MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH

[Introduction] [Faculty Research & Resources] [Financial Assistance]
[Career Information] [Admissions Information] [Cross-Registration]
[Literature Concentration] [Creative Writing Concentration]
[Composition Course Requirements]

The Faculty

Professors:
Earl R. Anderson
John C. Gerlach, Chair
John A. C. Greppin

Associate Professors:
Nuala Archer
Louis Barbato
Rachel Carnell, Director of Graduate Studies
Gary R. Dyer
Gary Engle
Jeff Ford
Adrienne Gosselin
Jennifer Jeffers
Ted Lardner
David Larson
Sheila Schwartz

Assistant Professors:
Mike Geither
Jeff Karem

Coordinator of Creative Writing:
Neal Chandler

Director of the Writing Center:
Mary Murray

Emeritus Faculty:
Glending Olson
David Richardson

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Introduction

The Master of Arts in English offers two concentrations, literature and creative writing. The literature concentration emphasizes research and the application of various critical approaches to problems in literature and composition. The creative writing concentration emphasizes professional writing and the analysis of literary works from the point of view of the practitioner. Both concentrations provide graduate students with course work in practical criticism, electives in literature and linguistics, and opportunities for the study of composition theory and the practice of teaching writing to beginning students.

The program is designed to meet the needs of part-time and full-time students. Core courses and graduate seminars are offered in the evenings. Students are advised to take their core course requirements during their first two semesters of graduate study.

The Master of Arts program in English is governed by a departmental Committee on Graduate Studies, chaired by the Director of Graduate Studies. The Committee on Graduate Studies administers admission of new students, appointment of graduate assistants, selection of Andrews Award winners, student petitions, and policy issues concerning the Master of Arts curriculum.

Prospective and current students should consult the Handbook for Graduate Studies in English at www.csuohio.edu/english/grhandbook.htm.

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Faculty Research and Resources

The graduate faculty of the English Department have published over 30 books and several hundred major articles in the fields of literary scholarship, linguistics, and critical theory. The range of research interests is illustrated by a partial list of books published by the faculty. Medieval and Renaissance studies are represented by Glending Olson’s Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages (Cornell University Press), Earl Anderson’s Cynewulf (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press), David Richardson’s The Spenser Encyclopedia (University of Toronto Press), and Richardson’s four volumes of Sixteenth-Century British Nondramatic Writers in the Gale Research Dictionary of Literary Biography. Nineteenth-century and modern studies are represented by Gary Dyer’s British Satire and the Politics of Style (Cambridge University Press), Adrienne Gosselin’s Multicultural Detective Fiction: Murder from the “Other” Side (Garland), Jennifer Jeffers’ The Irish Novel at the End of the Twentieth Century:  Gender, Bodies and Power (Palgrave) and Jeff Karem’s The Romance of Authenticity (University of Virginia Press) . Critical theory is represented by John Gerlach’s Closure and Structure in the American Short Story (University of Alabama Press), Earl Anderson’s Grammar of Iconism (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press), and Folk-Taxonomies in Early English (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press) and Jennifer Jeffers’s  Uncharted Space:  The End of Narrative (Peter Lang Publishers). Linguistics and philology are represented by John Greppin’s Medieval Arabic-Armenian Botanical Dictionary (Vienna: Mechitaristen-Buchdruckerei), The Diffusion of Greek Medicine into the Middle East and the Caucasus (Caravan), and 14 other books.

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The creative-writing faculty have published poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction in dozens of creative-writing periodicals. Book titles include, in the field of fiction, Sheila Schwartz’s Imagine a Great White Light, winner of the Pushcart Editor’s Book Award, and Neal Chandler’s Benediction (University of Utah Press), and, in the field of poetry, Nuala Archer’s From a Mobile Home (Galway: Salmon Press).

