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Course information

Department

English and Creative Writing

Length

1 year full-time or 2 years part-time

Course overview

Launched in 2015 through the joint vision of Professor Deirdre Osborne and Professor Joan Anim-Addo, this ground-breaking MA is timely and necessary. We take Black British literature seriously as a discipline.

 

"Goldsmiths’ MA in Black British Writing is the only one in the country, ergo the only one where our Black British books dominate the syllabus. We rarely appear on university reading lists, other than as token gestures."

Bernardine Evaristo MBE (Author, Booker Prize co-Winner 2019)

Why study MA Black British Literature at Goldsmiths

This Masters degree is a world first. There’s nowhere else you can study black British writing in such an in-depth way – in the actual country where the writing is produced. We trace diasporic and aesthetic routes and draw upon the expertise of literary and drama specialists.

You’ll analyse an extremely diverse range of texts from novelists, poets, short story writers, essayists, life-writers and playwrights. You’ll also locate these writers in their historical context, gaining an understanding of the history of black people in Britain through how they are represented in literature.

"A Master’s degree programme that enables the serious study of the creative and artistic history and achievement of black British novelists, poets, short story writers, essayists, and playwrights.”

Professor Emerita R Victoria Arana, (Howard University, Washington DC)

Black people continue to be massively underrepresented in academia. Literature written by black authors is often missing from university course lists. The Black British Literature Masters degree is a vital step in increasing intellectual awareness of, and amplifying these black British voices. In studying this Masters, you will become part of this process. It is a decolonised degree in action.

We welcome applications from those seeking academic careers, teachers looking to decolonise their curriculum, professionals who are returning to learning, and performers and artists who wish to develop their analytic and critical thinking skills.

Based in London you have access to all the resources the city offers including the Black Cultural Archives London, the Black Plays Archive at the Royal National Theatre, the National Archives, The British Library, George Padmore Institute as part of fieldwork tasks and further research.

Internships

Students of the MA Black British Literature have the opportunity to apply for one of two paid one-month summer internships with Hachette, one of the big four global publishing houses.

These offer pro-rata pay in line with the Hachette starting salary of £24,000/year. The internships aim to give students a broad understanding of how a major publishing house works, learning about the role that each department plays in the life of a book. You will be able to attend meetings within a range of departments, network and connect with staff across the company, and get hands-on experience of the day-to-day tasks carried out by in-house teams.

Hear from two students who undertook the internships, and from the publisher who talks about why it's so important for publishing houses to attract, retain and nurture a diverse and representative workforce.

These internships give you much sought-after practical experience and have recently led to one of our graduates being employed in a full-time position with the publisher.

Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Professor Deirdre Osborne.

What you'll study

Overview (Full-time)

On the MA Black British Literature, you'll study four 30-credit modules and complete a 60-credit dissertation. These modules are as follows:

Module title Credits
Historicising the Field of Black British Writing: From the Romans to the Present

Historicising the Field of Black British Writing: From the Romans to the Present

30 credits

This module offers a historical and socio-cultural grounding in the representations of blackness in Britain across literary and performance contexts from earliest extant evidence to the present. As one of two core compulsory modules within the MA Black British Literature programme, it explores how Black British- born writers creatively engage with history in prose fiction, poetry, life writing and drama.

The tropes and cultural personae that existed prior to Britain's imperial enterprise (and ideology that rationalised enslavement and colonisation) pre-set the co-ordinates by which the interface between literary heritages and histories is traced. Although some black authors were published in Britain from the eighteenth century onwards, there is no extant evidence of this in drama until the twentieth century.

The module's broad chronological sweep will create a problematised continuum by which to understand and analyse the field of Black British writing and its influential (re)shaping of British culture as perceived at home and abroad. What are the lines of descent and tradition that connect writers across time and place? What part do retrospective, historical novels, poems, or dramas play in imaginatively retrieving and reviving marginalised voices from the past? The module will navigate diasporic and aesthetic routes of black British literary heritages.

