English Graduate Current Courses

2026 - 2027 Graduate Courses

For English Website

All English graduate courses are held on the Rose Hill campus unless otherwise specified. Undergraduate English Majors in their senior year are welcome to request admission to the 5000-level graduate courses listed below.

If you’d like to take one of these courses, please include the specific course(s) in which you are interested and email [email protected]. 

Spring 2027

ENGL 5023: The Phenomenon of Oprah's Book Club (Fridays 2:30 - 5:00 PM, at Lincoln Center)
Dennis Tyler
What happens when one of the world’s most influential media figures tells millions of people what to read? Since its launch in 1996, Oprah’s Book Club (OBC) has reshaped reading culture, boosted book sales, and transformed the ways literature is marketed, discussed, and consumed. Its influence, however, raises bigger questions: How does the practice of reading change when it becomes a mass-media event? And how do race, gender, celebrity, and class shape who has the power to define literary taste?

This course explores OBC as both a literary phenomenon and a cultural force. We will trace the club’s emergence and evolution, examining how Winfrey curates, handles, and circulates books to a mass audience. Through critical discussions of literary culture, celebrity, publishing, and readership, we will investigate how books acquire cultural authority, how readers engage with literature, and who has the power to determine which stories matter. We will also read and closely analyze works featured by OBC. Authors may include Edwidge Danticat, Viola Davis, Tayari Jones, Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, Douglas Stuart, Colson Whitehead, or Ocean Vuong. Students should expect to develop their critical and research skills through a midterm paper and a final research paper.
CRN 53382
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Fulfills H3, DI

ENGL 5134: Queer Theories (Tuesdays, 2:30 PM - 5:00 PM)
Corey McEleney
This course provides a survey of the field(s) of intellectual inquiry known as “queer theory,” which arose in the late 1980s and early 1990s and continues to shape important conversations in the humanities and social sciences. We will begin by considering how queer theory emerged in tandem with a variety of academic, artistic, and activist contexts, such as the AIDS epidemic, lesbian and gay studies, women of color feminism, poststructuralism, and the New Queer Cinema. We will then spend the rest of the semester tracing the contours and limits of queer theory as it has divided and mutated over issues of rhetoric, race, class, disability, gender, religion, and temporality. Because queer theorists have often expressed their ideas in experimental modes of writing that challenge the conventions of scholarly, academic discourse, we will work and play with the styles and forms of their work as much as with the argumentative content.
CRN 53383
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Fulfills DI

ENGL 5137 Literature and Popular Music 60s 70s and Later (Tuesdays, 11:30 - 2:00 PM)
Glenn Hendler
The 1960s saw an explosion of popular music and youth culture that was registered in nonfiction and fiction writing in that decade and afterward. This course will look at some examples of that writing by authors from Terry Southern to Salman Rushdie, from Pamela des Barres to Patti Smith, from Danyel Smith to Daphne Brooks, from Stacey D'Erasmo to Liz Phair. We will also pay close attention to (and listen to) the music that inspired these writers, that they critique and analyze, with special attention to the construction of various "scenes" characterized by racialized, gendered, and sexualized differences: for instance: disco and other dance/club scenes; glam in the UK; Paisley Park in Minneapolis; Laurel Canyon; and punk in its various incarnations. Approaches to the material of the course will likely center on cultural studies as well as sound and music studies; we will read works from both of those fields and others. Students will construct playlists throughout the semester, and will also complete a research project about one of those "scenes" and its literary and/or cinematic representation. 
CRN 53826
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Fulfills, H3, DI        

MVST 5300 Occitania: Language and Power (Fridays, 11:00 - 2:00 PM, at Lincoln Center)
Thomas O’Donnell/Nicholas Paul
This course introduces students to the cultural world of a medieval “south”: Occitania. Texts in Old Occitan include documentary writing, historical narrative, and the poetry of the troubadours. Topics include urban/rural communities, gender and power, the Albigensian crusade and its aftermath and the beginning of vernacular book production.
CRN 53420
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Fulfills, H1

ENGL 5650:  Topics in Writing Studies (Thursdays 2:30 - 5:00 PM)
Elisabeth Buck
This course will survey selected issues in writing studies, with an emphasis on intersectionality. Possible topics including public writing, community writing, theories in writing program administration, WAC/WID, all with attention to the needs of increasingly diverse university settings. May be repeated when topics vary but not more than 2 courses (6 credits) may be applied to the certificate.

