MA in Life Writing
The Life Writing MA offers students the chance to engage intellectually and imaginatively with biographical and autobiographical forms, cutting across generic and temporal boundaries.
Teaching by international experts
The course will be taught by internationally recognised life writing scholars, published biographers and creative writers - including this year's Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award winner Edmund Gordon. Students will finish the course able to theorise and historicise a variety of life writing genres: autobiography, biography, letters, diaries and blogs, ghost-written celebrity memoirs, travel writing, prison writing, confessions, testimonies, war reminiscences, vindications, obituaries, and illness narratives. Practical exercises in biography and creative non-fiction will give students training in the researching and writing of life stories.
Exploring formats
The MA encourages the exploration of seminal literary texts, marginal life stories, and extra-textual media too: film biographies, oral histories, postcards, (self-) portraiture, digital stories, and performance art. Where some may wish to focus on particular periods and genres, there will also be an opportunity to investigate how life writing has responded to historical change and technological innovation.
London resources on your doorstep
The course capitalises on the central location of King's: London's museums, galleries and archives offer inspiration and a wealth of research materials for investigating and practising life writing. The AHRC has recently funded life writing doctorates in collaboration with the British Library and the Imperial War Museum. The MA offers an ideal platform for embarking upon PhD study: an opportunity to present a more extended critical dissertation, to write a biography, or to develop a work of creative non-fiction.
Find out more
Find out more about this exciting MA, including detailed information on available modules, assessments and how to apply, by looking at our programme page.
Listen to the podcast
Listen to the podcast (right of the page), with the MA's convenor Professor Max Saunders, talking about the Centre for Life Writing and its work.