MA Literary Translation

Course Code DNT1Q210101
Duration 1 Year
Attendance Full Time
Award Degree of Master of Arts

Overview
Requirements
Course Profile
Fees and Funding
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Overview

The MA in Literary Translation at The University of East Anglia (UEA) is unique in that it both combines translation practice with translation theory and also specifically looks at the link between the two. Should translators know about theory? Does theory describe what translators do or is it a practical tool that the translator can use? These are some of the questions we consider throughout the programme, recently described by its external examiner Dr Francis Jones as "deservedly a UK leader in literary translation studies". Many of our MA students go on to become practising translators, or to teach translation. Others work in areas related to translation, such as publishing or the media.

Why Study Literary Translation at UEA?
The MA in Literary Translation (MALT) is based in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, whose members teach and research in English and World Literature (including French, German, Indian, and other literatures), Literary Translation, Literary Theory and Creative Writing. It is home to the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) and the international John Dryden Translation Competition. The School has a reputation for excellence in teaching and research and is highly-ranked in the National Students' Survey. Of particular interest to MALT students is our annual programme of readings, visits and residencies by writers and translators. BCLT runs a Summer School which MALT students can attend at a reduced rate, and there is also the opportunity, at a very reasonable cost, to learn a language in the School of Language and Communication Studies. Students on the MA in Literary Translation can also take part in the BCLT Internship programme.

Course Content and Structure
The MA is a one-year full-time or two-year part-time course, that provides an academic qualification for professional translators and is also a good basis for further research. Few other taught courses in Literary Translation in the UK combine practical work with a strong emphasis on stylistic and cultural issues. MALT consists of four modules: Stylistics for Translators, Translation Theory, Case Studies, Process and Product in Translation. In the first semester, students also assemble a dossier of their translations for submission to a tutor, an expert in their source or target language. This, like the practical Translation Workshops, is a non-assessed element. The Workshops on varied topics include translation editing, and a member of the Translators Association advises on how to approach a publisher. Students also have the opportunity to join the editing team for our journal Norwich Papers. Arc Publications’ Visible Poets series of bilingual poetry books is edited by Jean Boase-Beier in the School, and provides useful study material. Some of our best former students have been published by Arc; others have published translations of children’s literature, novels and drama. Many have won awards for their work.

Course Assessment
Students may work with any languages, as long as these include English. We have many language specialists in the School and the Humanities Faculty, as well as external assessors. Modules are assessed by essay, and there is a 15,000 to 20,000 word dissertation, either a translation with commentary or a critical essay. Work on the dissertation, with a supervisor, begins for full-time students in the spring and goes on until the beginning of September.

The Course Team
Many members of the School and the Faculty are practising translators or work in translation. Those who currently contribute substantially to MALT, with their main areas of interest, are:

Professor Jean Boase-Beier, Convenor (stylistics; translation theory; modern German and English poetry and translation);
Dr Valerie Henitiuk (East/West cultural exchange; gendered translation; translation history/reception);
Dr George Szirtes (poet and translator;; the relationship between poetry and art);
Dr BJ Epstein (translation studies; children's literature; lgbtq literature; contemporary Scandinavian literature).

We also have a very dynamic body of PhD students working in Literary Translation. Past and current topics include: the translation of Russian poetry, Ancient Greek drama translation, the translation of Turkish idioms, Japanese feminist translation.

What Our Past Students Say

“… the course was stimulating, enjoyable and I met some really interesting people. And it does lead to jobs! I've just done some extracts for an anthology on memory, edited by AS Byatt.” Bridget Patterson

“The year with literary translation was very special to me. It meant the fulfilment of a dream: spending twelve months talking and writing about my greatest passion - translation.” Henriette Heise

“At the end of this well-organised MA course, I know why I'm translating the way I am. “ Jon Lindsay Miles

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I receive teaching on translation into and out of my chosen languages?
Not as part of the taught classes. We assume you have near-bilingual language competence. Our focus is on translation issues, questions and techniques. You will, however, produce several pieces of translation involving your chosen languages.

Will I receive instruction on publishing translations?
Yes, in a special workshop and other classes.

Can I go on to do a PhD?
Yes, if your performance on the MA is good. MALT provides a very good basis for PhD study.

Will doing MALT help me to get a job?
Almost certainly. There is evidence that even firms specialising in technical or commercial translation value an MA in Literary Translation. For freelance work, it is definitely a bonus. While it is unlikely you will earn enough to live on as a freelance translator in the first years after completing the programme, many graduates combine freelance work with teaching, lecturing, librarianship, work in the media, or publishing. Here, too, MALT is a clear advantage.

So why would I want to become a literary translator?
It is hugely enjoyable. If you translate contemporaries, you will often have a lot of contact with "your" authors. It is very flexible, and is ideal for combining with a less interesting job elsewhere. You can work from home (and in the train, in the doctor's waiting-room or on the beach). And it is relatively easy to become known in the translation world; you can cultivate contacts by joining the Translators Association, taking part in debates and attending translation events.

And you might even come back to UEA and hold a workshop yourself.

Course Organiser

Prof Jean Boase-Beier

Year 1

Year 1

Compulsory Study (160 credits)

Students will select 160 credits from the following module(s).