 30 credits
Interculturality, Text, Poetics

Interculturality, Text, Poetics

30 credits

This module explores interpretative theories of interculturality including creolisation, poetics of relation, postcolonialism and carnivalisation in relation to Black British and Caribbean poetics, performativity and discourses such as humanism and globalisation. We’ll interrogate questions concerning what is literature, and what meanings might be revealed by the ‘emergence’ of Black British literature mainly in the 20th century. We’ll consider the challenges of writing across histories and cultures of the African diaspora as experienced in Britain, in order to articulate a profoundly interconnected world and possibilities other than the nation. We’ll examine how oral and literary texts, forms and genres within this body of writing through consolidation and experimentation, illustrate distinctive features of interculturality and syncretism. We’ll investigate some of the determining forces underpinning the aesthetics of the texts.

As one of two core compulsory modules within the MA Black British Literature programme, the module intensively surveys Black British Writing since the late-18th century to highlight the nature of its ‘relation’ to the social, political and intellectual contexts in which it was written. We’ll consider the emergent literature primarily as a body of relational texts communicating across and between cultures and diversities. This writing, sometimes defined by its transnational location, problematises questions of nation, the political, identity, critical theories, and literature itself.

 30 credits
Literature of the Caribbean & its Diasporas

Literature of the Caribbean & its Diasporas

30 credits

The module intensively surveys Caribbean and diaspora literature to highlight significant movements relative to the social, political and historical contexts impacting upon this new literature. We are interested in tracing the developments within the forms of literary and artistic expression examined, to show how literary texts, forms and genres veered between consolidation and experimentation from beginnings marked by the slave narrative, a preoccupation with history and memory and a close affinity with the aural/ oral, and to further explore some of the determining forces which underpinned the transformations of the literature. We seek to trace the influence, and textual embodiment of intellectual and cultural developments in the region's literature and that of its diaspora including the impacts of Colonialism, post-Colonialism, Negritude, and Globalisation. These developments are studied through the analysis of representative texts either in English (e.g. Walcott's Omeros) or in English translation (e.g. Condé's Windward Heights)

 30 credits
Genre and Aesthetics: Contemporary Black British Writing

Genre and Aesthetics: Contemporary Black British Writing

30 credits

Black British writing offers striking and transformative contributions to performativity on and off the page. This module explores the aesthetic heritages that shape contemporary Black British texts and the contextual factors contouring production, publication and performance. It explores innovations derived from reworking the canon through remixing, sampling and other compositional practices in relation to a varied demographic of auditors, interlocutors, readers, and listeners. We consider what new textual liquidities are created by poly-generic and trans-generic methods of writing and what the implications these might have for literary criticism.

The module examines critical languages and participates in the task of evolving an inter-referential methodology that can meet the demands of writing that slips between, and re-works literary genres and performance traditions. Typography, aurality, orality and the grammars of dramatic-poetic analysis comprise some of the emphases of potential critique.

Close attention will be paid to narrative form in representing subjects such as:

  • mixed and multi-ethnic experiences as challenging the feasibility of a black/white binary of power and ideology
  • the solo voice in dramatic monologue and monodrama, as a vehicle for women’s voices and as biopic
  • poetic theatre and theatricalised poetry in performance
  • Landmark Poetics (how poetry on public monuments retrieves and invites recalibrations of commemorative history)
  • Rurality (the countryside as traditionally cultural exclusion zone for black representation and location of submerged presences)
  • LGBTQI+ writing 
  • the aesthetics of rendering adoption, fostering and care-experienced lives

In this process, aesthetic principles will be extrapolated from representational techniques - noting the pressures that Black British writers’ texts apply to conventions of literary genres in creating experientially distinctive and innovative works.

 30 credits
Dissertation

Dissertation

60 credits

The dissertation allows you to pursue a scholarly investigation into a topic of your choice. After submitting a proposal and outline of the intended topic, the allocated supervision time enables discussion and guidance concerning the work in progress.

