Graduate Course Descriptions – Department of English

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Graduate Course Descriptions

Each semester the English graduate program offers a variety of courses in literary study, rhetoric and writing, theory, and cultural studies, as well as creative writing. Although not every area of specialization will be represented in the course offerings for a given semester, students will have many opportunities to take coursework in their individual areas of interest during their graduate careers. Students are also allowed to take a limited number of graduate courses in adjacent departments like History, Comparative Literature, African American Studies, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Communication Arts and Sciences, and Philosophy.

Typical graduate courses are three-credit seminars that meet weekly. Most students take three courses per semester until they have met the distribution requirements and earned the required number of credits for the doctorate. (Students enrolled in one of the dual-title degree programs usually require an extra semester to complete their coursework.) MA students must take a minimum of 30 credits, and PhD students often take an additional 18 credits, but there is no upper limit to the number of courses that graduate students may enroll in or audit.

Please note that all creative writing courses are reserved for BA/MA students.

Courses are offered in the fall and spring semester, with rare summer course offerings. Below is an archive of courses offered in the last several years.