Overview
- Interpret and analyse complex textual and cultural artefacts using a range of skills desired by employers
- Work with leading scholars to explore the works of literature, art and thought that have shaped our global culture
- First-class teaching and supervision from leading experts
- Benefit from a range of guest speaker events, symposia and workshops linked to our diverse research centres
Top 200 in world subject rankings for Modern Languages
Top 15 in UK subject rankings for Modern Languages
£1.1m external research funding awarded
Taught by published translators and experienced practitioners, plus specialists in the use of machine translation and computer-assisted translation tools
Entry requirements
Normally a 2:1 Honours degree or equivalent in a relevant subject.
Entry requirements for international students
English language requirements
Please visit our entry requirements section for equivalencies from your country and further information on English language requirements.
Course content
Led by the Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies, this MA allows students to access specialist teaching across 7 languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, German, Portuguese) and visual culture from the pre-modern to contemporary period.
Students can choose from a wide variety of option modules across Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies, English, Film, Publishing, Translation and other Humanities programmes.
The programme is divided into units of study called modules which are assigned 'credits'. The credit rating of a module is proportional to the total workload, with 1 credit being nominally equivalent to 10 hours of work. Students may also opt to take languages credits as part of their MA programme.
You may take the MA in Global Literatures and Cultures full time over one academic year or part time over two, completing the core module (30 credits), the compulsory dissertation (60 credits), and selecting three or more optional modules (90 credits), amounting to 180 credits in total. You will take the core module over Term One and Term Two, alongside one or two optional modules each term (work placement and subject options available).
The modules we outline here provide examples of what you can expect to learn on this degree course based on recent academic teaching. The precise modules available to you in future years may vary depending on staff availability and research interests, new topics of study, timetabling and student demand.
Course variants
- May suit you if you prefer to carry out an independent research project under the supervision of an academic
- Assessed by a written dissertation of up to 40,000 words
- Formal qualification without the long-term commitment of a PhD
- Successful completion could lead to further doctoral research
Fees
2023/24 entry
UK fees per year:
£11,000 full-time; £5,500 part-time
International fees per year:
£22,500 full-time; £11,250 part-time
Scholarships
We invest heavily in scholarships for talented prospective Masters students and have over £2.5 million in scholarships available for students applying to study with us in 2023, including our Global Excellence Scholarships* and Green Futures Scholarships* for international fee paying students.
For information on how you can fund your postgraduate degree at the University of Exeter, please visit our dedicated funding page.
*Selected programmes only. Please see the Terms and Conditions for each scheme for further details.
Teaching and research
Learning
Here at the University of Exeter we offer first-class teaching and supervision from leading experts in the literature and cultures of Modern Europe (including the United Kingdom and Russia), as well as China, the United States, North Africa and Latin America.
Teaching
Most of the formal teaching will be done through a mixture of classes including lecturer-led, student-led and workshops, as well as experiential learning or placements. You will be assessed in a variety of methods including coursework and group or research presentations.
Students are exposed to a range of teaching about the international circulation and exchange of ideas, with attention to challenging traditional hierarchies and power structures. Students will learn about a range of subjects, which may include in any given year: European and Global Modernisms, Chinese art and literature, Spanish and Latin American fiction, Translation, Cosmopolitanism, French medieval texts, Russian history, German architecture and Digital Humanities.
Dissertation
You will also carry out a Dissertation or Dissertation by Practice, which will require you to produce an original piece of independent research or practice-based work, based on your interests.
Research areas
Drawing directly on the internationally recognised research and teaching expertise across the department. Students will also have the opportunity to participate in research projects and events. For instance, our MA students were recently involved in organising the Translation Festival at the University and Central Library. Current research projects in the Department include Venezuelan Voices, Cartas Vivas, RusTrans and Narrating Maternity in Russian and Comparative Literature.
Centres
The Department of Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies operates a variety of Research Centres across all subject disciplines, including the Modern Languages Centre for Translating Cultures, the Global China Research Centre, the Centre for Imperial and Global History, the Centre for Medieval Studies, the Centre for Early Modern Studies, the Centre for Latin American Studies, the Centre for Intermedia, and the Centre for Victorian Studies.
These centres provide a lively and stimulating programme of visiting speaker events, symposia and workshops that will complement and enrich your postgraduate studies.
