The information about this programme is available in the following languages:

• English

Programme

The programme is divided into two semesters, each worth 30 ECTS.

• Semester 1: In the first semester you will follow three courses, worth 10 ECTS each. The course themes are outlined below.

• Semester 2: In the second semester you will follow one course worth 10 ECTS and spend the rest of the semester researching and writing your Master’s thesis, worth 20 ECTS. During your thesis trajectory you will be guided by a staff member of the Leiden Literary Studies Department.

Fields of study in Leiden
Comparative Literature
Comparative Literature looks at the interaction between literary traditions from different countries, and the relation between the literary object and other—similar—objects that result from such disciplines as theology, philosophy and history. For example, when studying a figure of speech this approach will consider its effects within various historical and national contexts, as well as its role within the different disciplines in which it occurs.

Literary Theory
Literary Theory looks at the theoretical approaches to literature (and comparable art forms) while challenging and enriching the ways in which the literary object is viewed, by applying a given methodology and making use of a sound academic approach. You will approach literary objects from a critical standpoint, and be expected to question not only the objects themselves, but the reasons for asking these particular questions.

Interculturality
Interculturality begins from the standpoint that the world is composed of intercultural meetings, where each cultural self seems to be created in response to others. If literature was once studied as the privileged medium for the creation of a national self, today scholars often focus on the way in which literature articulates emerging trans-national, intercultural and migrant identities. Interculturality will provide you with concrete insights into these literary developments, while placing them in their socio-historical contexts.

The theoretical component of the programme is dedicated to a comparative discussion of the key-concepts, theories and methodologies developed to analyse the literature of modernity, (post-) colonialism, and globalisation. You will follow a variety of courses which will illuminate the genealogy of these concepts and approaches, tracing both their origins in specific cultural and political contexts, and their trans-national, intercultural trajectories.
The socio-historical section looks at the dynamics of intercultural translation in a few well-defined geographical areas and ‘contact zones’ (Pratt). For example:

• America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
• ‘La francophonie’
• China

Focusing on a variety of literary texts that explore the creative and destructive dimensions of intercultural contact, you will gain insights into the cultural, psychological, and political mechanisms at work in the literary imagination of self and other.

Intermediality
Literature has long been studied on the basis of what was specifically literary. Literary developments were considered as autonomous phenomena within the domain of literature.
The intermedial approach steps outside the framework of the specifically literary in order to try and understand literature’s production of meaning. Literary significance is today viewed as resulting from—or participating in—a broader cultural or semiotic process. Consequently, you will study literature as a particular form of cultural production of meaning. This entails a more intermedial approach to literature, which means you will focus on the relationship of a literary phenomenon with expressions in other media, such as:

• Pictorial and graphic art
• Sculpture
• Applied art
• Theatre
• Film, and so on

At the same time you will pay attention to past and present word-image relationships, for example in:

• Illustrated texts
• Emblem books
• Art treatises
• Calligrammatic poetry.

The focus on Intermediality is a recent development in Leiden research, yet this subject has already expanded to include a broad field of research within Pallas, covering both the older periods and the modern era. Within this field you will have the opportunity to cover a wealth of topics, from the field of Book and Publishing Studies to the relationships between literature, film and the visual arts.

Course selection
There are four courses available, which change from year to year. However, the courses always represent the following four categories:

• Tropes and Other Rhetorical Devices: Topics covered include irony and theories of metaphor, and allegory

• Canonical Theoreticians: Courses within this category look at the works of major theoretical thinkers who have played an important role in literary and cultural studies in the recent past. Every year a selection is made from the work of three thinkers. Past courses included texts by Derrida, de Man, and Benjamin, but also Barthes, Bakhtin, and Foucault.

• Genres, Text Types and Media: Examples of topics covered are contemporary poetry and poetical theory, and the art of allegory and allegorical reading, and the literary fantastic.

• Re-writing of a Theme, Motive or Genre: This (essentially historical) course uses primary source texts to analyse how a particular theme, motive or classical text has been rewritten or appropriated in later periods. Thus we will study, for example, a number of literary counterhistories: novels with one commonality—they all challenge official versions of history in some way.

For the most up to date course overview, see the e-Prospectus.

Objectives
The aim of the programme is to take the main elements of the bachelor’s programme and cover them in greater detail and depth. Upon graduation, you will be capable of carrying out a research project under academic supervision, and will possess a thorough knowledge of—and insight into—one of the specialist fields of study offered. You will be able to independently gather literature and primary sources in the field, to evaluate their quality, and clearly formulate well-argued research questions and to report on the results of your research both orally and in writing.