Name	Code	Credits	Period
Dissertation - Literary Translation The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the 2nd teaching semester for full-time students, or earlier for part-time students. Dissertations may take the form of either (i) a critical essay about an aspect of translation or (ii) a translation with critical discussion. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor. Supervision normally functions on the basis of one contact hour with the supervisor every three weeks throughout the summer. more...	LDCEM04X	90	Semester 2
Literary Translation Research and Methodology Training Seminar All MALT students are enrolled on a Research Methods module. The assessment for this is a pass/fail viva in May or early June (date will be given in the course of the Autumn semester). This module is not taught separately, but consists of a number of generic sessions and also a number of specific MALT sessions within the seminars, such as 'Essay Writing', 'Reading as an Academic', 'Doing Glosses' and so on. more...	LDCEM06Y	10	Year Period
Process and Product in Translation This module is designed to allow students to produce translations in conditions that encourage and facilitate reflection on the process and product of translation. It encourages students to think experimentally, not only about the forms a finished translation might take, but also about the ways in which process might be incorporated into that translation. The module has a workshop format and culminates in a series of presentations by students of the projects on which they have chosen to work. A series of sessions, devoted to the discussion of problems, both theoretical and practical, connected with translation and the projects ahead, precede the presentations. more...	LDCEM034	20	Semester 2
Stylistics for Translators This module will examine style in texts, and how the analysis of style affects translation. We will look at various different approaches to the definition and understanding of style, concentrating on the stylistic analysis of literary (and some non-literary) texts of all types. In the final weeks of the semester students will present and discuss the translation of style in texts and languages of their choice more...	LDCEM033	20	Semester 1
Translation Theory This module discusses key theoretical and descriptive pronouncements on translation by theorists and practising translators working within the Western tradition. The focus is predominantly on contemporary work, with some older commentary providing historical context. Students are encouraged to explore their own theoretical interests and present their findings in class. more...	LDCEM043	20	Semester 1
Translation Workshop A series of workshops by practising translators, shared by the MA in Literary Translation and the MA in Applied Translation Studies. These will be on different aspects of translation, and will involve various genres. There is generally no preparation required for workshops, but students are asked to find out as much as possible in advance about the workshop-holder's background and work. There will usually be translation exercises and discussion in class. Some workshops are on literary topics, but some also deal with non-literary translation or other issues such as approaching a publisher. The workshop programme will be distributed at the start of the academic year. more...	LDCEM04Y	0	Year Period

Option A Study (20 credits)

Students will select 20 credits from the following module(s).

Name

Code

Credits

Period

Case Studies

This seminar looks at ways in which specific authors/works/genres pass into other cultures through translation. We will look at three genres ' children's literature, drama, and crime fiction ' and for each one, we will analyse the genre, identify challenges in translating it, discuss strategies, and examine examples of relevant works, using close textual analysis to see how translators can tackle problems of linguistic, stylistic, and cultural difference. We will then practice translating texts from that genre. more...

LDCEM002

Semester 2

You may also pick any of the modules that begin with:

