Program Overview

English Literature (MA by Research)

The English Literature (MA by Research) is a one-year full-time or two-year part-time research degree that allows students to explore a research topic in depth. This type of study gives students the chance to explore a research topic over a shorter time than a more in-depth doctoral programme.

Overview

A Master of Arts (MA) by Research allows students to undertake a one-year (full-time) or two-year (part-time) research degree. It contains little or no formal taught component. This type of study gives students the chance to explore a research topic over a shorter time than a more in-depth doctoral programme.

Key Information

Entry Requirements

• The normal entry requirements for enrolment on a MA by Research is a second honours degree (2:2 or above) from a UK university or a qualification of an equivalent standard, in a discipline appropriate to that of the proposed programme.
• If the first language is not English, students will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 7.0 overall with no element lower than 6.5, or equivalent.

Start Dates

• 1 October 2025
• 12 January 2026
• 20 April 2026

Application Deadlines

• For September 2025:
  • 13 June 2025 for International and Scholarship Students
  • 04 July 2025 for Home Students
• For October 2025:
  • 13 June 2025 for International and Scholarship Students
  • 04 July 2025 for Home Students
• For January 2026:
  • 17 October 2025 for International and Scholarship Students
  • 14 November 2025 for Home Students
• For April 2026:
  • 23 January 2026 for International and Scholarship Students
  • 20 February 2026 for Home Students

Duration

• The maximum duration for an MA by Research is 1 year (12 months) full-time or 2 years (24 months) part-time with an optional submission pending (writing-up) period of 4 months.
• Sometimes it may be possible to mix periods of both full-time and part-time study.

What Can I Research?

We have expertise in literature and culture from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Our particular areas of expertise include:

• Lifewriting and literary biography
• Environmental literature: Shakespeare to the present
• Women’s writing and the Renaissance
• The Victorian period and its afterlife
• Representations of Romani history and experience
• Literature of canals, waterways and rivers, the ‘Blue Humanities’
• Literatures of ageing
• Narrating illness
• Contemporary women novelists
• Modern and contemporary poetry, in particular Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney
• Postmodernism and beyond

We also welcome proposals that fall in the general areas of:

• Contemporary and Modern Literature
• The Victorian Period
• The Long Eighteenth Century
• The Renaissance
• The Medieval Period

Teaching and Assessment

• As a minimum, students can expect to meet with their supervisors at least once a month (once every two months for part-time students).
• Self-directed study is to be agreed in liaison with the student and their supervisor.
• Self-directed study and supervision time should equate to 35 hours per week (for full-time research degrees).

Fees and Finance

• In 2025/26 the full-time tuition fee for UK postgraduate researchers will be £5,050.
• In 2025/26 the part-time tuition fee for UK postgraduate researchers will be £2,525.
• Tuition fees will cover the cost of study at the University.
• Please note that tuition fees for subsequent years of study may rise in line with inflation (RPI-X).

Important Information

We will always try to deliver the course as described. However, sometimes we may have to make changes as set out below.

• Changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, for example pandemics, other disasters (such as fire, flood or war) or changes made by the government.
• Your research project is likely to evolve as you work on it and these minor changes are a natural and expected part of your study.
• However, we may need to make more significant changes to your topic of research during the course of your studies, either because your area of interest has changed, or because we can no longer support your research for reasons outside the University’s control.