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English Courses
ENGL 600 Studies in Criticism +
Description:
Study of the nature and function of literature, the terms and methods of analysis and evaluation of literature, and the various approaches possible in the criticism of literature. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 601 Studies in Poetry +
Description:
Studies of poetry movements, individual poets, or particular formal or thematic topics in poetry. Topics have included: Contemporary Women Poets,Seamus Heaney, Elizabeth Bishop. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 602 Studies in Fiction +
Description:
Studies in the nature of prose fiction and its major kinds; topics in the history and sociology of narrative fiction, such as the working class novel, the short story, the prose romance, the historical novel; and studies of representative British and American types in international contexts. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 603 Studies in Drama +
Description:
A course for those who want a broad view of the sweep of Western drama, offering a study of the art of drama as it has evolved from classical Greece. Representative plays are drawn from various periods (medieval, Renaissance, Augustan, romantic, and modern) and from the major modes (tragedy, comedy, farce, realism, expressionism, and the absurdist and social theater). Selected critical works are also considered. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 605 Studies in Literature and Film +
Description:
This course examines the relationship between fiction and film, examining issues of representation, adaptation, narrative, composition, and cultural construction. Students will explore how these verbal and visual genres connect by asking questions such as: How does storytelling operate in each genre? How does each genre rely on narrative structures such as causality and chronology? How does film develop and change literary elements such as symbolism? How does literature and film create an audience that knows its conventions? This course addresses topics such as modern life as created by fiction and film, and internationalism in contemporary British fiction and film. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 610 The Teaching of Composition +
Description:
This course defines the role of composition in the English curriculum in both college and secondary schools; develops a philosophy of language as a foundation for a method of composing; studies psychological and linguistic aspects of the composing process. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 611 The Teaching of Literature +
Description:
This course develops a theory and practice for the teaching of literature, applicable to both secondary and post-secondary education. The class reads, discusses, and analyzes sample presentations on literary texts in a variety of genres. The course serves teachers, prospective teachers, and non-teachers who seek an introduction to literature from pedagogical points of view. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 613 Teaching English with Technology +
Description:
This course explores the potential uses of technology in the teaching of classes in English Studies. It situates this work within disciplinary pedagogical theory as it relates to the traditional areas of English Studies--composition, literature, and language. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 621 Literary Theory Today +
Description:
What is ''literary theory'' and why should it matter? Pursuing a rigorous course of readings and writings, this course will seek to answer these related questions by introducing graduate students to several traditions of twentieth and twenty-first century thought that have been of fundamental importance to the study of literature. Literary theory has made possible a much broader and richer encounter with texts of all kinds, from novels, poems, and plays to films, media, and the visual arts; this course seeks to understand how and why literary theory encourages new experiences and understandings of texts. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 622 Ecocriticism: Environmental Criticism and Literature +
Description:
Ecocriticism is an emerging branch of literary criticism concerned with the relationships between literature and the physical world. This course will explore how theoretical understandings of the environment can be brought to literature of the environment. In the seminar students will develop a critical vocabulary and range of methodologies for discussing such topics as: the cultural construction of nature; the poetics and politics of nature writing; land as readable text; the idea of wilderness; land as economic and spiritual resource; Native American literature; ''green'' pedagogy; sense of place; nature and community; gender and nature; ecofeminism; and the relationship of natural science and nature writing. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 624 Language of Film +
Description:
This theory-based study in the ''languages'' of film, American and international, concerns the ways films signify. Emphasizing the crafting of films more than any particular thematic content, it explores mise-en-scene, framing, lighting, editing, camera work, sound, editing, genre, and acting as these mediate film narratives an , so, comprise their discourses. The course also explores structures of film narration as they relate to literary narration; it includes contextual consideration of history and ideology as these interact with film production and reception. Primary texts will include readings in literary and film theory, films and film excerpts, and literature. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 628 Comparative Studies of Two Writers +
Description:
A comparative study of two major American, British, or postcolonial writers. The pairing of two writers provides a comparison of works that present affinities and oppositions in social context or theme so as to pose theoretically interesting questions for discussion, critical analysis, and further research. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 631 Medieval to Renaissance Literature +
Description:
A course in the transition from medieval to Renaissance literature. A study of the transition in prose from homiletic writings and the romances through Elyot, Ascham, and Lyly; in lyric and narrative verse from Chaucer and the Scottish Chaucerians through Sidney; and in drama from the morality and mystery plays through Hamlet. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 633 Shakespeare +
Description:
This course considers Shakespeare's dramatic art as an art of coaching an audience (and readers) in how to respond to and understand his make-believes. Multiple plotting, recurring situation, contrasts and parallels in character and character relations (especially the use of theatricalizing characters who stage plays within the play), patterns of figurative language, repetition of visual effects these and other such ''structures'' will be considered as means whereby Shakespeare coaxes and coaches the perception of his audience, shapes the participation of mind and feeling, and especially, prepares audiences for comic or tragic outcomes. The plays are studied in the light of ongoing critical and/or theoretical debates. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 641 Studies in Romanticism +
