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Literature, Landscape and Environment

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How to Apply

Internationally-recognised staff expertise.

Access to unique regional resources and a location in a World Heritage Site.

Examines literary works from a broad historical range (Early Modern period to the present) and covers a wide range of landscapes and regions (for example: urban, wild, natural, British, American).

Offers the opportunity for field-work with, for example, regional heritage organisations, resources or archives.

How does literature debate and reflect humanity’s relationship with ‘Nature’? What makes ‘the country’, ‘the wilderness’ or ‘the city’ what it is? How does literature respond to environmental destruction? Is it influenced by modern environmental movements?
The MA in Literature, Landscape and Environment offers an exciting opportunity to examine how literature reflects and shapes the way in which we see the landscape and the environment.

Why study Literature, Landscape and Environment ?

The MA in Literature, Landscape and Environment enables you to address the kind of questions that are increasingly important to the direction of modern English literary studies.
It is designed for students interested in further study or for those looking for careers in the rapidly expanding green industry.
The MA is taught by Bath Spa staff who are internationally recognised for their research in this field.
In addition, we are located in a World Heritage site at the centre of a region rich with literary connections and with some of the finest landscapes in the country.

Course structure

The programme aims to provide you with an excitingly wide range of issues and approaches in relation to the representations of various kinds of landscapes. It will present:
  • a mix of thematic topics, types of landscape and regions
  • a balance between literature pre- and post-1900
  • a range of methodologies and approaches
  • although its main focus is literary, you will also engage with real landscapes and environments (for example, an eighteenth-century country estate; London; the Eden Project; Quantock Hills; Hardy country).
The programme – which is available full time or part time – consists of  the following modules: one 30-credit research methods module; three 30-credit core modules; one 60-credit dissertation / project module.
To visit our course blog-site, click here.

Modules

Research: Methods, Resources, Dissemination
Enables you to make the transition from undergraduate work to researching and writing English studies at postgraduate level. This module will be an introduction to postgraduate-level research strategies alongside the focused study of literary texts.
Core modules
In order that we can offer as wide and varied a programme as possible the core modules below act as a ‘shell’ module: each consists of two themed strands.
The Country and the City in History
Two topics from the indicative list below will be offered each year: ‘The politics of place in early modern literature’; ‘Staging the country in early modern London’; ‘The city and the country estate in the long eighteenth century’; ‘Transforming poetry: industry in landscapes of the eighteenth century’; ‘Wilderness’.
Environmental Writing and Ecocriticism
Two topics from the indicative list below will be offered each year: ‘Literature and Ecology’; ‘20thC. American nature writing’; ‘Representations of Canadian wilderness’; ‘Colonial / postcolonial natures’; ’Pollution’; ‘Globalising environments’; ‘The environmental tradition in English literature’.
Chorographies: case studies in region or place
Two topics from the indicative list below will be offered each year: ‘Georgian Bath’; ‘Early modern London’; ‘Gothic London’; ‘Modernism and London’; ‘Writing Los Angeles’; ‘Literary heritage’.
Dissertation / Project
You can opt for either a traditional written Dissertation or the Project. The Project offers you the opportunity to create a different output, and it can take the form of an applied research project (for example, an exhibition for a literary heritage organisation; an electronic resource). This module also includes the opportunity to further pursue links with external organisations and some refresher workshops on research skills.

Course assessment

The course is assesed by essays, an annotated bibliography, research proposals, and a dissertation or project.

The MA draws upon Bath Spa University’s location at the centre of a region whose writers have been intimately engaged with their environment: Coleridge (Nether Stowey and the Quantock Hills), Hardy (Dorchester), Austen (Bath), and the region is also associated with the writers Richard Jeffries, John Cooper Powys and Sylvia Townsend Warner. In addition, the area has some of the finest examples of the English country estate in the UK, for example, Stourhead, Prior Park, Dryham Park and Bowood House.
The MA is founded upon our staff’s expertise and substantial publications record in the areas of ecocriticism, contemporary environmental writing, early modern London, postmodern American cities, and literary journeys in modernist/postmodernist literature. Tracey Hill is the author of a prize-winning book on early-modern London; Richard Kerridge has won the BBC Wildlife Award for Nature Writing and launched the first ever course on ecocriticism in the UK; and Greg Garrard is the author of Ecocriticism (now in its second edition). Kerridge and Garrard have been chairs of the UK branch of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. In addition, Bath Spa University is the home of the journal Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism.

Teaching methods

You will be taught at our Corsham Court Campus, an eighteenth-century country house currently owned by the Methuen family and Bath Spa University’s postgraduate centre. Teaching and learning on the taught modules will primarily be via seminars, but opportunities for other types of engagement may be offered as an alternative to seminars, depending upon the nature of thethematic strand, for example: skills workshops, field-trips, directed research, and independent research associated with the Dissertation or Project. Students on the MA have access to high-quality electronic resources as well as to specialist book collections. The course offers links with archives and libraries both locally and nationally such as the British Library and the Thomas Hardy archives.

Application method

Application forms are available online and should be completed and returned to us either electronically or through the post. If you have any queries please contact the admissions department:

Telephone: (01225) 875624.

Course enquiries

Please contact Dr Stephen Gregg:

Telephone: (01225) 875482.

Entry requirements

We expect all applicants to have a good honours degree (2:1 or above), in an area of literary studies or a related humanities subject.

Career opportunities

Typical career destinations include:
  • Traditional English postgraduate destinations (e.g. Higher Research degree programmes, public and private sector research careers, book and publishing industries)
  • Environmental sector and 'Green' careers (e.g. advocacy, communications, charities, education, internships, ecotourism, urban planning)
  • Heritage and tourism sector (e.g. charities and trusts, visitor centres, private estates, local government, planning, management, communications)
  • Creative industries (e.g. radio, TV, cable and satellite broadcasters, book publishing, web media, news and magazine media).

What students say...

"The MA incorporates the study of a very wide range of subject matter and there is a broad range of resources available together with the enthusiasm and support of the tutors. Corsham Court is a delightful place to work and the facilities are excellent. The guest seminar with Professor Terry Gifford was a delight." Patricia Main, full-time student 2011-12.