MA
Literary Studies

This unique and intellectually rigorous Masters programme gives you the opportunity to study literature at an advanced level from a variety of perspectives.

• In your first term of study, you can select from and develop expertise in a range of literary areas, such as: Modern and Contemporary American Literature and Culture; Critical Theory; Modern and Contemporary Literature; Romantic, Victorian and Decadent Literature and Culture.
• In your second term of study, you can immerse yourself in an exciting array of specialist options (subject to availability), such as science fiction, climate change fiction, postmodernism, literature and philosophy, modern and contemporary women’s writing, the visual arts of European Decadence, and Indigenous literature.
• In the third term of study, you will research and write a closely supervised dissertation in an area of literary studies relevant to the programme.
• The structure of the programme allows you to concentrate on one literary area or broaden the scope of your studies by choosing a diverse range of modules.
• This programme enables you to read critically across a wide range of texts and diverse syllabi, to engage with different literary periods and movements, from the nineteenth century to the contemporary, and to explore literature in various national and regional contexts but also to track its transnational and transcultural travels and interconnections. 
• Where our modules are interdisciplinary, you will be able to engage with different media (e.g., film, photography, and painting) alongside literary texts.  
• The programme approaches literature and culture from various critical and theoretical angles, but you can also study critical theory as a subject in its own right.
• The programme develops a critical understanding of how literature responds to the crises and concerns of the past and present and opens up possibilities for the future when studied in historical, social and cultural contexts.
• Our programme’s modules reflect the cutting-edge research of the experts who teach them.
• Studying literature at Goldsmiths means that you will have on your doorstep one of the most diverse cities in the world, a world-class arts, cultural, and social scene, a multitude of museums, theatres, galleries, cinemas, libraries and archives, and an unparalleled creative economy and social life.

Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Dr Richard Crownshaw.