 60 credits

Intermediate exit points

It's possible to exit the programme early with a Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate if specific learning outcomes have been achieved. These options can be discussed with the programme convenor.

Part-time Study

Part-time students study all the same modules as above, in the following structure.

Year 1

  • Historicising the Field of Black British Writing: From the Romans to the Present
  • Interculturality, Text, Poetics

Year 2

  • Literature of the Caribbean and its diasporas
  • Genre and Aesthetics of contemporary black British writing
  • Dissertation 

Download the programme specification.

Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.

What our students say

Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor
My course is incredible, full of rich resources from an incredible canon of phenomenal literature.

I found out about Goldsmiths through the work of Sara Ahmed. I chose to come because of the innovative program MA Black British Writing, the first and only program of its kind in the UK. Before Goldsmiths, I was working as an arts practitioner in Berlin. My course is incredible, full of rich resources from an incredible canon of phenomenal literature.

Entry requirements

You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in a relevant/related subject. 

Students without BA-equivalent qualifications who have substantial work experience (eg in literary journalism, creative writing, publishing, arts administration), which can be considered as equivalent to formal qualifications, may be admitted provided they demonstrate analytical and academic writing skills to the necessary level.

International qualifications

We accept a wide range of international qualifications. Find out more about the qualifications we accept from around the world.

If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 7.0 with a 7.0 in writing and no element lower than 6.5 to study this programme. If you need assistance with your English language, we offer a range of courses that can help prepare you for postgraduate-level study.

Fees, funding & scholarships

Annual tuition fees

These are the fees for students starting their programme in the 2023/2024 academic year.

  • Home - full-time: £TBC
  • Home - part-time: £TBC
  • International - full-time: £TBC

If your fees are not listed here, please check our postgraduate fees guidance or contact the Fees Office, who can also advise you about how to pay your fees.

It’s not currently possible for international students to study part-time under a student visa. If you think you might be eligible to study part-time while being on another visa type, please contact our Admissions Team for more information.

If you are looking to pay your fees please see our guide to making a payment.

Additional costs

In addition to your tuition fees, you'll be responsible for any additional costs associated with your course, such as buying stationery and paying for photocopying. You can find out more about what you need to budget for on our study costs page.

There may also be specific additional costs associated with your programme. This can include things like paying for field trips or specialist materials for your assignments. Please check the programme specification for more information.

Funding opportunities

Find out more about postgraduate fees and explore funding opportunities. If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an application deadline.

How to apply

Apply now

You apply directly to Goldsmiths using our online application system. 

Before submitting your application you’ll need to have:

  • Details of your academic qualifications
  • The email address of your referee who we can request a reference from, or alternatively a copy of your academic reference
  • Copies of your educational transcripts or certificates
  • A personal statement – this can either be uploaded as a Word Document or PDF, or completed online. Please see our guidance on writing a postgraduate statement

You'll be able to save your progress at any point and return to your application by logging in using your username/email and password.

When to apply

We accept applications from October for students wanting to start the following September. 

We encourage you to complete your application as early as possible, even if you haven't finished your current programme of study. It's very common to be offered a place that is conditional on you achieving a particular qualification. 

Late applications will only be considered if there are spaces available.

If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an earlier application deadline. 

Selection process

Admission to many programmes is by interview, unless you live outside the UK. Occasionally, we'll make candidates an offer of a place on the basis of their application and qualifications alone.

Find out more about applying.

Staff

Professor Deirdre Osborne (Programme convenor) 

"My base in the humanities is cross-disciplinary and my academic career has been dedicated to decolonial thinking. My love of English literature stems from when I was first read to, and began reading and what was available to read beyond conventional curriculum and literary histories. In the field of Black British writing I approach the analysis of literature with a focus upon language in performance: as printed and read (its poetics), and articulated live on the stage (its dramatization).

