Program Overview

Modern Literature & Culture MA

Key Information

Delivery mode: In person Study mode: Full time, Part time Duration: One year full-time, September to September, two years part-time Credit value (UK/ECTS equivalent): UK 180/ECTS 90 Application status: Open Start date: September 2025

Course Essentials

This Modern Literature and Culture MA presents a rare opportunity to study the literature and culture of both the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. You’ll strengthen your knowledge of canonical nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Henry James, W.E.B. DuBois, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Jean Rhys alongside lesser-known authors and movements. The inclusive literary approach of this Modern Literature and Culture master’s means you’ll encounter texts in a wide array of forms and formats. You’ll read novels, poetry and drama alongside Modernist magazines, Victorian periodicals, feminist zines and anticolonial manifestoes.

You’ll begin your studies in modern English literature and culture with a required module that considers how theorists, writers, and critics have thought about modernity in—and through –the urban space of London. Starting in the Victorian period and ending at the Second World War, you’ll learn how key notions of self, community, empire, nation, and the planet have evolved and trace how this has impacted London and ideas of the ‘modern’. You’ll learn how to independently interpret literary texts in a comparative manner alongside non-literary texts, visual artworks and archival material. You’ll also discover how to approach research questions from an interdisciplinary perspective and develop your own ability to critically consider the contemporary city against previous notions of urban modernity.

The second Modern Literature and Culture MA required module will teach you how to navigate archives and how to think creatively and theoretically about the archive as a concept. Through hands-on lessons in libraries and museums, you’ll be introduced to key archival challenges and learn about the pleasures and perils of the archive. You’ll then head back to the classroom for theoretical and literary discussions.

You also get the opportunity to explore topics or periods that interest you the most by choosing two modules from a varied list that ranges from the 1750s up to the 1950s. For example, you could learn about man, woman and machine in Victorian fiction or explore how writers such as Gertrude Stein, Claude McKay, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen engage with Modernist soundscapes. You could also choose to study how a range of African writers try to convey the nuances of pain, memory and resistance by renegotiating stereotypes of violence with an emerging canon of trauma writing or delve deeper into the work of significant American poets with a special emphasis on sexuality, ranging from Langston Hughes to Adrienne Rich and Frank O'Hara, and beyond.

Your Modern Literature and Culture MA will culminate in a dissertation that you’ll produce in close collaboration with an academic supervisor. Thanks to a year-long module in research methods and practises, you’ll be taught the skills and methodologies required to pursue your own piece of research and get the chance to present some aspect of your project at an MA conference during the summer.

Base Campus

• Strand Campus: Located on the north bank of the River Thames, the Strand Campus houses King's College London's arts and sciences faculties.

Regulating Bodies

• King's is regulated by the Office for Students.

Entry Requirements

UK Applicants

• Standard requirements: A minimum 2:1 undergraduate Bachelor’s (honours) degree.
• Programme-Specific Requirements: Bachelor's degree with 2:1 honours in English, or a subject in which English plays a significant part; other disciplines may be considered.
• English language requirements: English language band C.

International Applicants

• Equivalent International qualifications: Select a country to view equivalent qualifications.
• English language requirements: English language band C.

Selection Process

• Applications must be made online using King's Apply, the Admissions Portal.
• A non-refundable application fee of £85 applies.
• Personal statement and supporting information:
  • Personal Statement: Yes, around 500 words, answering specific questions.
  • Previous Academic Study: Yes, a copy of your official academic transcript(s).
  • References: Yes, one Academic Reference.
  • Writing Sample: Yes, an essay of not more than 4,000 words.
  • Other: Optional, a CV (Resume) or evidence of professional registration.

Teaching & Structure

• Teaching methods: Our MA course is an opportunity to explore a wide and eclectic range of topics and texts anchored in the century or so from the Victorian period to the Second World War.
• Assessment: Your performance will be assessed through a combination of coursework and written/practical examinations. Coursework contributes 100% to your final mark.
• Structure:
  • Required modules:
    • Text, Culture, Theory: London & Urban Modernity (30 credits)
    • The Modern Archive Workshop: Text and Artefact (30 credits)
    • Research Methods and Practices (30 credits)
    • Dissertation (60 credits)
  • Optional modules:
    • Modernist Soundscapes (15 credits)
    • Romantic and Victorian Pasts (15 credits)
    • Contemporary South Asian Women Writing (15 credits)
    • Modernist Mindscapes (15 credits)
    • Queer American Poetry (15 credits)
    • On Speed: Accelerating Culture since the 19th Century (15 credits)
    • Realism and its Others in the Long Twentieth Century (15 credits)
    • Extraction Narratives

Careers

• Employability: Many graduates of this MA in Modern Literature and Culture transfer the skills and knowledge they develop to careers in teaching, journalism, public relations, publishing, politics, arts management and curation, or the legal and financial sectors.
• Other graduates have pursued further research, including PhD programmes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and culture.

Fees & Funding

• Tuition Fees:
  • UK: Full time £13,500 per year (2025/26), Part time £6,750 per year (2025/26)
  • International: Full time £30,000 per year (2025/26), Part time £15,000 per year (2025/26)
• Deposit: A non-refundable deposit is required to secure your place.
• Additional Costs: You can also expect to pay for books, library fees and fines, personal photocopies, printing course handouts, society membership fees, stationery, travel costs, and graduation cost.
• Funding: To find out more about bursaries, scholarships, grants, tuition fees, living expenses, student loans, and other financial help available at King's, please visit the Fees and Funding section.