Autumn term:

• Core module, assessed by coursework*
• 1 x 30 CAT modules, assessed by coursework*

Spring term:

• 2 x 30 CAT modules, assessed by coursework*

Spring/Summer terms:

• 16,000 word dissertation (worth 60 CATS) or equivalent fieldwork project

*You can take one 30 CATS worth of modules from outside the department, including from the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATLLink opens in a new window).

Modules on offer for the current year include:

Critical Environments

Petrofiction: Studies in World Literature

World Literature in the Anthropocene

Ecopoetics

Early Modern Ecologies

Core Module: Critical Environments 
Critical Environments introduces key topics, concepts, methodologies and theoretical debates in the emergent field of environmental humanities, with special attention to its interdisciplinary origins. It allows students to navigate their own subsequent pathways through the MA in Environmental Humanities, depending on individual research interest. You will develop an informed perspective on a variety of areas, from debates over nature to the cultural registration of natural ecologies, histories and trajectories of pollution and waste, ecopoetics, the emergence of the Anthropocene, the energy humanities, ecological imperialism and more, all analysed through a world-ecological lens unique to Warwick Environmental Humanities. The module will provide a focused understanding of the cultural challenges in responding to such topics as climate change, environmental despoliation, species extinction, media ecology and truly sustainable futures.  

Dissertation (see below for further detail)

The Dissertation offers you the opportunity to pursue your own research interests. You can develop any idea you’ve discovered in your modules or write on a completely new topic that matters to you. Our students choose an array of topics within the broadly conceived boundaries of ‘environmental humanities’: we’ll discuss your plans with you to make sure an available member of our teaching staff can support your topic.

Students often use their MA dissertations as springboards for Ph.D projects and have sometimes gone on to publish their work in scholarly journals.

You are also able to fulfil the dissertation requirement by opting for an extended fieldwork project, which will allow you to carry out your research using a combination of data-gathering and written analysis.

Optional modules

These vary from year to year, but the list below gives you a flavour of the kinds of topics likely to be open to you:

• Petrofiction: Studies in World Literature: Explore the literature of energy and natural resources through the study of various genres from around the world. Here you will take in theatre, cinema, documentary and photography, all with oil and its social meanings at their core, and interpret them within the wider rubric of ‘petroculture’ in order to reveal international patterns in petroleum's form and content.
• The Caribbean: Reading the World-Ecology: This module aims to familiarize students with ecologically-oriented approaches to Caribbean literature, as well as with the critical debates surrounding world literature, ecocriticism, and environmental history. In particular, you will explore the concept of world-ecology and consider its potential as a methodology for reading texts from across the Caribbean archipelago.
• World Literature in the Anthropocene: Get to grips with the debates surrounding the ‘Anthropocene’ and the origins of the environmental crisis, including coverage of capitalist history, race and colonialism, energy, the Sixth Extinction, sacrifice zones, the world-ocean, media ecologies and the effects of climate on culture.
• Ecopoetics: An immersive, practical and theoretical orientation to the major 'compass points' in ecopoetics, including sounding, conceptual and procedural work, research and documentary poetry, situationist practices, boundary work/ investigation of systems, and poetics of relation.
• Early Modern Ecologies
• Culture and Global Sustainable Development
• Ecological Futures: Transdisciplinary Approaches
• Ecologies: Science, Media and Culture
• Managing Creativity for Sustainable Development
• Urban Data
• Media, Policy and Markets

Outside modules

You may also take one 30 CATS module from outside the Department as part of your course.

For example, you might want to study in the departments of Global Sustainable Development, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, History, Film, Modern Languages, Sociology or Philosophy, or choose one of the modules offered by the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL).

Dissertation

Alongside your four modules, you will have the chance to pursue your own interests in a long-form piece of research – either a dissertation (16,000 words) or equivalent fieldwork project. This is an opportunity to develop a new idea from one of your modules into something longer. Alternatively, you could develop an idea first formulated as part of your application to the Warwick MAEH.

You have free rein regarding the dissertation, within the broadly conceived boundaries of 'Environmantal Humanities', although your subject should be open to supervision by an available member of the teaching staff and must be feasible in terms of resources to be accepted.

MA students often use their dissertations as springboards for further research through the Ph.D, and have sometimes gone on to publish parts of their work in scholarly journals.

You will attend a series of workshops in the autumn term designed to help shape your general ideas into a feasible proposal. You will submit a full proposal towards the end of the autumn term and be assigned an appropriate supervisor. You will begin preliminary work on your dissertation in the spring term.

The modules mentioned above may be subject to change. Please read our terms and conditions for more detailed information.

Our main staff involved in this course are listed below. While you're writing your dissertation you might work with any relevant academic in our departmentLink opens in a new window.

