American Literature and Culture - MA

Teaching

Teaching and assessment

The programme is taught principally through seminars and one-to-one supervisions, supported by visiting lectures, workshops and a guided field-trip. Assessment is through coursework essays, presentations, research portfolios, and the dissertation. There are no timed examinations.

Programme aims

The programme aims to:

• place the study of American literature and culture, in its historical contexts, at the centre of your learning and analysis
• ensure that you acquire knowledge and understanding of literary-historical and cultural-historical modes of analysis
• enable you to understand and use the concepts, methods and approaches of literary and cultural history, and to evaluate their appropriateness in relation to differing contexts and objectives.
• help you to develop their capacity for both independent and collaborative critical thinking about American literature and culture
• provide teaching informed by current and recent research in the discipline, including that conducted by members of staff responsible for teaching the programme
• provide flexibility and diversity in approaches to teaching, reflecting the influence of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary methods in the practice of literary and cultural history.
• prepare you for further advanced study and research in American literature and culture
• Prepare you for professional life outside the university
• encourage the establishment of a supportive, collaborative and co-dependent intellectual community based on mutual respect and co-operative endeavour
• provide high quality teaching in supportive environments with highly qualified and well-trained staff.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding

You will gain knowledge and understanding of:

• the principal currents, debates and conflicts in American literary and cultural history, informed by recent research in the field
• appropriate methods and techniques for studying American literature and culture
• significant historical and theoretical contexts for the assessment of American literature and culture
• how American literature and culture relates to its historical and theoretical contexts.

Intellectual skills

You will develop intellectual skills in:

• applying knowledge of American literature and culture in original ways
• conceptualizing the relationship between American literature and culture and its historical and theoretical contexts
• analyzing and interpreting key texts in American literature and culture in relation to their historical and theoretical contexts
• evaluating recent scholarship in American literary and cultural history, and the methods used in it.

Subject-specific skills

You will develop subject-specific skills in:

• using appropriate methods for scholarship on American literary and cultural history
• conducting research on American literature and culture in the context of a field trip
• articulating and advancing coherent arguments about American literature and culture in writing and speech.

Transferable skills

You will gain the following transferable skills:

• ability to work effectively both individually and as part of a team
• ability to marshal an argument, summarizing and defending a particular interpretation or analysis of a text
• ability to gather, assimilate and organize complex information in relation to a particular problem
• ability to motivate oneself in the exercise of personal initiative and responsibility Ability to show self-direction and originality and solving problems.

Careers

Many career paths can benefit from the writing and analytical skills that you develop as a postgraduate student in the School of English. Our students have gone on to work in academia, journalism, broadcasting and media, publishing, writing and teaching; as well as more general areas such as banking, marketing analysis and project management.

Study support

Postgraduate resources

The Templeman Library is well stocked with excellent research resources in American literature and culture. These include a large collection of scholarly monographs, electronic subscriptions to a wide range of scholarly journals, and a number of digital archives, including for example historical collections of major US newspapers. The British Library in London and its Eccles Centre for American Studies is within easy reach of Canterbury, and offers a superb collection of research resources including historical collections relating to American literature and culture. The School of English offers support for attending and organising conferences, and a dedicated postgraduate study space.

Conferences and seminars

As a student on the MA in American Literature and Culture you will have access to international conferences, symposia, lectures and workshops organised at the University of Kent.

The School of English runs several series of seminars, lectures and readings throughout the academic year. Our weekly research seminars are organised collaboratively by staff and postgraduates in the School. Speakers range from our own postgraduate students to members of staff, to distinguished lecturers who are at the forefront of contemporary research nationally and internationally. They also benefit from engagement with the programmes run by various research centres connected to the School, such as the Centre for Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies, and the Centre for Modern Poetry. 

School of English postgraduate students are encouraged to organise and participate in a conference which takes place in the summer term. This provides students with the invaluable experience of presenting their work to their peers.

Dynamic publishing culture

On the MA in American Literature and Culture you will taught by academics at the forefront of their fields. Our staff regularly publish books and articles in leading journals. Recent books by Kent academics on American literature topics include Stella Bolaki’s Illness as Many Narratives: Arts, Medicine, Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2016); David Stirrup’s Picturing Worlds: Visuality and Visual Sovereignty in Contemporary Anishinaabe Literature (2020) and Will Norman’s Transatlantic Aliens: Modernism, Exile and Culture in Midcentury America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). We are also home to Transmotion, a journal of Native American and First Nations writing edited by David Stirrup.

Global Skills Award

All students registered for a taught Master's programme are eligible to apply for a place on our Global Skills Award Programme. The programme is designed to broaden your understanding of global issues and current affairs as well as to develop personal skills which will enhance your employability.