English Literature, Language and Creative Writing
We have an enviable national and international reputation for postgraduate teaching and research supervision. Our performance in the most recent Postgraduate Research Experience Survey was outstanding with over 80 per cent of Newcastle students awarding the top mark for the quality of supervision.
In the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, 70 per cent of our research was classed as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. Meanwhile, in recognition of our strong PhD submission and completion rates, we were recently awarded a substantial number of studentships under the AHRC’s Block Grant Partnership Scheme, to be awarded annually until 2013. See www.ncl.ac.uk/elll/postgrad/funding.htm for the latest details.
Our MA programmes and research degree supervision draws on established areas of staff research expertise, including: American literature and culture; children’s literature; creative writing; late-eighteenth century and romantic-period studies; film, television, and digital culture; memory studies; modern and contemporary British writing; nineteenth-century literature; postcolonial studies; Renaissance and early modern literature and culture.
Housed within a single building, English Literature, Language and Creative Writing has an impressive, recently refurbished postgraduate computing suite, with attached common room for the exclusive use of our postgraduate community. We also have specialist facilities including a digital media lab, audio-visual collections, and unique archives of dialectal English and children’s literature. We invest heavily in the research and career development of our postgraduates, providing funding to enable students to attend national and international conferences and offering archival research awards, which are made bi-annually on a competitive basis. The staff–postgraduate seminar series provides regular opportunities to present working papers and to discuss ideas and research issues with fellow students, while the regular Postgraduate Forum seminars address key areas of professional development such as how to write a CV.
As a subject area we have particularly strong regional connections. Staff and students are involved in a number of local collaborations with various agencies and institutions such as Seven Stories: the Centre for Children’s Books, Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, Tyneside Cinema, and the Great North Museum. We also consistently attract some of the world’s foremost contemporary writers, artists and thinkers as guest speakers. These include poets Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon; novelists Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Nick Hornby; the renowned philosopher and linguist Steven Pinker; actor Ralph Fiennes; and broadcaster Joan Bakewell.
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“My Masters application was dealt with quickly; I heard back within a few days that I had got a conditional offer and then received regular updates by email and post when I met the various requirements. When I discovered a problem with my registration, both the finance and Faculty graduate staff were helpful.”