General questions

(click on question for information):

Why study Gender and Culture?
Why study Gender and Culture at Swansea?
How useful is the course for professional development?
How is the course structured?
What modules are on offer?
How and when can I apply?
Are there bursaries available?
Where can I get further information?

This interdisciplinary MA scheme, co-ordinated by the English Department and taught by Gender specialists across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, started in September 2004.

Masters students of Gender and Culture will benefit from the facilities and activities of GENCAS, the Centre for Research into Gender in Culture and Society. Regular research seminars in the ‘Women and Gender’ series, together with annual symposia, will enable students to interact with leading scholars in the field. Students will also be actively encouraged to contribute to the postgraduate seminar series recently set up by research students in the English Department.

WHY STUDY GENDER AND CULTURE?
 'Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure she will have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation.’ (Robert Southey, then Poet Laureate, to Charlotte Brontë, 1836)

‘Give a man trade befitting his sex … Sedentary indoor employments, which make the body tender and effeminate, are neither pleasing nor suitable. No lad ever wanted to be a tailor. It takes some art to attract a man to this woman’s work. The same hand cannot hold the needle and the sword.’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, 1762)

These two statements reflect some of the arguments with which individuals have been divided into different genders, behaviours, and spheres of action. But what exactly is ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’, and how does this relate to being a woman or a man, at a particular moment in time and in and across cultures, literatures, and history? Are there many different possible ways of expressing ‘femininity’ or ‘masculinity’, at different times, from person to person and within the same person, and how do these correlate with our sexual, social, cultural, ethnic identities and how we perceive, experience, and represent ourselves and others? Do we need gender as a means of self-definition? Or is gender just a performance? To what extent is gender a category of division premised on binary, hierarchical thinking? What cultural and societal factors are involved in shaping our responses to gender and gender relations? How do we construct, deconstruct and reconstruct gender in our personal and professional lives? How do we read texts, how do we produce and transmit cultural messages about gender, identity, and society?

In 1971 the feminist critic Adrienne Rich (in ‘When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision’) argued that ‘Re-vision—the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction—is for us more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves.’ Can the study and analysis of gender lead to a ‘re-vision’ (reviewing and revising, re-envisioning, re-membering) of our past, present and future as individuals and social beings?

If you are interested in gender and gender relations in literature, culture, history, and society, like engaging in discussion and intellectual argument, and are excited about the idea of working within and across different subject areas, this interdisciplinary Masters course is ideal for you. Top of page

WHY STUDY GENDER AND CULTURE AT SWANSEA?

Our interdisciplinary Masters scheme (which is available both full time and part time) is taught by nationally and internationally acclaimed Gender specialists across Swansea University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. For details of staff and current PhD students click here.

As a Masters student of Gender and Culture you will benefit from the facilities and activities of GENCAS, the Centre for Research into Gender in Culture and Society based at Swansea. We run regular

• Postgraduate research seminars and a student reading group, both organised by research students, and in which your participation will be welcomed
• Research seminars in the series ‘Women and Gender’ with contributions from research students, staff, and visiting speakers. 

Click here for information on the 2007-08 series

Click here for information on the 2006-07 series

Annual interdisciplinary symposia

International conferences

Click for details of and pictures from our inaugural conference, ‘Hystorical Fictions’, August 2003

Click for details of our recently held second conference, 'The Merry Widow', July 2007

In addition:

For details of our first book launch, see Events

We have implemented a Resources Room for Masters, PhD students and staff working in the field of gender. This room will be a social and work space with PC access and Microfilm and Microfiche resources.

These activities will enable you to participate in a thriving interdisciplinary research culture and interact with doctoral students, staff, and leading visiting scholars in the field. Top of page

HOW USEFUL IS THIS COURSE FOR MY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT?

The interdisciplinarity of this Masters scheme is particularly well suited to appeal to employers, nationally and internationally, in a wide range of occupational areas because the modern professional market depends on an academically trained workforce with intellectual flexibility, good imaginative and conceptual abilities, and strong interactive, communication, team-working and social skills. The learning of these skills is central to the teaching of the MA in Gender and Culture.

For students who wish to pursue a research career, the MA in Gender and Culture provides an ideal basis for further academic training. Like the international labour market more generally, the academic market is moving towards a greater emphasis on interdisciplinarity and the ability to teach, research, and collaborate across subject areas. Top of page

COURSE STRUCTURE

The MA in Gender and Culture is available on a full time or a part time basis. Students may choose from a wide range of modules from a number of different disciplines (see below for a summary of the scheme).

The core element in Teaching Block (Semester) 1 includes an introductory team-taught module (‘Gender and Culture: An Introduction’) and, depending on the area in which you consider writing your Dissertation, one of three research skills modules.

