Literature and Languages
Postgraduate Applicants
M.Litt in the Gothic Imagination
In addition to this page on the Stirling MLitt programme, be sure to visit the dedicated Gothic Imagination website, a platform for the wider internetbased community of Gothic scholars and enthusiasts. |
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Contemporary culture is characterised by nothing if not a reawakened interest in the Gothic, the aesthetic discourse of horror and terror which arose and flourished in the wake of the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto in 1764. From the current vogue for horror film, the heightened preoccupation with terror and monstrosity in the media, the popular success of such writers as Stephen King, or even manifestations of an alternative Gothic mode in fashion, music and lifestyle, it might be said that Western modernity has found itself in the clutches of a dark Gothic ‘renaissance’. As the case of Asian horror cinema most notably demonstrates, this monstrous Gothic rebirth has assumed significant global dimensions too.
The M.Litt in the Gothic Imagination at the University of Stirling offers an intensive historical, critical and theoretical investigation of this curious cultural phenomenon. The course covers writings from the rise of Gothic in the aesthetic and political discourses of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through its nineteenth-century British and American fictional manifestations, and into a range of contemporary global, literary and non-literary contexts.
Overview
The M.Litt in the Gothic Imagination lasts 12 months full-time, or 27 months part-time, running from September to August. The teaching methods encourage independent research and scholarship within a structured framework of core and optional modules. Students are assessed by coursework; there are no examinations. Completing a Masters degree as a prelude to research is an increasingly common pattern of study for young scholars, and this route is being encouraged by the AHRC. This course provides an ideal introduction to further postgraduate work and an effective transition to a research degree. Graduates of the M.Litt in the Gothic Imagination have gone on to pursue Doctoral research on such related topics as magic and occultism, Gothic and the discourse of consumption, ghost stories, Gothic and postmodernism and Postfeminist Gothic. The course is also well suited to students simply wanting to gain a fuller appreciation of the Gothic aesthetic.
Fatal Witch! Was it not thy beauty? Have you not plundered my soul into infamy?
Have you not made me a perjured Hypocrite, a Ravisher, An Assassin!
(Matthew Lewis, The Monk)
Structure and Content
The programme includes:
• Core module on eighteenth and nineteenth-century British Gothic fiction, including such seminal authors as Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Charlotte Dacre, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde.
• Core module on Gothic in modernity and postmodernity, including works by writers such as Gaston Leroux, Algernon Blackwood, H.P Lovecraft, Djuna Barnes, Mervyn Peake, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison and Patrick McGrath.
• Options on nineteenth-century American Gothic in writers such as Charles Brockden Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville and Henry James.
• Specialist options on such themes and topics as Gothic and film, Queer Gothic, Gothic and theory, the female Gothic, Gothic and women writers of the 1790s, Gothic drama, Gothic and cyberculture, transmutations of the vampire, monstrosity, serial killers, Gothic in children’s literature, and global Gothic. A selection of these is offered each year in accordance with student interest.
• Supervised, independent research on any particular interest within Gothic studies that a student might wish to pursue (see the Dissertation, below).
• Training for Masters in the Arts & Humanities
Successful completion of this module requires you to register and submit your list of training activity by the prescribed deadlines. It requires you to undertake the agreed training activities and to submit a complete 'reflective journal'. Non completion leads to failure of the module. No grade will be awarded, only a pass or fail.
In these and other areas, the course content reflects not only student interests, but also staff research expertise. All academic members of staff involved in the programme are research-active within the broad field of Gothic studies, and regularly attend conferences and symposia in the UK and abroad.
Sample Core Programme
An example of a past Core Programme
can be found at this link.
Dissertation
During the summer, students write a dissertation of 15,000 words. In choosing their topic in consultation with the course directors, students are encouraged to develop their own personal interests within the broad field of the Gothic. This is an intensive piece of research; each student is assigned a supervisor who provides advice in both the researching and writing of the dissertation. A creative writing dissertation may be approved for students with the appropriate experience. Students who do not embark on the dissertation may be awarded a Diploma. The work of the best students completing the course may be deemed worthy of M.Litt with Distinction.
Delivery and Assessment
Assessment in each semester will be based on coursework and essays. Methods of assessment for each of the non-core option modules will vary but will often consist of a single essay. Teaching will take the form of regular tutorials in small groups. Though all the modules will offer close and careful supervision, participants are expected to take proper responsibility for their own studies. The aim in all cases is to foster student-led learning in expert, stimulating and congenial company.
Career Opportunities
Completing a Masters degree as a prelude to further academic research is an increasingly common pattern of study for young scholars, and is a route encouraged by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Advanced education in the Arts, the practical experience of research, and the production of a dissertation are significant transferable skills for many careers in business and the professions.
Other Activities
• Each year we organise at least one field trip to a site or event of particular Gothic interest. This may involve attending the performance of a Gothic play, an exhibition of Gothic art, or a screening of a film.
• An extra-curricular Gothic Reading Group brings together staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students in an informal discussion group in order to discuss books of common Gothic interest and to provide a supportive environment for the presentation of student work in progress.
• Speakers, including creative writers and Gothic scholars from British institutions, regularly deliver papers in the Department of English’s Staff and Postgraduate Seminar series.
• The Department of English hosts an annual postgraduate conference, organised by postgraduates, and students in the MLitt are invited to contribute through such activities as giving papers and chairing sessions.
• The tutors also hold annual Gothic Postgraduate symposiums which attract students from both the UK and abroad. M.Litt students are encouraged to contribute by giving papers or chairing sessions. Symposiums have been held on such topics as Global Gothic and Technology, Media, Horror. Previous guest speakers have included David Punter and Fred Botting.
• The Gothic Imagination website is run with the help of taught and research postgraduates in the Department, and M.Litt students are encouraged to contribute to the Blog.
