Master of Arts in English Program: Classes

500 Level Courses
ENGL 510 Theories of Writing and Literacy
Focuses on several cross-disciplinary theories of producing written discourse. Studies how writing is learned, taught, viewed by the public, and used in social and academic interchange.

ENGL 511 Research Methods in Research and Composition
This course introduces students in English studies to (inter)disciplinary research methods sanctioned by the field of Rhetoric and Composition. It particularly focuses on the methods that have been motivating research in this field since 1985. These methods include archival, case study, ethnographic, historiographic, and teacher research. It also offers students intensive practice in the processes of conducting and writing research for (inter)disciplinary and/or public audiences.

ENGL 526 History of the English Language
Development of the English language from its beginnings to the present day.

ENGL 535 Theories and Practices in Composition
Focuses on the formation of composition studies in the latter half of the Twentieth Century. Studies relationships among theories, practices. and research concerned with the teaching of writing, particularly at the college level.

ENGL 537 Special Topics (related to the teaching of English)
Designed for in-service teachers. Intensive studies and research in special, timely topics (as announced in the Schedule of Classes) related to the teaching of English. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 units with different topics.

ENGL 550 Old English Language and Literature
Beowulf and other representative selections from Anglo-Saxon literature in the original language.

ENGL 551 Middle English Language and Literature
Chaucer and other representative selections from Middle English literature in the original language.

ENGL 552 Literature of the Renaissance (1500-1603)
Prose and Poetry of Marlowe, Sidney, Raleigh, Spencer, and other predecessors and contemporaries of Shakespeare, noting the influence of Humanism and the emergence of literary identity.

ENGL 553 Literature of the Late Renaissance (1603-1660)
Poetry and Prose (chiefly non-dramatic) of Milton, Bacon, Jonson, Donne and the "Metaphysicals" and their contemporaries.

554 Medieval Literature of the British Isles
Representative selections of Old and Middle English prose and poetry read for the most part in modern English including Beowulf, the romance, medieval drama, Chaucer, and the ballad.

555 English Literature of the Enlightenment (1660-1798)
Prose and Poetry (chiefly non-dramatic) of Swift, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Boswell, and their contemporaries, with emphasis on major satires such as Gulliver's Travels and The Rape of the Lock.

ENGL 556 English Literature of the Romantic Period (1798-1832)
Poetry and prose (chiefly non-dramatic) of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and their contemporaries, emphasizing the modern Romantic spirit, theories of literary art, and the concept of the self.

ENGL 558 English Poetry and Prose of the Victorian Age (1832-1900)
Poetry and prose of Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Carlyle, Mill and others, emphasizing literary, social and political issues, and religious controversies.

ENGL 559 English Literature of the Twentieth Century (1900-Present)
Prose and poetry of Shaw, Conrad, Yeats, Lawrence, Joyce, Woolf, and others emphasizing artistic experimentation and the development of modern value systems.

ENGL 562 Chaucer
Works of Geoffrey Chaucer in Middle English.

ENGL 566 Irish Literature in English
Major Irish authors from the Celtic Revival to the present, including W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland. The literature will be placed in its historical and political contexts, paying particular attention to the relationship between politics and literature, the status of women, and questions of national identity.

ENGL 567 The English Novel
History and development of long prose fiction in the British Isles to and since 1832.

ENGL 568 English Drama
Readings from the history of English drama, excluding Shakespeare, including Marlowe, Jonson, and Restoration comedy.

ENGL 572 American Literature (1820-1865)
An intensive examination of the major authors and works, along with newly recovered texts, from the period that is often called the "American Renaissance."

An in-depth exploration of leading developments in poetry, the novel, the short story, and non-fictional prose in the United States between the Civil War and World War I.

ENGL 574 Twentieth Century American Literature
American literature from about 1914 to the present.

ENGL 575 The American Short Story
History and development of the short story and its criticism in the United States.

ENGL 576 American Poetry
History and development of poetry and its criticism in the United States.

577A,B The American Novel
History and development of the novel and its criticism in the United States to and since the 1920's.

578 A,B American Drama
History and development of drama and its criticism in the United States.

583 Special Topics in Literature
Intensive studies in special topics in literary theory, techniques, types, genres, modes, themes, movements and in the relations of literature with other arts and disciplines, as announced in the Schedule of Classes.

ENGL 584 Contemporary Literary Theory
Study of the principal theories of literature including structuralism, hermeneutics, theory of genre, and theory of criticism.

ENGL 598 Directed Studies
Independent creative writing activity under the supervision of a creative writing faculty member.

