Master of Arts in English Literature

at Anglia Ruskin University - Cambridge Campus United Kingdom

Study Philosophy and English literature together and learn to make your point of view stand out with substance, as well as style.

You’ll consider big questions such as ‘Who are we?’, ‘What can we know?’, and ‘What should we do to lead worthwhile lives?’ and discover how great minds have tried to answer them.

Alongside this, you’ll explore how English literature is shaped by its historical and cultural context, and how, in turn, it influences readers and society. In doing this, you’ll also explore other subjects such as history, politics, religion, psychology and history of art.

Your studies will be supported by our expert lecturers, who offer one-to-one tutoring and personalised feedback. This support helped our philosophy courses rank first in the UK in the National Student Survey 2020, and top in the UK for “Satisfied with Feedback' (The Guardian University Guide 2021).

You can also choose to focus on areas of particular interest to you, such as Victorian literature, poetry, contemporary fiction, and the work of philosophers including Kant, Descartes and Heidegger.

You’ll gain valuable research skills by using bibliographies, databases and information technology to answer important questions about literature and you’ll also develop your problem solving, critical thinking and judgement skills by analysing major philosophical ideas.

These are important skills, with the World Economic Forum ranking complex problem solving and critical thinking among the top ten skills needed to succeed in today’s job market.

You can also engage in philosophical discussions and debates through our student-led Philosophy Society, attend events such as our Royal Institute of Philosophy lecture series or boost your employability by learning a language with our Anglia Language Programme.

Our planet needs protecting. Gain a deep understanding of the concerns surrounding marine and terrestrial environments and the specialist skills to tackle them on our Ecology and Conservation degree in Cambridge.

Individuals, organisations and governments around the world are increasingly concerned about the welfare of our planet and everything on it. This includes both our marine and terrestrial environments where many factors, including human behaviour, have left a large number of species at risk.

Our course allows you to develop a deep understanding of concerns relating to marine and terrestrial environments, and to look at ways of resolving those concerns.

You’ll learn about marine biodiversity locally and around the world, and explore conservation ecology, which aims to support, recover and maintain populations and their habitats.

There are opportunities to attend residential field trips. Field trips that are a compulsory part of your course are covered by your fees. There are also optional field trips (either extra-curricular or an integral part of an optional module you select to take) that you would have to pay for.

Cambridge is becoming a world centre for wildlife conservation, with Fauna and Flora International, Birdlife International and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre based here. Throughout our BSc (Hons) Ecology and Conservation degree, you’ll have opportunities to attend lectures in the city and visit specialist museums and libraries.

Our studio-based MA Fine Art course provides an opportunity for you to further explore, test and challenge your creative ideas in a supportive, professional environment.

The programme reflects the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary art practice/s, facilitating the exploration of a range of approaches, including, but not limited to drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, moving image, digital media, installation, sound, performance, social and collaborative practice.

By engaging with contemporary critical issues and with how artistic practices are understood in the 21st century and across different contexts, you will be encouraged to experiment, take risks, shift expectations and to strengthen the motivation, direction and ambition of your practice.

Full-time students are normally offered a dedicated studio space, while part-timers can access the studios as a shared work-base. Other facilities include printmaking, 3D/sculpture workshops, photography darkrooms and computer suites for video production and digital imaging.

With our Masters degree in Fine Art, teaching is primarily through one-to-one and group tutorials, seminars, workshops and studio critiques, in which you will learn about recent theories, contexts and practices.

You are also encouraged and expected to develop your work and research independently. You will be supported by teaching staff who are themselves experienced artists, working across different disciplines.

Our Fine Art Research Unit series of talks – and other specialist talks across ARU – let you hear invited artists, PhD students and staff talk about their work and engage in debates about contemporary art practice.

You will also benefit from links we have with external arts organisations, galleries and exhibition spaces, both in Cambridge and further afield. As London is only a short train journey away, we encourage you to visit relevant exhibitions and events in this important artistic centre. In addition, we promote student participation in open and prestigious competitions and prizes.

