Karlstad University

Master Program in English: Literary Specialisation

The Master program in English is for you if you wish to develop your skills in understanding, analyzing, and contextualizing cultural expressions or language use in English, one of the globally most influential languages in contemporary life. Are you interested in popular culture and genre literature? Social media? Global English literature or communication? Language learning? This program offers opportunities to immerse yourself in these topics and more!

The diverse forms of the English language are extensively present in public and private life, as well as in both local and international culture. The study of English use and English-language cultural expression is therefore concretely relevant and has many potential applications across domains such as education and academia, politics, culture, media, business, and more.

The program specializations share a joint theme of "English in contemporary life". The linguistic specialization comprises courses that mainly concern applied linguistics, with an overall focus on perspectives and methods for studying and understanding language use as social interaction, cognition, text, and discourse. The literary specialization comprises courses that variously concern cultural and literary negotiations of contemporary life, with an emphasis on historical and geographical contextualizations as well as critical perspectives. The program's courses highlight contemporary language use and materials, as well as contemporary theories and methods, and are intimately tied to research specializations at the department. The courses do not merely concern the English language and English literature in themselves, but also concern how linguistic and literary perspectives can shed light on societal phenomena, issues, and developments.