My courses interweave canonical and non-canonical emphases to centralise the long but primarily submerged history of blackness in Britain. We consider the political and aesthetic consequences of the aftermath of the British Empire as experienced today in contemporary culture. I encourage students to explore voices that exist beyond mainstream narratives - to work with the problems of canonicity, cultural legitimation, and longevity that shape this field."

Read more on Deirdre's staff profile.

Professor Emerita Joan Anim-Addo (Co-founder, now retired)

"I was the convenor for the undergraduate option: Caribbean Women's Writing. I also convened the Pathway 'Literature of the Caribbean and its Diasporas' within the MA Comparative Literary Studies programme.

My recent research activities include Caribbean Literature and diaspora, women’s writing, Feminist perspectives, Black presence in Europe, Caribbean-Scottish Interconnections, Creolisation, Interculturality and Humanism.

Previous research includes African-Caribbean women’s fiction, the Black Presence in Britain (sixteenth century to present day), Networking women, Memory and History and Creolistics."

Read more on Joan's staff profile.

Dr Marl’Ene Edwin (Tutor)

All students in my seminar groups contribute as student, teacher, thinker. I learn from students as much as they learn from me. This philosophy is emphasised in my class by incorporating regular feedback from my students. Students complete module evaluations and reflect on the module goals. Their insightfulness provides useful information for adaptation and change. I believe we never stop learning and I want my students to know we can learn from each other. I use multiple methods of teaching (linguistic, visual, auditory etc) to reach students and decentre master narratives, so that no one is left behind.

Read more on Marl'Ene's staff profile.

Dr Suzanne Scafe (Tutor)

Dr Suzanne Scafe is a pioneering Black British scholar and her distinguished career features many key publications such as co-author of 'Heart of the Race' (1985, 2018), 'Teaching Black Literature' (1989), 'The Black Body in Europe' (2007) and an extensive range of articles and book chapters on black British women’s autobiographical writing, black British fiction and drama, and Caribbean women’s writing. Suzanne was the Principal Investigator (2016-2018) of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) Network grant entitled 'African-Caribbean Women’s Mobility and Self-Fashioning in Post-Diaspora Contts.'

Suggested reading

Some texts you may study include:

Historicising the Field: From the Romans to the Present

  • Evaristo, Bernardine. The Emperor’s Babe (London: Penguin, 2002)
  • Bandele, Biyi. Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko (London: Amber Lane, 1999)
  • Sancho, Ignatius. [1782] Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African ed. Vincent Carretta. (Ontario: Broadview Edition, 2015). Extracts.**
  • Joseph, Paterson. Sancho: An Act of Remembrance (London: Oberon Books, 2011)
  • Martin, S.I. Incomparable World (London: Quartet, 1997) republished Penguin, 2021.
  • Collins, Sara. The Confessions of Frannie Langton (London: Penguin, 2019)
  • Seacole, Mary. [1857]The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (London, Penguin Classics)
  • Smartt, Dorothea. Ship shape (Leeds, Peepal Tree Press, 2008) [selected poems]
  • Adebayo, Mojisola. Moj of the Antarctic in Hidden Gems Vol. I ed. Deirdre Osborne (London: Oberon, 2012), pp.149-90. 
  • Phillips, Caryl. Dancing in the Dark (London: Vintage, 2006)
  • Williams, Charlotte. Sugar and Slate (Aberystwyth: Planet 2002)
  • ** Brito, Leonora. ‘Digging for Victory’ in Dat’s Love and Other Stories (Cardiff: Library of Wales, 1995), pp.59-66.
  • Kay, Jackie. Trumpet (London: Picador, 1998)
  • Grant, Colin. Bageye at the Wheel [2012] (London: Vintage, 2013)
  • Mendez, Paul. Rainbow Milk. (London: Dialogue Books, 2020)
  • Pinnock, Winsome. Leave Taking [1987] (London: Nick Hern Books, 2018) 
  • green, Debbie Tucker. random. (London: Nick Hern, 2008)
  • Von Reinhold, Shola. LOTE. (London: Jacaranda, 2020)