600 Level Seminar Courses
ENGL 652 Seminar in the English Renaissance
Intensive studies in the literature of the period, chiefly Elizabethan. Authors whose work may be included in this course include Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, and Spencer.

ENGL 653 Seminar in the Age of Milton
Intensive studies in English literature of the Stuart and Commonwealth periods, including Milton.

ENGL 656 Seminar in Romantic Literature
Intensive studies of English Literature of the Romantic Period.
ENGL 656: Fall 2005 Romanticism Reconsidered
Faculty: Dr. Mimi Hotchkiss
In this seminar we will undertake various “reconsiderations” of British Romanticism. In the first half of the semester we will re-explore several key canonical texts—including Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience , Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads , Keats' Odes, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein —by considering some of their most recent critical interpretations. In the second half we will turn our attention to the works of authors more recently included in the Romantic canon such as Charlotte Turner Smith, Joanna Baillie, Amelia Alderson Opie and Letitia Elizabeth Landon, as well as some less regularly studied works from other Romantic authors. Throughout the semester, we will discuss what constitutes British literary Romanticism: Is it a period or a movement—or both? What are its boundaries? How is it currently being re-defined? Or, to put it differently, how have traditional definitions been both broadened and destabilized in recent scholarship? Of course, in order to perform these “reconsiderations” we will also need to remind ourselves of historical trends in the scholarship of Romanticism.

ENGL 657 Seminar in Victorian Literature
Intensive studies in English literature of the Victorian period. Authors whose work may be included in this course include Bronte, Eliot, Arnold, Browning, Kipling, Wilde, Thackeray, Tennyson, and Swinburne.

ENGL 659 Seminar in Twentieth Century English Literature
Intensive studies in English literature from about 1900 to the present. Authors whose work may be included in this course include Woolf, Forster, Conrad, Joyce, Lawrence, and Shaw.

ENGL 672 Seminar in the Nineteenth Century American Renaissance
Intensive studies in American literature from about 1820 to about 1865. Authors whose work may be included in this course include Emerson, Hawthorne, Gates, Thoreau, Whitman, Stowe, Poe, Melville, and Davis.

ENGL 673 Seminar in American Realism
Intensive studies in the development of realism in American literature. Authors whose work may be included in this course include Wharton, Crane, DuBois, Twain, Chopin, and James.

ENGL 674 Seminar in Twentieth Century American Literature
Intensive studies of 20th Century American writers. Authors whose work may be included in this course include Steinbeck, Ellison, Morrison, Faulkner, Chandler, Hemingway, Hurston, Fitzgerald, and Carver.

ENGL 681 Seminar in Major Authors
Intensive studies in the works of one to three specific major authors. Not open to students with credit in ENGL 467 or 479 covering the same author. Topics to be announced in the Schedule of Classes.
A. Shakespeare
B. Chaucer
C. Yeats
D. Joyce
E. John Fowles

ENGL 683 Seminar in Special Topics in English Studies
Intensive explorations of topics in English Studies. May be repeated to a maximum of 8 units with difference topics. Topics to be announced in the Schedule of Classes.
A. Feminism / Modernism
B. Autobiography
C. Postmodernism and the Novel
D. Current Issues in Rhetoric and Composition
E. Teaching Literacy
F. The Irish Short Story
G. Nineteenth Century American Women Writers, 1850-1900

ENGL 683 Fall 2005 Topic: Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers, 1850-1900
Faculty: Dr. Nancy Strow Sheley
This seminar examines the texts, lives, and themes of American women writers, 1850-1900. Authors include Alcott, Stowe, Jewett, Stoddard, Freeman, Harper, Wilson, and others, whose "regionalist" or "domestic" fiction explores, for example, the effects of industrialization and urbanization on women's lives, the limiting definitions of "women's work," and issues of sisterhood, gender, race, and class.

ENGL 685 Seminar in Rhetorical History and Theory
Intensive study of rhetorical history and theory from ancient to contemporary time.

ENGL 696 Seminar in Literary Criticism and Research
Study of major critical approaches to literature and basic literary research methods. Introduction to the discipline of literary criticism, various critical methodologies, techniques of bibliography and research , important literary reference works. Writing of critical research papers. A student will not be allowed to take ENGL 696 unless admitted to the M.A. program.

ENGL 697 Directed Research
Individual research or intensive study under the guidance of a faculty member.

ENGL 698 Thesis
Planning, preparation, and completion of a thesis under supervision of a faculty committee.