Integrated M.A. in Development Studies

Integrated M.A. in English Studies

Both streams allow for a mix of courses taken as electives that borrow themes from each to give students a vista of the broader landscape of the humanities and social sciences. In addition, students will have the opportunity to do immersive work in sub-domains through their final year theses.

A brief description of each stream of the programme is given below.

This stream addresses questions of "order and change" in a globalizing world and aims to explore available approaches to fostering development, understood broadly as the goal of providing people the freedom to make their lives better. This will entail studying the web of relationships humans have with each other and the physical world, which can serve both as a constraint and a source of enormous creativity and ingenuity for achieving sustainable development.

Analyzing and addressing these issues therefore requires knowledge and skills from across the social sciences, which is what the inter-disciplinary area of Development Studies seeks to do. It covers such topics as economic development, the role of the state and markets, globalization, inequality, poverty, gender relations, environment, conflict, new social movements, politics and institutions, urban studies, area studies and international relations, to name a few. Courses include those in economics, urbanization, gender studies and science and technology studies as well as advanced topics in political philosophy and social theory. Students in this stream will be expected to acquire and develop quantitative skills in introductory calculus and statistics in the course of the programme. Graduates have career opportunities in government, academia, research organizations and industry.

The English Studies stream is designed to open out the world of texts and the world as text. Built on a foundation of English literatures and translations from around the world, it inculcates in students a capacity for critical thinking, reading and writing in preparation for the quandaries of the modern world. The strengths of this stream lie in its many entry points, ranging from fiction, literary theory and cultural studies to linguistics, media studies, translation and creative writing. It offers an immensely interdisciplinary curriculum with the flexibility to incorporate multiple forms of cultural expressions, literatures and language use. A range of genre-based, author-based and period-based courses are offered so that students appreciate different kinds of literature as well as their production and reception. In the process, the stream directs itself to sets of cultural formations of everyday life and ways of reading them as signposts of our times.

Aspirants to English Studies typically possess wide-ranging interests and display flair and passion for the written and spoken word. Previous graduates have gone on to successful careers in writing, journalism, publishing, academia, research, audio and visual media, and entertainment.

Prospective candidates are encouraged to review the curricula before applying to the programme.