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Department of EnglishMA in English

MA in English

Literature Concentrations

The MA program in English encourages students at once to prepare across several literary periods and genres and—if they wish—to focus their work upon a particular area of study that will lead to a specialized MA thesis. Our goal is a program that is flexible enough to allow at once for broad study of English for those wishing to prepare for a career in secondary teaching, and for sustained work in an area of the student's choice, as preparation either for pursuit of the PhD or for a career in publishing, writing, or a related field. Recent MA graduates have gone on to our own PhD program and to programs at The Ohio State University, University of Missouri, Indiana, Maryland, Purdue, Florida, Rice, and Texas A&M, among others. Others have gone on to successful careers in teaching, publishing, technical writing, and similar fields.

Students wanting to focus in a particular area of literature for their MA in English, whether onsite or online, can select from one of the following areas of emphasis.

Areas of Study

Early British Literature

Early British Literature faculty offer courses in Medieval and Early Modern literatures and cultures that cover early Britain and beyond to encompass premodern global studies. Faculty are experts in Old English, Middle English, and early modern poetry, prose, and drama, including Beowulf, monsters, Arthurian romances, Shakespeare, and Milton. We teach and study travelogues, medieval romance, manuscript studies, theatrical performance, and the history of religious thought in Europe. Learn more about Early British Literature.

Later British Literature

Studying Later British literature with TTU English faculty gives students a wide range of possibilities and approaches. We define Later British literature inclusively: literatures written in Britain and its colonies and former colonies since 1700. Our faculty are experts in eighteenth-century, Romantic, Victorian, modern, and post-modern literature, with particular interests in gender theory, women writers, gothic drama, history of the novel, twentieth-century poetry, book history, digital humanities, and literature and science. Our curriculum fosters critical engagement with literature and culture by challenging students to seek new perspectives and methodologies, from book history to gender studies to postcolonial theory. Learn more about Later British Literature.

American Literature

Marked by the transnational turn in literary studies in the late twentieth century, American literary studies today has undergone a critical reconfiguration, moving from the locus of the Americas and through the transoceanic movements that encompass the evolution of the Atlantic commercial circuit, the formation of the Black Atlantic, and the reimagining of Asia Pacific. Not only has the "New England mind" been reconsidered in relation to "the darker side of Western modernity" and Indigenous experiences, but the South, the West, the Southwest, and the American Pacific have also been re-examined in light of critical regionalism, borderland discourse, environmental justice, and critiques of American exceptionalism. Learn more about American Literature.

Comparative Literature, Globalization, and Translation (CLGT)

CLGT offers students the opportunity to cultivate a wide range of literary interrelations including but not limited to the following: trans-Atlantic studies, trans-Pacific studies, global South studies, hemispheric studies, migration studies, gender studies, studies in religion, Vietnam War studies, translation studies, urban studies, and new media studies. In these concentrations, the aim is not only to move beyond the national framework of literary studies but also to engage global networks of aesthetic, social, cultural, and economic interactions. Moreover, students profit from our faculty specializations by extending literary studies to cultural communication in different artistic forms and literary genres. Learn more about CLGT.

Book History and Digital Humanities

Book history—also called the history of the book—studies the creation, production, circulation, and reception of texts in the broadest possible definition, from oral, written, and printed texts to contemporary forms of visual and digital media. This field includes consideration of the social, cultural, economic, and political history of these different types of texts and considers the various actors and agents at various stages, including authors, printers, binders, publishers, booksellers, readers, and the like.

Digital humanities, in its broadest definition, simply means using digital resources to carry out or to present research in any field of the humanities. Such scholarship in the field of English can include many types of work, including building a digital collection or archive; creating a database; performing textual analysis with Python, R, or similar coding languages; data visualization; and much more. Learn more about Book History and Digital Humanities.

Film and Media Studies

Film & Media Studies (FMS) offers an innovative and interdisciplinary field of specialization for graduate students earning a doctorate or master's degree in English. Working closely with faculty, you can tailor your degree to fit your interests and professional objectives. Our curriculum fosters critical engagement with aesthetics, cultural and historical knowledge of cinematic forms, and the multiple literacies engaged in reading silent and sound moving-image texts. Learn more about Film and Media Studies.

Literature, Social Justice, and Environment (LSJE)

The Literature, Social Justice, and Environment (LSJE) initiative in the Department of English centers upon the most important developments in the study of the natural environment in literature. Issues of race, regionalism, and social justice have been embedded in environmental literature from its beginnings. Most of us know Thoreau wrote Walden but sometimes forget he also wrote "Civil Disobedience." Edward Abbey's MA thesis examined the moral implications of political violence. John Muir not only helped convince Theodore Roosevelt to found the National Park system but also wrote about the forced removal of Yosemite's Native American inhabitants in order to turn the valley into our first wilderness park—a park which would then adopt the image of the "Indian Brave" to grace its front entrance. More recently, Carolyn Merchant has written on the connections between slavery and soil degradation in the American South. Gloria Anzaldúa's metaphor of the borderlands originates in the geographic and psychosocial space of the U.S.-Mexico political boundary. Cherríe Moraga writes about the everyday experience of the environment for queer women of color and defines environment as home, work, food, and body. Learn more about LSJE.