Return to English | Courses Index
[1] Graduate Courses in English (ENGL)
5301 RENAISSANCE LITERATURE AND CULTURE The course studies the development of Christian humanism and the influence of the Reformation, among other factors, upon major dramatic and non-dramatic works by such writers as Shakespeare, More, Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, and Marlowe.
5305 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE AND CULTURE Engages English medieval literature, including Chaucer. Anglo-Saxon and some Middle English texts will be taught in translation, but Middle English will be retained whenever possible.
5311 18TH-CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE Covers major writers from the Restoration to the end of the eighteenth century. May include such authors as Behn, Dryden, Haywood, Defoe, Swift, Pope, Johnson, and Radcliffe. Lecture, discussion, writing.
5312 EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE Covers American literature and culture from its beginnings to 1830. May include such authors as Bradstreet, Franklin, Wheatley, and Cooper, as well as Native American storytellers. Lecture, discussion, writing.
5313 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE Covers selected 19th-century works from such authors as Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Poe, Dickinson, Douglass, Melville, James, and Twain. Approaches American literature in its socio-historical contexts.
5314 20TH- AND 21ST-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE Covers developments in the aesthetics of American literature, and the relation of that literature to contemporary American life and history. Engages such writers as Wharton, Howells, Crane, Dreiser, Cather, Steinbeck, Frost, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stevens, Ellison, Baldwin, O’Connor, Roth, Silko, McCarthy, and Morrison, among many other possibilities.
5320 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE Covers major writers of the long 19th century, such as Wordsworth, Byron, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Austen, Tennyson, Dickens, and Rossetti.
5321 20TH- AND 21ST-CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE Covers poetry, drama, and prose of major English writers from World War I to today. May include authors such as Woolf, Joyce, Conrad, Stoppard, Churchill, Rushdie, and Smith.
5325 POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE AND CULTURE May include topics of current, historical, or theoretical interest in postcolonial literature. May include authors such as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Jamaica Kincaid, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, and Colson Whitehead.
5332 SHAKESPEARE Engages selected works of Shakespeare. Possible analytical approaches may include historical, linguistic, performative, psychological, and cultural.
5340 MAJOR AUTHORS Engages in focused study of major authors from the canon of English-language literatures. Possible authors covered vary from foundational figures such as Chaucer and Milton to contemporaries like Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy.
5358 METHODS OF TEACHING ENGLISH AND COMPOSITION May not be taken as part of the MA in English. Required of students seeking licensure to teach English. The course includes a study of methods used to teach literature, grammar, and composition, and evaluated teaching presentations before other candidates. Lecture, discussions, writing. Prerequisites: Admissions to the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program.
5360 HISTORY AND STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE A survey of English from the Anglo-Saxon to the modern period. Attention will be paid to the social, political and literary matrix within which the language developed.
5361 LITERATURE FOR ADOLESCENTS Literature for adolescent readers and exploration of motivational approaches to teaching literature in secondary schools.
5362 SOUTHERN LITERATURE AND CULTURE A study of literature relevant to the U.S. South that may focus on a particular topic defined by the instructor. May include writings from the colonial period through the twenty-first century.
5363 TOPICS IN ADVANCED FILM AND LITERATURE An elective for the MA. A graduate-level narrative course that explores and compares literary and cinematic forms by considering classic and/or modem literature through the medium of film. Lecture, discussion, writing.
5366 LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM This course may be taught using historical models or modern theoretical schools of thought. Literature (poetry, drama, and prose) will also be included as a means of applying various theoretical models.
5370 GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN LITERATURE This variable-topics course includes poetry, prose, and drama that engages the intersection of gender as social constructions, gender as lived experiences, sexuality, and literature.
5380 AFRICAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE Survey of African and African-American literature from the eighteenth century to the present.
5382 RACE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE An elective for MA. The course will explore the depictions of racial definitions, identities, and conflicts offered by American writers of various races although primarily African-American and white. Focus will be on writers such as Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, and Flannery O’Connor.
5383 ASIAN AND ASIAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE This course is designed to introduce students to some important texts from the various literatures of Asia, along with the aesthetic, religious, and cultural contexts of those works. In addition, students will be introduced to a variety of modern texts by Asian-American writers so they may consider any connections that might exist between the traditional texts and their ethnic American successors.
5385 TRAVEL SEMINAR IN LITERATURE This course combines literary study with travel to the culture that produced the works. When American, British, or English-language literature is covered, the course may satisfy three elective hours of MA graduate credit.
6V93 THESIS RESEARCH CONTINUOUS ENROLLMENT (Variable credit: 1-3 credit hours)
6V94 INDEPENDENT STUDY (Variable credit: 1 or 3 credit hours.) Aspects of language and literature which an individual graduate student desires to study but which are not intensely covered in any existing course. The student taking this course must arrange for a graduate professor to direct the study and must procure the permission of the department chairperson. May be taken for up to 3 credit hours.
6190 GRADUATE TEACHING PRACTICUM IN ENGLISH This one-hour practicum will familiarize students with a range of methods for teaching literature in the college classroom. The course will provide some theoretical grounding in pedagogy but will place more emphasis on practical strategies for the classroom, assignment-design, and grading. Students will design a syllabus and construct lesson plans and assignments for the course they have been assigned to teach as well as participate in classroom observations. Readings will consist of a combination of theoretical and practical approaches to pedagogy (articles and books) primarily within the discipline of English. Prerequisite: At least 18 hours of graduate coursework in English.
6301 SEMINAR IN MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE Concentrated study of a special topic in English medieval literature.
6302 SEMINAR IN THE RENAISSANCE Concentrated study of a special topic in English Renaissance literature.
6303 SEMINAR IN NEOCLASSICISM Concentrated study of a special topic in English Neoclassical literature.
6304 SEMINAR IN ROMANTICISM Concentrated study of a special topic in English Romantic literature.
6305 SEMINAR IN THE VICTORIAN PERIOD Concentrated study of a special topic in English literature of the Victorian period.
6306 SEMINAR IN ENGLISH AND ANGLOPHONE LITERATURE 1900 TO PRESENT Concentrated study of a special topic in English and Anglophone literature from 1900 to the present.
6307 SEMINAR IN AMERICAN LITERATURE 1900 TO PRESENT A special-topics seminar in American literature from 1900 to Present.
6320 SEMINAR IN 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE Critical and textual studies of major writers of the American 19th century, who may include Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, Douglas, and Twain.
6323 SEMINAR IN MULTICULTURAL AND TRANSNATIONAL LITERATURES A seminar that juxtaposes literatures from diverse time periods, places, and traditions. Explicitly occasions students to explore the diversity of the human experience and the literatures that communicate that experience, while simultaneously engaging questions dealing with the relationships between power, privilege, oppression, and opportunity.
6336 TEXTS AND MANUSCRIPTS Approaches to the study of manuscripts and early printed texts (paleography, codicology, diplomatics, and stemmata) of the Medieval and Renaissance periods.
6337 GRADUATE INTERNSHIP The course enables students to professionalize and focus their MA experience via a wide range of possible internship experiences.
6393 RESEARCH METHODS IN ENGLISH Familiarization with the tools and methods of literary research and criticism at the graduate level and with common types of scholarly writing.