English Literature and Culture

• An academic humanities degree with a socially relevant focus
• Size: The resources of a large research university but with small classes (typically 10-15 students)
• Atmosphere: A friendly ambience contributes to our positive student feedback
• International: Our staff have received their doctorates from a mix of Dutch universities and international institutions (Oxford, Cambridge, Toronto, Edinburgh)
• Employability: Academic excellence with transferable skills

The course titles of the literature tutorials, above, are recent examples. Courses vary each year. For detailed information about compulsory and optional courses, please visit Ocasys.

For information about the variety of areas in which students can write their dissertations, click the Research tab below.

As part of the programme, students can opt to complete a 10-credit work placement (a.k.a. internship). At the Faculty of Arts, students are responsible for finding a placement for themselves and having it approved by the placement coordinator for their programme, Dr Tekla Mecsnóber, who can be reached at t.d.mecsnober@rug.nl.

A Master's track in English is a well-recognized postgraduate qualification in a market where having a good BA is no longer enough. Some graduates secure jobs that are related to English literature (publishing) while other opportunities arise from skills integral to the programme. The most obvious of these is the ability to use English, a facility that is as prized in countries where it is the native language as it is in places where it is a medium for commerce.

Whether they study Beowulf or Virginia Woolf, our MA students hone their analytical and interpretative skills and work on expressing complex ideas clearly in writing and in oral presentations. They work on texts from other places or times and so engage with cultures other than their own, developing flexibility in habits of mind necessary in a globalized environment. Finally, graduates have written a thesis, thereby demonstrating their ability to manage their time and to work independently, two vital skills for responsible jobs. Regardless of where you go to work, the first thing you will have to do is to persuade an employer that you are right for a job. Jobs don't simply attach themselves naturally to the holders of a particular degree - they need to be won, and the skills imparted in the study of our Master's track provide graduates with the tools they need to do this.

Graduates go on to work in a variety of fields including the following:

• publishing
• teaching
• research
• translation
• journalism
• administrative jobs
• cultural industries

Research in the Department covers broad areas of English literature from medieval times to the present. Our staff members run or participate in a number of international research projects, encounters with the New World and the inevitable conflict of worldviews that this entailed.

The department can supervise a broad range of literature dissertations dealing with texts written on topics from Old English, Middle English, Early Modern, and Modern literature. Dissertations can focus on literatures written in English from various parts of the world, including, for example, American and African writing. Dissertations dealing with recent authors, canonical authors, popular authors and lesser-known works are equally welcome. While dissertations that deal with the themes of conflict and co-operation are particularly welcome, students have a free choice of dissertation subjects within the areas of staff expertise.

Dissertations may be supervised by any appropriate member of staff. The following list indicates some of the areas in which dissertations can be written.

Dr David Ashford: Modernism, Post-Modernism, the Enlightenment, Theory and Philosophy, Post-Humanism, Imperialism, Cultural Geography, Poetry, Poetics and Publishing.

Dr Kees Dekker: Old English literature and language; Middle English literature and language; history of the English language; textual editing; manuscript studies.

Dr John Flood: Renaissance/Early-Modern literature; Romantic and Victorian literature; Christianity and literature; modern Irish literature; science-fiction; J.R.R. Tolkien; literature and war (especially World War I); twentieth-century British, Irish and American poetry; history of the book; textual editing; philosophy and literature.

Dr Ann Hoag: women’s writing; travel literature; contemporary American fiction; Modernism.

Dr Hans Jansen: Shakespeare, English drama; language acquisition; history of the English language; translation.

Dr Suzanne Manizza Roszak: Modern and contemporary US literature, multi-ethnic US and transnational American literature, world literatures in English, Italian American literature and culture, children's and young adult literature, the twentieth- and twenty first-century Gothic, diaspora studies, gender studies, critical race theory, trauma studies.

Dr Tekla Mecsnober: modernist writing (especially James Joyce, modernist magazines and experiments with language); eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British fiction; Gerard Manley Hopkins; Victorian poetry.

Dr Karin Olsen: Anglo-Saxon literature and culture; comparative studies in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse and early Irish literature and culture; Middle English literature.

Dr Kees de Vries: nineteenth-century literature; Oscar Wilde; humour and literature; music and literature; literary theory.

For general information about the research in the department see the Research Page and the People page of English Language and Culture.

Here are some sample topics of students' MA dissertations:

Medieval

• How an Adder Became an Arrow: Battle Kennings in Old English Poetry.
• The Sin of Crime in the Early Irish and Anglo-Saxon Penitentials and Secular Laws.
• The Devil is in the Details: The Use of Archery-related Language in Anglo-Saxon Literature.
• Thomas Hoccleve and His Creation of a Mad Narrator.
• The Representation of Turks in Late-Medieval and Early Modern Europe.
• Homosexuality in Late Medieval English Literature: Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and the Gawain Poet.
• Saints, Satan and Stylistics: Stylistic Features in Medieval Miracle Plays.
• Melancholy in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale and The Book of the Duchess’.

Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries

• The Mother's Portrayal in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century English Popular Literature.
• Representations of Queen Elizabeth I in Seventeenth-Century Histories.
• Self-Reflection in Jane Austen’s Novels.
• The Symbolic-allegorical and the Supernatural Interpretations of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
• Governesses in Victorian Fiction.
• Wilde's Utopia: Socio-Political Criticism in the Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde.
• Changing Attitudes towards Imperialism and Its Ideology During the Age of New Imperialism.
• Identity and Place in Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady.

Twentieth Century and Contemporary

• Psychological Elements in Contemporary and Modern First World War Literature.
• Fantasy Fiction Medievalism: Carnivalesque Laughter between the (Post)Modern and Premodern.
• The Media of Cyberpunk: An Analysis of Postmodern Science Fiction.
• Religion and Secularisation in Modernist Novels.
• Mirrors and mirroring in Katherine Mansfield and Jean Rhys.
• Polarization and Demonization in British Cold War Fiction.
• The Observer in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.
• Travel as a Metaphor for Story and History in Tolkien’s Fiction.
• Fairy Tales for Teenagers: The Lost Potential of Young Adult Dystopian Fiction.
• Conventions in Edward Albee's Plays.
• Poirot in the Orient: Race, Nationality and Orientalism in Agatha Christie.
• Language as a Means of Control in Dystopian Fiction.
• Equality and Identity in the Poems of Langston Hughes.
• Representations of Madness in Contemporary Women's Memoirs.
• Literature and Literary Meaning.