Biological Sciences with Sustainability is a multidisciplinary degree, where you will study aspects of all life on earth and develop solutions to ensure a sustainable future.

Life on earth is fascinating, astonishing, diverse and beautiful, and the course aims to provide you with a detailed knowledge of all living organisms, how they work and how they function together with the environment they live in.

However, all life is currently under threat, with man-made (anthropogenic) change affecting the earth and all its systems. Biological sciences offer us a number of tools which can be used to alleviate these effects, and preserve our natural environment, both for the benefit of plants and animals, and for current and future generations. This course will thus give you a solid grounding in aspects of sustainable development, centred on the biological sciences.

Our course gives you a range of opportunities to develop the attitudes, abilities and competencies needed to work in biological sciences and in sustainable development.

The course also encourages you to develop your creativity and propose solutions to the ‘grand challenges’ or ‘wicked problems’ we face, as a result of changes man has brought about. You’ll develop a wide range of practical skills, both in the laboratory and in the field, as well as gaining the ability to analyse complex data to understand what it means. Data analysis is a critical factor in being able to make decisions to plan for a sustainable future.

Employers from the biological sciences and sustainability sector have been directly involved in the design and development of our BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences with Sustainability course. By collaborating with sector partners, we can explore the skill sets that employers are most interested in and ensure they are embedded within the delivery of the course.

Learn to create images that tell compelling stories, whether your dream is to be a fashion or fine art photographer or a photojournalist.

As a photography student at ARU you’ll explore many areas of photographic practice including digital and analogue image-making, experimental crossovers, multimedia, self-publishing and exhibition.

Take full advantage of our specialist darkrooms, photographic studios, and digital post-production and printing suite. You can also borrow specialist camera equipment through our dedicated loan service.

All your work will be supported by academic staff working at the forefront of photographic research and innovation and have years of professional experience. You will be taught through individual tutorial and studio sessions, as well as in group lectures and workshops, with regular career development events throughout your study. Recent guest speakers have included Tom Hunter, Jane Hilton, Tim Flach, Hannah Starkey, Carole Evans, Alastair Levy, Mike Crawford and Lillian Wilkie.

Through continuous experimentation, you’ll be encouraged to refine your photographic style and voice.

Critical and contextual studies will connect your own research and writing to your practice and will guide you to specialist resources in our campus library. Explore hundreds of photographers’ monographs and access technical and contextual texts, as well as other online resources, to underpin and expand your practice.

You can expand your skillset, with additional technical workshops including printmaking, 3D work and writing workshops. You can choose to take part in photography field trips too, and experience photographing different locations such as Venice and Prague.

While studying BA (Hons) Photography with us, you’ll learn to adopt a professional approach to your work, covering aspects of career management such as rights issues, project management and self-promotion through social media. You can choose to take up work placements that will help you establish your own professional network, including opportunities such as working for magazines, galleries and photographers. You can also take an optional placement year.

You’ll study classic literary texts alongside genres including sci-fi and children’s literature, and find out how English literature has been affected by, and influenced, culture, language, technology and economics

You’ll draw on a range of other subjects, including history, politics, philosophy, religion, psychology and the history of art to develop an all-round understanding of the written works that have shaped our world.

You’ll develop several skills that are valued by employers, including literacy, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, research, and working independently and as part of a team.

Our wide range of optional modules offer you the opportunity to learn about the publishing industry, develop your creative writing skills, and gain work experience. You could also improve your CV by studying abroad for a semester or learning a new language with our Anglia Language Programme.

Study at our world-class centre for music and dramatherapy in Cambridge and benefit from our international network of professional arts therapists.

You’ll be supported by our team of practising and research-active dramatherapists. We’ll give you access to the latest and most effective dramatherapy approaches with both adults and children.