The English Department is home to The Cleveland State University Poetry Center, which has published more than 125 poetry books since 1971 and averages three new books a year. Recent publications include Gaspar Pedro Gonzalez’s A Dry Season: Poems in Q’anjob’al Maya (one of the few books of contemporary Mayan poetry to be published anywhere), Alison Luterman’s The Largest Possible Life, and Ohio poet Nin Andrews’ The Book of Orgasms. The Poetry Center has won several national and regional awards for its publications. Carol Potter’s Short History of Pets won the 2001 Balconnes Prize for Poetry. Jared Carter’s After the Rain won the 1995 Poets’ Prize. In 1996, The Poetry Center’s Off the Page, a videotape of performance poetry, won the Ohio Board of Regents’ W. E. B. DuBois Award for Service to the Community.

The English Department houses three journals: the Annual of Armenian Linguistics; Raft: a Journal of Armenian Literature and Criticism;  and Whiskey Island, a student-edited literary magazine.

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Financial Assistance

Graduate assistantships in English provide students with an opportunity to teach in the Writing Center, assist faculty on editorial or other academic projects, and in some cases to teach Freshman English classes. All graduate assistantships provide tuition waivers and a stipend. A few tuition waivers may be available for part-time students. Students must apply by February 1 in order to be considered for a graduate assistantship in the following academic year. The department also provides tuition scholarships as prizes in annual creative-writing contests and an annual Andrews Award, a cash prize (normally $1,000) to assist a graduate student in the completion of a thesis of exceptional merit.

Career Information

Students who are pursuing the M.A. in English as a means of enhancing their teaching careers should select the literature concentration but should also take ENG 512 Craft of Literature. Students who are taking the M.A. as preparation for doctoral study in English should select the literature concentration, should take as many research seminars (ENG 695) as possible, and should take ENG 506 Composition Theory in order to enhance their eligibility for doctoral teaching assistantships at other universities. This course of study is also recommended for students who are preparing for careers teaching writing or administering writing centers in community colleges and schools. Cross-listed electives in linguistics are offered for students who are pursuing Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) endorsement concurrently with the M.A. in English. The creative writing concentration is recommended for students who desire increased competitiveness in creative and professional writing fields or in allied careers in editing, communications, and public relations.

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Admissions Information

To be admitted to the M.A. program in English, an applicant must have a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university with an overall grade-point average of 2.75 or higher and a 3.00 average in courses in English. Applicants must provide transcripts of all previous college work, two letters of recommendation, and a writing sample. Applicants desiring admission to the literature concentration should submit a sample of academic writing, normally a research paper from an undergraduate literature course. Applicants desiring admission to the creative writing concentration should submit a portfolio of their creative work in addition to an analytical paper. Admission to the creative writing concentration is a separate decision made by the creative writing faculty once a student has been admitted into the M.A. program.

An applicant whose undergraduate major was in a field other than English may be required to take a certain number of undergraduate English courses as a condition for admission to the M.A. program. These courses do not count toward degree requirements.

Cross-Registration

Students may petition the Committee on Graduate Studies to take up to eight elective credits in graduate courses outside the English Department, in cases where such courses meet the students’ particular research needs. A student combining TESOL endorsement with the M.A. in English, for example, may be allowed to count graduate-level Methods in TESOL as English electives.

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Literature Concentration:

Degree Requirements

(33 credits minimum)

1. Core courses (eight credits): ENG 510 and ENG 511.
2. Graduate seminars (eight credits): ENG 695 (taken twice, with change of topic).
3. Electives (12 credits): courses numbered ENG 506 and higher; at least one additional graduate seminar is recommended.
4. Thesis (five credits): ENG 699. To earn these credits, the student must prepare an acceptable master’s thesis of 30 to 50 pages, written under the direction of two English graduate faculty members.
5. A successful master’s examination based on the student’s thesis topic.

