Your postgraduate studies on the Modern and Contemporary Literature MA pathway will be shaped and informed by leading international researchers in the literature and culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Introduction
Our research and teaching focuses on some of the most critical and pressing issues of our time, including contemporary racism as a legacy of transatlantic slavery in neo-slave narratives; surrealist depictions of climate change; global feminisms; the precarity of whiteness in American novels; and the crisis of post-modernity in contemporary writing. Tutors contributing to the pathway include New Generation Thinkers, award-winning writers and critics and members of the Global Literatures Research Group.
Regular visits by a range of international writers and poets, in association with the Centre for New and International Writing, will enhance your study. In the past we have welcomed writers including George Saunders, Neil Gaiman, Nuar Alsadir and Jay Bernard. The pathway integrates teaching with Liverpool’s host of world-class cultural institutions and venues, such as the Everyman Theatre, the International Slavery Museum, Tate Liverpool and the Liverpool Biennial.
Please note: when applying, please choose ‘MA English Literature’ from the list of programmes. You should specify the specific pathway which you wish to study in your personal statement.
Who is this course for?
The MA is particularly suitable for graduates looking to pursue careers in the arts, culture, creative and heritage sectors, including journalism, copywriting, management in arts and culture organisations and teaching.
What you'll learn
The MA in English Literature provides students with rigorous academic training in the broad interdisciplinary field of literary history, theory and culture. The professional skills that students will develop upon completion of the programme will prepare them well for a wide range of potential employment areas.
Departmental support includes:
Dedicated to small group teaching
Diverse and international student community
Connections with local and national arts and literature institutions
Access to the largest Science Fiction archive in Europe
Vibrant and active research environment linked to the Centre for New and International Writing and the Literature and Science Hub Life, as well as other department-based research centres
Interdisciplinary teaching and research environment.
Course content
Discover what you'll learn, what you'll study, and how you'll be taught and assessed.
Semester one
Students opting for the Modern and Contemporary Literature pathway are required to take at least 60 credits from the specialist modules listed below (including compulsory modules The Modern and The Contemporary) in addition to the core modules (Research Skills, Dissertation Project, Dissertation). The remaining 30 elective credits can be taken in any other pathway run by the Department of English or across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Please note: programme and module details are illustrative and subject to change.
Compulsory modules
Research Skills and Practice (ENGL700)
Credits: 15 /
Semester: semester 1
Research Skills and Practice introduces students to the practices, contexts and real-world applications of academic research. Through regular seminars and a variety of assessment methods, it provides students with the opportunity to develop skills in advanced literary study, independent research and para-academic activities. The knowledge and skills practised through this module provide a foundation for the world after Master’s study.
The Modern (ENGL770)
Credits: 15 /
Semester: semester 1
This module encourages students to engage with literary modernism in a range of contexts, from the cities in which it was made to the periodicals in which it was published and the theories that contributed to its development. As well as analysing the formal innovations of modernist literature, students will explore connections between writers, texts, works of visual art, geographic locations and mass culture, to understand modernism as a global network of people, objects, places and ideas. Conceptions of modernity will be studied, including approaches to the past and tradition, and ideas around novelty and fashion. Authors may include: T.S. Eliot, Hope Mirrlees, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, Jean Toomer and Nancy Cunard.
Optional modules
Literature and Crisis (ENGL771)
Credits: 15 /
Semester: semester 1
This module encourages students to read widely across the late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries with the specific angle of ‘crisis’. Topics may include literary responses to political, social, psychological, theological or climate crisis, aesthetic responses to moral or societal panic, war and migration/trauma, as well as any links between identity and crisis in literature and the visual (photography, film, fine art). Authors may include: Bessie Head; Jean-Paul Sartre; Virginia Woolf; Sarah Kane; Danez Smith; Solmaz Sharif among others. We will consider how the framing of crisis as a moment or event shapes how we think about chronologies of literary response and its social uses. The module will be delivered via six fortnightly seminars.
