Postgraduate Courses

The Department of Humanities, Arts and Languages offers taught postgraduate courses in the areas of applied language studies and the humanities. Its courses provide a challenging educational experience within a firmly structured and sustaining academic framework.

*Subject to validation

There are over one hundred full-time teaching staff in the Department, and taught postgraduate courses draw from their diverse and wide-ranging experience and expertise. The Department has an excellent reputation for scholarship, and many of its staff are nationally and internationally renowned researchers. The intellectual vitality of the Department is reflected in scholarly activity both within and outside London Metropolitan University.

The department hosts regular seminar series associated with the Irish Studies Centre, the Centre for Research in Gender and Ethnicity, the Caribbean Studies Centre, the Translation section and the associated Postcolonial Research Seminar. They bring to the University national and international visiting scholars, high profile writers, critics and politicians. In past years, speakers have included Stuart Hall, Sonny Ramphal, Terry Eagleton, Peter Newmark, Mark Shuttleworth, Jorge Díaz-Cintas. In addition, the department houses the European Migrations and Transformations Research Institute which runs an ambitious research programme including the organisation of international conferences.

Individual staff are also active in conference organisation, at the University and elsewhere. Previous conferences topics include 'The Irish Diaspora', 'Sade and his Legacy', 'The Victorian Supernatural', 'Border Crossings: Comparing Postcolonial Literatures', 'Current Research in Audience and Reception Studies', 'Beyond Camps and Forced Labour: Current International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution', 'The Independent Film Parliament', 'Two Cultures? Art and Science','Aspects of Specialised. Translation'.Future events include 'Literary Beasts', an international conference in comparative literature, in which major writers and scholars will take part (Fay Weldon, Gillian Beer). There is also a busy schedule of Creative Writing and Performance-related events throughout term-time, which includes readings and experimental work by professional performers.

The quality of teaching in the department is acknowledged in the high subject review scores received over the last decade, including an 'Excellent' for English, 22 out of 24 for Dance, Drama and Cinematics and for Philosophy. The department's expanding provision in applied language studies reflects the excellence of its national and international reputation in the field of TEFL, international ELT and applied translation. The MA TEFL courses have extensive links in countries across the world, especially in China; and with other Universities such as Isik University, Istanbul and the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The successful MA in Applied Translation Studies is franchised to the Metropolitan College in Athens.

The University's Holloway Road site provides what is probably the most exciting building ever to house a Graduate School. Due to open in March 2004, the building is the design of Daniel Libeskind. More generally, students in the department have easy access to the capital's diverse cultural life, including some of the world's greatest museums, galleries, theatres, cinemas and festivals. Postgraduate students can also make use of the outstanding library facilities of London University's Senate House and the British Library. The University's location also affords exciting opportunities to visit multinational learning contexts of London schools and colleges.

Students completing postgraduate courses in the Department of Humanities, Arts and Languages have gone on to further postgraduate study and research, and many are currently completing PhDs. Others have found careers with the British Council, or have been enabled to move from school level teaching to University lecturing, or begun prestigious careers in translation. Students from Postcolonial Cultures have gone on to work with asylum seekers and refugees or, as with students from Literature and Modernity, have established careers in publishing, the media, and teaching.