resistance and adaptation to environmental change.

As a space that was violently and rapidly unmade and remade during and in the wake of the Second World War, Coventry itself provides a fascinating case study of the evolving relationship between people, non-human animals and the built environment, of the environmentally destructive capacities of war, and of its imbrication with nationalisms and the legacies of colonialism.

This course emphasises real-world engagement and experiential learning. A typical year might include following the river Sherbourne into and out of Coventry and examining the use of space and objects in public buildings; a visit to a landfill site to facilitate discussion on waste disposal innovation; a trip to Lake Geneva to reflect on how the strange weather of 1816 shaped the works Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Byron; and opportunities to conduct in-depth case studies of how literature has galvanised communities of resistance in response to environmental catastrophes such as the Bhopal disaster in India.