Writing, Editing and Mediating

• Training in writing about literature for non-academic audiences
• Correcting and editing written English of various kinds
• Modules that address issues related to modern publishing
• Teaching in small groups (typically 15-20 students)
• International staff

For information about the variety of areas in which students can write their dissertations, click the Research tab below. As part of the WEM programme, students can opt to complete a 10-credit work placement (a.k.a. internship). At the Faculty of Arts, students are responsible for finding a placement for themselves and having it approved by the placement coordinator for their programme: Dr Tekla Mecsnóber, who can be reached at t.d.mecsnober rug.nl.

The following can help you find a placement:

• WEM placements are typically at publishing houses, translation agencies and libraries.
• Recent placements have taken students to Noordhoff Uitgevers, Malmberg BV, Boom Uitgevers, Staal & Roeland, Uitgeverij Deviant, Uitgeverij Nobelman, Koninklijke Brill NV, Xander Uitgevers, Global Textware, Uitgeverij Boekscout, Uitgeverij Luitingh-Sijthoff, Uitgeverij De Fonteijn, Uitgeverij Cossee Amsterdam, Universiteit Utrecht Universiteitsbibliotheek, Koninklijke Bibliotheek Den Haag, and the Poetry International Festival, Rotterdam.
• Within the University of Groningen, the Special Collections department of the UG Library and the University Translation and Correction Service (Universitaire Vertaal- en Correctiedienst, UVC) have shown interest in working with English Literature and WEM Master's students.
• In addition the webpage of the Faculty of Arts Career Services provides links to a range of current placement opportunities.

Upon graduation students hold a (60 ECTS) MA degree in Literary Studies with a track in Writing, Editing and Mediating from the UG. A student's career after that depends on the kind of person they are. Writing and editing skills can be applied in many settings. Language is central to studying human behaviour and activities. Proper communication through writing in a correct and organised way provides a challenge to many people, and you could assist them or guide them in this process.

Many of the skills a Literary Studies MA teaches are transferable. You will probably find that your analytical competence, ability to write, and capacity to solve problems will significantly improve after completing an MA degree. Although the programme is taught and assessed in English, many of its skills are generic but significant—such as punctuality, attention to detail, self-motivation, written communication etc.—and students have gone on to work in non-Anglophone settings.

We encourage our students to complete a 10 ECTS internship in a field of their interest. In the first term of the MA, a career event is organised to give students information and resources to realise their internship (though be aware that an internship may prolong your registration at university since it may not always be possible to organise it in the best period for you).

With your MA-degree you could work in publishing houses, for magazines as well as books publishers. You could also become a policy consultant (Dutch: Beleidsmedewerker), or an advisor to (inter)national governmental organizations and NGOs. You could also become an expert on dealing with writing in education, companies, or government agencies. You may also choose to pursue a career as lecturer or researcher in higher education.

Through a combination of a research-driven approach and knowledge of applying theory to real life situations, our programme prepares students for the following jobs:

Research in the department covers all areas of English literature and linguistics. Our particular strengths include premodern culture, modernism, contemporary literature, and language development, and we publish widely on such topics as critical theory, visual culture, travel literature, women's writing, multi-ethnic US and postcolonial literatures, medieval learning, and language acquisition and loss. Our staff members run or participate in a number of international research projects, including the Language Attrition project.

Dissertations in the Writing, Editing and Mediating track should reflect the nature of the WEM courses. Possible topics include:

• the function of literary works in their social contexts;
• an edition of a text;
• theoretical reflection on an aspect of the history of the methods used in writing, editing, translating and mediating texts;
• an examination of the ways in which literary texts are mediated to a particular social group or groups (e.g. reading groups, book-reviews, school syllabi, censorship);
• any aspect of Book History;
• institutions and practices associated with literary texts (e.g. libraries, copyright, literary prizes);
• ways of disseminating texts involving historical or modern technologies (e.g. internet platforms, e-books).

Dissertations may be supervised by any appropriate member of staff. The following list indicates some of the areas in which dissertations can be written.

Dr David Ashford: Modernism, Post-Modernism, the Enlightenment, Theory and Philosophy, Post-Humanism, Imperialism, Cultural Geography, Poetry, Poetics and Publishing.

Dr Kees Dekker: textual editing; manuscript studies; Old English literature and language; Middle English literature and language.

Dr John Flood: Renaissance/Early-Modern literature; Romantic and Victorian literature; Christianity and literature; modern Irish literature; science-fiction; J.R.R. Tolkien; literature and war (especially World War I); twentieth-century British, Irish and American poetry; history of the book; textual editing; philosophy and literature.

Dr Ann Hoag: women’s writing; travel literature; contemporary American fiction; modernism.

Dr Hans Jansen: translation; textual correction and editing; Shakespeare, English drama.

Dr Ashley Maher: the novel, periodical culture, modern literature and the visual arts, text and image.

Dr Suzanne Manizza Roszak: Modern and contemporary US literature, multi-ethnic US and transnational American literature, world literatures in English, Italian American literature and culture, children's and young adult literature, the twentieth- and twenty first-century Gothic, diaspora studies, gender studies, critical race theory, trauma studies.

Dr Tekla Mecsnober: typography; modernist writing (especially James Joyce, modernist magazines and experiments with language); eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British fiction; Gerard Manley Hopkins; Victorian poetry.

Dr Karin Olsen: Anglo-Saxon literature and culture; comparative studies in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse and early Irish literature and culture; Middle English literature.

Dr Kees de Vries: literary theory; nineteenth-century literature; Oscar Wilde; humour and literature; music and literature.

Here are some sample topics of WEM dissertations recently supervised in the English Department.

• Covering Arthurian Novels: Cover Design as an Integral Part of Book Marketing.
• Tolerance as Cultural Difference: Ian Buruma’s Murder in Amsterdam.
• Chicanas Write Back: Gender and Homosexuality in Gloria Anzaldúa, Estela Portillo Trambley, and Ana Castillo
• Constructing and Deconstructing Paradise: Robinsonades and British Imperialism.
• Victorian and Contemporary Criminality in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Narratives and BBC’s Sherlock.
• The Fall of the Romish Church: An Edition of a Reformist Pamphlet.
• An edition of The Diary of John Lewis: Thoughts of an 18th-Century Minister.
• A Semi-Diplomatic Edition of Jane Anger Her Protection for Women.
• From Chest to Window: The Literary Digital Archive and its Mediations.
• Entertaining Educational Ideals: Children’s Adaptations of Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote in Eighteenth-Century England.
• The Agenda of Early AIDS Theatre: As Is and The Normal Heart as Works of Authoritarian Fiction.
• Recently Built and Remodelled Public Libraries: The Design of Today’s Public Library Buildings.

For general information about the research in the department see the Research Page and the People page of the Department of English Language and Culture.