Description:
This course examines the different literary movements that make up the Romantic Period (generally 1780-1832). It offers a comparative study of canonical Romantic Period writers and those writers who raised other kinds of questions. In so doing, it explores what it was like to live and write in the culture of this period and asks: What are the stresses on literary production, and what are the terms of aesthetic, subjective, and imagistic difference between male and female writers? More Info
Offered in:ENGL 646 Literature and Society +
Description:
A study of literature with special reference to its social and historical circumstances and of the theoretical questions raised by such a perspective. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 648 Modernism in Literature +
Description:
''On or about December 1910,'' Virginia Woolf wrote, ''human nature changed.'' This course examines the trans-Atlantic modernism(s) that arose in the early twentieth century in response to the epochal shifts that Woolf described. We will read poetry, prose, and theory by American and British modernists such as Woolf, Stein, Joyce, Eliot, Faulkner, Toomer, Lawrence, Williams, H.D., and Hurston in the context of historical, political, social, and scientific changes as well as in the context of the cultural changes-in art, music, film, architecture-that surrounded and influenced their aesthetic projects. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 651 Nineteenth Century American Literature +
Description:
The nineteenth century brought unprecedented growth and change to the United States. Industry, immigration, urbanization, the Civil War, social justice movement, the end of slavery, and reconstruction marked the country's move from nascent republic to international power. American writers grappled with these changes as they contributed to the development of a national literature: a literature that would, in Walt Whitman's words, be both transcendent and new. This course will consider both canonized and less familiar texts of the period through a variety of approaches, topics, and themes. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 653 Major American Novelists +
Description:
An in-depth study of two or three American novelists, considered comparatively. Possible authors to be studied include Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, James, Wharton, Chopin, Cather, Dreiser, Faulkner, Hemingway, Ellison, Morrison. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 655 The Harlem Renaissance +
Description:
This seminar will examine some of the major literary works of the Harlem Renaissance (also known as the New Negro movement), which flourished between the end of the World War I and the 1929 stock market crash. We will consider how the texts interact with one another thematically, politically, and aesthetically; how architects of the movement defined the New Negro and her/his are; and how contemporary critics have reconstructed the Harlem Renaissance as a major American literary period. Through the study of African-American modernism, this seminar will explore its larger implications for literary studies: the role of literature and other cultural expressions in realizing and representing ''imagined communities,'' in resisting and reinforcing political and social discourses, and in reflecting its own potentials and limitations in defining a social self. Authors will include W.E.B Du Bois, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Claude Mckay. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 663 Revolutionary Romanticism +
Description:
Who were the really revolutionary thinkers and writers in the ''Age of Revolution,'' as the Romantic Period is also known? To consider this questions, this course will understand revolution in the sense of a ''family affair.'' The Family unit was an operative ideological concept for very different kinds of revolutions, from the politics of liberation to the feminist revolution in education and social practices. Orienting this affair will be what we can call ''the First Family'' of revolutionary thought, which is not that of the French king and his famous queen Marie Antoinette, nor that of the mad George III and his politically rebellious son, later George IV, but that of the Godwin-Shelley Circle. The primary members of this circle are William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley (who came to study at Godwin's feet and instead eloped with his daughter). Behind his family romance of ''free love,'' revolution, and theories of education lie the political thought of highly influential figures such as Rousseau, and the feminist politics of care, a contribution to the enduring problem of ethical action (best articulated for the Romantics by Spinoza). Both revolution and care as ethical action struggle against the increasingly dominant ideology of the aesthetic for this family that combines and traverses the standard period division into ''first generation'' and ''second generation'' Romantics. As we read our primary writers, we will bring in other thinkers and materials to provide both historical and literary contexts, genre contrasts, and contemporary interventions in these dramatic and self-dramatizing issues. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 667 Seminar for Tutors +
Description:
This course teaches graduate students to tutor undergraduate students who are taking Freshman English 101 and 102 at UMass Boston. It features readings, writing, and discussion on the theoretical and practical issues one encounters in working as a composition tutor. Tutors learn to apply research about tutoring to the specific context of the undergraduate classroom, learning not only about tutoring goals and practices, but also about the UMass Boston Freshman English program's philosophy and the UMass Boston undergraduate experience. This knowledge provides a foundation for further teaching at UMass Boston. All elements of the course combine to provide an intellectual framework for articulation and synthesis of, as well as reflection on, what is learned in the work experience of the tutor. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 668 Perspectives on Composition +
Description:
This course involves the sustained study of significant theory, concept, issue, or method in composition, whether an historical survey or a timely twenty-first century debate. Such topics might include feminism, multimodality, or process. The selected topic will be examined through multiple theoretical, historical, political, and ethical lenses in order to trace the broader terrain of the field of composition. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 669 Writing Theories in Second Language Instruction +