Interculturality, Texts, Poetics

  • Emecheta, Buchi. Head Above Water: An Autobiography (Oxford: Heinemann, 1986)
  • Smith, Zadie, Swing Time. (London: Penguin/Random House, 2016)
  • Wheatle, Alex. East of Acre Lane (London, Fourth Estate Books, 2001)
  • Fish, Laura. Strange Music (London: Jonathan Cape, 2008).
  • D’Aguiar, Fred. Feeding the Ghosts (Chatto & Windus,1997).
  • *Breeze, Jean ‘Binta’.  The Arrival of Brighteye and other poems (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe, 2000).
  • *Breeze, Jean ‘Binta’. Spring Cleaning. (London: Virago, 1992)
  • Robinson, Roger. A Portable Paradise. (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2019).
  • Shire, Warsan. Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (London: Flipped Eye Publishing, 2011)
  • Mohamed, Nadifa. The Fortune Men. (London: Viking, 2021)
  • Oyeyemi, Helen. The Icarus Girl (London: Bloomsbury, 2005)
  • Okojie, Irenosen. Speak Gigantular (London: Jacaranda, 2106)
  • Newland, Courttia. Cosmogramma. (London: Canongate, 2021).

Literature of the Caribbean and its Diasporas

  • Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, (ed. Moira Ferguson), London: Pandora, 1987.
  • Selvon, Sam. Lonely Londoners. (ed. Susheila Nasta), London: Penguin Books, 2006.
  • Walcott, Derek. Omeros, London: Faber, 1990.
  • Cesaire, Aimé. Notebook of a Return to My Native Land (trans Mireille Rosello), 1995.
  • Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2000.
  • Rhys, Jean. Voyage in the Dark, London: Penguin, [1934] 2000.
  • Riley, Joan. Waiting in the Twilight / Joan Riley. London: Women's Press, 1987.
  • Brathwaite, Kamau. The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy. Oxford: O U P, 1973.
  • Johnson, Linton Kwesi. Mi revalueshanary fren: selected poems, London: Penguin, 2002.
  • Levy, Andrea. Small Island. London: Headline, 2004.
  • James, Marlon. A Brief History of Seven Killings (New York: Riverhead Books, 2014)

The Genre and Aesthetics of Contemporary Black British Writing

  • Bernard, Jay. Surge (London: Penguin Books, 2019) Selected poems
  • Femi, Caleb. Poor. (London: Penguin, 2020) Selected poems
  • Ellams, Inua. Black T-Shirt Collection (London: Oberon Books, 2012)
  • Newland, Courttia. 'A Question of Courage' in Beard, Francesca., Bhattacharyya, Sonali., Marchant, Ian., Miller, Kara., Newland, Courttia., O’Neill, Richard Rai & Smith, Rommi. White Open Spaces: Seven Plays about Race and Belonging in the Countryside (London: Oberon, 2006)
  • Burnett, Elizabeth-Jane. The Grassling (London, Curtis Brown, 2019).
  • Testament. Black Men Walking (London: Oberon Books, 2019)
  • SuAndi. The Story of M [2002] (London: Oberon Books, 2017)
  • Diana Evans. 26a (London: Vintage, 2006)
  • Woolf, Karen McCarthy. An Aviary of Small Birds (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2014) Selected poems
  • Sissay, Lemn. ‘Something Dark’ in Osborne, Deirdre (ed.) Hidden Gems (London: Oberon, 2008) pp. 328-47
  • Sesay, Kadija. Irki (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2013) Selected poems.
  • Owusu, Derek. That Reminds Me (London: Merky Books, 2019)
  • Alabanza, Travis. Burgerz (London: Oberon, 2018)
  • Roy, Jacqueline.[2000] The Fat Lady Sings (London: Penguin, 2021) 
  • Leeming, Carole. ‘Love the Life You Live, Live the Life you Love’ in Hidden Stories ed. Corinne Fowler (Leicester: Phoenix, 2016).
  • Agbabi, Patience. Telling Tales (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2014) Selected poems.
  • D’Aguiar, Fred. ‘At the Grave of the Unknown African, Henbury Parish Church’, Callaloo, 15:4 (1992), pp.894-8.
  • Sissay, Lemn. ‘The Gilt of Cain’, Listener (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2008) pp. 58-9.
  • green, Debbie Tucker. trade (London: Nick Hern Books, 2005)
  • Daley-Ward, Yrsa. The Terrible (London: Penguin, 2018)
  • Lee-Jones, Jasmine. seven methods of killing kylie jenner (London: Oberon Books, 2019)
  • Sode, Yomi. Manorism (London: Penguin, 2022) Selected poems.
  • Booker, Malika. ‘Absolution’ in Osborne, Deirdre (ed.) Hidden Gems Vol. II (London: Oberon Books, 2012)
  • Carby, Hazel. Imperial Intimacies (London: Verso, 2019)

