An orientation to graduate study in general and the nature and methods of research in particular. Should be taken during the first semester of graduate work.
Individualized investigation under the direct supervision of a faculty member. (Minimum of 37.5 clock hours required per credit hour.) Repeatable, maximum concurrent enrollment is two times.
Students will study the language and literature of Anglo-Saxon England, translating important historical and literary documents in prose and poetry, including works by Alfred, AElfirc, and others.
An introduction to Middle English literature. Authors considered may include Chaucer, Langland, Kempe, and the Pearl poet. Readings may include drama, narrative poetry, lyric poetry, narrative prose and devotional literature.
A survey of selected Renaissance texts, including works by Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. Emphasis on historical contexts and recent criticism, including new historicist, feminist, psychoanalytic, and queer approaches.
Representative poetry, prose, and/or drama in England from 1660-1789, including such writers as Dryden, Behn, Astel, Finch, Pope, Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Boswell, Johnson, Gray, Equiano, Barbauld, Wycherley, and Congreve.
British Literature, 1780-1835, with emphasis on poetry, the novel, and nonfiction prose. Central issues include the Romantic poetic, the French Revolution, and the growth of the English nation.
British literature from 1832-1900, with primary focus on prose fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. emphasis on the intellectual currents of the period as reflected in the literature of the age.
Studies in British literature of the twentieth century, with primary focus on diction, poetry, and non-fiction prose. Emphasis on cultural and intellectual influences on the literature of the era.
American literature from 1590-1865, with primary focus on prose fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Emphasis on Newand Old-World cultures and the contribution of writing in the creation of cultures.
Seminar in ideas and representative authors during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An examination of both the intrinsic literary quality of selected texts and their sociopolitical, historical, and cultural contexts.
Studies in American literature 1914 to the present, with primary focus on fiction, poetry, and non-fiction prose. Emphasis on cultural and intellectual influences on the literature of the era.
Seminars in various topics ranging from the evolution of English from its beginnings to dialectology, semantics, stylistics and psycholinguistics. Repeatable, maximum of nine credits, under different subtitles.
Seminars in writers or works in translation to illustrate generic, thematic, national, or cultural approaches to world literature. Repeatable, maximum of nine credits, under different subtitles.
Prerequisite: ENG 600. Historical survey of different theoretical approaches to literary and cultural criticism and pedagogy, including classical, renaissance, and eighteenth-century movements. Emphasis on twentieth-century schools.
Seminars in various topics (e.g., the tragic hero, alienation, the experimental novel) related in form and/or idea and drawn from American, British or World literature in translation. Repeatable, maximum of nine credits, under different subtitles.
Readings in selected rhetoricians, including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Erasmus, Ramus, Bacon, Montaigne, Campbell, Blair, Bakhtin, Richards, Gates, Cixous, Kristeva.
Reading in composition theory and pedagogy, including expressivist, cognitive, historical, rhetorical, social espistemic, discourse, and cultural studies.
This seminar explores major debates and developments in film theory from the 1920s to recent decades. Theories are illustrated with the technical and aesthetic analysis of specifc films.
Consent of Instructor. Select MA project, a journal-appropriate research paper of 30-50 pages., or creative project (collection of poems, short stories, or novel chapters). Proposal approval by advisor and public presentation (faculty/ students) required.