Literature and Culture (Online)

Overview

Your engagement will focus on themes at the forefront of contemporary culture, including identity politics, Otherness, and the environment. Online learning offers you the benefits of flexible opportunities to hone your critical and analytical skills with plenty of support from our research-active academic staff. You’ll also gain advanced research skills and have the opportunity to pursue your own research interests via a 13,000-word dissertation on a topic of your choice.

Twenty-first century literary scholarship challenges readers to engage with the cultural impact of globally significant issues such as sustainability, cultural difference and race relations, and inclusivity with regards to intersectional identities. The modules on this MA in Literature and Culture (Online) from the University of Hertfordshire are specifically designed to develop students’ critical understanding of literature and related forms of cultural expression (film, music, and the visual arts) within these frameworks. 

Our students come from a broad range of disciplines, with many attracted to our module on vampire fiction, “Reading the Vampire: Science, Sexuality and Alterity in Modern Culture”. Going beyond Gothic studies, this topic has generated national media interest and the accompanying  Open Graves, Open Minds Project hosted by Herts’ Literature department is an important online research tool for our students and all those interested in Gothic studies, the fantastic and the magical in fiction and folklore.

Careers

The advanced research skills you’ll gain on this MA, alongside transferable intellectual and personal skills, are of value in a wide range of careers, including teaching, publishing, the arts and media. Many of our graduates go on to higher levels of study, engaging in PhD research in their chosen fields.

MA graduates Daisy Butcher and Jennifer Cameron are now PhD students of literature at Herts, while MA graduate Olivia Steen has worked on the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and is now a visiting lecturer in Creative Arts with a new PhD project.

MA graduate Sam Cooper went on to take a PhD at Nottingham Trent University, where he now teaches and publishes, while Amelia Eikli started her own publishing house and is a writer and blogger.