Careers

Skills

You will develop transferable writing and oral skills at a high academic level, demonstrating the ability to think and work in an interdisciplinary manner using a range of methodologies. Your ability to work collaboratively and to facilitate and participate in group discussions will be enhanced. You will also develop skills in identifying the socio-cultural, historical, political and literary issues that shape and impact upon contemporary literary and performance texts.

We are oriented towards serving your individual goals and aspirations for self-development; it will generate an articulable body of transferable knowledge and skills.

Besides developing your knowledge of best current research methods and of facts and concepts specific to the featured field of study, the proposed programme will offer training in:

  • discerning vital literary and dramatic roots
  • recognising how the dynamics of creative and cultural movements interrelate
  • exchanging information effectively within a variety of intellectual, creative arts, and local communities

Careers

The MA’s design allows for a diverse range of applications of its contents to careers including education, counselling, community arts, arts practice, social services, cultural organisations, or towards research degrees (MPhil; PhD).

Our courses consolidate the influential presence of contemporary Black British writing. It is recognised as both intrinsic to conceptions of British cultural heritage but also distinctive within the body of British writing.

Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths.

Quercus (Hatchette) internships

Students on the MA Black British Literature programme at Goldsmiths have the unique opportunity to apply for two paid internship placements at the London-based, publishing house Quercus (Hachette), home to many internationally best-selling novels. Each month-long internship offers a broad understanding of publishing, develops practical skills and knowledge, and provides opportunities to network and make connections within the sector.
 
The internships are held over the summer period. Pay is pro-rated in line with the Hachette annual starting salary of £24,000.
 
Students have recently gone on to be offered full-time positions in areas such as Marketing and Publicity after graduation.

Alumni

  • In 2022, Desta Haile has been made Deputy Director of the Royal African Society.
  • Vicky ‘Skytilz’ Mantey (2020) is a Lecturer in Dance at The Place, London.
  • Angelique Golding (2019) was awarded the London Arts and Humanities PhD studentship at QMUL to catalogue the Wasafiri archive at the British Library.
  • Desta Haile (2020) was Winner of the 'To Speak Europe in Different Languages Award for Literature' 2021.
  • Nadine Plummer, a 2018 graduate, is a poet and ambassador for Lounge Akademics
  • Rebecca Blackwood (2017) is the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Goldsmiths.
  • Ellis Walker, a 2017 graduate, is starting her PhD at the University of Sheffield, titled The representation and reception of black Britain and black British writers in UK mainstream media (1950-2018)
  • Maria Durán Eusebio, who graduated in 2017, is undertaking her PhD at the University of Alcala, titled Contemporary Black British Feminist Writing (2011-2017): Challenging the Praxis of Interculturality.
  • Kandace Siobhan Walker, a 2016 graduate was winner of The White Review Poet’s Prize, and 4th Estate Prize.
  • Andrea Brann, one of the MA's first graduates in 2016, is now sharing her knowledge as a teacher in Antigua.
  • Heather Marks, another of the MA's first graduates, won the 2018 Quarto Translations Award to complete her debut novel and works for Words of Colour.

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