Overview

Overview

This is a fully interdisciplinary programme, involving the Departments of English, History, History of Art, and Philosophy. It offers the opportunity for you to study the culture and cultural history of the period 1750-1850 from new perspectives, as well as to lay foundations for higher degrees within the various disciplines involved in the programme.

We do not assume that you have any prior knowledge of more than one discipline, or that you wish to abandon whatever discipline you pursued in your earlier studies. Our aim is to encourage you to develop a kind of intellectual curiosity that is open to different methods of inquiry, and interested in exploring many different aspects of the period.

We offer a choice of two pathways (core modules), each of which offers a distinctive and innovative portal into the eighteenth-century world.

The MA can be taken full-time over one year, or part-time over two years.

Global

The Global Eighteenth Century

This pathway  is in part concerned with the European encounter with cultures and societies in different regions of the world - notably the Americas, Africa, the Levant, India, China and the South Pacific - but it also seeks to challenge the metropole-periphery paradigm, and to attend to larger networks and circuits of peoples, goods, ideas, and identities. The core module for the pathway, The Global Eighteenth Century: An Introduction incorporates a historical and methodological introduction to the idea of the global eighteenth century, along with sessions on (for example) 'Global Lives', eighteenth-century empires, theories of racial and social difference, and slaves and slavery; the material studied includes travel writing, missionary tracts, economic treatises, paintings and caricatures, poetry, and works of ethnography and natural history.

Representations

Representations and Contexts 1750-1850

The  core module for this pathway, Changes of Meaning, Narratives of Change, looks at some of the most important terms and narratives by which writers attempted to explain changes in the structures and values of their societies. Topics may include 'manly and feminine', 'wealth and luxury', 'public and private', 'custom and prejudice', and 'freedom and slavery'.

These questions are studied mainly in relation to Britain, but with attention also to how they were being addressed in France. Many of the seminars are based on an anthology of extracts which has been specially designed for this module. These primary texts are drawn from a wide range of genres, and are concerned with politics, history, literary history,  history of art, law, political economy, etc., and the module examines how far these now separate disciplines were involved in a common debate about the processes and effects of cultural change, and how far they were beginning to develop divergent and specialised accounts of those processes and effects.

MA Structure

 MA Structure

In addition to their core module, students follow one optional module in the first term, and two optional modules in the second term. A range of module courses taught by staff from the English, History, Philosophy and History of Art Departments are available each year.

All courses are taught by weekly two-hour seminars. Assessment is by four term papers and a 20,000-word dissertation written over the summer term and vacation; part-time students are encouraged to use the first summer term of their two years to begin working on their dissertation topic. Students will also take classes in research training.

Applying

Applying

We welcome applications from holders of good honours degrees, usually an upper second or above, in any suitable subject or combination of subjects, for full-time or part-time degrees. We will also sympathetically consider your application if you are a mature candidate seeking specialist qualifications after professional experience (such as an in-service teacher) or if you wish to return after an interval to continue your education, whether or not you have recent and conventional qualifications.

The University Postgraduate Admissions webpages offer general information about Graduate Study at the University of York, including information about fees and scholarships, as well as online application forms.

Postgraduate Admissions 

Fees and Funding

Information for International Students

Graduate Prospectus Request

The most direct way to apply is using the University's Online Postgraduate Applications Service (OPAS).

Please note: You will find the MA in Eighteenth Century Studies: Representations and Contexts, and the MA in Eighteenth Century Studies: The Global Eighteenth Century under the Department of English and Related Literature in the course listings.

Your application can completed in stages as our online system allows you to save your progress and come back later to finish it.

All applications for postgraduate study are handled by the Postgraduate Student Admissions office -  please contact them directly with any enquiries you may have about your application:

Email (for applicants using the online application route)
onlinegraduate@york.ac.uk

Email (postal applicants and all other general enquiries)
graduate@york.ac.uk

Postgraduate Admissions
Student Recruitment and Admissions
University of York
Heslington
York YO10 5DD
UK

Tel: +44 (1904) 432142
Fax: +44 (1904) 434039

See also the home page for Student Recruitment and Admissions
and the home page for Registry Services

Language

Language Requirements

Applicants for whom English is a second language are normally expected to have achieved one of the following scores: IELTS: 7.0; TOEFL: 620 (paper-based test)/260 (computer-based test)/105 (internet-based test); or (preferably) Cambridge Proficiency: A or B. The courses are available full time over one year, and part time over two years.