English Literature: US Literature - Cultural Values from Revolution to Empire

Entry requirements

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in English literature or a relevant discipline.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Marilynne Robinson, our taught Masters programme gives you the opportunity to explore a wide and stimulating range of works spanning America’s history, from its revolutionary beginnings to its current position as a superpower in contemporary global politics.

Taking in the rich diversity of American writing, from the canonical to the sometimes neglected, the programme will encourage you to engage with competing and conflicting narratives of American nationhood and modernity, covering issues of racial identity and struggle, reconstruction and regional identity, and the implications of an American “empire”.

Examining examples of literary, cultural and political crisis and transformation, it will deepen your understanding of literature’s role in the development, interrogation and revision of notions of national identity and culture.

Our MSc in US Literature draws upon the outstanding research and teaching strengths of members of the Department of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, whose specialisms range from the role of the public intellectual in the development of American culture, to the (post)modernist and regional novel, American Republicanism, Black American writing, and US women's writing.

Studying the programme in Edinburgh, you will be part of a community of students from a range of international backgrounds and cultural perspectives, each with their own particular interest in US literature, and a School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures with one of the longest established centres of literary education in Britain and, indeed, the world.

Combining core courses with optional courses, research training, and a dissertation will give you a broad understanding of the subject, while allowing you to focus on and develop your own area of interest and expertise.

The University of Edinburgh Library has strong holdings in all aspects of American literature and culture, and the nearby National Library of Scotland holds the Hugh Sharp Collection (over 300 volumes) of first editions of English and North American authors, and the Henderson Memorial Library of Books on America (over 700 volumes).