Taught in collaboration with Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe. Advanced critical and textual study of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries through this unique collaboration. Optional modules cover Jacobean theatre and culture, Shakespeare on film, global Shakespeare; plus training in methodologies and editing. Destinations: PhD and academic work, theatre and the arts, arts administration, publishing.
KEY BENEFITS
- Unique collaboration between Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and the Department of English, King's College London.
- Ideal opportunity to study the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in a theatrical context in the heart of London.
- Graduates of the degree have gone on to study for the PhD both at King's and at other major universities both in the UK and the US or to work in the creative industries, arts administration and publishing.
KEY FACTS
Student destinations
Recent graduates have gone on to PhDs at King's and at the Universities of Cambridge, Columbia and New York and at CUNY and subsequently to academic jobs at Cambridge and in North Carolina; to work in arts administration at e.g. Globe Education, National Theatre, Barbican, English National Opera; to edit for publishers in the US and UK.
Programme leader/s
Professor Gordon McMullan, MA in Shakespeare Studies Convenor, tel 020 7848 2177
Awarding Institution
King's College London
Credit value (UK/ECTS equivalent)
UK 180/ECTS 90
Duration
One year FT, two years PT, September to September.
Location
Strand Campus and Shakespeare's Globe.
Year of entry 2013
Offered by
School of Arts and Humanities
Department of English
Closing date
None.
Please note that applicants wishing to apply for funding (e.g. AHRC) must submit their application by the relevant funding deadline, which is usually early in the year. Please see
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/pg/funding/sources/index.aspx for information on the available funding opportunities and deadlines.
15-20.
Fees
PT Home: £3950 (2013)
PT Overseas: £8125 (2013)
FT Home: £7900 (2013)
FT Overseas: £16250 (2013)
CONTACTS
Contact information
Postgraduate Officer, Centre for Arts & Sciences Admissions (CASA)
tel: +44 (0) 20 7848 2765 / 2232 / 7232
fax: +44 (0) 20 7848 7200
Email
Website
PURPOSE
Advanced study of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the context of the facilities and opportunities provided by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and by King's. To provide a thorough knowledge of early modern drama, particularly Shakespearean drama, in its material and institutional contexts. Ideal grounding for further academic work and for work in the arts, theatre, education, publishing, etc.
DESCRIPTION
The degree is offered jointly by King's and Globe Education. You will take a compulsory module at Shakespeare's Globe, 'Renaissance Playhouse Practice', which includes workshops on the Globe stage and formal seminars; a critical methodologies module ('Working with Early Modern Literary Texts') at King's, which includes training in palaeography and bibliography; and two optional modules at King's which you may choose from the list provided (see examples below).
You will also write a dissertation between May and September, supervised either at King's or at the Globe, depending on the chosen subject.
See
http://www.shakespeare.kcl.ac.uk/ma-shakespeare.html for further details of this unique programme.
STRUCTURE OVERVIEW
Core programme content
Core module:
Indicative non-core content
Compulsory modules:
- Working with Early Modern Literary Texts (Critical and Research Methodologies) - taught at King's.
- Renaissance Playhouse Practice - taught at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Option modules
Students take two option modules. Recommended options may include:
- Theatre, Gender and Culture in Jacobean London - Gordon McMullan;
- Global/Local Shakespeares - Sonia Massai;
- Professing Writing in Early Modern England - Sonia Massai;
- Family Politics in Early Modern England - Hannah Crawforth;
- Middleton's Drama - John Lavagnino.
Students may also choose from a wide range of option modules offered on other English Department MA Programmes, or modules from another departments in the School (subject to agreement by the programme leader).
NB This is an indicative list only. For further information on the programme structure (for full-time and part-time study) and modules, please visit: http://www.shakespeare.kcl.ac.uk/ma-shakespeare.html
FORMAT AND ASSESSMENT
Taught compulsory and optional courses assessed by coursework and/or examination plus a dissertation.
MODULES
More information on typical programme modules.
NB it cannot be guaranteed that all modules are offered in any particular academic year.
