English literature

• English at Sussex has a well-established international reputation for producing research that develops and extends the boundaries of the subject.
• In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 95 per cent of our English research was rated as recognised internationally or higher, and over half rated as internationally excellent or higher.
• English runs a wide range of innovative MA programmes, taught by faculty working at the forefront of English studies.
• We support research centres such as the Centre for Modernist Studies and the Centre for Early Modern Studies, which focus on interdisciplinary research and teaching, and attract high-profile speakers from around the world.
• We have a diverse and thriving community of postgraduate students who contribute to an outstanding research culture.

Taught programmes

The School of English offers one of the most diverse sets of English programmes in the UK. They are designed to allow you to specialise in cutting-edge approaches to literary study. To choose the programme best suited to you, look carefully at the full range of programmes described in detail below.

Full-time programmes can also be followed part time over two years, with taught seminars in the autumn and spring terms.

Funding (for all programmes)

English at Sussex has been successful in attracting quota funding via the AHRC Block Grant Partnership Scheme. Refer to the Funding section for more information.

Programme structure (for all programmes)

Each programme consists of four one-term courses chosen from a range of options, and a dissertation. Courses are taught as weekly seminars, two in the autumn term and two in the spring term, and it is normally possible to choose up to two of these courses from another MA programme.

Assessment (for all programmes)

You are assessed by four 5,000-word term papers and a dissertation of up to 20,000 words.

Research programmes

The English faculty encompasses research strengths and interests that span most periods of English literature and contemporary critical theory.

Particular areas of expertise include Renaissance writing; culture and ideology; the novel from the 18th century to the present; romantic, Victorian and modern poetry; and all aspects of modernism and postmodernism.

There is a strong commitment to the inter-disciplinary study of literature in its historical and discursive context in relation to philosophy, history of art and the history of ideas; to post-colonial and feminist criticism; to gay and lesbian criticism; and to recent developments in psychoanalytic, Marxist, post-structuralist and ‘new historicist’ criticism.

Funding

English at Sussex has been successful in attracting research preparation Masters quota funding via the AHRC Block Grant Partnership Scheme. For further details of AHRC funding, refer to the Funding section.

There are financial opportunities for research students to contribute towards undergraduate teaching.

Recent and current thesis titles

Gossip: gender and genre from Pepys to Woolf

Law and form: Joyce, Beckett and philosophy

Research

MPhil

• Colonial and Postcolonial Cultures
• Critical Theory
• Early Modern Literature and Culture
• Literature and Culture 1700 - 1900
• Literature and Philosophy
• Literature, Film and Visual Culture
• Literature, Religion and Philosophy
• Modern French Thought
• Modern German Studies
• Modern and Contemporary Literature, Culture and Thought
• Renaissance Studies
• Sexual Dissidence in Literature and Culture

DPhil

• Colonial and Postcolonial Cultures
• Critical Theory
• Early Modern Literature and Culture
• Literature and Culture 1700 - 1900
• Literature and Philosophy
• Literature, Film and Visual Culture
• Literature, Religion and Philosophy
• Modern French Thought
• Modern German Studies
• Modern and Contemporary Literature, Culture and Thought
• Renaissance Studies
• Sexual Dissidence in Literature and Culture

Please note: a DPhil is the term given by the University of Sussex to the award of Doctor of Philosophy by research, often referred to by other universities as a PhD.

Research information

Details of faculty and research information.

Essentials

Admissions requirements

Admissions requirements are listed with the individual programme descriptions.

For information on overseas qualifications that meet the admissions requirements, refer to the Applications and selection section

MPhil and DPhil

A Masters degree in a literary subject or another discipline relevant to your chosen area of research. Overseas applicants who apply after 31 March should submit a sample of their written work with their application

English language requirements

IELTS 7.0, with not less than 6.5 in each section. Internet TOEFL with 100 overall including 27 in both Speaking and Writing. For more information and alternative English language requirements, refer to the Applications and selection section.

More intimate than violence: rape, representation and the civic bond

Rewriting the Nation: nationalist interventions in literary history

Shakespeare and cyberspace

Temporality in modernist literature

The body in sickness in England 1558-1640

The hotel in fiction 1870-1939

The poetic culture of English Republicanism

Thomas Hardy’s relations with contemporary readers

TS Eliot, mass culture and the music hall

Virginia Woolf’s essays: a woman writer’s production of literary history

Waking nightmares: a critical study of Ian McEwan’s novels