Special Topic:
The Spring 2027 course section of ENGL 5650 will examine popular culture through a writing studies lens, exploring key questions about how the popular frames, complicates, and intersects with our understanding of literacy. This class will incorporate disciplinary research methods like autoethnography, ethnography, and discourse analysis to guide students through an exploration of popular culture as a literacy practice.
CRN 53827
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Fulfills Rhetoric & Writing Adv Cert

ENGL 5791: To Bear Witness: Poetry & Social Justice (CW) (Wednesdays, 11:30 PM - 2:00 PM, at Lincoln Center)
Elisabeth Frost
Poets have always sought to address social, personal, and political challenges--upheaval, trauma, and change. But how exactly do we practice writing poetry as witnesses of our own time and of our own lives in context? In this course, we will read and write poetry that seeks to bear witness in a wide range of forms and to an array of social/personal contexts.
CRN 53386
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Fulfills CW

ENGL 5843: Early Women Novelists (Wednesdays, 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM at Lincoln Center)
Susan Greenfield
In this course we will read a selection of early novels by English women authors, including at least some of the following: Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, Eliza Haywood’s Love in Excess, Frances Burney’s Evelina, Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda, Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Amelia Opie’s Adeline Mowbray, and the anonymously authored The Woman of Colour. Our goal is to develop rigorous, historically sensitive, close readings of each novel, in part by focusing on the representation of gender, class and race. The last category is especially important. Several of the novels above feature Black characters and address the slave trade, slavery and/or British colonialism. Given our own moment in history, I believe it is imperative to foreground discussions of race and antiracism, and I will organize my pedagogy accordingly.
CRN 53387
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Fulfills H2

ENGL 5921 (NEW COURSE): For Real: Scenes of U.S. Realism (Mondays, 2:30 - 5:00 PM)
Shonni Enelow
This is a course on realism in U.S. literature, theater, and film. We will think about realism from two angles: as a literary and theatrical movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and as an active aesthetic mode that artists since have used to make claims about perception, history, social relationships, and performance. Works studied may include novels or stories by Henry James and Theodore Dreiser; plays by Susan Glaspell, Tennessee Williams, and Lorraine Hansberry; and films by Charles Burnett, Barbara Loden, and Kelly Reichardt.
CRN 53828
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Fulfills H3

 

ENGL 5115: Internship Seminar (Tutorial) TBA
This seminar is open to graduate students pursuing internships in publishing, museum management, or arts administration during the spring 2021 semester. Please contact the Director of Graduate Studies to make sure that your internship qualifies for course credit.
CRN 44277
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ENGL 5998: MA Capstone
Not Offered Spring 2027
Required course for MA students who wish to fulfill the Capstone assignment. Please contact the DGS if you are unsure about which semester would be best for your Capstone completion.
CRN 45053
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ENGL 5999: THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TEACHING WRITING (Tuesdays, 5:30-8:00 PM)
Crystal Colombini
This course builds on the foundation developed in ENGL 5999 by delving into research-supported best practices for preparing students for diverse writing contexts. Readings and discussions will highlight writing and teaching strategies that support students' critical thinking and writing skills, covering topics related to primary and secondary research, information literacy, discourse and disciplinary communities, rhetorical and audience analysis, multimodal composition, effective response and assessment strategies, cognitive scaffolding and assignment design, and more.
CRN 44282
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ENGL 8935: Dissertation Seminar (Thursdays, 2:30 – 5:00 PM)
Thomas O’Donnell
This 0-credit seminar is designed as a resource for all doctoral students who have passed the comprehensive exam. Students working on the dissertation proposal are encouraged to take this class. During each meeting students will present and respond to work in progress. Across the semester, the seminar will treat challenges of bibliographic research and strategies of effective writing specific to large projects.
CRN 44283
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Required for all PhD students preparing the dissertation prospectus.

