English (MA)

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Admission Requirements

MA with Graduate Teaching Assistant application: due January 5th

MA without Graduate Teaching Assistant application:

  • Fall Semester: Due July 15th
  • Spring Semester: Due December 1
  • Summer Semester: Due April 15

All applicants should submit:

  1. Online Graduate Application
  2. Complete official transcripts of all college level work
  3. Two academic letters of recommendation with discursive comments
  4. A personal statement (1000 words max.) describing your areas of interest within English studies, your future academic/career plans, and your reasons for applying to our MA program. 
  5. Critical writing sample (~ten pages)
  6. International students must also submit official reports of the TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo examination
  7. Creative writing sample (optional and in addition to the critical writing sample)
  8. Graduate Student Assistantship (GTA) Application (PDF) (January 5th deadline only)
  9. For GTA applicants: A statement (1-2 pages) describing how you would approach teaching in general and teaching writing in particular. If you have experience as a teaching or tutor, describe your teaching philosophy and provide some specific examples of how you turn that philosophy into practice in the classroom or writing center. What are the most important concepts and skills you think student writers need to learn? If you do not have experience as a teacher or tutor, describe what, as a student, you have found effective in your best teachers. What approaches to teaching and what personal qualities did you value in their work? Describe how you would approach teaching based on what you have experienced. What are the most important concepts and skills you think student writers need to learn? 

Program Requirements

The Master of Arts in English requires 30 credit hours of academic work at the graduate level. In addition to fulfilling the core requirements, students may take additional work in literary studies, creative writing, or rhetoric and composition. Students may take no more than three 500-level graduate courses. Creative writing courses (including up to six (6) credit hours of thesis guidance) may total no more than 15 credit hours. Students may count one elective outside the Department of English toward their degree upon approval by the director of graduate studies. Student must also demonstrate proficiency in one language other than English. Detailed requirement information can be found in the English Department Graduate Program Guidelines.

  • Thesis Option = 24 credit hours of coursework + six (6) credit hours of thesis guidance
  • Non-Thesis Option = 30 credit hours of coursework + culminating project

Graduate-level English courses beyond those listed may count towards requirements depending on the topics covered. Detailed course descriptions, available on the English Department website, will provide this information and can be discussed during advising with the director of graduate studies. 

Required Courses
General Requirements 3
Introduction to English Studies
Theory Requirement3
Contemporary Theories of Interpretation
Topics in Interpretive Theory Since 1900
Literature before 1700 (3 Credit Hours)3
Introduction to Old English
Studies in Old and Middle English Literature - CUE
Studies in Tudor and Elizabethan Literature - CUE
Studies in Stuart and Commonwealth Literature - CUE
Chaucer - CUE
Shakespeare - CUE
Milton - CUE
Studies in Renaissance Drama - CUE
Old English and Middle English Language and Literature
Renaissance Drama
Shakespeare
Renaissance Poetry and Prose
History of Rhetoric I
Literature from 1700-1900 (3 Credit Hours)3
Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period - CUE
Studies in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century British Literature - CUE
Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period - CUE
Studies in British Literature of the Victorian Period - CUE
Eighteenth-Century Fiction
Eighteenth-Century Poetry and Prose
Romantic Poetry and Prose
Nineteenth-Century Fiction
Nineteenth-Century British Poetry and Prose
Nineteenth-Century American Fiction
Nineteenth-Century American Poetry and Prose
Literature After 1900 (3 Credit Hours)3
Studies in Modern British and/or Irish Literature - CUE
Studies in Contemporary British and/or Irish Literature - CUE
Studies in Post-Colonial and/or Ethnic Literature - CUE
Studies in American Literature, 1910-1960 - CUE
Studies in American Literature, 1960 - CUE
The Harlem Renaissance - CUE
Twentieth-Century Literature
American Authors: 1900-Present
Contemporary Poetry
Seminar in Modern British Studies
Electives (15 Credit Hours)15
Minimum Total Hours30