LDCEM

The Persistence of the Aesthetic This module addresses the relation between art and politics by examining the attempt to unmask the aesthetic as ideological. In order to do this, we will acquire a firm grasp of the meaning of 'the aesthetic' and of what it is often taken to conceal, 'ideology'. We will, therefore, begin by exploring what has been called the 'invention' of the aesthetic in modernity, paying particular attention to the emergence of the aesthetic as a category in the eighteenth century as part of debates concerning the public sphere, disinterestedness, and universality. Key figures here will include the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Schiller. We will then move on to consider the precise meaning of 'ideology' in its various forms in the work of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, and Theodor Adorno. Our focus in particular will be on the way in which the aesthetic has been thought to relate to 'ideology' by these, and numerous other, thinkers from fields such as sociology, anthropology, literary criticism, and art history. But far from simply deploying the tools of ideological analysis as a means to expose the covert politics of the aesthetic as such, we will ask whether the aesthetic is as vulnerable to so-called ideology - critique as has sometime been claimed. We will thus evaluate recent attempts to renovate the aesthetic by figures such as Jacques Ranciere, Isobel Armstrong, J.M. Berstein and others. This module, therefore, will address concerns central to those interested in the history and theory of literary and art criticism, and also in cultural and educational policy. more...	LDCEM062	20	Semester 2
Stylistics for Translators This module will examine style in texts, and how the analysis of style affects translation. We will look at various different approaches to the definition and understanding of style, concentrating on the stylistic analysis of literary (and some non-literary) texts of all types. In the final weeks of the semester students will present and discuss the translation of style in texts and languages of their choice more...	LDCEM033	20	Semester 1
English Literature Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	LDCEM03X	90	Semester 2
Research and Methodology Training Seminar	LDCEM020	10	Semester 2
Culture and Its Discontents From trauma theory and Holocaust Studies to critical human rights and refugee studies, thinking about culture's profound discontents motivates much of the most innovative work in the theoretical humanities today. This module focuses on two key theorists of modern experience: Sigmund Freud, for whom the unconscious registered the trauma of modern living, and the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, for whom the horrors of totalitarianism opened up holes of oblivion in the way we think and judge. Reading them together, we will examine the way Freud and Arendt open up a new space to think about the relation between the psyche and the political. Core reading will include: The Portable Hannah Arendt, ed. Peter Baehr (Penguin) The Freud Reader, ed. Adam Phillips (Penguin) The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings (Edinburgh UP) more...	LDCEM049	20	Semester 1
Crossing Boundaries: Women Writers in Modern Europe This module will explore some of the issues and obstacles encountered by women writing in a range of European traditions during the "long twentieth century" - continuing into the 21st with the award of Nobel Prizes for Literature to the controversial Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek (2004 and the Romanian-German writer Herta M??ller (2009). Taking a broadly chronological approach, the focus will be primarily on the impact of the two "women's movements" of the twentieth century on perceptions of writing and subjectivity as they affect women writers in a range of European countries. Within this chronological context and under a number of themed headings, examples will be taken primarily from Western Europe, in particular the German-speaking, French and English literary traditions. Students are however encouraged to make connections with the work of other writers beyond those on the reading list and to make comparisons with the position and role of women's writing in other literatures with which they may be familiar. Seminar discussions will thus consider not merely geographical and physical boundaries but the wider social and textual frameworks within and against which, arguably, a distinctive women's voice (or voices) may be said to emerge. more...	LDCEM028	20	Semester 2
Process and Product in Translation This module is designed to allow students to produce translations in conditions that encourage and facilitate reflection on the process and product of translation. It encourages students to think experimentally, not only about the forms a finished translation might take, but also about the ways in which process might be incorporated into that translation. The module has a workshop format and culminates in a series of presentations by students of the projects on which they have chosen to work. A series of sessions, devoted to the discussion of problems, both theoretical and practical, connected with translation and the projects ahead, precede the presentations. more...	LDCEM034	20	Semester 2
The Actor in Space The extremely various theatres of late medieval and early modern England situate the figure of the actor in a great many different settings and configurations. The place of performance may be public, or owned by a patron or by the actors themselves; it may be candle-lit or open to the sky; it may be a communal space for action or the illusionistic location of the fiction; and that fictional world, in turn, may be unitary or else divisively assigned to angels and devils, kings and clowns, speakers and singers. It is possible to grasp this diversity as an historical narrative (from the medieval pageant to the professional stage, from the Elizabethan amphitheatre to the Restoration playhouse with movable scenery), but it was also, often, a synchronic range of possible spaces, each with its distinctive cultural affiliation, each corresponding to, and making visible, its distinctive conceptions of the human, the social and the sacred. The course will explore these spaces by looking not only or even mainly at the theatre history, but at the scripts that record and suggest their meanings. more...	LDCEM047	20	Semester 1
