Literature and the Environment (MA)

How will I be taught?

Each module will typically be taught in weekly 2-hour seminars or workshop sessions, with the exception of the Live Project Brief module, which will be taught through a mixture of 2-hour seminar and workshop sessions and independent research meetings with your research group.

You’ll also participate in a field trip to a case study location.

Additional teaching points will include the dissertation workshop and the dissertation conference.

You’ll be encouraged to attend Cardiff Environmental Cultures’ research group events, which take place throughout the year.

How will I be assessed?

The three required modules and the dissertation module include a wide variety of assessment methods. On the required modules these may include writing a podcast and writing a blog post for a public audience. The required Live Project Brief module will be assessed through a 2500-word report, a 10-minute group presentation of your report’s research findings, and a 500-word reflective essay on your own participation and professional skills development throughout the module.

While each required module is assessed by multiple pieces of work of different forms, the optional modules are often, but not always, assessed by a single long (4000-word) piece of work. This is so that you gain plenty of experience of writing longer essays before you proceed to the final dissertation stage of the programme.

The dissertation will be assessed by a 15,000-16,000-word project and by the submission of an assessed dissertation proposal form, outlining your proposed research project, reflecting on methodologies that you will use in your research, and including an annotated bibliography.

How will I be supported?

You’ll be allocated a personal tutor who will meet you at least once per semester, helping you to reflect on your work and advising you, including directing you to available support relating to study techniques, or student support services in the University. The formal meetings with your personal tutor are designed to formulate concrete strategies to help you reach your full academic and professional potential. Your personal tutor is your first point of contact if you experience any difficulties during your studies. Welsh-speaking students can request a Welsh-speaking personal tutor.

Module leaders are available in their office hours or by appointment to discuss any matters relating specifically to their modules. You are encouraged to discuss topics and readings for assessments with your module leaders in the first instance. Each module uses the University’s virtual learning environment to support you through your learning.

You can meet the Literature and the Environment MA Programme Director to discuss your progress and any difficulties that you might face.

Discussion of essay plans and dissertation proposals is offered throughout the programme, and written feedback is provided on both formative and summative assessments so that you can develop future assessments in the light of your feedback. Further feedback on progress can be received during seminar discussions and at the student conference.

You’ll receive individual one-to-one supervision while you are working on your dissertation after you have completed the taught stage of the MA. The dissertation is also supported by the core modules which run throughout the taught stage.

Writing skills support is available to all students from academic staff and via the School’s Writing Development Centre.

Careers support includes one-to-one career planning advice meetings and information about placement opportunities. 

Beyond the School, the University offers a range of support services and events to help you plan your career, manage your emotional, mental, and physical health, advise you on finance or money matters, and access support related to disabilities and dyslexia. These services are located at the University’s Centre for Student Life.

What skills will I practise and develop?

The Learning Outcomes for this programme describe what you will achieve by the end of your programme at Cardiff University and identify the knowledge and skills that you will develop. They will also help you to understand what is expected of you.

On successful completion of your programme you will be able to:

Knowledge & Understanding:

• Systematically comprehend the relationships between literary texts and ideas of Nature and the environment, within and across a broad range of different historical periods.
• Critically assess the relationships between literary texts and their cultural, historical, aesthetic and environmental contexts.
• Systematically comprehend key debates in ecocriticism, Literature and the Environment, and the wider Environmental Humanities.
• Systematically comprehend literary texts from a range of ecocritical perspectives.
• Systematically comprehend the conventions of academic writing at postgraduate level.

Intellectual Skills:

• Examine literary texts and ideas of Nature from a variety of sources, periods and contexts.
• Critically assess current problems and develop new insights in the field of Literature and the Environment.
• Develop methodological approaches from ecocriticism and the wider Environmental Humanities, utilising these approaches to critically analyse texts and to conduct original research.
• Develop original research into literary texts’ relationship(s) with their environmental contexts, histories, and with evolving ideas of Nature and the environment over time.

Professional Practical Skills:

• Compile and develop information from multiple sources while dealing with complex issues within and across the subject areas of English Literature and the Environmental Humanities.
• Communicate sophisticated and independently researched ideas clearly to specialist or non-specialist audiences.
• Assess and solve problems independently, taking the views of others into account in a systematic and evaluative way.

Transferable/Key Skills:

• Develop initiative by taking responsibility for and time-managing a major research task.
• Communicate persuasively, conveying advanced academic ideas and technical arguments to specialist or non-specialist audiences, using written or oral techniques.
• Associate and compile research findings, drawing on a range of humanities-based methods and approaches.
• Foster initiative and personal responsibility in learning independently and pursuing continuing professional development.