English: 1850-Present

Jennifer
English: 1850-Present MA
When I decided to pursue my studies in English I knew I wanted to move to the UK and study there. King's quickly became my first choice because of its location in the heart of London and its outstanding reputation. Studying here allows not only for a full social life (there are over 100 student societies) but also for an in-depth study of English in its vibrant cultural context, which is underlined by the university’s various teaching and research partnerships with institutions such as the Shakespeare Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern.

I chose the MA English 1850 to the Present because it allows research across conventional period boundaries, enabling students to deepen their knowledge in the Victorian, Modernist and Post-modernist periods. The programme's structure, comprising of optional modules and one core module, offers a great amount of flexibility and choice while providing a solid grounding in the theory, culture and literature of the time.

Fortnightly workshops help students develop research and writing skills and confirm the department's excellence in teaching and research. The staff is friendly, approachable and always happy to discuss new ideas. While the course prepares students for the research at a higher degree level, the careers service offers valuable information and support for those looking to enter the job market after their graduation. Studying English at King's essentially means becoming part of a dynamic academic environment with passionate lecturers and ample room for personal and professional development.

Clare Pettitt
English: 1850-Present MA
I work mainly on 19th-century literature and culture and along with my colleagues I am creating teaching links with some of the wonderful places on our doorstep, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Britain and the Courtauld Institute for the History of Art.
Because I use visual and popular culture a lot in my own research, I like to introduce students to 19th-century objects and pictures alongside the literary texts they are studying, to help build up a complex cultural context for their literary studies. For example, my Victorian Pasts module involves looking at paintings, photographs, engravings, archaeological remains, architecture, newspapers, periodicals, classical sculpture and exhibitions alongside the focal texts.
All my students teach me things I don't know and of course they teach each other in all kinds of ways too. This model of group learning is actively encouraged and supported in the department, which runs interdisciplinary research seminars, study days, graduate conferences and large international conferences at which graduates are encouraged to attend and participate. When I was trying to write a blurb for the jacket of my recent book Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? Missionaries, Journalists, Explorers and Empire (2007) I got my MA class to help me. They came up with some great suggestions, some of which I used, so it is never all just one-way.

Elizabeth Eger
English: 1850-Present MA
The King's College London English Department is located in the heart of London surrounded by unrivalled cultural resources. I share with my colleagues a strong sense of the great fortune of our location - something which we make use of in the way we teach and the topics we address. For example, as part of the MA English programme, I teach 'Women and the Poetics of Liberty in the Romantic Period', which address, among other things, the role of British intellectual women in the public sphere at the time of the French revolution. After reading women's political poetry of the era, it is extremely exciting to be able to hold a class in the British Museum's department of prints and drawings, where we consider women's broader social role through a study of contemporary popular visual culture, handling and discussing original cartoons and satirical imagery with the museum's curators.
An interdisciplinary approach to 18th-century literature is vital in understanding this age as the crucible of modernity. I encourage this approach at graduate level, having recently won an AHRC collaborative doctoral award with the National Portrait Gallery to fund a research student working on female iconography in the Enlightenment. In the King's English Department we like to make connections between intellectual and material culture, to enrich the study of literature through knowledge of its supporting networks and contexts.