Critical Theories of the Western Self The course introduces students to the major shifts in philosophical thinking about the Western self from Descartes to the twentieth century. The course will provide students with a training in theoretical debate through the analysis and discussion of a selection of the important thinkers on this list: Descartes, Rousseau, Hegel, Kant, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Bakhtin, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Irigaray, Deleuze and Butler. Through acquaintance with different theoretical traditions, students will have the opportunity to reflect critically on the processes and implications of cultural change; and to relate their understanding of the self and philosophy to other fields such as literature. more...	LDCEM011	20	Semester 1
Translation Workshop A series of workshops by practising translators, shared by the MA in Literary Translation and the MA in Applied Translation Studies. These will be on different aspects of translation, and will involve various genres. There is generally no preparation required for workshops, but students are asked to find out as much as possible in advance about the workshop-holder's background and work. There will usually be translation exercises and discussion in class. Some workshops are on literary topics, but some also deal with non-literary translation or other issues such as approaching a publisher. The workshop programme will be distributed at the start of the academic year. more...	LDCEM04Y	0	Year Period
Evaluating Nature This module aims to equip students with a historically informed understanding of the emergence of different theories and modes of evaluation, focusing in particular on the economic, aesthetic, and moral questions arising from the evaluation of nature in particular. Is it, for example, ethically defensible to value nature as a resource? Is a genuinely `ecological' or, indeed, `green' economics conceivable ' and, if so, what would that involve in practice? How sure are we that art in general and writing in particular are good ways to articulate the value of the natural? And is a genuinely `ecological' or `green' poetics conceivable? Addressing these questions will involve exploration both of the history of ideas and of contemporary understandings of natural capital, resource allocation, and moral evaluation. more...	LDCEM058	20	Semester 2
European Gothic: Fear and Horror As Trans-National Dialogue Scholars have since Mario Praz in the 1930s long conceived of the Gothic as a European phenomenon, exported and imported between Britain, France, and Germany, but there is surprisingly little attempt to unify this tradition or consider it as a whole beyond the empirical level. This course starts from the question: `What happens if you bring the Gothic Novel, the roman noir, and the Schauerroman together? The course will act as an introduction to the English canon of the Gothic; but we shall look at a range of texts, not as a tight, unified English genre, but as a set of cultural responses (and translations of responses) to the ages of Enlightenment and Revolution. The emphasis is not simply on linear development, but on cultural transmission and the dispersal of ideas between France, Germany and the Anglo-Saxon tradition. The texts have been chosen to reveal a set of conversations with each other and we shall re-read familiar (`central' or 'classic') texts in relation to such themes as the cultural geography of fear; superstition and scepticism and the role of the occult; sensibility and sexual taboo; the nature of the demonic; constructions of the other; the invention and splitting of the modern self; the Machine; the Uncanny; comedy and horror; and the use of self-conscious modes of narration. Note: this module is of interest to literary translators and creative writers. more...	LDCEM044	20	Semester 2
Case Studies This seminar looks at ways in which specific authors/works/genres pass into other cultures through translation. We will look at three genres ' children's literature, drama, and crime fiction ' and for each one, we will analyse the genre, identify challenges in translating it, discuss strategies, and examine examples of relevant works, using close textual analysis to see how translators can tackle problems of linguistic, stylistic, and cultural difference. We will then practice translating texts from that genre. more...	LDCEM002	20	Semester 2
Ludic Literature Play, or the ludic, is often listed as one of the main characteristics of postmodernist art, but what is meant by play is usually left no more clearly defined than what is meant by postmodernism. This course seeks to trace the evolution of leading postmodernist styles and themes, especially ludic ones, back to their origins in Borges and Nabokov. Using these enormously influential authors as a starting point, we will read a range of ludic authors, passing back and forth between languages, nations, and genres. Authors studied will include some though not all of: Calvino, Queneau, Perec, Barthes, Barthelme, Pynchon, Foster Wallace, Grass, Carter, Rushdie, Bolano, Muldoon, Simic, and Ashbery. We will examine these authors in relation to one another, to Borges and Nabokov, and to their major pre-postmodernist sources: Sterne, Mallarm??, Dostoevsky, Chesterton, Stevenson, Joyce, and Kafka. We will also be looking at visual art related to ludic literature, including Duchamp's readymades, Steinberg's cartoons, and Cornell's boxes. Themes we will explore will include aestheticism, doubt, vagueness, jokes, freedom and constraint, mixed styles, parody and pastiche. There will be an opportunity for students to play with the texts by re-writing them under the sorts of rules advanced by Queneau and Oulipo, Koch and Ashbery. more...	LDCEM016	20	Semester 2