Creative Writing Concentration:

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Degree Requirements

(33 credits minimum)

1. Core courses (eight credits): ENG 510 and ENG 512
2. Graduate seminars (eight credits): ENG 695 (taken twice, with change of topic); creative writing students may substitute ENG 535 or another modern or contemporary literature course for one of the 695 seminars.
3. Electives (12 credits): courses numbered ENG 506 and higher; at least one creative writing course (ENG 580 or ENG 602) is recommended.
4. Thesis (five credits): ENG 699. To earn these credits, the student must be accepted into the creative writing program and must prepare a successful master’s creative writing project under the direction of two English graduate faculty members, viz., a collection of short stories, essays, or poems, or a play or part of a novel, judged to be of high quality.
5. A successful master’s examination based on the student’s creative writing project.

Composition course requirements for teaching assistants: Graduate students who are beginning as teaching assistants must take ENG 506 (four credits) and 507 (one credit). Graduate students who completed ENG 308 Composition Theory as undergraduates are required to attend ENG 506 sessions in fall semester but should not register for credit for this course. Graduate students who completed four credits of ENG 309 Writing Center Practicum as undergraduates are required to attend ENG 507 workshops in fall semester but should not register for credit for this course.

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Courses

ENG 503 Intermediate English as a Second Language Speaking Skills (4-0-4). Spoken English for non-native, international graduate students.  Practice in speaking and listening to American English.  Recognition and production of sounds, rhythm, and intonation patterns at intermediate level.  Development of competence and confidence in listening comprehension and speaking skills in both academic and general conversation within supportive structured and non-structured situations.

ENG 504 Communication Skills for International Teaching Assistants (4-0-4). This course is designed to improve the communications skills of international teaching assistants.  It will focus on improving pronunciation and language use in the classroom, general teaching skills, and understanding the American educational system.

ENG 506 Composition Theory (4-0-4). Advanced study in expository writing: writing processes, reading and writing, rhetoric, evaluation, and pedagogy. Offered fall semester. Required of beginning teaching assistants, except for those who took ENG 308 Composition Theory as undergraduates.

ENG 507 Workshop in Teaching (1-5-1). Relation of composition theory to the practice of tutoring and teaching. Required for teaching assistants, except for those who took ENG 309 Writing Center Practicum as undergraduates. Meets once a week during fall and spring semesters. If credits are taken in fall semester, they will be graded T, with the grade assigned at the end of spring semester. Students may, if they wish, begin participating in ENG 507 in fall semester and register for ENG 507 credits in spring semester rather than in fall. May be taken S/F.

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ENG 508 Writing Institute For Teachers (two to four credits). Workshop and practicum in the teaching of writing, exploring current trends such as whole language approaches, writing across the curriculum, or writing about the arts. When offered in summer as SWIFT, this course is presented in collaboration with the Great Lakes Theater Festival.

ENG 509 Technical Writing (two or three credits). Preparation of reports, scientific papers, and other genres of technical writing, with emphasis on audience, voice, the proper formatting of data, and the integration of text with graphic and visual material. When offered for three credits, the course includes a major writing project as well as shorter assignments.

ENG 510 Practical Criticism (4-0-4). Essentials of practical criticism with emphasis on close reading of selected masterworks that represent various genres and historical contexts. Core course required of all M.A. candidates. Offered fall semester.

ENG 511 Critical Approaches to Literature (4-0-4). Critical approaches to literature and the theories that underlie them, including formalist, reader response, deconstructionist, new historicist, feminist, and other post-structuralist approaches. Core course required for M.A. candidates in the literature concentration. Offered spring semester.

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ENG 512 Craft of Literature (4-0-4). Genres of fiction, poetry, and drama studied with an emphasis on the craft of the practitioner. Literary texts are used to demonstrate the formal range of the genres studied. Craft exercises are used to explicate the operations and assumptions underlying literary techniques. Core course required for M.A. candidates in the creative writing concentration. Offered spring semester.

ENG 513 Language of Literature (4-0-4). Literary discourse; topics center on the structure and form of literary expressiveness; option and choice; linguistic form as the expression of meaning. Counts as an introductory linguistics course in the TESOL endorsement program.