Research expertise

Our Department was ranked in the UK's top 5 in the 2023 Guardian League Tables and the 2023 QS World University Rankings placed us in the top 30 English departments in the worldLink opens in a new window.

Our staff are renowned experts across a broad spectrum of specialisms.

• See our staff profile pages for more information
• See our current PhD and MPhil students to give you a sense of the projects currently being pursued in our department.

Research groups

Our Department is home to several vibrant research groups and clusters, including the Warwick Research Collective (Materialist Studies in World Literature), as well as the Centre for EcopoeticsLink opens in a new window and the Critical Theory NetworkLink opens in a new window. With the Institute of Advanced StudyLink opens in a new window we co-host Warwick’s Environmental Humanities NetworkLink opens in a new window and have close ties to the Centre for Philosophy, Literature and the Arts, the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies, and many other ongoing research projects and collectives.

International conferences

Our Department is regularly home to major national and international conferences, including Women in World(-)Literature, Dispossessed: A Symposium on Marxism, Culture, Extraction and Enclosure, Floods and Flows: Changing Environments and Cultures, and Peripheral Postcolonialities.

Large library at the heart of campus

The University library includes substantial holdings of texts from across the arts and sciences, including Rare Books and Special Collections, and is home to the Modern Records Centre.

Interdisciplinary culture

Researchers and students in our Department regularly engage multi-disciplinary networks of academics working collaboratively across the University to respond to complex global challenges, notably through Warwick's Research Spotlights, including areas of focus such as Sustainability, Society and Culture, Behaviour and Digital. Our Institute of Advanced Study, which co-hosts our Environmental Humanities NetworkLink opens in a new window, is dedicated to advancing new research ideas, characterised by strong interdisciplinarity, innovation and internationalisation. Interdisciplinarity also extends to our vibrant undergraduate community. Through our Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning, we support interdisciplinary student research across a wide variety of subjects.

Regional and national connections

The University campus borders the city of Coventry, 2020-21 UK City of Culture, 10 minutes by rail to Birmingham New Street Station, and is approximately 15 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, home to the Royal Shakespeare Company. We are just over an hour from London, home to world-class museums, galleries, and the British Library, the largest library in the world.

A lively graduate culture

You will have the opportunity to present your work at our annual Postgraduate Symposium and to participate regularly in the intellectual life of the Department, including its research seminars, reading groups, conferences and symposia, as well as across the University as a whole. We welcome as well the self-organising initiatives of PG students; remember, you are the University while you’re here.

A postgraduate English degree is a key route into Higher Education, research, and academic careers, which often require postgraduate qualifications. As part of English’s postgraduate community, you will join a department that values its graduate students and encourages them to become part of our thriving research culture.

The average mean salary for all postgraduates from Warwick is £39,500 per annum, and 93.7% are currently in work and/or further study (Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education).

Recent graduate destinations for postgraduate courses:

Civil Service Ministry of Justice; Coventry University; International Institute for Environment and Development; NewsQuest Media Group; Oxfam; Pan Macmillan; Royal National Lifeboat Institution; Royal Opera House; Royal Town Planning Institution; TeachFirst; The Times; University of Worcester; V&A Museum; Yale University Press.

Positions of our recent graduates from postgraduate courses:

Community and Events Fundraising Assistant; Content Executive; Editorial Assistant; English Teacher; Foreign Rights Assistant; Workshop Director; Writer and Researcher; Innovation and Enterprise Consultant; Journalist; Junior Account Executive; Marketing Manager; Publishing Assistant; Research Analyst; Social Media Analyst; TV Researcher; TV Runner; University Lecturer.

What personal and professional development opportunities and support are available?

• One-to-one academic mentoring support from your dissertation supervisor and personal tutors
• Support from the Centre for Arts Doctoral Research Excellence
• Opportunities to publish in PG student journals (Exchanges and Feminist Dissent)
• Postgraduate student conferences (Postgraduate Symposium, PG Arts Research Festival, and Café Academique, Arts Out: Annual Faculty of Arts Festival)
• Student societies (including the Warwick Literature Society)
• Masters Skills Program, Research Student Skills Program, Transferable Skills Program
• Arts Faculty workshop series
• Project, research and placement funding

Entry Requirements

65% (or equivalent) in an undergraduate degree in English literature or a related degree. All applicants are encouraged to provide a writing sample to demonstrate suitability for the course and in order to be eligible for any available departmental bursaries.

English Language Requirements

Band CLink opens in a new window

IELTS overall score of 7.5, minimum component scores of two at 6.5/7.0 and the rest at 7.5 or above.

Course Fees

See Student Finance

Scholarships

For information about how to fund your master's degree please consult our own graduate funding page and the Graduate School's list of available scholarships and bursaries.

Additional Course Costs

Students are expected to buy the set primary texts for each module they study.

Find out more about fees and funding on the University website.