MA in English
Overview
Recognizing the need to combine scholarly rigor with the challenge of new thinking and objects of study, our two-year MA program is based on a commitment to ground the study of texts and discourses in a serious engagement with the theoretical and critical debates of our time. We encourage students to think across and beyond disciplinary or programmatic boundaries, and to engage with issues in cultural history, knowledge formation, creative intellectual practice, media studies, and critical pedagogy.
Though the MA is a terminal degree, all students take courses offered in conjunction with our PhD program in Cultural and Critical Studies. Students can elect to concentrate their elective work broadly across English studies, or they can focus their coursework in the programmatic areas of the department: literature, film studies, composition, and children’s literature.
Students enter our MA program for a variety of reasons, though all are interested in gaining more advanced work in English before moving on to a PhD program or to careers in the public or private sector.
Admissions
The number of students entering the MA program varies each year, though we generally aim to admit around 10. Our students come from colleges and universities from all over the U.S. and the world. (Generally students who apply from foreign institutions should have an MA or its equivalent before they can be admitted. For more information, please consult the website for the Office of International Services.) For more information on admissions requirements and access to admissions forms, please follow the link to Application Forms and Requirements in the right-hand box on this page.
Financial Assistance
Ordinarily we cannot extend departmental forms of financial assistance to MA students, although students can apply for other forms of financial assistance through the University. For information on University forms of financial assistance, please go to the website for the Financial Aid Office.