Module code: 7AAEM222
Credit level: 7
This course (taught by Globe Education, Shakespeare's Globe) explores early modern dramatic texts within the historical context of the London theatre industry. Special attention will be paid to the design, architecture and operations of the Elizabethan playhouse. Equally, the course will uncover the structure and order of the theatre companies and their repertories. The new Globe playhouse, as the primary learning tool, will provide the students with some idea as to how plays were commissioned, cast, licensed, rehearsed, performed and printed. The students will also be given the opportunity to visit the Rose excavation site and will conduct detailed analyses of playhouse documents, old and new. In addition to straight lectures given by the course faculty and esteemed guest lecturers, the students will also hear from directors and Globe practitioners on aspects of staging, properties and costuming. The course will take place in lectures, seminars and practical workshops on the Globe stage. The course also seeks to examine the practical and theoretical implications of scholarly attempts to recover evidence about playhouse practice; students will also engage with current debates about the uses of material history and the intellectual limits of the notion of authenticity.
Module code: 7AAEM641
Credit level: 7
This course makes students aware of the various forms of ‘publication’ through which early modern literary texts reached their target audience. Special emphasis is placed on the connotations, advantages and limitations associated with the medium of their transmission (manuscript, print, performance) and the influence of the ‘three houses’ – the great house (aristocratic patronage), the playhouse (the rise of commercial drama) and the printing house (the book trade and the rise of a literary market) – on their composition, their reception in the early modern period and their legacy for the modern reader/spectator.
Each class will focus on specific study-cases, which may vary from year to year, depending on staff research interest and availability. A representative list of dramatic texts may include Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear and Henry VIII, Middleton’s Hengist, King of Kent; Or, The Mayor of Queenborough, Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling, and Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Particular attention will also be paid to a range of early modern poets, including Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney and Shakespeare.
Module code: 7AAEM664
Credit level: 0
Credit value: 20
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: 1 two- hour weekly seminar (Subject to change)
Assessment:
coursework
1x 4,000 word essay (Subject to change)
In 1595, the Jesuit poet Robert Southwell was gruesomely executed for adhering to Catholic practices, in defiance of his family who begged him to save his own life by conforming – as they did – to the new Protestant doctrine. In a letter addressed to his father on the eve of his execution at Tyburn, Southwell denounced his parents and rejected their beliefs in damning terms. He would rather die than recant, and felt nothing but shame at what he perceived as his father's lack of courage. It is difficult to imagine a more striking, or deadly, example of inter-familial conflict.This course will look at issues that bring about conflict in Early Modern families, ranging from marriage, education, religion, and politics to incest, scandal and rebellion.
Module code: 7AAEM620
Credit level: 0
Credit value: 20
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: One two-hour weekly seminar and one two-hour weekly viewing
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module focuses on the roles played by recent theatrical and cinematic appropriations of Shakespeare in an increasingly globalised cultural market. Students will be introduced to the history of Shakespearean reception within a selection of localities and cultures and will be asked to consider whether the steep rise in the number of recent Shakespearean appropriations and their significant role in mass-culture have transformed Shakespeare into a successful global logo or brand-name. Students will also be invited to establish whether Shakespeare has become a universalising force, through which the values of Western dominant localities are imposed on other cultures, or whether those who still choose to 'mean by Shakespeare' produce creative and radical intercultural exchanges.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/english/modules/2011-12/level7/7aaem620.aspx
Module code: 7AAEM663
Credit level: 0
Credit value: 20
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: One two-hour weekly seminar
Assessment:
coursework
TBC
This module surveys Middleton's whole career as a playwright and his changing reputation over time. It focuses in particular on three key thematic areas: commercial London, in his comedies of city life and business; the court, in tragedies and other works on the ruling powers of his era; and gender politics, as attested by his distinctive cycle of plays whose titles advertised women as their subject. And it traces the many versions of his public identity: as a writer who enjoyed increasing popular success during his lifetime and was ultimately author of the greatest stage hit of his day, A Game at Chess; posthumously, as a writer whose works were scattered and neglected until the first collected editions in the nineteenth century; as a figure with a gradually resurgent profile since then, particularly after interventions by Lamb, Lowell, Swinburne, and Eliot; and now, as a playwright claimed again as a precursor by some writers of our day.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/english/modules/2011-12/level7/7aaem663.aspx
Module code: 7AAEM636
Credit level: 0
Credit value: 20
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: One two-hour weekly seminar
Assessment:
coursework
