World Literatures in English MSt

University of Oxford

In line with the other MSt strands in the English Faculty, the MSt is made up of four elements:

• the ‘A’ course, intended as an introduction to key themes and debates in postcolonial and world literatures;
• a ‘B’ course on book history, including postcolonial and world literature approaches to book history;
• two ‘C’ or option courses, one in Michaelmas term and one in Hilary term; and
• a ‘D’ element, the dissertation, which is handed in at the end of the final term, Trinity (June).

The descriptions below supply more detail on the A, B and C courses.

A. Core course: The Colonial, the Postcolonial, the World – Literature, Contexts and Approaches

The ‘A’ course, which runs in Michaelmas term, comprises eight seminars and is intended to provide a range of perspectives on some of the core debates, themes and issues shaping the study of world and postcolonial literatures in English. Each seminar will be led by a member of the Faculty of English or other relevant faculty and will include one or more short presentations from students on the week’s topic. There is no assessed A course work, but students are asked to give at least one presentation on the course, and to attend all the seminars. The methodologies you will encounter on this course are intended to prepare you for situating your dissertation in a chosen field of research. You should read as much as possible of the bibliography over the summer – certainly the primary literary texts listed in the seminar reading for each week.

B. Core course: Bibliography, theories of text, history of the book, manuscript studies

This is a compulsory, assessed course, taught via a range of lectures and seminars in each of the first two terms. The B-course for the MSt in World Literature strand introduces students to the methodologies and theories of bibliography, manuscript studies, textual scholarship, and book history framed within the broad concerns and methodologies of world literature book history and the emergence and institutionalisation of the categories of world and postcolonial literature within global and local literary spaces and the publishing industry.

The course begins in Michaelmas with a general introduction to theories and methodologies of material textual scholarship alongside an introduction to manuscript study and archive use in world literature. In late Michaelmas and Hilary it moves on to specific discussion of the institutions of world literature, culminating in student presentations and feedback on the B course essay project in Hilary term.

C. Special options

Students are able to choose from ‘C’ course options concerned specifically with World Literatures, as well as from any other ‘C’ course options on offer in the English MSt. Options taken by MSt students in this strand have, in recent years, included:

• ‘Humanitarian Fictions’, looking at the revived idea of Humanitarianism in English, Anglophone, and World literary studies and raising specific questions about how the novel in particular embraces the discourse of human rights and humanitarianism to address global modernity’s emergences and discontents;
• ‘Literatures of Empire and Nation’, investigating the literary and cultural perceptions, misapprehensions, and evasions that accompanied empire, and the literary forms that negotiated it.

D. Dissertation

You will write a dissertation on a subject of your choice, but related to the work you have been doing over the year. You will be assigned to a member of academic staff who will act as your supervisor.