Postgraduate Degrees
Through the UWC Department of English postgraduate courses, you will explore imaginative writing in all its forms, and study the emergence of ideas about authorship, narrative, and representation in a variety of historical and geographical contexts. This innovative programme enables you to develop your skills as a critical and creative writer, fosters your ability to think flexibly, rigorously and creatively, and enhances the knowledge and skills that you bring to the classroom.The English Department offers a full range of degrees at Honours, Masters and doctoral level. For Honours a student needs an everage of at least 60% overall and must have English as a major subject throughout the undergraduate years. We recommend that students perform well above the 60% everage in their English courses for admission into the Honours programme. For Masters, a good Honours degree is normally required; for the PhD a Masters is a prerequisite. All our postgraduate degrees are research oriented, and the MA and PhD degrees in creative practice also have a significant research component.
Honours
The Honours programme is open to applicants who have three years of literary studies at a tertiary institution, preferably in English, or who can demonstrate they have acquired an equivalent level of knowledge and expertise.
As an English Department we believe that creative expression such as poetry, fiction, performance or film enables students to find their intellectual and personal voices; our courses integrate these forms of creative expression and self-reflection into teaching and assessment. We assess students through short and long essays, tests, creative work and participation/contribution. Teaching takes place through seminars of between an hour and a half to two hours, and attendance is compulsory.
The English Department presents a new structured Honours programme which gives students various options to explore imaginative literature in all its forms, and in a variety of historical and geographical contexts. There are also a number of cultural studies and creative practice options in various genres. This Honours programme will give you the opportunity to develop your skills as a critical writer as well as a creative one.
We plan to offer the following term-length options in 2025 (subject to rules of combination in table below):
| ENG701 | Research Essay Convenor: Carrol Clarkson In this part of the module, you explore a topic in more depth and detail than the taught courses allow through a research essay of 7 500 words which counts 90% of your mark. A list of topics and deadlines will be provided at the beginning of the year. For some students, this might seem a daunting prospect, but if you think about how much you write each term, it is clearly manageable. Early in the academic year, you will receive guidance in research and writing methods, and during the rest of the year there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss your topic with fellow students and staff members. You will also be given the opportunity in the third or fourth term to do an oral presentation of your research at the English Department Honours Student Conference. After the presentation you will be required to submit a proposal that counts 10% of the final mark. |
| ENG716 | Adventures in the Novel 1 Convenors: Courtney Davids & Cheryl-Ann Michael Novelty, newness, is intrinsic to the genre of the novel. The novel ventures into often bold experimentation with voice, characterisation and form. We explore how the development of genres such as the gothic novel (Matthew Lewis: The Monk), and Jane Austen's representations of ordinary life (Pride & Prejudice), opens up possibilities for innovations in the works of 20th century writers such Woolf and Morrison. Gothic Literature and the Global South Convenor: Oliver Melvill Finding its aesthetic origins in the crumbling edifices of mediaeval Europe, the Gothic emerged as a literary genre towards the end of the Eighteenth Century. It is a historically European genre that is grounded in a preoccupation with the haunted, the monstrous, the sublime and the uncanny. In recent years, however, increasing attention has been paid to some of the ways that the Gothic has been productively reclaimed in and by the Global South. In this course we will be exploring how the Gothic has been reframed in the Global South as a literary mode that is particularly adept at engaging with states of vulnerability, transition and trauma, using texts such as Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. Adventures in the Novel 2 Convenors: Cheryl Michael, Mark Espin and Courtney Davids Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl offers an early critical, intertextual engagement with Romantic and Victorian literature. We explore the conversations, between the traditions of the 19th century novel and Life Narratives, art movements such as the Pre-Raphaelites, and the 20th century fiction experiments of John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Toni Morrison's Beloved. British Literature Revisited Convenor: Courtney Davids This elective explores late 18th and 19th Century British literature providing students with a broad survey from 1789 to the present. We look at influential and much-loved writers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Austen, giving new insights into classic writing from the period. |
| ENG717 | South African Literature Convenors: Hermann Wittenberg and Oliver Melvill South African literature has attracted world-wide scholarly interest as fiction that reflects the cultural forcefields of a society in transition, and speaking to larger global questions about a shared humanity, and the potential for social justice in a changing world. Key texts are J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light. Detective Fiction and Empire. This course explores crime fiction as a reflection of the world order. We begin by reading early detective stories of the Golden Age, in which form and ideology interact to bolster the Imperial status quo. We then move onto Kazuo Ishiguro’s contemporary novel When We Were Orphans, which pits a Sherlock-style sleuth against a chaotic, postcolonial world. Creative Writing: Poetry Convenor: Kobus Moolman The elective will focus on two key aspects of writing poetry: namely Image and Voice. We will focus particularly on the way that the image produces “concrete significant detail”, and how it intersects with the old adage ‘Show not Tell’. We will examine how Voice can be used to provide distance from the self, and allow for Tone, and reflect on the dynamic relationship between Form and Content. South African Short Stories Convenors: Mark Espin and Nondwe Mpuma In the history of South African literature, many of the most innovative and engaging works have appeared in the form of the short story. In this course we discuss a sample of stories from our region, and in this way become introduced to some of our country’s most influential writers. |