1x 4,000 word essay
This module focuses on the rich and diverse range of literary and non-literary texts written in England during the early modern period (1500-1700). Textual production in the period was deeply affected by new printing technology and the establishment of the London book trade. While co-existing alongside scribal culture well into the seventeenth century, the production of printed books provided a living for a new breed of professional writers and created new reading markets for new types of texts, including plays written for the commercial stage, news pamphlets, non-conformist writing and translations of foreign and classical texts.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/english/modules/2011-12/level7/7aaem636.aspx
Module code: 7AAEM220
Credit level: 0
Credit value: 20
Semester:
Semester 2 (spring)
Teaching pattern: 1 two-hour weekly seminar
Assessment:
coursework
1 x 4,000 word essay
This module explores the relations of theatre, gender and culture in London in the reign of James I (1603-1625). We will read plays from the London stage as anatomies of Jacobean urban culture, reflecting on the shape and growth of London at this time, on the significance of the locations of the theatres, on patterns of exchange and credit, on religion and superstition and their dramatic ramifications, on particular year-long periods in Jacobean history and the ways in which the theatre dealt with current affairs, on the varieties of tragedy both in their Jacobean context and in the context of current critical theories, and on the ways in which Jacobean Protestant, patriarchal culture addressed a range of 'others' from women to Muslims.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/english/modules/2011-12/level7/7aaem220.aspx
ACADEMIC ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
General entry advice
Minimum 2:1 undergraduate honours degree (or overseas equivalent) in English, Drama or an equivalent subject. You will be required to submit a sample of your written work on a relevant topic.
APPLYING TO KING'S
To apply for graduate study at King's you will need to complete our graduate online application form. Applying online makes applying easier and quicker for you, and means we can receive your application faster and more securely.
King's does not normally accept paper copies of the graduate application form as applications must be made online. However, if you are unable to access the online graduate application form, please contact the relevant admissions/School Office at King's for advice.
APPLICATION PROCEDURE
Please supply a recent argumentative research paper you have written (up to 4000 words) on a topic connected with Shakespeare and/or his contemporaries: this is the key item in your application. We will also wish to see your provisional option choices and an initial dissertation idea. Please contact the MA Convenor if you wish to discuss your situation.
PERSONAL STATEMENT & SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Please include a personal statement that includes your reasons for applying to the course. You should also provide a recent argumentative research paper you have written (up to 4,000 words) on a topic connected with Shakespeare and/or his contemporaries.
FUNDING
AHRC, Graduate School and School of Arts & Humanities scholarships, Overseas Research Students (ORS) Award Scheme, self-funded.
Student profiles
Shakespeare Studies MA
The two things that first attracted me to King’s were staff reputation and the university’s connections. It was the opportunity to be mentored by Arden editors and taught at The Globe Theatre which made me accept the offer to study Shakespeare at King’s. I have not regretted my choice.
Through this programme I have obtained a 12-month internship at The Globe – a crash course in application of academic research which will undoubtedly prove an extremely transferable skill. Being completely self-funded, I will have to work for a few years to be able to afford a PhD, and I feel that my time at King’s is well preparing me for that necessity. My career interests lie in theatre management and publishing, two areas into which my internship and the invaluable support of the editors on staff have cast precious insight.
I’d advise prospective students to choose a subject they adore. Graduate study is hard work, so the only way you are going to find the determination to be the best you can be is if your specialist area is the thing you want to do most in the world!
Shakespeare Studies MA
I chose to study at King’s because of its dynamic place at the heart of London and in a research environment with strong connections to external institutions. For my course I have found the resources of The Globe Theatre to be a stimulating and exciting dimension to pursuing research and considering practice. King’s is currently leading the way in various aspects of Shakespeare studies, including the examination of local and global performance in which I am going to commence a PhD next year, using the insights I have already developed within the department.
Of particular value alongside my course has been the informal research seminar held across English graduate programmes in which all master’s students within the department exchange research ideas and support. Anyone seeking to pursue graduate studies at King’s will find the resources and distractions of central London a vital and engaging complement to their studies.
I have funded my studies privately through pursuing teaching and tutoring work in London and nearby, some of which is useful in keeping a wider interest open across English disciplines.
Being in London has been of particular use for me not only because of advantages such as The Globe Theatre, but for having regular access to the BFI as well as numerous libraries, including the British Library. My advice is to definitely make the most of student Oyster photocards and work hard to look for accommodation if renting privately: it can be found not too expensively close to the centre.