English (MA)
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:
- Online Graduate Application
- Complete official transcripts of all college level work
- Two academic letters of recommendation with discursive comments
- 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.
- Critical writing sample (~ten pages)
- International students must also submit official reports of the TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo examination
- Creative writing sample (optional and in addition to the critical writing sample)
- Graduate Student Assistantship (GTA) Application (PDF) (January 5th deadline only)
- 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.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Required Courses | ||
| General Requirements | 3 | |
| Introduction to English Studies | ||
| Theory Requirement | 3 | |
| Contemporary Theories of Interpretation | ||
or ENGL 692 | Topics in Interpretive Theory Since 1900 | |
| Literature before 1700 (3 Credit Hours) | 3 | |
| Introduction to Old English | ||
or ENGL 541 | Studies in Old and Middle English Literature | |
or ENGL 542 | Studies in Tudor and Elizabethan Literature | |
or ENGL 543 | Studies in Stuart and Commonwealth Literature | |
or ENGL 561 | Chaucer | |
or ENGL 562 | Shakespeare | |
or ENGL 563 | Milton | |
or ENGL 581 | Studies in Renaissance Drama | |
or ENGL 624 | Old English and Middle English Language and Literature | |
or ENGL 631 | Renaissance Drama | |
or ENGL 632 | Shakespeare | |
or ENGL 633 | Renaissance Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 671 | History of Rhetoric I | |
| Literature from 1700-1900 (3 Credit Hours) | 3 | |
| Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period | ||
or ENGL 544 | Studies in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century British Literature | |
or ENGL 545 | Studies in British Literature of the Romantic Period | |
or ENGL 546 | Studies in British Literature of the Victorian Period | |
or ENGL 642 | Eighteenth-Century Fiction | |
or ENGL 643 | Eighteenth-Century Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 644 | Romantic Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 651 | Nineteenth-Century Fiction | |
or ENGL 652 | Nineteenth-Century British Poetry and Prose | |
or ENGL 661 | Nineteenth-Century American Fiction | |
or ENGL 662 | Nineteenth-Century American Poetry and Prose | |
| Literature After 1900 (3 Credit Hours) | 3 | |
| Studies in Modern British and/or Irish Literature | ||
or ENGL 548 | Studies in Contemporary British and/or Irish Literature | |
or ENGL 549 | Studies in Post-Colonial and/or Ethnic Literature | |
or ENGL 573 | Studies in American Literature, 1910-1960 | |
or ENGL 574 | Studies in American Literature, 1960 | |
or ENGL 577 | The Harlem Renaissance | |
or ENGL 654 | Twentieth-Century Literature | |
or ENGL 664 | American Authors: 1900-Present | |
or ENGL 665 | Contemporary Poetry | |
or ENGL 685 | Seminar in Modern British Studies | |
| Electives (15 Credit Hours) | 15 | |
| Minimum Total Hours | 30 | |