| ENG718 or 725 | Metacinema Convenor: Hermann Wittenberg Metacinema is a course that explores several examples of films that are self-consciously films about film. Three classic but very different metacinematic films will be analysed in detail: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) and Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces (2009). Creative Writing: Prose Convenor: Oliver Melvill Students produce a uniquely South African ghost story that embraces local myths and beliefs and as well as the more open and ambivalent attitudes towards spirit world which characterises many communities in (South) Africa. Don’t worry if you don’t like or consider yourself a ‘supernatural’ or horror author. This course moves beyond such generic limitations. Narratives of Childhood explores how 20th century novels adapt the genre of the Bildungsroman to offer complex ways of understanding intense periods of development in childhood. Tom’s Midnight Garden raises questions about the genre of the “time-slip” novel, and our relationship with earlier historical periods. Fireweed, set during the Blitz in London during the 2nd World War, explores how broken spaces can be transformed into spaces of home and belonging, while What I Was responds to Romantic ideas of selfhood and the natural world. Scriptwriting Convenor: Katlego Chale This course will guide students through the practice of writing for the stage as a site of the convergence of multiple literary and artistic forms. Students will develop nuanced understandings of image and voice in performative writing, thinking through premise, character and scene building as they work towards the writing of a short one act play. |
The following table illustrates the structure of the Honours course offerings, indicating which courses can be taken in which term and in which combination:
| Term 1 | Term 2 | Term 3 | Term 4 | |
| ENG701 (compulsory) | Research Essay. Weekly workshops and seminars: methodologies, approaches and practices | Write final research essay and submit. | ||
| ENG 716 Choose 2 options, 1 per term |
Adventures in the Novel 1 Gothic Literature and the Global South |
Adventures in the Novel 2 British Literature Revisited |
||
| ENG 717 Choose 2 options, 1 per term |
South African Literature Detective Fiction |
Creative Writing: Poetry South African Short Stories |
||
| ENG718 or 725 Choose 2 options, 1 per term. |
Metacinema Creative Writing: Prose |
Narratives of Childhood Scriptwriting |
||
In order to apply for Honours (average mark at least 60%) please use the UWC website portal to apply, and for any queries, contact the Faculty Office at artspostgrad@uwc.ac.za
Masters in English Literature (structured)
A 1-2 year long taught Masters degree includes ENG801, a mini-thesis of 15 000 – 20 000 words, plus three semester-
length modules:
| Module Code | Semester 1 | Semester 2 |
| ENG827 | a compulsory literary theory and methodology module (Carrol Clarkson) | |
| Electives | ||
| ENG823 South African Literature |
‘Place and Belonging in Contemporary Southern African Literature’ (Oliver Melvill) and ‘Dreams of Freedom’ (Hermann Wittenberg) |
|
| ENG825 World Literature |
‘Aftermaths: Transitional Justice in Literature’ (KN) and “Contemporary British Novel (Mark Espin & Courtney Davids) |
|
| ENG829 Directed Reading |
Taught on application in either semester 1 or 2 | |
| ENG821 Narrative Non-Fiction |
Narrative Non-fiction (Duncan Brown), co-listed under MA Creative Writing | |
| ENG819 Digital Cultures |
Documentary Film (Francois Verster), co-listed under MA Creative Writing. Semester 1 and 2 | |
Masters (full thesis)
Students choosing the MA by full thesis (about 30 - 40 000 words) in literary studies need to be ready to embark on a substantive research project, guided by a supervisor in the department. Students are strongly advised to attend the structured MA course in literary theory. In some exceptional cases, students may also choose to pursue a full-thesis MA in creative practice. Please consult the department’s website.
Masters in Creative Writing (structured)
For students who want to develop as creative writers, the department offers the well-established MA Creative Writing (MACW), one of the leading programmes of its kind in South Africa. Apart from working in the genres of prose and poetry, students are exposed to narrative non-fiction and documentary film, and can pursue their mini-thesis in a creative field of their choice, such as poetry, prose, scriptwriting and film.
Students need to write a mini-thesis of about 20 000 words that includes both creative work and a research-based reflective and critical component. Students then chose three of the following elective modules:
| Module Code | Semester 1 | Semester 2 |
| ENG860 | Prose (Meg Vandermerwe) | |
| ENG861 | Poetry (Kobus Moolman) | |
| ENG821 | Narrative Non-fiction (Duncan Brown) | |
| ENG819 | Documentary Film (Francois Verster) (Semester 1 and 2) | |
| Strongly recommended: attend the ENG827 literary theory and methodology seminars (Semester 1) | ||
Doctoral (PhD)
Students choosing to pursue a PhD thesis by full thesis (about 50 000 – 70 000 words) need to be ready to embark on a substantive research project, guided by a supervisor in the department. The PhD is a prerequisite for anyone wishing to pursue an academic or research career. In some exceptional cases, experienced and established creative practitioners may also pursue a full-thesis PhD in creative practice. Please consult the department’s website.
Please contact the Postgraduate Convenor for more details: Prof Hermann Wittenberg: hwittenberg@uwc.ac.za