Description:
This course will consider the key issues in writing theory, research, and pedagogy as they are specifically related to writing in a second language. It will introduce students to the existing research and developing theories on the composing process and examine, critique, and evaluate current and traditional theories and practices by exploring the ways in which theory and research can be translated into instruction. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 670 Philosophy and the Composing Process +
Description:
Current rhetorical theory emphasizing the process of composing has developed several models (e.g., pre-writing, writing, re-writing) which are nevertheless linear. But writers and teachers of writing need ways of apprehending the all-at-onceness of composition. This seminar offers opportunities to develop philosophical perspectives on perception and forming; language and the making of meaning; interpretation in reading and teaching. The course explores the pedagogical and practical implications of a broad range of theories of language and knowing by means of experimental writing and by the study of essays, letters, talks, and other materials by scientists, artists, and philosophers. This course is recommended for students choosing to concentrate in composition for the English MA, at or near the start of their programs. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 672 Research in Writing Studies +
Description:
This graduate seminar explores the ways that composition and rhetoric scholars make and support knowledge claims by investigating both research in the discipline and the methods and methodologies that undergird that research. Geared towards helping students generate research projects through an informed framing of inquiry, this course provides an introduction to epistemology in writing studies-an introduction that provides a framework for understanding how writing is and has been studied. This focus on knowledge-making is operationalized through a range of methods for conducting research on writing. Students will learn to critically read research publications in composition and rhetoric; they will also learn to develop and pursue their own research projects. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 673 Digital Writing +
Description:
As writing increasingly moves from the printed page to the screen and beyond, writers have at their disposal a fuller range of expressive modes and means of communication, including but not limited to linear alphabetic text. This workshop/studio course invites students to explore these possibilities by experimenting with their writing in digital platforms. Students engage born-digital texts alongside of traditional print-based genres and consider the relationship between written, audio-visual and/or interactive modes. Classes include craft-based discussions, peer critiques, and hands-on instruction in media production software, which prepare students to produce their own creative digital texts through a series of independent writing projects. This course welcomes students from all backgrounds; no specialized technical skills are expected or required. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 674 Writing and Community +
Description:
This class explores the 'public turn' of literacy and composition studies - a movement that recognizes and engages with literate activity occurring beyond the academy: in community centers, in homes, in the streets, and in other alternative spaces for rhetorical education and literate practice. This course will prepare students to develop thoughtful pedagogies that engage with public writing and community literacy. To support and practice literacy research and activism outside of the university classroom, and to gain a deeper understanding of the intersections between literacy and composition studies. Whenever possible, a sustained engagement project with local community partners will serve as a touchstone of the course. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
ENGL 675 Reading and Writing Poetry +
Description:
This is a graduate poetry workshop for both experienced writers and students with little poetry-writing experience. For more experienced writers, the concentration is on developing skills, with a chance to extend range by studying great poems in form and in free verse. For students newer to writing poetry, or students who simply wish to learn more about poetry, this is a chance to develop your skills from the inside, through studying poems by accomplished poets in various forms, including free verse, and through the actual practice of writing in these forms. The main work of the semester is writing poems, but there are assignments requiring a critical response to other poets. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 676 Reading and Writing Fiction +
Description:
This is a graduate fiction workshop for both experienced writers and students with little fiction-writing experience. For more experienced writers, the concentration is on developing skills, with a chance to extend range by studying writers like Mary Gaitskill, Denis Johnson, Geoff Dyer, Lorrie Moore, Steven Millhauser, and Chuck Palahniuk. Fiction-writing assignments are connected to reading assignments. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 681 Advanced Workshop in Poetry +
Description:
An advanced poetry workshop in which students practice and improve the poetic skills they have already begun to develop by focusing on a pre-approved project for the semester. Class discussion focuses on student work, and individual conferences with the instructor are required. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 682 Advanced Workshop in Fiction +
Description:
An advanced fiction workshop in which students improve the writing skills they have already begun to develop by focusing on a pre-approved project for the semester. All students read contemporary fiction throughout the semester. Class discussion focuses on student work, and individual conferences with the instructor are required. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 688 Final Project in Pedagogy +
Description:
Provides a structure for students working toward completion of the final exercise (capstone) requirement in pedagogy. A project proposal is required and must be approved by the faculty supervisor of the project and by the Graduate Program Director. Paper plans and drafts are studied and critiqued in regular tutorial conferences with individual faculty supervisors, or examination materials and sample questions are analyzed. The final paper or examination is assessed by graduate faculty readers. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 689 English Studies Workshop +
Description:
