Course summary

Our MA Contemporary Literature and Culture (2000-present) offers you the chance to specialise in twenty-first-century literature and culture, as well as exposing you to the most important literary and theoretical developments of the last few decades. Informed by our world-class research in contemporary literary and cultural studies, on this course you will examine:

• the effects of new technologies on narrative form

• the aesthetic, spatial and political coordinates of writing produced in an increasingly networked and globalised world

• literature’s role among a vibrant and diverse range of digital, visual and multimedia texts.

• Birkbeck was ranked 2nd in the UK for its English Language and Literature research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

• In particular, this environment is fostered by close links between the MA and the Centre for Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, which runs a wide variety of talks and conferences in this field. You will have access to a host of other relevant research centres, including the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, the Centre for Contemporary Theatre and the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre. We are also actively involved in a number of institutes specifically designed to foster work across disciplines at Birkbeck and beyond: Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality and the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism.

• Birkbeck is located in the heart of literary London, in Bloomsbury, WC1. You could be studying in a building that was once home to Virginia Woolf and frequented by members of the Bloomsbury Group. The building houses our own creative hub which includes the Peltz Gallery, the Gordon Square Cinema and a theatre and performance space.

• The Summer Research Programme is a series of events run for our MAs, on a weekly basis throughout the 11-week summer term. It includes a series of dissertation workshops that supplement one-to-one supervision, but it also reflects the dynamic and wide-ranging nature of our contemporary studies courses. It includes guest speakers, debates and film screenings, takes in Birkbeck’s annual Arts Week and is concluded by a student-led conference that showcases the work of our MA students.

• We offer a number of bursaries for postgraduate students.

• journalism

• writing, including creative writing

• arts administration or research

• civil service

• law and business professions

• publishing

• political adviser roles

• social media management

• film and TV production

• teaching

• museum and cultural heritage work

• curation.