Fall 2026

ENGL 5030: Literary multilingualism (Mondays, 2:30 - 5:00 PM)
Sneha Khaund
This course will introduce students to theoretical debates and methods in the field of literary multilingualism. The readings will demonstrate the historical construction and persistence of the “mother tongue” and varied responses to monolingual paradigms, particularly in postcolonial sites. We will examine the significance of vernacular articulations, interplay between dominant and minor languages, and the possibilities as well as limits of translation, among other topics. Authors may include Jacques Derrida, Yasemin Yildiz, Franz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Aimé Césaire, Naoki Sakai, Francesca Orsini, Rita Kothari, Lital Levy, and others.
CRN 55079
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Fulfills H3, DI

ENGL 5031: On Beautiful Dregs: Aesthetics and Dialectics (Tuesdays 5:30 - 8:00 PM)
Moshe Gold/Daniel Contreras
Dregs are impurities rising to the top and also describe the worthless residue settling to the bottom. This connection between rising and depths parallels the dialectic between beauty and ugliness. Important questions about the aesthetic, specifically, the beautiful and the ugly, are central to this seminar, in which we will explore the rich philosophical histories of each. We will cross examine literary, cinematic, and artistic works that deliberately challenge our assumptions about aesthetics. We will value artworks (including disturbing novels and artworks and exploitation films) that have a horrible beauty we may wish to run from, yet we simultaneously long to behold.
CRN 55080
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Fulfills DI

ENGL 5032 Women’s Life Writing (CW) (Wednesdays 5:30 - 8:00 PM, at Lincoln Center)
Stacey D'Erasmo
Master Class: Women's Life Writing
In this class, we will engage with the work of women writing about their lives, as both readers and writers. (Note: the class is open to all genders.) Women shaping the stories of their own lives has been a powerful tradition across centuries and cultures. We will read the work of writers such as Annie Ernaux, Audre Lorde, Melissa Febos, Cathy Park Hong, Natasha Trethewey, and others as well as explore our own life writing.
CRN 55440
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Fulfills CW

ENGL 5111 Race, Religion, Monstrosity in Medieval Literature (Tuesdays 11:30 - 2:00 PM)
Suzanne Yeager
The medieval taste for the exotic has introduced many audiences to a range of monstrous beings, from ferocious giants and dog-headed men to the peace-loving sciapod.  Medieval studies of monstrosity have often been linked solely to the premodern understanding of the exotic East, and have been viewed as attempts to theorize the different human “races” found there.  Crusading further complicated the discourses of monstrosity in the perception of non-Christian religious Other who was perceived, as Debra Higgs-Strickland put it, “as ugly as sin.”  Yet, the medieval language of monstrosity was not always limited to travel narrative, nor to the pejorative, for it was used to describe heroes, saints, even the Christian deity in far more familiar contexts than many would imagine.   In this course we will examine the discourse of monstrosity as a complex critical lens through which premodern writers asked important questions of race, religion, civic virtue, and human morality.  In our study, we will read selections from Pliny, Augustine, and a range of texts, including the Beowulf manuscript, medieval Ethiopian texts, premodern English romance, and Mandeville’s account.
CRN 55441
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Fulfills H1, DI 

ENGL 5660:  Research Methods in Rhetoric & Writing Studies: Rhetorical Methods for Non-Specialists (Special Topic) (RW) (Mondays, 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM)
Catherine Chaput
This seminar will introduce key research paradigms and methodologies in rhetoric and writing, including ethnography, rhetorical field methods, archival research, textual analysis, case studies, qualitative research, discourse studies, and more.
Special Topic:
Rhetorical Methods for Non-Specialists
This course explores multiple methods of rhetorical criticism appropriate for English studies students and other non-specialists interested in learning about how the symbolic sphere influences and acts in the world. With a focus on critical and cultural perspectives, we will survey a variety of methods that assess textual production, representation, circulation, reception, and wider socio-political implications. Across a range of approaches—including close reading and discourse analysis; ideological, affective, and material studies; embodiment and disability studies; publics and counterpublics; narrative, dramatism, and counterstory; among others—the course will provide students with rhetorical tools appropriate for both their research and their teaching. The course is open to all students and requires no previous knowledge.
CRN 56107
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Fulfills Rhetoric & Writing

ENGL 5739:  Modernism in English (Thursdays, 2:30 - 5:00 PM)
Anne Fernald
This course looks at literary modernism in English. Our focus is the US, England, and Ireland, but our reading will take us across the globe. We will look at modernism as a part of and a response to a modernizing world, literary experimentation, political engagement and withdrawal. This literature of the first half of the 20th century responded to changing social roles for women and people of color, burgeoning technology, the emergence of mass media, and two world wars. We will read a mix of canonical, less-well-known, and popular writers, including Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes and many more.
CRN 55443
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Fulfills H3, DI