Our MA Dramatherapy is accredited by the Health & Care Professions Council, so when you graduate you’ll be eligible to register with the HCPC – a legal requirement for your future career as a practising dramatherapist in the UK.

This full-time two-year Masters degree will introduce you to a range of approaches to dramatherapy through lectures, workshops, case discussions and theoretical studies.

You’ll also undertake clinical placements in both years, under the supervision of qualified therapists.

Your studies will focus on intercultural practice, attachment/mother-infant observation and understanding how past relationships manifest in current client difficulties. You’ll learn how these can be worked with through the dramatherapeutic relationship. You will also work closely with MA Music Therapy students in lectures and performance work.

Our experiential teaching will focus on your own dramatic autobiographical process, dramatherapy theory and links between theory and practice. In bi-weekly regular experiential dramatherapy groups you will l reflect on your clinical experiences and the process of becoming a dramatherapist.

Your clinical placements could be in community settings, schools, hospitals or hospices and will give you valuable experience of working in a multidisciplinary team and great preparation for employment.

On this course you’ll learn through practice, in our Early Childhood Resource and Research Room and through our optional placement and theoretical modules. Placements are optional and individually tailored to enable you to gain experience in a variety of different types of settings.

Whether you decide to go on placement or not, you’ll have access to additional volunteering and work experience as well as the choice to take part in further professional development training opportunities, enrichment trips, research groups and various early childhood and education events.

Throughout your studies you’ll be taught by experts in the field of early childhood, using a variety of teaching methods and interactive technology to promote learning, including group activities, class debates and discussion, lectures and seminar sessions, as well as independent learning and study expectations.

You’ll receive regular feedback and personal tutorial support throughout the course to develop both your academic and professional skills. You’ll also benefit from the research our lecturers are involved in through our Early Childhood Research Group.

New technologies and changing platforms mean there’s a growing demand for people with the skills to develop creative digital content across social media and many other digital platforms with a specialist understanding of user experience and design and emerging technologies like VR.

Whether it's for businesses, charities, arts organisations and beyond, our BA (Hons) Digital Media Production degree will give you a transferable toolkit to take you on your digital journey. The course will help you develop your artistic vision and technical abilities, while giving you research and analytical skills to strengthen your creative ideas.

As a BA (Hons) Digital Media Production student at ARU, you’ll develop your digital design and visual communication skills. Our teaching staff and technicians will help you explore, and keep up to date with new industry developments, in areas such as interactive design and animation; video production; digital photography; web design; mobile apps; sound design; physical computing; user experience and interfaces; motion graphics; Virtual Reality; 360 film-making and other technologies.

Performing is at the core of our Drama degree at ARU.

With our BA (Hons) Drama degree, we’ll help you to grow into a confident, versatile and exciting drama practitioner with transferable skills to suit the field you want to work in.

With a strong focus on performance, you’ll get to work on public productions as well as smaller-scale projects, exploring practices from the 20th century onwards and devising your own productions.

We’ll encourage you to create innovative and daring performance practice as you develop expertise in group collaboration alongside your own solo performances. You’ll also get the chance to weight your studies to suit your interests, be that drama practice, specialising in backstage production or even theatre administration.

You’ll follow an experiential 'learning-through-doing' programme and your degree will see you choosing from a range of career-focused optional modules, completing a 100% practical Major Project, and graduating with a professionally produced showreel and portfolio.

As a student here, you’ll develop your technical and production skills in our specialist facilities. Our technical staff will be on hand to offer help and support.

You can also choose to study abroad for a semester, with funding available to help cover the cost

Closer to home, you can connect with Cambridge’s performance scene through our links to local networks such as Cambridge Arts Network and Cambridge Live. You’ll get the chance to perform in public venues around Cambridge as well as on campus, in the Mumford Theatre and Covent Garden Studio.

Experience being part of a professional troupe with our very own Community Theatre Company and take the chance to perform and collaborate with other creative industries students.