Science Fiction and/as The Archive (ENGL781)
Credits: 15 /
Semester: semester 1
Science Fiction texts are, for all their presentations of alternative worlds, deeply embedded in the cultures that produce them. Using examples from the Science Fiction Foundation Collection and science fiction archives in the University Library, this module introduces students to skills of archival research alongside providing the knowledge required to understand how modern Science Fiction developed as a unique interaction of authors, editors, and readers. Alongside this, students will read selected sf texts that consider or reflect upon the notion of the archive and/or which reveal themselves to be “archival” texts through their relationship to their contemporary period. Although texts may vary year-by-year, indicative authors include Margaret Atwood, Alastair Reynolds, Olaf Stapledon, and John Wyndham.
Any optional modules listed above are illustrative only and may vary from year to year. Modules may be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved and staff availability. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed.
Semester two
Compulsory modules
The Contemporary (ENGL772)
Credits: 15 /
Semester: semester 2
This module asks students to consider the question ‘What is the Contemporary?’. How can literature help us to understand our sense of ‘the now’ and locate us in the present? And what does it have to tell us about our past and our future? These enquiries take in a series of literary and critical positions on matters of ‘the present’ and ‘contemporariness’ as explored through literature and theory. Over a series of seminars, students will be required to conceptualise and understand the different ways that we can understand the idea of the contemporary, contemporaneousness as a historical term and as a term of theoretical discourse.
Optional modules
The Body (ENGL773)
Credits: 15 /
Semester: semester 2
This module focuses on theories of the body in contemporary critical thought and in modern and contemporary literature using relevant theory to support readings of a range of literary texts. We will study politically informed theories such as critical race studies, feminist, queer and disability studies and topics such as the maternal body, the body in pain and the ageing body. In all these cases the body emerges as a concept marked by internal division in terms of sex, gender, age, size, and race. We will study bodies as organisms and bodies as social phenomena, exploring the tension between the body’s material manifestations and its sites of immateriality such as the mind, spirit, psyche and affect.
Any optional modules listed above are illustrative only and may vary from year to year. Modules may be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved and staff availability. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed.
Final project
Compulsory modules
Dissertation (ENGL702)
Credits: 60 /
Semester: summer
The final dissertation, comprising a 14,000-15,000-word thesis on a subject devised by the student and agreed with their supervisor, is written over the summer. Some students take this opportunity to explore in more depth a theme, idea, or author studied in one of the taught strands; others strike out in a wholly new direction. This module is a culmination of previous modules studied on the MA, in which students, under the supervision of a tutor, bring to bear the skills, knowledge and confidence they have developed over the course of the Master’s programme.
Any optional modules listed above are illustrative only and may vary from year to year. Modules may be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved and staff availability. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed.
How you'll learn
Teaching on the MA in English Literature is delivered through a combination of seminars and tutorials held on campus. Depending on which module options are taken, there may be lectures and separate seminar sessions scheduled, but all classes will take place on campus in person. Class sizes for Masters programmes in the Department of English tend to be small, and a typical class in English will include between 8-10 students.
How you're assessed
Students on the English MA will for the most part be assessed by a combination of formative and summative coursework. This will take a number of different forms, including essays, essay plans, research proposals, and a dissertation. In addition, students will be assessed by presentations in certain modules. Other assessment formats may apply also depending on the options modules taken.
Liverpool Hallmarks
We have a distinctive approach to education, the Liverpool Curriculum Framework, which focuses on research-connected teaching, active learning, and authentic assessment to ensure our students graduate as digitally fluent and confident global citizens.
Support for students with differing needs from the Disability advice and guidance team. They can identify and recommend appropriate support provisions for you.
