MRes Arts: English

Overview

The MRes Arts: English allows you to develop and complete a one year full-time or two year part-time independent research project in English Language and/or Literature, in the context of a structured programme of study. The MRes provides excellent preparation if you’re intending to undertake a PhD in English, but is also a good choice if you wish to pursue a research project for purposes of professional development or personal interest.

Apart from completing a bespoke research skills module you will be working individually with your supervisor(s) throughout, and you will become part of the vibrant research community within the English Department/School of the Arts.

Recent MRes projects have encompassed a broad range of topics, including an investigation of adolescents’ language attitudes towards Liverpool English, a study on code-switching in Spanish-English bilingual children, an analysis of the poet figure in Shelly’s Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude, and an exploration of queer racialised identities in contemporary theory and novels.

Career prospects

The MRes Arts may enhance the career prospects of those working or wishing to work in fields associated with the study of Arts subjects or other areas of academic work and study, including teachers, librarians, and professional writers. While managerial positions often require the ability to conduct research or project-work and to demonstrate sustained and complex organisational skills in ways encompassed by this programme, its emphasis on oral and written communication skills as well as on IT-based presentation skills will be useful for many types of employment. Some students may want to take this course for its own sake and for the sake of personal development and the revitalization of subject awareness. Equally, the MRes is designed to prepare students too for further research at MPhil or PhD level, and to enable them to enter postgraduate study, thus offering a first step towards a career in academic teaching and research.

The advanced study of one or more Arts subject on this programme equips students with powers of fine discrimination and judgement that will set them apart in workplaces of many kinds. The skills it fosters are those which enable graduates to deal logically with the complex demands of a whole range of careers. These skills include:

• the ability to process large amounts of information
• the ability to organise disparate material into a coherent argument
• the capacity to compare many different views and come to a decision about the merits of each
• the independence to define a complex project and bring it to completion with minimal input.
• imaginative and creative responsiveness to problems
• powers of expression (both written and oral) which allow for the lucid delineation of nuanced ideas.