Overall students pursue a total of 180 credits. 120 of these derive from taught module assessment, 60 from Dissertation assessment. In Part One (the taught element) students take two core modules and gain the remaining 80 credits via optional modules. If students wish, 40 of their 120 taught credits can be gained by taking ‘elective’ modules from other Masters programmes offered by the departments involved in the teaching of the MA in Gender and Culture. In each semester full-time students take 60 credits. Part-time students take 60 credits per year, i.e. 40 credits in one semester and 20 credits in another.

Should a student wish to exit the scheme, successful completion of 60 credits during Part One will result in a Higher Education Postgraduate Certificate in Gender and Culture being awarded, and completion of Part One with 120 credits will result in the award of a Higher Education Postgraduate Diploma in Gender and Culture.

Students must obtain at least 50% in all modules and an average of 50% for Part One in order to qualify to proceed to Part Two: the Dissertation (60 credits). To enable you to start collating material, undertake essential preparatory reading relative to your Dissertation and meet your supervisors, you will be asked to submit a working title and research outline of your Dissertation topic by the beginning of Semester 2, when supervisors will be allocated. Top of page

HOW AND WHEN TO APPLY

The course starts in September 2008, and it is advisable to apply well in advance of the beginning of term because this gives you the widest module choice. The best time is before the end of June. In order to be considered for a Swansea University bursary, you need to apply before the end of July. For more details of bursaries see below.

To apply for admission to the MA Gender and Culture, you need

• EITHER: a 2.i or higher undergraduate degree classification in any of the subjects which form part of the Gender and Culture syllabus (Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology; English; European languages and literatures; History; Media Studies; Sociology and Anthropology) or from a related Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences subject. Decisions are made on the basis of (projected) degree results, references, and in some cases interviews.

• OR: provide references and evidence of degree-equivalent professional experience in the field of gender. We will invite you for interview and ask you to submit an essay on a negotiated topic.

• Overseas students are asked to send full transcripts (in English translation) of their undergraduate degree.

• Students whose first language is not English, or who have not been educated through the medium of English, will need to provide evidence as follows:  IELTS 7 or higher. Students may be asked to submit a 2,500 word essay on a gender-related subject specified by the Admissions Tutor.

For further details of how to apply and an application pack, please click here. Top of page

BURSARIES

Swansea University offers a number of bursaries per year. For more information, consult the University's scholarships and bursaries webpage.

We look for applicants who have a specific academic project in mind for their dissertation, and who after successful completion of their MA intend to take up PhD study, in Swansea, in the field of gender. Further application details will be posted here at the beginning of May. Top of page

SUMMARY OF SCHEME

Core modules (Semester 1):

Gender and Culture: An Introduction

EITHER Study and Research Skills in the Arts and Humanities
OR: Historical Methods and Approaches
OR: Research and Study Skills (Social Research)

Optional modules (Semester 1 ):

‘The Unsex’d Females’: Women Writers and the French Revolution

Women Writing India

Angela Carter

Core modules (Semester 2)

Research Practice in English/Contemporary Writing/Welsh Writing in English/Gender and Culture

Optional Modules (Semester 2)

  Gender Trouble: the Medieval Anchorite and Issues of Wombs and Tombs 

‘When We Dead Awaken’: Gendered Approaches to Myth and Fairytale

'The Great Pretender': Masculinity in Contemporary Women's Fiction

Women Writers of the 1940s

Electives from modules from across the English MA schemes and other contributing departments :

MA English

17th Century Lyric

The Romantic Sublime 

Women Writers of the 1940s

Henry James’s Later Fiction

MA Diversity of Contemporary Writing

Irish Poetry of the Mid-Century

Contemporary African American Writing 

Exile Writing: Pound, Bunting, Russell

Theorising Postmodernity: Culture, Politics, Aesthetics

MA Modern Welsh Writing in English

Dylan Thomas and the Idea of Welsh Writing in English

Locating Wales: Comparative Perspectives

Women Writing Modern Wales

‘American Wales’: Writing the Transatlantic

Welsh Identities: Literature and Nationhood

MA in Professional Writing

Writing in Professional Contexts

Dissertation in or across any of the subject disciplines contributing to the scheme. Top of page

Further information

For detailed information regarding course content and schedules see the 2007-08 MA in Gender and Culture Handbook which can be downloaded here.

For further details contact the Director of GENCAS:

Dr Sarah Gamble
Department of English
Keir Hardie Building
University of Wales Swansea
Swansea
SA2 8PP
Tel: 01792 205678 ext. 5213 - Email: s.gamble@swansea.ac.uk

 
 


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