An exciting place to study English
The Department of English is in the top 100 English Language and Literature departments in the world according to QS Top Universities rankings
We are internationally renowned for advancing the study of language, literature, and creative writing and have a strong research ethos
Our programmes offer opportunities to study creative writing and literature from a wide range of periods, as well as a range of approaches to understanding the way in which the English language works
We have a reputation for radical thinking, as exemplified by our success rate in the BBC and Arts and Humanities Council’s ‘New Generation Thinkers’ scheme. In total, five members our academic staff have been selected since the scheme was established in 2010
We are committed to small group teaching. This encourages a more rewarding learning experience, where ideas are shared and explored with peers and tutors
Ranked 10th in sector for research impact classified as outstanding (4*) (REF 2021)
We are host to Europe’s largest collection of science fiction materials which includes the John Wyndham Archive and home to the annual Liverpool Literary Festival.
The MA in English Literature will provide you with rigorous academic training in the broad interdisciplinary field of literary history, theory and culture. The professional skills that you will develop upon completion of the programme will prepare you well for a wide range of potential employment areas.
Career support from day one to graduation and beyond
The MA is particularly suitable for graduates looking to pursue careers in the arts, culture, creative and heritage sectors, including journalism, copywriting, management in arts and culture organisations and teaching.
Graduates wishing to continue academic studies will find a supportive and nurturing research environment that prepares them well for doctoral-level research activities. Career pathways that follow this route include employment in higher education (teaching and/or research), or teaching at secondary and further education levels.
Fees and funding
Your tuition fees, funding your studies, and other costs to consider.
Tuition fees
UK fees (applies to Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland)
Full-time place, per year
£11,700
Part-time place, per year
£5,850
International fees
Full-time place, per year
£24,100
Part-time place, per year
£12,050
Fees stated are for the 2025-26 academic year.
Tuition fees cover the cost of your teaching and assessment, operating facilities such as libraries, IT equipment, and access to academic and personal support.
If you're a UK national, or have settled status in the UK, you may be eligible to apply for a Postgraduate Loan worth up to £12,167 to help with course fees and living costs. Learn more about fees and funding.
Additional costs
We understand that budgeting for your time at university is important, and we want to make sure you understand any course-related costs that are not covered by your tuition fee. This could include buying a laptop, books, or stationery.
We accept a 2:2 honours degree from a UK university, or an equivalent academic qualification from a similar non-UK institution. This degree should be in English studies or a closely related subject.
International qualifications
If you hold a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, but don’t meet our entry requirements, a Pre-Master’s can help you gain a place. This specialist preparation course for postgraduate study is offered on campus at the University of Liverpool International College, in partnership with Kaplan International Pathways. Although there’s no direct Pre-Master’s route to this MA, completing a Pre-Master’s pathway can guarantee you a place on many other postgraduate courses at The University of Liverpool.
International applicants who do not meet the minimum required standard of English language can complete one of our Pre-Sessional English courses to achieve the required level.
English language qualification
Requirements
IELTS
6.5 overall, with no component below 6.0
TOEFL iBT
88 overall, with minimum scores of listening 19, writing 19, reading 19 and speaking 20. TOEFL Home Edition not accepted.
Duolingo English Test
120 overall, with no component below 105
Pearson PTE Academic
61 overall, with no component below 59
LanguageCert Academic
70 overall, with no skill below 65
PSI Skills for English
B2 Pass with Merit in all bands
INDIA Standard XII
National Curriculum (CBSE/ISC) - 75% and above in English. Accepted State Boards - 80% and above in English.
WAEC
C6 or above
PRE-SESSIONAL ENGLISH
Do you need to complete a Pre-Sessional English course to meet the English language requirements for this course?
The length of Pre-Sessional English course you’ll need to take depends on your current level of English language ability.
Liverpool bursts with diversity and creativity which makes it ideal for you to undertake your postgraduate studies and access various opportunities for you and your family.
To fully immerse yourself in the university experience living in halls will keep you close to campus where you can always meet new people. Find your home away from home.
Discover what expenses are covered by the cost of your tuition fees and other finance-related information you may need regarding your studies at Liverpool.
Contact us
If you have any questions about the course content please get in touch with the programme director.
