MA English - Literary Studies
Belfast, United Kingdom
MA
DURATION
3 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2026
TUITION FEES
GBP 23,000 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* international fee
Key Summary
About: The MA in English - Literary Studies at Queen's University Belfast builds advanced knowledge through guided pathways or flexible topics across periods and nations. Modules feature fieldwork in contemporary culture, archival research with Armagh and Belfast collections, and optional modules from other programmes. You’ll join discussion groups and the annual PG conference "Common Ground", taught by staff with international research profiles.
Career Outcomes: Graduates enter publishing, journalism, public relations, teaching, library science, advertising, the Civil Service, business, industry and media or pursue PhD study. Queen’s employability initiatives, including the Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award, placements help you gain practical experience.
To provide students with the opportunity to develop in-depth knowledge and understanding of English Literary Studies, enabling students to pursue specialised fields of study (via guided pathways in specialist areas) or to choose a flexible arrangement of topics that bypass traditional period or national boundaries.
English - Literary Studies Highlights
Student Experience
The MA in English Literary Studies offers a number of special features. Some modules engage with contemporary art and culture through field work, while other modules use connections to different subject areas and to the archives in Armagh, Belfast and Trinity College Dublin. Students are also able to take some modules from other programmes, including the Masters in Liberal Arts.
Further Study Opportunities
Students and staff across the degree also take part in a number of discussion groups, workshops and conferences both within and outside the University. There is the opportunity to organise and/or participate in the School's annual PG conference ('Common Ground') and regular research seminars.
Internationally Renowned Experts
You will be taught by staff with interests that range across the English subject area and who have research profiles of international standing.
Course Structure
Students may enrol on a full-time or part-time basis. Full-time students take three modules per semester. Part-time students typically take one or two modules per semester.
Course Details
The MA in English Literary Studies offers a flexible system in which students can choose either specific topics to create a focused programme of study or widely diverse areas of literary study, according to their own preferences. The School's literary studies staff comprise the largest group within the School of Arts, English and Languages and are thus able to teach a broad range of material: modules span the earliest writings in English (studied in their own historical and cultural contexts but also in relation to new digital cultures), to contemporary American literature and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (incorporating literature and other aspects of culture, such as television and graphic arts). Other strengths of the School's expertise include Renaissance literature (particularly women's writing, the history of the child, and Shakespeare and World Cinema), eighteenth-century literature (women's writing, slavery and abolition, and Indian literatures in English), nineteenth and twentieth-century literature (with specialisms including the fiction of Dickens, the fin de siècle and modernism), and contemporary literature (Irish writing, African literatures in English, and American literature).
All students on the programme take a subject-specific Literary Research Methods module that addresses the issues, challenges and research questions raised by advanced study in the subject. Students also select from a wide range of optional modules, permitting either specialism or diversity in the choice of study. Most modules are on offer annually, but there can be variations year to year, subject to staff availability. Finally, after two semesters of taught modules, all MA students on the programme complete a 15,000-word dissertation, which they choose and design and then work on in conjunction with an academic supervisor.
Summer Period (June-September)
Dissertation (60 CATS)
Core Modules
- Dissertation English Literary Studies (60 credits)
- Literary Research Methods (20 credits)
Optional Modules
- Dickens in Context (20 credits)
- Discourses of Crime and Deviance (20 credits)
- Shakespeare and Asia (20 credits)
- Magic and Science in Medieval Writings (20 credits)
- A Space for Radical Openness? Writing the Margins in Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature (20 credits)
- Incorrigibly Plural (20 credits)
- Special Topic Irish Writing (20 credits)
- Contemporary Northern Irish Literature (20 credits)
- African Fiction: Race, Rites and Religion (20 credits)
- Irish Women's Writing (20 credits)
- Fictions of Female Community, 1660-2007 (20 credits)
- Romantic-era Magazine and Print Culture (20 credits)
- Shakespearean Childhoods (20 credits)
- Migrating Identities (20 credits)
- Love Poetry (20 credits)
- Popular Fiction at the Fin de Siècle (20 credits)
- Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature (20 credits)
Queen’s University Belfast is ranked 174th in the QS World University Rankings 2027
How do I fund my study?
The Department for the Economy will provide a tuition fee loan of up to £6,500 per NI / EU student for postgraduate study.
A postgraduate loans system in the UK offers government-backed student loans of up to £11,836 for taught and research Master's courses in all subject areas. Criteria, eligibility, repayment and application information are available on the UK government website.
Graduates from these programmes have a good employment record. Professions including publishing, journalism, public relations, teaching, IT, library science, corporate advertising, the Civil Service, business, industry and the media all recruit from our range of graduates. Some students choose to continue their studies to PhD level on a chosen, specialised topic in one of the pathways in English Literary Studies.
Queen's postgraduates reap exceptional benefits. Unique initiatives, such as the Future Ready Award, bolster our commitment to employability, while innovative leadership and executive programmes alongside sterling integration with business experts helps our students gain key leadership positions both nationally and internationally.
Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award for extra-curricular skills
In addition to your degree programme, at Queen's you can have the opportunity to gain wider life, academic and employability skills. For example, placements, voluntary work, clubs, societies, sports and lots more. So not only do you graduate with a degree recognised from a world leading university, you'll have practical national and international experience plus a wider exposure to life overall. We call this Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award. It's what makes studying at Queen's University Belfast special.