MA English Literature: Modern and Contemporary

The pathway aims to explore Modernist and Contemporary Writing in relation to broad ideas about twentieth-century and twenty-first century history, the historical present, the problems of periodization, and the changing cultural context of literary writing. Special attention is devoted to questions of technology, innovation and social change that alter and bring into question the category of writing itself, its role in theoretical debates and its place in modern and contemporary philosophy. The pathway offers the opportunity to think about the recent history of technological innovation and the digital cultures of the twenty first century as contexts for literary production, and to provide a detailed survey of issues that relate to the definition of modernism, the nature of modernity and the notion of the contemporary, both in academic contexts and in lived social experience.

The pathway aims:

On the core module you will focus on the transition from modernist to postmodernist literature and reflect on the problems of literary periodization in the present. Elective modules will offer topics such as The State of the Novel, Queer Theory, Aestheticism the Fin de Siecle, The Cultural Legacies of the First World War, and Creative Critical Writing.

You may, subject to availability and the approval of the School, take one of your elective modules from across a range offered by other Schools in the Humanities and Social Science and by other Colleges of the University of London.