Module Code - Title:
EH6162
-
MA IN ENGLISH SEMINAR 2: RESEARCH METHODS, ARCHIVES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Year Last Offered:
2025/6
Hours Per Week:
Grading Type:
N
Prerequisite Modules:
Rationale and Purpose of the Module:
This module will replace a longstanding core module EH6002 with a seminar which provides for a survey of the different research strategies and emphases of English faculty at UL, and to which several members of faculty will contribute seminars. Its purpose is to introduce students to issues in research design, archival method, digital humanities, bibliography, textual criticism and book history with a view to developing their dissertation topics and research priorities.
Syllabus:
This course will enable first-year postgraduate (MA) students to locate primary resources, including books and manuscripts, and to be able to utilize and assess the qualities of different types of electronic sources which exist in the field of their chosen topic. The module draws upon the expertise of faculty members with diverse research experiences. Seminar discussions and assignments will require students to focus on those resources specific to their individual research plans, and their chosen literary-historical contexts. Educating students in issues surrounding bibliography, digital resources, and editorial processes, this module provides a practical introduction to the materials and the expertise required to conduct original, and ultimately publishable, postgraduate literary research.
Learning Outcomes:
Cognitive (Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Evaluation, Synthesis)
On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
Navigate the literary archive with a full sense of the epistemological and methodological issues and challenges which the archive presents.
Think and write cogently about the research issues which are specific to the study of English literature, but also to
Think and write cogently about the practical advantages of inter-disciplinary research strategies.
Construct frameworks in which to compare, contrast and combine different methodological approaches.
Locate primary resources, including books and manuscripts.
Utilize and assess advances in e-research and digital humanities in their chosen areas.
Affective (Attitudes and Values)
On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
reconstruct, where possible or profitable, the intellectual, biographical, political, and cultural contexts in which literary texts are produced.
Locate primary resources, including books and manuscripts.
How to utilise and assess the qualities of different types of electronic sources which exist in the field of their chosen topic.
Psychomotor (Physical Skills)
On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
N/A
How the Module will be Taught and what will be the Learning Experiences of the Students:
This module aims to cultivate informed and conscientious (GA: responsible) researchers, who are able to work across a range of types of resources in their research (Graduate attributes: agile, curious). It will be taught through a combination of seminar discussions and practical application of course ideas and materials with a view to enhancing students' research capabilities in advance of their minor dissertations. Seminar discussions and reading assignments will require students to focus on those resources specific to their individual research plans, and to articulate (GA: articulate) those plans effectively. They will then be able to develop their research plans with increasing autonomy and independence (graduate attribute: courageous).
Research Findings Incorporated in to the Syllabus (If Relevant):
Prime Texts:
Ballenger, B (2004)
The Curious Researcher: A Guide to Writing Research Papers
, Longman
Harner, J. L. (2008)
Literary Research Guide. 5th ed
, MLA
Altick, Richard (1981)
The Art of Literary Research
, Norton
Gabriele Griffin (2013)
RESEARCH METHODS FOR ENGLISH STUDIES
, Edinburgh UP
Other Relevant Texts:
Programme(s) in which this Module is Offered:
Semester(s) Module is Offered:
Spring
Module Leader:
Yianna.Liatsos@ul.ie