ENGL 5917: Traversing Asian America (Fridays, 2:30 PM - 5:00 PM, at Lincoln Center)
Stephen Sohn
This course will serve as a broader exploration of Asian American literature and corresponding Asian American cultural criticism. Each week will center a different literary text, which will be paired alongside a critical or theoretical excerpt. Students will thus get introductions into major approaches to the reading of Asian American literature, including social context methodology (Elaine H. Kim, Shirley Geok-lin Lim), psychoanalysis (David L. Eng; Anne Cheng; Juliana Chang), new and racial formalisms (Colleen Lye; Elda Tsou), feminisms (Rachel C. Lee, King-kok Cheung, erin Ninh), queer studies (Christopher Eng; Cynthia Wu); disability/ debility (James Kyung-jin Lee), posthumanisms (Michelle Huang), amongst others. Primary text materials may include: Tessa Hulls’s Feeding Ghosts; Simon Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds; le thi diem thuy’s The Gangster We are All Looking For; Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties; Susie Yang’s White Ivy; Jon Pineda’s Sleep in Me. 
CRN 55442
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Fulfills H3, DI 

ENGL 6378: Reassessing Renaissance Lyric (Fridays, 11:30 - 2:00 PM, at Lincoln Center)
Heather Dubrow
The past few years have witnessed a resurgence of critical interest in early modern/Renaissance lyric. Many methodological issues it raises are germane to the lyric poetry of other periods as well. The questions we will explore include, among others: What are the potentialities and problems of the new formalism? How if at all should close reading be recuperated? How does the new interest in the material text lead us to interpret the visual appearance of lyric poetry, other results of printing and publishing practices, and the poem as artifact or object? In what ways does lyric gender, and in what ways is it gendered? How does space/place theory, more often deployed in relation to drama and prose fiction, illuminate the workings of the lyric? Whereas the primary focus of this seminar is the period between about 1500 and 1660, it is also designed for those with other interest and areas of expertise. If any participants in the group are poets themselves, they will have opportunities to engage with issues of craft and to submit poems in lieu of one of the shorter assignments. And those primarily interested in lyric poetry written in other periods can focus on those texts in at least two classes and if they wish write their seminar papers partle or entirely on it.
CRN 55444
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Fulfills H2

ENGL 5001: Research Methods (Wednesdays, 11:30 - 2:00 PM)
Corey McEleney
An introduction to English studies at the graduate level, emphasizing bibliography, scholarly writing, and critical intervention. Although the emphasis of the course will vary according to the aims of the instructor, areas covered may also include book history, textual editing, historical research, and other issues of professional concern to graduate students.
CRN 13250
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Required for all incoming PhD students.

ENGL 5115: Internship Seminar (Tutorial) TBA
This seminar is open to graduate students pursuing internships in publishing, museum management, or arts administration during the spring 2021 semester. Please contact the Director of Graduate Studies to make sure that your internship qualifies for course credit.
CRN 33500
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ENGL 5998 Master’s Capstone (Tuesdays, 2:30 - 5:00 PM)
Andrew Albin
Seminar for MA students who wish to fulfill the Capstone requirement (note: the Capstone requirement may also be fulfilled, as an independent study, during the spring or summer semesters. Please contact the DGS if you are unsure about which semester would be best for your Capstone completion.
CRN 45455
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 ENGL 6004: Colloquium: Pedagogy Theory Practicum (Thursdays, 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM) 
Caitlin Cawley
This course introduces students to central histories, issues, and debates in writing and rhetorical studies. By highlighting key theoretical and terminological developments, this course lays the way for informed self-reflective practice based in awareness of the most current scholarly work in rhetoric and composition, thereby helping participants start to define their own identities as teachers of first-year composition as well as literature and other courses.
CRN 13269
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ENGL 8935: Dissertation Seminar (Mondays, 11:30 - 2:00 PM)
Thomas O'Donnell 
This 0-credit seminar is designed as a resource for all doctoral students who have passed the comprehensive exam. Students working on the dissertation proposal are encouraged to take this class. During each meeting students will present and respond to work in progress. Across the semester, the seminar will treat challenges of bibliographic research and strategies of effective writing specific to large projects.
CRN 40212
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Required for all PhD students preparing the dissertation prospectus.

ENGL 8936: Issues in Scholarship and Academia (Mondays 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM) 
Andrew Albin
This 0-credit seminar, open to all doctoral students, provides a forum in which to discuss the issues that shape the pursuit of a career professing literature as well as the pursuit of a career outside of the academy. The semester will provide opportunities for workshopping writing-in-process in a collaborative and supportive environment, and for directed conversation on varied aspects of the academic professionalization.
CRN 14025
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