Living Modernism A CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA WRITING THE MODERN WORLD. The word modernism was applied only retrospectively to the texts written at the beginning of the twentieth century; and that retrospective naming has worked to define an ever-shifting field of cultural activity. This course aims to introduce students to `living modernism', a phrase that highlights the mutually informing relationship of contemporary writing and modernism. In the first 5 weeks, students will be asked to read James Joyce's Ulysses and Franz Kafka's The Trial. The course then considers the ways in which Joyce's and Kafka's writing continues to animate critical and creative knowledge. In weeks 6-12, critical and literary questions of law, justice, exile, and narrative voice will be posed out of modernism. The living legacy of modernism will be considered in different ways; as literary influence, (Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go as a Kafkaesque meditation on exile, for instance), as critical quotation and interpretation, (Jacques Derrida's claim, for example, that Kafka's `Before the Law' is a staging of justice and literary interpretation), and linguistic or thematic interaction (Lolita as Nabokov's Joycean writing of exile in America). There will be a particular focus on how Joyce and Kafka write law, justice and exile as global, rather than state-based, categories, and the importance of these transnational visions for their continuing influence. Authors explored will include James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Mladen Dolar, Denise Riley and W. G. Sebald. more...	LDCEM017	20	Semester 1
The Life of the Book CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA BIOGRAPHY AND CREATIVE NON-FICTION (RESERVED FOR STUDENTS ON ROUTE T1Q325101 - LIFE WRITING). This module will follow the arc of the life of a book from inception to reception. How do you choose a subject, determine a book's structure, find a voice and build character? What about the often daunting question of research? Once the book is written, how do you set about writing a proposal and finding a publisher? We will also consider questions surrounding copyright, editing and reviewing. The emphasis will be practical, with a significant workshop element. more...	LDCEM007	20	Semester 1
Translation Theory This module discusses key theoretical and descriptive pronouncements on translation by theorists and practising translators working within the Western tradition. The focus is predominantly on contemporary work, with some older commentary providing historical context. Students are encouraged to explore their own theoretical interests and present their findings in class. more...	LDCEM043	20	Semester 1
Writing Lives CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA BIOGRAPHY AND CREATIVE NON-FICTION. This module explores the many ways in which writers have grappled with getting `life' and `lives' down on paper. We will look at samples of writing from many different genres, including travel, nature, music and sports writing. We will also be looking at those returning figures ' the Hero, the Villain, the Madwoman. In the process we will discuss cultural myth, human empathy and identity and notions of celebrity. Students will be encouraged to find their own special subjects, to study comparative biography, and to look at the many new experimental approaches that make Biography such a flourishing phenomenon today. more...	LDCEM003	20	Semester 1
East Anglian Literature CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TEXTUAL CULTURES. This module has as its focus ideas of place and regional cultures. It introduces key subjects relating to regional literature, religious geographies, visual and verbal relationships, attitudes to gender and family, landscape and alternative cultures. Approaches will involve genre study, interdisciplinary enquiry, and theoretical study. We are spoilt for choice in relation to texts and authors to select from the region, including: John Bale, Osbern Bokenham, Thomas Browne, Meir ben Eiljah, John Capgrave, Robert Greene, Gabriel Harvey, Margery Kempe, John Lydgate, John Metham, Julian of Norwich, the N-Town plays, the Pastons and John Skelton. There will be the opportunity to visit a number of archives, specialist libraries and material culture from the period, including a visit to Norwich Cathedral, which has an extensive 17th-century library with material from the 15th century onwards, Norfolk's heritage collection housed in The Forum's Millennium Library which holds documents from the 13th century onwards, and the Julian of Norwich Centre and Shrine. more...	LDCEM006	20	Semester 2
Literary Translation Research and Methodology Training Seminar All MALT students are enrolled on a Research Methods module. The assessment for this is a pass/fail viva in May or early June (date will be given in the course of the Autumn semester). This module is not taught separately, but consists of a number of generic sessions and also a number of specific MALT sessions within the seminars, such as 'Essay Writing', 'Reading as an Academic', 'Doing Glosses' and so on. more...	LDCEM06Y	10	Year Period
Reusing the Past: the Classical in the Medieval and Early Modern CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TEXTUAL CULTURES. The complex and unstable movement from medieval to Early Modern culture is reflected in and effected through a fundamental revaluation of the classical legacy: in the development of new approaches to classical texts and of new uses to which their cultural authority might be put. This module explores this movement through the works of three late-fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century writers, Robert Henryson, Gavin Douglas, and John Bellenden, and their responses to the texts of Aesop, Virgil, Ovid and Livy. It tracks a movement from medieval adaptation to Early Modern translation, from moralising allegory to politically inflected intertextuality, exploring the rich variety of ways in which classical texts were made newly available and newly culturally meaningful. more...	LDCEM018	20	Semester 2
Dissertation - Literary Translation The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the 2nd teaching semester for full-time students, or earlier for part-time students. Dissertations may take the form of either (i) a critical essay about an aspect of translation or (ii) a translation with critical discussion. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor. Supervision normally functions on the basis of one contact hour with the supervisor every three weeks throughout the summer. more...	LDCEM04X	90	Semester 2
