Literature, Culture and Ideology

THIS PROGRAMME RAN UNTIL 2006, AFTER WHICH IT WAS REPLACED BY A DIFFERENT, MORE DIVERSIFIED SET OF M.A. pROGRAMMES.

This is a 2-year taught programme. Students who are admitted into the programme do not have to pay tuition fees, but they are required to be full-time graduate students. A call for applications is announced every other year in June and entrance exams take place in September. Even when foreign students are holders of a provisional scholarship from the Greek state, they must meet all entrance requirements. The programme does not permit provisional acceptance of any student in order for a scholarship to be applied for in advance.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This programme is geared towards students who have a considerable background in the study of Anglophone Literature and Culture and are familiar with twentieth-century theories of literary criticism and culture. Aspiring to educate a broad range of literature-oriented professionals to view literature as a cultural product with an ideological impact on social communities, the programme offers participants opportunities to:

• think critically about a literary work by resorting to 20th c. literary theories
• investigate literary representations of cultural categories such as gender and approach literature as an ideologically loaded product, affected by historical and cultural factors
• analyse contemporary perspectives of literary texts so as to comprehend the ways in which particular ideologies can be reproduced or challenged by particular writing and reading practices

STRUCTURE AND CONTENT
The first three semesters of the programme are devoted to course work and the fourth semester to research and the completion of the M.A. dissertation. The complete programme offers 120 credits (ECTS) of which:

• 90 are gained from the successful completion of the courses listed below
• 30 are gained from the successful completion of the M.A. Dissertation on a topic related to Literature, Culture, and Ideology

The courses offered, which are all compulsory, are listed below by semester:
First semester
144- Research Methodology
145- Critical Theory
147- The Political Novel and the Modern World
Second semester
142- Reading Shakespeare in the 20th Century
245- Women and the Public Sphere in Victorian Literature
247- Narrative Imagination and 20th Century American Fiction
Third semester
242- Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Restoration Literature: Authority, the Subject and Ideology, 1660-1700
244- Violence, Scapegoats, and Revenge in Renaissance Literature
246- Literature as Psychoanalysis-Psychotherapy: Contemporary Anglophone Texts

Coursework, Assessment, and Dissertation
The medium of instruction is English and classes are held in the form of seminars. The programme also includes lectures and symposia with the participation of distinguished scholars in the fields of Literature, Culture, and Ideology. Students are required to participate in class discussions and submit assignments and research papers for each course. Attendance is mandatory and evaluation is based on the students’ aggregate performance in all the above, as determined by the instructor of each course. Candidates who fail in any two courses in the same semester are asked to discontinue their studies.

The last semester is reserved for research and the completion of a 15.000-20.000- word dissertation. Students may proceed with the M.A. Dissertation only after having successfully completed all their coursework.

APPLICATIONS AND ADMISSION
The programme commences every two years and a call is posted on the Faculty website. Information for the application procedure and admission requirements is to be found on our Greek website since eligible candidates are expected to be fluent in Greek.

Candidates who meet all the set requirements as well as pass both a written and an oral exam are admitted to the programme. (A maximum of 10-15 students are selected for this area of study.)

CONTACT
Faculty of English Language and Literature, School of Philosophy
Panepistimioupoli Zographou
157 84 Athens (4th floor, office 411)
Tel.: 30 210-727 7774, Fax: 30 210-724 8979
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:00-14:00
E-mail: grammatia[at]enl.uoa[dot]gr