ENG 514 Studies in Linguistics (4-0-4). Topics include historical linguistics, history of the English language, grammar, sociolinguistics, or analysis of an uncommonly taught language such as Sanskrit or Armenian. May be repeated with change of topic. Courses count as TESOL endorsement electives. Note: when the topic is Modern English Grammar, ENG 514 counts as an introductory linguistics course in the TESOL endorsement program.

ENG 515 Studies in Rhetoric (4-0-4). Authors, themes, genres, or periods in the theory and practice of rhetoric.

ENG 516 Style, Voice, and Persona (4-0-4). Experiments in the deliberate creation of authorial voice and persona through the manipulation of linguistic tools such as diction, syntax, and punctuation.

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ENG 531 Studies in Medieval Literature (4-0-4). Topics include Arthurian tradition, women and writing in the Middle Ages, Chaucer, Malory, or courses in medieval genres or themes. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 532 Studies in Renaissance Literature (4-0-4). Sixteenth- and 17th-century authors, genres, themes, or movements including humanism, the Reformation, metaphysical and cavalier poetry, scientific empiricism, and neo-classicism. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 533 Studies in Restoration and 18th-Century Literature (4-0-4). Authors, genres, themes, or movements in 18th-century poetry, fiction, and drama. Topics include the Enlightenment, satire, rise of the novel, and neo-classical and pre-Romantic poetry. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 534 Studies in 19th-Century British Literature (4-0-4).  Authors, genres, themes, or movements in 19th-century poetry, fiction, and drama.  Possible topics include Romantic-era women writers, the literature of British imperialism, and the fiction of Jane Austen.  May be taken up to three times with change of topic.     

ENG 535 Studies in 20th-Century Literature (4-0-4). Modern and contemporary authors, genres, themes, or movements. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 545 Studies in American Literature(4-0-4). Authors, genres, themes, or movements of significance in American literature. May be repeated with change of topic.

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ENG 547 Studies in African-American Literature (4-0-4). Authors, themes, or movements of significance in African-American literature. Topics include slave narratives, Harlem renaissance, literature of the 1950s, and African-American women authors. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 548 Studies in Multicultural Literature (4-0-4). Authors, genres, themes, or movements representing the ethnic diversity of modern American literature. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 553 Studies in Themes, Genres, or Individual Works of Literature (two to four credits). Literary themes, genres, or works significant in British, American, European, or world literature. Topics in the past have included European Romanticism, the Faust theme, and Literature and Science. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 563 Gender Issues in Literature (4-0-4). Studies in gender theory and gender issues in literature. Topics may include contemporary feminist themes; the intersection of gender, race, and class; the relationship of gender to voice; technique and genre; and how questions of language are linked to these issues. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 575 Major Author (4-0-4). Intensive study of a single major author. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 580 Imagination Conference (4-0-4). Prerequisite: Permission of instructor, based on manuscript submission. Intensive five-day summer workshop with visiting writers (fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction); “craft” analyses of creative writing. Students complete a manuscript at the end of the semester as well as an essay about technical or craft elements. In addition to tuition, students are charged a Workshop and Materials Fee. Additional information is available at the Imagination Conference web site at www.csuohio.edu/poetrycenter/imagination. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 596 Independent Study (one to four credits). Prerequisite: Prior written approval from Graduate Committee. Study of a topic not offered as a regular course, under the supervision of a graduate faculty member.  The total of ENG 596 coursework may not exceed 8 credits.

ENG 602 Creative Writing (4-0-4). Prerequisite: Admission to the creative writing concentration or permission of instructor. Graduate-level work in the writing of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and drama. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 695 Graduate Seminar (4-0-4). Study of an important topic in literary or cultural history, criticism, or rhetoric, with special emphasis on methods of analysis and research. May be repeated with change of topic.

ENG 699 Thesis (one to four credits, repeated for a minimum total of five credits).  Writing of a Master’s Project under the direction of a faculty member.  Required for all M.A. degree candidates.

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