Graduate English Association
Promoting a community of academic growth among English graduate students. This group supports individual and group creative and scholarly pursuits, both inside and outside the classroom.
Click here for details.
Graduate School Forms
Forms for international students, certification, registration and requests for travel and other activities.
Click here for the complete list.
Independent study
The link here will open a pdf form to apply for a Graduate/Independent Study opportunity.
Graduation Information for graduate students
Find out details of applying to graduate, along with a checklist and dates and deadlines.
Travel
The following are the two forms graduate students should look over if they are looking to be reimbursed for travel.
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Graduate Course Descriptions
Fall 2013
501-001
Introduction to Research Methods
Lewis Walker
MO 102
This course is an introduction to the professional study of English, with focus on the research process as well as selected subfields. Everyone will develop a research question on a topic of his/her own interest and pursue this question throughout the course, eventually producing a scholarly paper suitable for reading at a conference. Along the way, we will learn the with various methods and tools of research; for example, we will learn the conventions of MLA style, and we will practice doing annotations of scholarly articles and books. We will also read essays that introduce several subfields in English studies (for example, composition, linguistics, textual scholarship, comparative literature) and hear talks by members of our departmental faculty who specialize in those areas. Oral presentation, annotation exercise, literature review, abstract, conference paper. Texts include: MLA Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd ed.; Nicholls, ed., Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature, 3rd ed.
502-001
Introduction to Literary Theory
Meghan Sweeney
M 6:30-9:15
MO 202
All literary activity is underpinned by some form of theory; part of what this class will do is enable us to examine more deeply the variety of assumptions that we make as we read texts. We will tackle formalist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, post-structuralist, Marxist, and feminist theory and writers such as Freud, Marx, Barthes, Saussure, and many others in an attempt to become more knowledgeable about some of the key methods and movements of the past 100 years. To be successful in this course you will need to be intellectually rigorous, historically aware, and deeply engaged.
514-001
Studies in Drama: Avant-Garde Theatre and Theory
Paula Kamenish
W 3:30-6:15
MO 102
This course focuses on several revolutionary literary trends that manifest themselves in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France after 1890. We will explore aesthetic and anti-aesthetic leanings in manifestos from the most active agents of theatre reform and discuss/reenact an assortment of plays that permit the student to visualize the movement of European theatre along the paths of Pataphysical Theatre, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, the Theatre of Cruelty, and the Theatre of the Absurd in its quest for antirealism. Students will view stage productions, respond to short written responses of their peers, do background research, and present semester projects on the oeuvre of a single author. Text: Cardullo and Knopf, Theatre of the Avant-garde 1890-1950.
551-001
Studies in Professional Writing: Gender, Sexualities and Technologies
Colleen Reilly
M 3:30-6:15
MO 204
In this course, we will explore the intersections of genders, sexualities, and technologies theoretically and practically. Technologies, including computers, computer games, radios, microwave ovens, vibrators, and automobiles, to name a few, have been developed in light of and participated in constructing dominant notions of genders and sexualities. We will examine representations of genders, sexualities, and technologies in a range of theoretical, historical, and fictional texts as well as in visual and multimedia productions, including art and film. Course projects will include media projects, papers, and presentations.
555-001
Politics of English Education
Victor Malo-Juvera
W 6:30-9:15
MO 202
Education is a political act and perhaps no course (other than History) is more subject to political influence than English/language arts. This course will examine the historical and current political climates that determine who learns, what they learn, how they learn it, and how their learning is assessed in English/language arts classes. Through a seminar format we will delve into how K-12 English education is influenced by local, state, and national politics. Among many topics, we will examine the political forces behind the creation, writing, and implementation of the Common Core State Standards, how Race to the Top has influenced English/language arts curricula, how standardized assessment drives English instruction, the disparities in English/language arts instruction between affluent and poverty stricken schools, how teacher performance pay impacts how English is taught, the role of teacher unions in academic freedom, and the use of English/language arts instruction as a force of emancipation or as a hammer of oppression.
580-001
Studies in Literature: “And It Don’t Stop”: The Theory and Practice of Hip-Hop
Alex Porco
T 6:30-9:15
MO 202
The inability to sustain either a hard-hitting, progressive critique of hip-hop’s deep flaws or an appreciation for its extraordinary gifts is a real problem, with potentially serious effects that ripple far beyond the record industry and mass-media corporate sheets.
– Tricia Rose, The Hip-Hop Wars
In the 1970s, hip-hop emerged as a local cultural practice in the South Bronx, a neighborhood devastated by unemployment, drugs, and escalating gang violence, as well as the city’s disinvestment in education. (As Howard Cossell famously announced during the telecast of the 1977 World Series, “The Bronx is Burning.”) Today, hip-hop’s a multi-million dollar industry with a truly global reach. Everything from haute couture fashion to professional sports and comic books are touched in some way by the music and culture. Our challenge is to think critically about the significant aesthetic, linguistic, economic, political, and technological transformations— what Arjun Appadurai calls the “paths” and “diversions”— of hip-hop music and culture over the last thirty years. We will attend closely to hip-hop’s four primary elements (i.e., rapping, turntablism, graffiti, and break dancing) as well as key figures, periods, and genres. Other topics we will address include: gangsta rap and moral panic in the late 1980s; the 1994 congressional hearings on rap music; the contributions of women to the production of hip-hop; the emergence of hip-hop cinema in the late 1980s and early 1990s (e.g. we will watch films such as The Warriors, Wild Style, Krush Groove, Do the Right Thing, Boyz in the Hood, House Party, Set It Off, and Dead Presidents), and the relationship between hip-hop music and progressive politics (e.g., we’ll examine the role hip-hop played— especially through internet “mix-tapes”— in the 2008 election of Barack Obama). It’s an exciting time to study hip-hop music and culture. It is a relatively new field of study that continues to grow. Accordingly, we will reflexively deliberate on the condition of hip-hop as a field of study— in particular, we’ll focus on hip-hop’s use and value within the twenty-first century academy (e.g., we’ll consider how hip-hop cuts across and challenges the disciplinary boundaries of the university). We’ll also think about hip-hop’s struggle for epistemic respectability and how pedagogical instrumentalization via the university threatens to homogenize and depoliticize hip-hop. Finally, the design of the course is necessarily interdisciplinary because hip-hop is interdisciplinary. Therefore, students should be prepared to engage with materials from fields as diverse as sociology, history, music, literary studies, cultural studies, education studies, and film.
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