The MPhil in American Literature will consist of an intensive foundation course, taught in the Michaelmas term by a team of specialists, which combines detailed attention to specified primary texts with broader investigations into the conceptual, theoretical, and cultural parameters of the literary history of the United States. Students will be free in the Lent term to choose two from a range of optional courses offered by the MPhils in American Literature, Modern and Contemporary Literature, and Criticism and Culture. The MPhil will be examined by means of two pieces of coursework and a dissertation on a topic of the student's choosing. Students will research and write their dissertations over the course of the three terms in close consultation with supervisors. By the end of the course students should have: developed a deeper knowledge of their chosen area within American literary studies and of the critical debates within that area; developed an understanding of critical debates that enables the evaluation of current research in their specialist area and developed an understanding of the broader field of American literary studies and the place of their specialist area within it. Students wanting to continue from the MPhil to the PhD must obtain a minimum of 70 across the coursework with a minimum of 70 for the dissertation.