Writing in the First Person CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA BIOGRAPHY AND CREATIVE NON-FICTION. This module looks at autobiography in the broadest sense, taking in memoir, nature writing, travel writing, reportage and essay. We'll be talking about the history and variety of first-person narratives, the ways writers reveal themselves in their words, how autobiography keeps to and departs from the facts, the importance of form and structure, and about non-fiction's relationship to novels and poems. Seminars will feature practical writing exercises as well as readings and discussions. more...	LDCEM012	20	Semester 2
'World Literature' to the 'Global Text' This module will explore the movement from the idea of the `world' or the `international' as a defining category for writers and artists of the twentieth century toward, from the late twentieth century onward, the notion of the `global'. `World literature' was an essential, if often neglected, directive of the humanist mission, and the `international' engendered oppositions ' such as, for instance, the cosmopolitan and the provincial - that governed the works of writers such as Tagore, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bishop, the filmmaker Satyajit Ray, and V S Naipaul, examples of whose work will be studied for this MA. But do those oppositions, and the universalist basis of `world literature', hold any more in the age of globalisation? How do writers and artists travel, and respond to the old experiences of place and exile, in the globalised world? Does globalisation transcend the provincial, or produce variations of it? What does `world' itself signify as a concept today ' is, for instance, the `world' in `world music' the same as the one in `world literature'? I'd like to reflect on these questions in the company of artists like the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, the novelist J M Coetzee, the English writer Geoff Dyer, the Indian poet Arun Kolatkar, critics like David Harvey, present-day experimentation in music, while introducing to the frame of the seminar my own explorations as a writer and musician. more...	LDCEM001	20	Semester 1
Politics and Public Culture: Milton, Republicanism, News, Polemic, Britain, Europe, the Imagination CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TEXTUAL CULTURES. The aim of this module will be to look at ways of reading literary works in their social, political and intellectual contexts, and to explore the role of the writer in early-modern culture. To do this we will focus on the works of John Milton ' the full range of his works, including poetry, prose and (in translation) Latin polemic. The contexts we will consider might include: aesthetics; the history and theory of republicanism; religious radicalism; the problem of `Britain'; news; the development of the printing trade and its relation to writing poetry and propaganda; Britain's place in Europe; the history of reading; the social spaces where literature operated; the rise of the `public sphere'. In addition to Milton's writings, we will look at the print and news culture of early-modern Britain, with some attention to the materiality of printed texts. We may also look at other writings and other modes of writing by Milton's contemporaries, including pamphleteering and journalism and works by Andrew Marvell, Marchamont Nedham, Lucy Hutchinson and John Dryden. more...	LDCEM005	20	Semester 1
Creative-Critical Writing A CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA WRITING THE MODERN WORLD. Too often, academic critical writing seems to bring pre-packaged language to bear on works whose whole essence and aim is to change the ways in which we see and describe our world. And too often such writing fails to acknowledge the ways in which it itself necessarily participates in the literary `creativity' it is also about. How, then, to write criticism? Criticism which responds inventively to the literature which it analyzes? Criticism which registers, in its own form, language, method and thinking the ways in which it has been transformed by the work(s) of art it encounters? Criticism which recognizes that it cannot rest on received concepts and categories? This module aims to explore those questions. Over the course of the semester will consider ' and experiment with ' a broad range of possible ways of practising creative-criticism, including the `essay' form, auto-commentary, aphorisms, ??criture f??minine, conceptual writing, criticism as performance, inventive `theoretical' writing, camp, and diaristic writing. The module covers creative-critics as different from one another as Anne Carson and Jacques Derrida, Geoff Dyer and H??l??ne Cixous, Maurice Blanchot and T. J. Clark, Theodor Adorno and Eve Sedgwick. more...	LDCEM008	20	Semester 2
Fiction After Modernism `Fiction After Modernism' responds to the current reassessment of critical narratives about twentieth century fiction by restoring significance to a critically awkward phase of twentieth-century writing. Focusing roughly on the years between 1930 and 1980, we examine what it meant for mid-century writers to work in the wake of modernism. By thinking about mid-century fiction in terms of its own historical and aesthetic awkwardness, we will challenge the formalist distinction between experimental and realist fiction that has dominated the most influential work on the mid-century novel, and which has also stamped many post-war writers as irretrievably minor. In a similar spirit, we will explore how writers worked in the 'between' of modernism and postmodernism. Rather than produce a cohesive narrative about the period, we will examine how our writers engage with, and disturb, their own literary, historical and critical inheritances. This module is an opportunity to participate in an emerging critical conversation that is carving out new directions in literary study. Working through the period with special attention to previously marginalized (and in some cases forgotten) writers, alongside a selection of critical and theoretical texts, we will examine the ways our writers accede to, challenge, and disrupt our critical understanding of fiction after modernism. more...	LDCEM023	20	Semester 1

