Explore our Culture of the European Renaissance, taught Master's degree.

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MA

1 year full-time;
2 years part-time

30 September 2024

Centre for the Study of the Renaissance

University of Warwick

Explore the wide-ranging developments of the Renaissance world and develop your research and communication skills.

Warwick’s Centre for the Study of the Renaissance is an innovator and international leader in its field, bringing together over 40 specialists from Classics, English and Comparative Literature, History, History of Art, and the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. The term in Venice will let you experience first-hand the richness of Renaissance culture.

This MA covers the period c.1300-c.1650 across Europe and beyond. It provides a foundation in the art, history, literature, philosophy, religion, and science of the period, exploring their interconnections with the social and political context.

Strongly interdisciplinary, this course provides a firm grounding in the features of the period, but also allows students to develop their own interests through a choice of modules in, for instance, classics, art history, English, and history.

The MA also encourages students to develop their skills in areas such as writing, classical and modern languages, and palaeography. Students receive an excellent preparation whether they plan to proceed to PhD work or look for jobs in sectors such as museums or galleries, archives, higher education, or fundraising.

Skills from this degree

• Advanced interdisciplinary understanding of the historical and cultural developments of the Renaissance
• Advanced synthetic and analytical skills
• Linguistic, palaeographical, and bibliographical skills
• Research and Information managements skills
• Advanced written and oral communication skills

During the first term, you will be in Venice. There you will take a module in History (including several site visits) and the online Core Module. You will also be able to join the online palaeography and Latin classes delivered by the Renaissance Centre. You will be at Warwick for the rest of your course. In term 2 you will be able to take two modules of your choosing and start preparing your dissertation topic (which you will write under supervision over the summer).

Class sizes tend to be small (five to twelve students), allowing plenty of opportunity for questions and discussion.

MA modules typically run as seminars of two hours each, but you will have more like 6–8 hours a week of teaching if you avail yourself of the language and skills classes offered or paid for by the Centre.

Our aim is to develop your research and writing skills to the point where you are able to present cogent, complex and original arguments based on your research of images, buildings, artefacts, documents and other primary sources.

Each individual module is assessed through essays. Normally you will write an extended essay (5,000 words) for each of your modules, in addition to a dissertation (currently 15,000 words). The dissertation is prepared over the late spring and summer and submitted in September. You will be requested to submit a literature review before starting on your dissertation.

You will receive close one-to-one tuition from members of staff to guide you through your programme of research and writing. Warwick modules are typically assessed by essay only.

Additional course costs

Travel abroad (Venice) for a term there and possible extra living allowances as the cost of living can be more expensive than in the UK.

Your timetable

Your personalised timetable will be complete when you are registered for all modules, compulsory and optional, and you have been allocated to your lectures, seminars and other small group classes.

2:1 undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject.

• Band B
• IELTS overall score of 7.0, minimum component scores of two at 6.0/6.5 and the rest at 7.0 or above.

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

Renaissance Culture and Society

The core module provides an overview of selected methodological and topical issues important for studying the Renaissance and the early modern periods. This ensures you are familiar with a number of different disciplinary approaches to the period (e.g., literature, history, history of art). This module gives you the opportunity to sample the broad expertise of members active in the Centre; prepares you, if you wish, to go on to further study; and encourages you to become effective at sharing and communicating knowledge.

Dissertation

This module forms a core part of this taught MA. As the capstone of such a course, it invites you to develop and display your research and writing skills within the context of an original study of materials related to the Renaissance. The dissertation is developed in consultation with an academic supervisor; normally the research takes place between the end of Term Two and over the summer term.

• Inventing the Renaissance
• Books, Subversion and the Republic of Letters
• Italian Renaissance Humanism
• The Development of English Drama, 1558-1659
• Themes and Approaches to the Historical Study of Religious Cultures