• Speakers, including creative writers and Gothic scholars from British institutions, regularly deliver papers in the Department of English’s Staff and Postgraduate Seminar series.
Entrance Requirements
A good 2.i or better Single or Combined Honours degree in a relevant subject or subjects from a UK university or an equivalent qualification. Applicants with other qualifications or other appropriate experience may be admitted on the recommendation of the Course Director.
RAE Rating
In the 2008 Research Asessment Exercise, over half the department's research was considered ‘internationally excellent’ or ‘world leading’
Further Information
The course director and tutors would be delighted to discuss the programme further with prospective students, and to welcome them to Stirling to see the campus and meet with staff and students of the Department of English Studies.
To discuss the programme or arrange a visit, please contact the Course Director, Professor Glennis Byron.
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Professor Glennis Byron School of Arts & Humanities English Studies University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA UK |
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Tel: + 44 (0) 1786 477-509 |
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Fax: + 44 (0) 1786 466-210 |
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Email: glennis.byron@stir.ac.uk |
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Web: Glennis Byron Staff Profile |
Note that it is also possible to apply online for this course.
GOTHIC STIRLING
The University of Stirling offers a particularly suitable location for the study of the Gothic. The Wallace Monument, built in the Victorian Gothic style, towers over the campus. There are many fascinating local graveyards, including the Holy Rude on the way up to Stirling castle, with headstones dating back to 1579, the Victorian monument commemorating the Wigtown martyrs, two women who were drowned in 1685 for refusing to renounce their Protestant faith, and the Star Pyramid, dedicated to those who suffered martyrdom in the cause of civil and religious liberty in Scotland (legend has it that a local eccentric is interned inside the pyramid, seated at a feasting table).
The ruined Logie Old Kirk, on the banks of the Logie Burn beneath the hill of Dumyat, dates from around 1684. Long associated with stories of witches, Carlie (otherwise known as Witches) Crag looms over the graveyard, where witches were previously believed to hold their meetings with the devil in the guise of a large black dog. For more information about the Gothic side of Stirling’s history, have a look at Geoff Holder’s The Guide to Mysterious Stirlingshire, a guide to everything supernatural, paranormal, folkloric, eccentric and mysterious that has occurred in the Scottish county of Stirlingshire.
STUDENT VIEWPOINTS
Pinelopi Tsagana, Greece
Graduated 2004
"I would definitely recommend The Gothic Imagination postgraduate course to anyone interested in the subject. Apart from being extremely interesting and reflective of the academic excellence the University of Stirling has to offer, it is structured in a way that supports the exchange of ideas and creates a community with strong ties. The staff are knowledgeable, friendly and always supportive, and the range of modules offered is impressive. Having completed the course I feel perfectly equipped to continue on to a PhD degree in a field that is steadily gaining in recognition and popularity."
Amy Palko, Scotland
Graduated 2004
"I decided that I wanted to do the Gothic Imagination MLitt while I was still busy with my undergraduate degree at Stirling University. After a two-year break, I began the course and I can honestly say that it lived up to all my expectations. It gave me the opportunity to engage critically with texts which I had always enjoyed reading, as well as providing a historical contextualisation that greatly enriched my understanding of the gothic. The course, and those that teach on the course, also gave me confidence in my own research. Consequently, I have now embarked upon my doctorate at Stirling, and I have presented a paper at the 2005 International Gothic Association Conference in Montreal."
Gustavo Generani, Argentina
Graduated 2005
"The MLitt. in the Gothic Imagination' at the University of Stirling has been the most interesting academic experience of my life. The course offers a very attractive and relevant selection of fictions that represent several expressions of the Gothic from its roots to the present. The provocative use of theory by the academic staff; the accuracy and usefulness of comments and marks on essays and presentations; and a balanced relationship between the independent research of the student and the supportive guidance of the supervisor during the development of the dissertation have been just some of the aspects that define the excellence of this course."
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? - GOTHIC IMAGINATION GRADUATES
Dr Kirsty Macdonald graduated with a distinction in the MLitt in The Gothic Imagination in 2002. She went on to do a PhD in the fantastic in Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow which she completed in 2006. Kirsty is now Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the UHI Millennium Institute, based in Orkney, where she teaches literature, language and folklore of the Highlands and Islands. Recent publications include an article on Scottish fantasy in The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature (EUP 2007), and an article on the fantastic in Revisioning Scotland: New Readings of the Cultural Canon (Peter Lang, 2008). She is also co-editor of this collection. For further information seehttp://www.orkney.uhi.ac.uk/courses/culture-studies/staff/dr-kirsty-macdonald
Dr Evert Jan van Leeuwen completed the MLitt in The Gothic Imagination in 2001 with distinction. He received his PhD with distinction from Leiden University, the Netherlands in 2006 for a dissertation on the figure of the alchemist in nineteenth-century British and American Gothic fiction, which he is revising into a book. He is currently working as a lecturer in English Literature at the English Department of Leiden University. His research interests include the history of popular genres in fiction and film (science fiction, horror, westerns), the eighteenth-century cult of sensibility and William Godwin and his circle. He has published various articles on gothic fiction as well as on the Dutch western series Arendsoog. A recent article on gothic spaghetti westerns can be found at: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/60/60gothic.html He has an article forthcoming in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies on his new research project involving eighteenth-century Graveyard poetry.
Dr Jennifer Bann graduated from The Masters in The Gothic Imagination in 2003, and went on to complete her PhD at Stirling in 2007 on 'Spirit Writing: The Influence of Spiritualism on the Victorian Ghost Story'. Her research interests include Victorian Gothic fiction and Victorian depictions of the supernatural in literature and culture. She is now a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of English Language at the University of Glasgow, working on the Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing project.