University of Aberdeen

University of Aberdeen

Master of Arts in English with Music Studies

The Master of Arts in English with Music Studies in Language and Culture Studies is offered by University of Aberdeen.

Program Length: 4 YEARS.

Master of Arts in English with Music Studies offered by the University of Aberdeen

English with Music Studies at Aberdeen gives you the unique experience of exploring literature, language and creative writing inspired by internationally acclaimed authors and poets, while also learning alongside world-renowned composers and musicologists. You will grow your academic, writing and performing skills, kick start a sparkling career across the arts and creative industries, or use your sought-after transferable skills as your passport to many other options.


Aberdeen is a leading centre for the study of literature, language and creative writing, rated second in the UK for its research output. You will study poetry and prose through the dynamic relationship between author, reader and literary text, covering every period from Chaucer to contemporary English, Scottish, Irish, European and American writing and the cultural and critical impact of powerful and controversial modern works.

You will be inspired by enthusiastic teachers and researchers, themselves acclaimed authors and poets and be encouraged to develop your own creative writing skills.

Aberdeen is also the perfect environment and location in which to study music, with 500 years of musical history and heritage and a vibrant cultural identity which celebrates the traditional while embracing the modern.

Music Studies at Aberdeen means studying, composing and performing with established and up-and-coming composers and musicologists, working in all genres, styles and periods with unrivalled opportunities to grow as a musician and performer. You will study performance, composition and theory, musicianship and a broad overview of music history.

This subject combination prepares you for a wide variety of careers not specifically in music but also in education, media, business, publishing and widely across arts and heritage.

What you'll study

Year 1
Compulsory Courses

Academic Writing for Language & Literature (AW1008)
Getting Started at the University of Aberdeen (PD1002)
Acts of Reading (EL1009)
Controversial Classics (EL1513)
Introduction to Music Theory and Harmony (MU1037)

Optional Courses
Select at least one course from the following, subject to the necessary pre-requisites:

Key Moments 1 (MU1035)
Performance 1 (MU1051)
Key Moments 2 (MY1535)
Performance 2 (MU1551)
Plus further credit points from courses of choice to gain a total of 120 credits.

NOTE: Please note that performance courses are available only after successful audition. MA students audition at the beginning of an academic session, and should ensure that they select an audition time when registering online, or contact the Music Office (MacRobert, room 003) to arrange one.

Year 2
Compulsory Courses
Encounters with Shakespeare (EL2011)
The Tragedy of Knowledge (EL2512)

Optional Courses
Select 30 credit points from Music courses at level 2 and 30 credit points from courses of choice.

Year 3
Optional Courses
Select a total of three courses from the following groups, each from a different group:

Medieval/Renaissance

EL30DQ: Knights, Virgins and Viragos, Chaucer and Medieval Writing
EL30CP: Page and Stage: Renaissance Writings 1500-1640
EL35EJ Writing Revolt: Literature and Politics in the 17th Century

Romantic/Victorian

EL3009: American Innovation
EL35XR: Romanticism
EL35SB: Britain and the 19th Century World
EL30QA: Sympathy for the Devil: Scottish Short Stories
EL35VB: Bildungsroman to Alien Invasion

Contemporary/Modern

EL35KN: Haunted Texts
EL30FF: Modernism: Make it New
EL35UT: Art and Atrocity: Representations of Violence and Trauma
EL30UT: Art and Atrocity: Representations of Violence and Trauma
Plus one course from the following:

EL35WC: Queer Times
EL35YB: Creative Writing: Creativity and Craft
EL30EH: Classical Epic
CE3594: Dangerous Liaisons: Celtic and Old North Romances
EL30VC: Fallen Women and Self-Made Men
Plus, select a further 30 credit points from level 3 courses in Music.

NOTE: You are required to gain a total of 150 credit points in English across levels 3 and 4, and a total of 90 credit points in Music across levels 3 and 4.

Year 4
Optional Courses
Select one of the following dissertation options:

English Dissertation (EL4502)
Dissertation in Music (MU4049)
Select a further 60 credit points from level 4 courses in English, plus further credit points from level 3 or 4 courses in Music to gain 60 credits in the discipline.

NOTE: You are required to gain a total of 150 credit points in English across levels 3 and 4, and a total of 90 credit points in Music across levels 3 and 4.

English Dissertation (EL4502)
Dissertation in Music (MU4049)
Controversy and Drama: Marlowe to Revenge Tragedy (EL40CT)
Spenser (EL40ES)
Wandering Women: Literature, Place and Environment (EL40JA)
Literature and Culture at the Fin De Siecle (EL40LA)
Creative Writing: the Essential Skills (EL40PB)
Horrible Histories: Violence and Trauma in the Scottish Novel (EL40QV)
Amnesty, Amnesia, Archive (EL40UU)
Sex and Death: Exploring the Forbidden in Gothic Fiction (EL40VA)
All for One: the Politics of Love and Friendship in Literature (EL40WH)
Creative Writing: the Writer's Voice (EL40YL)
British Poetry of the 20th Century (EL40YN)
Staging the City: Renaissance Urban Drama (EL45AD)
The Short Story as A Literary Form (EL45DR)
Literature and Medicine (EL45HQ)
Vulnerable Bodies, Precarious Lives (EL45KF)
Fictional Futures: Apocalypse & Utopia in Modern Fiction (EL45OE)
Not the Queen's English (EL45SC)



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