Master of Arts in English - English Literature

The English Literature program includes specializations across the periods, genres, and major figures of British, North American and World Literature in English. Current research initiatives on the part of faculty include such diverse topics as the ecocritical study of Renaissance drama; the triumph of transport in Romantic poetry; the impact of radio and television on modernist poetics; the politics of post-identity in Asian American literature, and the role of war and its traumatic shocks in twentieth-century Canadian, U.S. and British literature. Graduate students can also choose to work across disciplinary fields, taking advantage of UBC’s outstanding interdisciplinary programs in Medieval Studies, Canadian Studies, Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, Studies, and Science and Technology Studies, among others.

UBC welcomes applications for admission from outstanding students from all countries. Students from most English-language universities may apply directly to the PhD program after completing an MA in their own country. However, because of differences in language and university instruction, it is UBC policy that students from some universities will be considered only for MA studies at UBC after completing an honours BA and MA in their own country, both with first-class standing. Applicants to either the MA or the PhD programs from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of the application. This requirement is in place in order to provide evidence of English abilities to the Admission Committee and in order to be competitive in our program. Near-native fluency is required for admittance to our program.TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) – The graduate program in English requires a minimum test score of 104 (web-based).