LDCCM

Creative Writing Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	LDCCM03X	90	Semester 2
Adaptation and Interpretation Critical reading and creative writing meet in the activity of adapting a text in one medium for presentation in another. The module focuses on dramatic adaptation, establishing a foundation in basic theory and then focusing on readings or original works and screenings. Discussions probe the choices offered by original texts and explore the possibilities and limitations inherent in different dramatic forms. In the later sessions, students will have the opportunity to workshop an adaptation for a final project. more...	LDCCM012	20	Semester 2
Adaptation and Interpretation Critical reading and creative writing meet in the activity of adapting a text in one medium for presentation in another. The module focuses on dramatic adaptation, establishing a foundation in basic theory and then focusing on readings or original works and screenings. Discussions probe the choices offered by original texts and explore the possibilities and limitations inherent in different dramatic forms. In the later sessions, students will have the opportunity to workshop an adaptation for a final project. more...	LDCCM007	20	Semester 1
Theory and Practice of Fiction This module is designed to complement the prose fiction workshop but is open to students on related programmes. It is intended to provide students with creative and critical knowledge in a single experiential burst, by exploring as they are relevant to writing fiction such topics as time, place, dramatic structure, character and concinnity. The unit also gives consideration to professional issues confronting novelists, from writer's block to editing, contracts and dealing with the media. The module presents the writer as both artist and supplier of intellectual property to a market, while examining that and other tensions critically. Reading, writing and analysis happen alongside each other. Fictional, critical and professional texts are examined, writing exercises illuminating the issue at hand are undertaken. Students are also expected to make presentations on topics of their choice. Assessment by creative writing coursework with a critical commentary. more...	LDCCM024	20	Semester 2
Creative Writing: Scriptwriting: Process This module is compulsory for all Scriptwriting MA students and is reserved for students of the Scriptwriting programme. Dramaturgy and Workshop 1 are pre-requisites for this module. Students develop a short script for theatre/film/television/radio from initial idea through pitch/treatment/step outline/script drafts. In weekly workshop sessions, the stages of project development are tabled for tutorial and peer group critique. Assessment is by presentation of a portfolio of working documentation, script drafts and a short reflective essay. more...	LDCCM006	20	Semester 2
The Art of Short Fiction Short fiction is too often defined in terms of what it is not ' namely, a novel. Whether stories, novellas or experimental short fiction, short fiction is an art form in its own right. While acknowledging that there are no `rules' as to what makes a good short story, we will look at the expectations and technical challenges created by the form, and in so doing to sharpen our analytical and critical faculties. This is predominantly a practical, workshop-based course oriented at writing short fiction, although students will also be asked to form critical opinions and perspectives on published short stories, the technical aspects of writing in the form, and on themes and trends in short fiction more...	LDCCM017	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing and Research Seminars This 10-credit module, will consist of the writing of a synopsis or summary of the Dissertation script. It will be due for submission at the same time as the Dissertation itself. The word limit will be 500 to 1000 words. more...	LDCCM008	10	Semester 2
Creative Writing Workshop: Prose 2 This is the Prose Fiction workshop, the core of the Prose Fiction MA, and runs for 12 weeks in the autumn semester and 12 weeks in the spring semester. The sessions are three hours long and take place on Tuesday afternoons (2-5pm). Each week work (up to 5,000 words) from three students is discussed. This discussion is led by the tutor, however careful and informed contribution from the rest of the class is fundamental. Over the two semesters everyone will have around six opportunities to have their work discussed. Key and topical issues of theme and craft will be addressed and wider reading maybe discussed and suggested. Individual tutorials (of half an hour) are then held for those students who have been workshopped. more...	LDCCM002	20	Semester 2
The Writing of Crime/thriller Fiction This module will provide students with critical and creative knowledge of modern crime/thriller fiction, and is designed to complement the Creative Writing MA programme, but is open to students across the MA. Crime/thriller fiction, the world's most popular literary genre, is particularly subject to ever evolving conventions, expectations, precedents and sub-genres. Understanding the presiding logistical and thematic issues is fundamental to both the creation of and critical response to crime/thriller fiction. The module will analyse the developments and characteristics of the modernisation of the genre, through a symptomatic approach to authors, from Dashiell Hammett to Jo Nesbo, from police procedurals to psychological thrillers. Issues of literary worth, escapism and social context particularly will be examined. Creative work will also concentrate on how to craft a convincing plot, creating believable characters, building suspense, generating voice and exploring new ways to tackle new crimes. Students will be required to make presentations on a particular author/style, and to produce original crime/thriller fiction. Assessment by creative writing - a short piece of fiction - with accompanying critical essay. more...	LDCCM013	20	Semester 1
Publishing - A Practical Approach This module aims to give students an introduction to the modern publishing industry and a practical survival guide to the different functions involved in the publication of a book. As well as learning about the structure and economics of the British book industry, the opportunities and challenges of digitalization, students will engage with the process whereby books are chosen for publication, review principles of text and jacket design, practise basic copyediting and proofreading skills and learn tips for running a marketing and publicity campaign, writing 'blurbs' and press releases. The course will also touch on copyright law, finance and distribution. Students from the module may join the core team producing the annual MA Creative Writing anthologies. more...	LDCCM016	20	Semester 2
Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry 1 Only students who are registered for the MA in Creading Writing: Poetry may enrol for this module. more...	LDCCM003	20	Semester 1
Novel History We are currently witnessing a renaissance in history writing. Sales of historical novels continue to rise steeply. Societies have formed, new prizes established. A number of eminent historians are turning from fact to fiction. What can the historical novel do in terms of reaching the past that more conventional historical accounts cannot do? Can it challenge long-told historical narratives, propose new ones or give us new vantage points? Novel History is a critical-creative MA module that crosses the boundaries between literature, art history, history and creative writing to explore the possibilities (and paradoxes) of historical fiction. Students will study the history of the historical novel and read critical and theoretical essays about the writing of history alongside examples of innovative or revisionist contemporary historical fiction. They will also explore ideas around 'object history' through a series of workshop sessions amongst the historical objects of UEA's extraordinary rich collection in the Sainsbury Centre. Students will present work in progress in the workshop format as they move towards a final piece of creative writing, a short story or radio script, screen or theatre script. Students will be given the option of structuring their final work around a single chosen object from the Sainsbury Centre collection. more...	LDCCM010	20	Semester 2
Describing Poetry CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA CREATIVE WRITING: POETRY. Poetry often describes its own verbal processes ' of rhythm, image and word choice ' while thinking about the way that writing is intertwined with the world that it describes. Such thinking has also been importantly continued in prose. This module offers a historical survey of some of the major critical texts in Western poetics, from Plato to Ezra Pound and after, to be read closely alongside a wide range of poetic self-reflections in verse. Students will be encouraged to contribute texts from their own reading for discussion. Short writing exercises in a range of critical styles will also be set in class, in preparation for the final coursework essay. We will examine in particular the metaphors that have been used to describe the formal techniques of poetry, as well as to admire its powers, criticise its failings, and advocate its pleasures. more...	LDCCM011	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing Workshop: Scriptwriting This module is compulsory for all Scriptwriting MA students and is reserved for students of the Scriptwriting programme. It is co-requisite with Scriptwriting: Dramaturgy (full-time students). Part-time students must complete Dramaturgy as a pre-requisite, in year 1. Workshop 1 builds upon the parallel study of dramaturgical theory and practice in the four major dramatic performance media. The module requires scriptwriters to incorporate the theory into their own creative practice in weekly creative development workshops. Writers will all complete a series of script planning and writing exercises: each week, two writers will bring their exercise to the workshop table for group discussion. more...	LDCCM005	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing: Scriptwriting: Dramaturgy This module is compulsory for all scriptwriting MA students, and is a co-requisite with Scriptwriting: Workshop 1 for full time students (part-time students must take Dramaturgy in the autumn of year 1, Workshop 1 in autumn of year 2, Scriptwriting: Process in spring of year 2). It may be taken as an option by non-Scriptwriting students, subject to a maximum enrolment of 16 students. Students should note that this is an advanced level study of dramatic theory in the four major performance media (theatre, film, television, radio); non-Scriptwriting students must have some prior experience of dramatic writing. more...	LDCCM009	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry 2 Only students who are registered for Creative Writing: Poetry may enrol for this module. more...	LDCCM004	20	Semester 2
Creative Writing Workshop: Prose 1 This is the Prose Fiction workshop, the core of the Prose Fiction MA, and runs for 12 weeks in the autumn semester and 12 weeks in the spring semester. The sessions are three hours long and take place on Tuesday afternoons (2-5pm). Each week work (up to 5,000 words) from three students is discussed. This discussion is led by the tutor, however careful and informed contribution from the rest of the class is fundamental. Over the two semesters everyone will have around six opportunities to have their work discussed. Key and topical issues of theme and craft will be addressed and wider reading maybe discussed and suggested. Individual tutorials (of half an hour) are then held for those students who have been workshopped. more...	LDCCM001	20	Semester 1

