Full time studies

The programme was designed to fit the requirements of the developing work and academic environment and to provide graduates with solid competences that will make them competitive in the job market. The programme English Studies – Literature and Culture comprises many disciplines. Literature studies and culture studies are related to each other and also to other disciplines, such as history, psychology, sociology, as well as to recently emerging fields of study such as ecocriticism, animal studies or media studies.

At the start, students select their MA seminar from the available offer. In addition to the MA thesis related classes, students have the opportunity to take courses and monographic lectures in other disciplines, i.e. linguistics and social studies.    .

This programme makes it possible for students to broaden their knowledge of the literature, culture and history of the Anglosphere and to get familiar with methodological tools necessary to research literature and culture, both in the traditional understanding as well as in more modern forms of visual and new media culture. The diploma they receive upon graduation explicitly states that they are specialists in literature.

Students also have a chance to get introduced to substantial fundamentals of translation practice, including the translation of literature, and are equipped with soft skills in order to facilitate their successful performance in the job market.       

As an additional option, students may take part in our teacher training programme to obtain qualifications needed to teach English at all levels.

All classes are conducted in English.

This programme is full-time, with teaching days from Monday to Friday. The seat of the Institute is the modern building of the Faculty of Modern Languages at 55 Dobra Street, Warsaw.

Admissions:

Graduate Studies - How to apply?

MA Seminars in literature and Culture offered in 2026/27

Dorota Babilas
Material and Spiritual Culture of Victorian England

The MA seminar devoted to the study of British culture in the 19th century, in its material (fashion, toys, postcards etc.) and non-material (philosophy, monarchy, women’s rights etc.) aspects. We will discuss examples created in the 19th century, but also later reworkings and reinterpretations of Victorian culture (popular art, film, theatre). 

Ewa Barbara Łuczak
American Ethnic Literature and Culture

This seminar examines American ethnic literature and culture, with particular emphasis on African American and Latino/a writers. It explores major developments in the canon of ethnic writing in the United States and traces transformations of major ethnic literary traditions. Authors studied include Philip Roth, N. Scott Momaday, Rudolfo Anaya, Maxine Hong Kingston, Julia Alvarez, John Edgar Wideman, Bharati Mukherjee, Jamaica Kincaid, Sherman Alexie, Sandra Cisneros, Cynthia Ozick, Toni Morrison,  Percival Everett, and Junot Díaz. 

The seminar also engages key theoretical concerns, including multiculturalism, race and ethnicity, ethnic aesthetics, magical realism, essentialism and identity, ethnic variants of postmodernism, intersections of ethnicity and feminism, as well as the roles of tradition, history, and memory in ethnic literatures. Attention will also be given to questions of cross-cultural communication.

Justyna Włodarczyk

TBA

Irena Księżopolska
Metaforms and comparative literature

The MA seminar centres on the comparative literary studies and investigates connections and contrasts between literary works from various cultures, through textual analysis, and adaptation studies. The key focus will be on metaforms: works of art which not only create an illusion of a world, but also reveal that this world is an illusion, and expose the mechanism by which imaginary realms are constructed. It is a game with the reader or spectator which invites them into labyrinths of texts, images, allusions, meanings, creating a space for imaginative interpretations and critical reflections on reality. In short, it is an artistic work which is self-conscious about its own status as artifice, and which makes visible creation of meanings, reflection on the nature of reality in all its contexts and our relationship with it. The seminar will focus on close textual analysis, but will also explore connections of literature with history. During the first semester examples of texts will be provided by the instructor, later on students will select their own texts and contexts, gradually formulating and presenting their projects for open discussion and peer-review in class.

The first semester will be dedicated to overview of theoretical background which will be useful for the projects, as well as analysis of selected texts.

Małgorzata Łuczyńska-Hołdys
Romantic and Victorian Poetry and Prose. Interactions between Literature and Art 

The seminar aims at exploring literature (mainly poetry) of 19th century England. The course's goal is to prepare the students for autonomous choice of their M.A. thesis subject and to offer guidance as far as the completion of the project is concerned. Students will be able to devote their research to the poetry of English Romanticism and the Victorian period. The field may include the Woman Question, the birth of feminism, gothic novel,  the shaping of gender roles, The Pre-Raphaelites, the relations between literature and the visual arts, ecology, ecocriticism, the interaction between literature and science. Projects concerning William Blake, John Keats, John Clare. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Tennyson, The Pre-Raphaelites and Algernon Charles Swinburne are particularly welcome.