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Professor Katharine Murphy
Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature; Director of the MA in Global Literatures and Cultures
Professor Fiona Cox
Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature
Dr Katie Brown
Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies
Dr Yue Zhuang
Senior Lecturer in Chinese, Art History and Visual Culture
Dr Ben Phillips
Lecturer in Russian
Professor Katharine Murphy
Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature; Director of the MA in Global Literatures and Cultures
Katharine’s research background is interdisciplinary. The comparative approach of her first book Re-reading Pío Baroja and English Literature (Peter Lang, 2004) sought to reframe the development of Spanish literary Modernism in the context of contemporaneous Anglophone fiction. Her most recent book Bodies of Disorder: Gender and Degeneration in Baroja and Blasco Ibáñez (Legenda, 2017) analyses the works of two early twentieth-century Spanish authors and their engagements with medical and cultural theories of degeneration across national borders. Katharine’s research and teaching interests focus on Comparative Literature, gender and the body, intertextuality and Modernism, and post-war Spanish fiction.
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Professor Fiona Cox
Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature
My main research interests have all been shaped by classical reception, primarily of Virgil and Ovid. I am the author of Aeneas Takes the Metro – Virgil’s Presence in Twentieth-Century French Literature (Legenda, 1999), Sibylline Sisters – Virgil’s Presence in Contemporary Women’s Writing (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Ovid’s Presence in Contemporary Women’s Writing – Strange Monsters (Oxford University Press, 2018). I have also published widely on Victor Hugo, especially on allusion and intertextuality within Les Misérables. I am currently working on a book that explores the reshaping of epic within Les Misérables and a monograph that examines contemporary receptions of Antigone within the francophone world.
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Dr Katie Brown
Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies
Katie specializes in contemporary Latin American culture, with a particular focus on Venezuela. Her main research interests are the circulation of people (travel, migration and exile) and of texts (publishing, cultural policy and translation). She also researches and teaches about intermediality and cultural responses to politics in the 20th and 21st century. She runs venezuelanvoices.exeter.ac.uk
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Dr Yue Zhuang
Senior Lecturer in Chinese, Art History and Visual Culture
With cross-cultural academic expertise in studies of the history of gardens and landscape art, Yue’s research areas straddle Chinese studies, art and architectural history, and visual culture. As a recipient of funding from EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Swiss National Foundation, and The Leverhulme Trust, she has led a series of research projects (Matteo Ripa’s Views of Jehol, 2011-13; Entangled Landscapes, 2013; Nature Entangled, 2014-18; and Cultivating Happiness, 2016-17) all exploring the cross-cultural dynamics between China and Europe at the intersections of gardens and landscape art, intellectual history, and the history of Sino-European exchange. She is the co-editor of Entangled Landscapes: Early Modern China and Europe (2017), a volume initiating a paradigm for research innovation in studies of the global history of gardens and landscape art. At present, she is implementing a new collaborative project ‘Cultivating one’s garden: Eastern and Western Perspectives.’
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Dr Ben Phillips
Lecturer in Russian
Dr Ben Phillips is a historian of modern Russia. His current research focuses on the political, cultural, intellectual and transnational histories of the late-imperial and revolutionary period (c. 1881-1917), with a particular emphasis on political violence and its relationship both to contemporary socio-cultural phenomena (modernism, religious thought) and the longer Russian cultural tradition. He has previously written on Russian revolutionary transnationalism, exile and emigration.
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Careers
Our programme will develop your specific competences to interpret and analyse complex textual and cultural artefacts, you will graduate with a full range of skills that will make you competitive in the job market. Graduates can look to work in a diverse range of sectors including publishing, civil service, teaching, translation and more.
You will be encouraged to become a productive, useful and questioning member of society, be able to assimilate significant quantities of data (written text and visual sources) and express yourself clearly and with precision in oral and written form.
Work placement
If you choose to take the optional work placement module you may choose to work with organisations such as media firms, publishers, museums and art galleries, libraries and archives, or relevant heritage sites.
The work placement module will allow you to develop an understanding of how the skills and knowledge acquired as part of a Global Literatures and Cultures Masters’ degree are applicable to the workplace and to extend relevant work-based skills and knowledge in a reflective way. It will also give you an understanding of a non-academic work environment through practical activities and enable you to gain experience in the use of relevant methods, technologies and applications commonly used in such organisations.
For the work placement module, you will hold responsibility for securing a placement, but support and advice will be provided by our careers team in the department.
Careers and employment support
While studying at Exeter you can also access a range of activities, advice and practical help to give you the best chance of following your chosen career path. For more information visit our Careers webpages.
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