Structure

The MA in English Studies covers four semesters of study. Students are required to register for three courses (of 10 ECTS each) in each of the first three semesters of study. Two of these courses in each of the first three semesters are restricted electives that will be drawn from a list of broader rubrics that represent the philosophy and objectives of the programme. These course offerings may vary from one cycle of the MA to another, but by the end of the third semester, students will have taken a minimum of one course from each of the four rubrics. The fourth semester of study involves the writing of an MA thesis under the guidance of an assigned supervisor.

First Semester

• Advanced Research Skills I (10 ECTS)
• Restricted elective (10 ECTS)
• Restricted elective (10 ECTS)

Second Semester

• Advanced Research Skills II (10 ECTS)
• Restricted elective (10 ECTS)
• Restricted elective (10 ECTS)

Third Semester

• Restricted elective (10 ECTS)
• Restricted elective (10 ECTS)
• Research Portfolio (10 ECTS)

Fourth Semester

• Master Thesis in English Studies (30 ECTS)

Total ECTS 120

List of rubrics:

1. Topics in Literary and Cultural History    

• Aesthetics and Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism
• World Literature: History, Theory, Practices
• Gender, Sexuality, and Subjectivity in Early Modern Literature and Culture
• Nation and Narrative
• Early Modern Literature and Political Theory
• Writing the Anthropocene    

2. Questions in Comparative Cultural Studies    

• The Animal in Literature and Philosophy
• Writing Coercive Confinement in English
• The Sublime
• Space and Cultural Production
• Seminar in Contemporary Feminist Theory: Debates on Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics
• Advanced Seminar in Literary and Cultural Theory    

3. Reception, Translation, Adaptation    

• Texts in Performance
• Reading, Re-reading, Failing to Read: Methodological Questions in Literary and Cultural Criticism
• Shakespeare’s Afterlives
• Translation Criticism
• Theater Translation and Intercultural Transfer    

4. Language, Literature, Pedagogy    

• Critical Pedagogy and Shakespeare
• Language Teaching and Learning
• Principles of Linguistic Analysis I
• Principles of Linguistic Analysis II
• First and Second Language Acquisition
• Philosophy of Language
• Pragmatics: Utterance, Context, Communication    

Assessment

Each taught course is evaluated through continuous assessment which may include a midterm exam, a final exam, a research paper and various others assignments. Students are also required to write an MA thesis on some aspect of English Studies. The expected word length of the Master Thesis in English Studies, which takes 30 ECTS, is between 12,000-15,000 words.