The credits to be acquired in the course of the training programme comprise four components.
1. Students are expected to take seven required courses (35 credits; the number of compulsory courses in our programme is the lowest that the law allows in order to encourage students to choose courses according to their interests).
2. Eleven courses have to be chosen from among the "required-optional" category (55 credits).
3. Two further courses (10 credits) can be chosen from among the required-optional courses as well as from among any of the eligible courses offered by other master's programmes.
4. Diploma work and final examination (20 credits)
Here is the outline of the structure in more detail
I. Foundational modules
(seven required courses, 35 credits)
Term one (required-optional course are also offered in the first term):
Terms and Concepts in Literary and Linguistic Studies: this team-taught lecture course is designed as an introduction to some of the basic terms of cultural studies; each class is devoted to the discussion of a term. Concepts discussed include Power, Law, Memory, Carnival, Biopolitics, Trauma and Terror(ism).
Advanced Academic Writing: this is a workshop seminar in which students discuss each other's papers and are introduced into the advanced skills of essay writing as well as into research methodology.
Historical Aspects of English Linguistics, Culture and Literature: The actual lecture course under this heading is called Introduction to Victorian Culture and Literature. Topics discussed include Victorian society and culture, the process of democratization, the history of education, the role of the British Empire in Victorian Britain, iconic Victorian spaces, changes in life styles, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Victorian occult and Neo-Victorian film.
Term two (required-optional courses are also offered)
Modern British Society: The actual course under this heading is the first part of the two-term course devoted to the culturally embedded history of twentieth-century British literature. Topics discussed in this term include the production of literature, Englishness of English literature, Modernism, the novel of manners, the literature of the two world wars, utopias and dystopias etc
Trends in Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Studies: This is a seminar in which students read and discuss some of the most important texts of literary and cultural theory
Term three (required-optional courses are also offered)
The English Language: The Language of Literature: The actual course under this heading is the second part of the two-term course devoted to the culturally embedded history of twentieth-century British literature. Topics discussed in this term include literature and empire, postcolonial and diaspora literature, Scottish literature, varieties of postmodernism, historical fiction, contemporary women writers and poets and popular literature
Term four (required-optional courses are also offered)
Advanced Research Methods: the actual course under this heading is in introduction to British arts
Required-optional modules
11 courses, 55 credits
This section (the so-called "disciplinary component") comprises the central component of the training.
It is on the basis of these courses that students who have opted for the British literature and culture track within the MA in English studies may choose between two streams. This second choice, however, is not compulsory. Those students who do choose either of the two streams will be expected to complete 50 of the 55 disciplinary credits within the chosen stream. Within the British literature and culture track the following two streams can be chosen:
1. British literature
2. British culture and society
Courses offered within the disciplinary component of the training (the required-optional courses) are listed in the table below. Please note that the labels int he table refer not to the actual courses but to the general thematic categories or clusters within which the individual courses may - and will - vary from year to year. These courses can be completed in any order, at any time between terms one and four.
| Name of course | Term | Type of course | Credits |
| Gender Studies | terms 2.-4. | lecture | 5 |
| Post-1945 British Fiction and Film | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Post-1945 British Poetry, Drama and Theatre | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Advanced Topics in Literary and Cultural Theory | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Advanced Topics in British and Irish Literature and Culture | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Advanced Topics in Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures | terms 2.-4 | seminar | 5 |
| Advanced Topics in Popular Literature and Culture | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Major Figures in British and Irish Literature and Culture | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Alternative Approaches to British and Irish Literature and Culture | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
| Visuality and Literature | terms 2.-4. | seminar | 5 |
Each category in the above list contains both courses belonging to the literature stream and ccourses belonging to the culture and society stream. Those who wish to know something about the actual courses offered by our department are advised to consult the current term information as well as the courses listed and described in the „Courses taught” pages of the staff members.
III. Elective courses
Two courses, 10 credits
These courses can be chosen from among our required-optional courses as well as from among courses offered by other masters' programmes within and outside the Institute of English and American Studies.
IV. Diploma work (20 credits)
The ten credits awarded here are divided in the following manner:
two times five credits (diploma work tutorials in terms three and four)
10 credits for the completion of the thesis
The final examination means that the diploma work has to be defended before a committe.
The objective of the master's programme in English Studies
The community of the Department of British Studies is committed to the basic European values. Thus, apart from providing our students with a comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge of modern British culture, it is also one or our basic priorities that our students enter the job market equipped with these values (including tolerance of all types of otherness and a democratic conception of culture). Thus, we lay great emphasis on introducing our students to the latest results of cultural criticism, gender studies and other disciplines. We wish to ensure that our students relate to the world around them with an open mind but with critical eyes, armed with an analytical faculty that will help them in a variety of cultural contexts.
It is our acknowledged objective to "produce" students who are not simply passive recipients of knowledge but autonomous agents who will be able to use and pass on the knowledge, skills and attitudes acquired here in their subsequent careers (in international relations, higher and secondary education, tourism, in the media, in business life, in book publishing, as civil servants, politicians and diplomats (many of our ex-students have found jobs in Brussels), in cultural life considere in its broadest sense.