LDCDM

Drama Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	LDCDM03X	90	Semester 2
Postmodernism in Performance This module interrogates the study of postmodernism in relation to theatre, performance and live art. Key theories relating to the emergence of the postmodern movement are studied alongside the work of practitioners. The module will examine some of the innovative work occurring in contemporary theatre and cultural practice, as well as study the influences upon contemporary artists from earlier modernist avant-garde work of Europe and the United States. These movements include Futurism, Dada, Constructivism and the 'neo-dada' Happenings and Fluxus movements in 1960s Europe and America and the study of contemporary postmodern performance groups and practitioners such as Forced Entertainment, The Wooster Group, Robert Wilson, SITI Company, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Need Company, and Le Page. more...	LDCDM012	20	Semester 2
Text and Production: Scene Class The module is broken into two parts. One consists of a weekly three hour meeting in which we study various methods of directing via textual analysis. These include 'actioning', working with verse and language, Laban's effort analyses, status games and an introduction to Lecoq's physical methods. In these sessions we also discuss some of the major theories of what the theatre is or should be - those of Gordon Craig, Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht and Peter Brooks, in relation to many texts, including Shakespeare. The other part of the module is a series of weekly 'scene-classes' in which the MA students present the results of their directing undergraduate students in rehearsing scenes. more...	LDCDM001	20	Semester 1
Research and Methodology Training Seminar The 10 credit module is compulsory. more...	LDCDM020	10	Semester 2
Contemporary World Theatre Contemporary World Theatre examines how twentieth century theatre around the world has been affected by postcolonialism, globalization, immigration and interculturalism. Through an examination of postcolonial performance from former British colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, and the West Indies, important theatrical movements in the Americas, new performance styles found in Russia and Eastern Europe, immigrant performance in the United States and Britain, as well as the new 'intercultural' performance styles of directors such as Lepage and Mnouchkine, this course will examine how gender, race and class become key issues in understanding the ramifications of these colliding cultures. more...	LDCDM002	20	Semester 2
Radical Dramaturgies This module will examine the rich field of writing within theatre which seeks to define new relationships with audiences and new notions of how texts might be written. Central to the module will be a consideration of how writing might respond to place, site, self, found text, the actor, music, film and multi-media approaches. Drawing on work and practises from a range of international contexts largely extant now in the field, students will explore a panoply of writing modes and encounter a range of study-texts. more...	LDCDM004	20	Semester 2

Disclaimer

Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules and regular (five-yearly) review of course programmes. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, there will normally be prior consultation of students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff or sabbatical leave. Where this is the case, the University will endeavour to inform students.

Fees And Funding

Tuition fees

Tuition fees for Postgraduate students for the academic year 2012/3 are £5,000 for Home/EU students and £11,900 for International Students.

If you choose to study part-time, the fee per annum will be half the annual fee for that year, or a pro-rata fee for the module credit you are taking (only available for Home/EU students).

Please note that all the above fees are expected to rise for the year 2013/14. We estimate living expenses at £600/650 per month.

Scholarships and Awards:

International scholarships

All international students (outside the European Union) are considered for a scholarship of between £1000 and £2000 towards tuition fees. In order to be considered for an International Scholarship you do not need to make a separate application. Please indicate on your application for admission that you wish to be considered for a scholarship. It is important to make the application as early as possible because they are considered as they are received. So apply early to make sure of the best chance of success.

Scholarships are awarded to students on the basis of academic merit and are for the duration of the period of study (which will be one year). Students of outstanding academic ability will also be considered for Faculty Scholarship Awards, usually in March and May each year, which can be worth up to 100% of the tuition fee. These are highly competitive and prestigious awards. Those students being offered a scholarship will be notified directly by the School of Study.

Home / EU Scholarships, Bursaries and Awards

AHRC Awards 2012 entry

We are pleased to confirm that we have an AHRC Block Grant Partnership, meaning that we have a number of funded awards to allocate from 2009-2013.

We will have one full AHRC Award to offer for entry in 2012 to a student on the MA Literary Translation (subject to confirmation of funding by the AHRC). The award will be a full studentship which will cover tuition fees plus a maintenance grant (EU students will be eligible for tuition fees only). For further information about AHRC Awards please see the AHRC website.

To be considered for the above award, applications need to be received by 1st March 2012. If you are successful in your application to study at the University of East Anglia, and your application is considered strong enough to be considered for an AHRC award at UEA, we will provide forms and advice on the AHRC nomination process.

UEA

Literature, Drama and Creative Writing Courses

Literature, Drama and Creative Writing

MA Literary Translation

Why Study Literary Translation at UEA?

Course Content and Structure

Course Assessment

The Course Team