This one credit course meets in evening workshops held at regular intervals (every two weeks). The central goal of the English Studies Workshop is to engage MA students in an understanding of the latest developments in the field of English. The workshop sessions take a variety of forms, typically featuring a presentation led by a faculty member; they also include less traditional experiences, such as visits to area research libraries. The workshops encourage students to have an experiential engagement with English's latest research, theoretical, pedagogical, creative, professional, and career trends, while also showing student show those trends inform the MA program. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 690 English Research Workshop +
Description:
This one credit course meets in evening workshops held at regular intervals (every two weeks). The central goal of the English Research Workshop is to prepare MA students for the final project. Research exercises will move student through the steps needed to create a successful final project, such as :formulating a viable research topic, locating an advisor, understanding research methodology, selecting models of research and writing in professional journals, compiling an annotated bibliography, and creating a research calendar. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 691 Final Project in Composition +
Description:
This course provides a structure for students working toward completion of the final exercise (capstone) requirement in composition. A project proposal is required and must be approved by the faculty supervisor of the project and by the Graduate Program Director. Paper plans and drafts are studied and critiqued in regular tutorial conferences with individual faculty supervisors, or examination materials and sample questions are analyzed. The final paper or examination is assessed by graduate faculty readers. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 692 Final Project in Creative Writing +
Description:
This course provides a structure for students working toward completion of the final exercise (capstone) requirement in creative writing and supplements work done in creative writing workshops. A project proposal is required and must be approved by the faculty supervisor of the project, by the Director of Creative Writing, and by the Graduate Program Director. Drafts are studied and critiqued in regular tutorial conferences with individual faculty supervisors. The final manuscript is assessed by graduation faculty readers. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 693 Final Project in Literature +
Description:
Provides a structure for students working toward completion of the final exercise (capstone) requirement in literature. A project proposal is required and must be approved by the faculty supervisor of the project and by the Graduate Program Director. Paper plans and drafts are studied and critiqued in regular tutorial conferences with individual faculty supervisors, or examination materials and sample questions are analyzed. The final paper or examination is assessed by graduate faculty readers. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 694 Graduate Internship in English +
Description:
The Graduate Internship in English allows students to explore possible careers connected to and furthered by the postgraduate study of English. Internships take place within a wide variety of fields that feature an applied use of English, including publishing, marketing, publicity, professional writing, creative writing, library work, and non-profit administration. Internships can include experiences such as organizing rare books materials for a Boston area library, leading literacy workshops for a non-profit organization, or composing publicity materials in a corporate setting. The Graduate Internship affords students the opportunity to bring the ideas and skills learned in English MA courses to the workplace. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 695 Independent Study +
Description:
A comprehensive study of a particular area of literature, particular author, or specialized topic not offered in regular seminars. Consultation with the director of graduate studies is mandatory. Students arrange a project with a faculty member who approves a project proposal, providing a description or outline of the research and writing work to be undertaken and a bibliography of reading. The project must be approved by the Graduate Program Director. Project proposals must be submitted by the end of the semester previous to the one in which the study is to take place. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 696 Independent Study +
Description:
A comprehensive study of a particular area of literature, particular author, or specialized topic not offered in regular seminars. Consultation with the director of graduate studies is mandatory. Students arrange a project with a faculty member who approves a project proposal, providing a description or outline of the research and writing work to be undertaken and a bibliography of reading. The project must be approved by the Graduate Program Director. Project proposals must be submitted by the end of the semester previous to the one in which the study is to take place. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 697 Special Topics in Literature and Composition +
ENGL 698 Teaching Fellows Seminar +
Description:
This seminar is for both composition and literature teaching fellows during their first teaching semester. It involves a preliminary summer workshop and weekly meetings and classroom visits during the semester. The course is team-taught by the two faculty supervisors, with students divided into a composition and a literature section according to their teaching fellowship appointment. The seminar develops more fully the pedagogical and content material covered in ENGL 610 and 611. It involves collaborative work (particularly in designing a joint syllabus, reading list, and assignments for the undergraduate composition and literature sections to be taught by teaching fellows), classroom research, and reflective reports. More Info
Offered in:ENGL 699 Master of Art Thesis +
Description:
A substantial project of approximately 60 pages in literature, composition, or creative writing. Creative writing students will include a related analytical paper with their manuscript. A thesis proposal is required and must be approved by the student's faculty supervisor of the thesis and by the Graduate Program Director. In the case of creative writing theses, approval by the Director of Creative Writing is also required. The student works under the supervision of a faculty thesis director in regular tutorial conferences. Students should begin working on their project a full semester before the semester in which the project is due. The thesis will be read by a committee of three graduate faculty members who will judge its suitability as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree. Finally, a thesis defense before the student's committee and open to all members of the English Department will take place. More Info
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