This exciting interdisciplinary MA (full and part-time) allows you to develop your research skills while exploring European history, religion, literature, visual culture and drama between 1450-1700. Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Cervantes and Michelangelo are only some of the key figures covered while questions of developing national identities, performance and theatre are topical issues.  

Course Content

Full-time students will complete two core courses, two options, research skills seminars and a dissertation. Part-time students will take the core modules and research skills elements in their first year; they will take two options and complete the dissertation in their second year. Modules will be taught as seminars, and the course provides a significant element of individual supervision.

Research Training

In conjunction with the MRes in Editing Lives and Letters the MA in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies provides AHRC-level research preparation for doctoral-level study. Students who complete the MA will be aware of the debates concerning Renaissance and Early Modern Literature, History and Performance and will be able to devise a complex research question, develop a full bibliography, construct a sustained argument through essays and dissertations and, where appropriate, develop IT, language and paleography skills. Training in Latin, Greek and textual editing is available.

Course Options  

Core Courses:

The Renaissance in Context (Semester 1). This first semester core course aims to equip Masters students with a practical understanding of interdisciplinary research in Renaissance and Early Modern studies. Students will learn about the historiography of Renaissance and Early Modern studies, including the different national contexts and traditions. Students will be introduced to ways of examining materials, documentary, literary, visual and performative, across cultures, media and disciplines. Students will begin to work on bibliographic and picture research, defining and refining research topics, referencing, use of electronic resources and accessing museum collections, skills that will be further developed in the Semester 2 core course.

Renaissance and Early Modern studies: Research Preparation (Semester 2). This semester of the core course builds on the first semester's work and is concerned with identifying evidence for research in the Renaissance and Early Modern period, articulating and developing chosen research topics, and practising the skills required for an interdisciplinary approach. The course focuses therefore on the material aspects of literature, performance and other artistic and cultural products. Through textual study, and investigations into theatrical productions past and present, as well as visual images, we will use case studies to develop period-specific skills in literary, visual, aural analysis including bibliographic and picture research, defining and refining research topics, referencing, use of electronic resources and accessing museum collections. Potential topics will include textual transmission: copying, printing and editing; Reading images and artefacts; Reading account books – translating financial records into evidence for artistic production; Theatricality in England : the city and the court; Sight, Sound and Smell in the Renaissance.

Options:

Public and Private Cultures in Shakespeare's England

Reading Shakespeare Historically

Readers and Reading in Early Modern England

Understanding Religions Historically

Urban Culture and the Book. London : Publishing and Readers in the Sixteenth Century

Transformations of the Self: Renaissance to Enlightenment

Renaissance Bodies

Performing Early Modern Drama

Writing Lives from Letters

Teaching Staff

Queen Mary has one of the largest concentrations of academic expertise in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies in the UK and include:

• Julia Boffey, Professor in English: a specialist in manuscript and early print culture.
• Warren Boutcher, Reader in English: a specialist on Montaigne and early modern literary culture in Europe and Britain .
• Jerry Brotton, Senior Lecturer, English: a specialist on Renaissance and Early Modern Visual Culture and on Shakespeare.
• David Colclough, Lecturer, English: works on Early Modern rhetoric as well as on political thought.
• Trevor Dadson, Professor of Hispanic Studies: a specialist on Cervantes.
• Peter Denley, Senior Lecturer in History: whose research focuses on Renaissance Universities.
• Bridget Escolme, Senior Lecturer in Drama: works on early modern drama and its audiences.
• Lisa Jardine, Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies: whose work stretches from Renaissance Intellectual History to questions of global exchange.
• Colin Jones, Professor of History: works on early modern France and the History of Medicine.
• Kate Lowe, Professor of History: a specialist on Renaissance Italy.
• Micheal Questier, Senior Lecturer in History: a specialist in the politics of 17th -century Britain .
• Graham Rees, Professor and Director of the Oxford Francis Bacon project and the King's Printer's Project: which looks at Jacobean printing and publishing practices.
• Miri Rubin, Professor of History:
• Richard Shoch, Professor of the History of Culture: works on the Shakespeare in performance and Theatre History.
• Kevin Sharpe, Professor of Renaissance Studies: a specialist on Early Modern English politics and representation.
• Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies: a specialist on Italian visual and material culture.

Assessment
You will complete a 4,000-word essay for each course and a 15,000-word dissertation.

Entry requirements
At least an upper-second class (2.1) honours degree within the broad field of the humanities. Prospective students may be called for interview, or may be asked to send in appropriate written work in support of their application.

Further Information
For further information or to request a postgraduate prospectus, please email us at sedpgadmissions@qmul.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0)20 7882 3172/5384.