Department of English (Graduate)

Website URL:

https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/graduate_students/index.html

Department/School Head:

Nancy J. Peterson

Admission Requirements:

Certificate Program Basic Requirements

• Undergraduate Cumulative Grade Point Average:
  3.0 or equivalent required
• Personal statement
• Two letters of recommendation
• Two official transcripts
• Writing sample

Master’s Degree Program Basic Requirements

You should send us a statement of purpose, telling us about your intellectual history, development, and academic and professional goals, and a writing sample ( a 10-15 page critical essay written for a course in English or one of the other humanities), plus three letters of recommendation. No applicant will be considered until all the required materials have been received.

Applicants for Creative Writing need to submit a critical writing sample AND recent samples of writing - a group of 8-10 poems if applying in poetry; 2 to 3 short stories (or a novel excerpt) if applying in fiction. Please include a brief response to these questions: Whose work do you admire? What collections of poetry and/or works of fiction read in the last year have been important to you and why?

• Undergraduate Cumulative Grade Point Average:
  3.0 or equivalent required.
• Graduate Record Examination (GRE):
  Required - Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical
• Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Subject Test:
  Test in English Literature not required, but recommended for students applying to Literary Studies.

Doctoral Degree Program Basic Requirements

You should send us a statement of purpose, telling of your intellectual history and development, and of your specific goals in research and teaching. You should also send a writing sample, a 10-15 page critical essay written for one of your classes as a master’s student, plus three letters of recommendation. No applicant will be considered until all the required materials have been received.

• Master’s Degree Completion:
  Required.
• Graduate Record Examination (GRE):
  Required - Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical
• Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Subject Test:
  Test in English Literature not required, but recommended for students applying to Literary Studies

Academic Programs:

Master’s and Ph.D. Programs

PhD Program

To qualify for a doctoral degree, the candidate must meet University and Department requirements as to minimum hours of credit (30), residence, foreign language proficiency, and grades (cumulative GPA no less than 3.0). The candidate must also:

• Pass one written preliminary examination
• Demonstrate proficiency in a secondary area by either course work or a second written preliminary examination
• Submit and defend a dissertation prospectus
• Write and defend a dissertation.

MA Program

To qualify for a master’s degree, the candidate must meet university and departmental requirements as to hours of credit, residence, required courses, foreign language proficiency, and grades (cumulative GPA no less than 3.0). The candidate must also pass the M.A. examination or write a satisfactory thesis.

All students in Literature, English Language and Linguistics, and Rhetoric and Composition must complete two core courses: Methods of English Studies and one course in English Language and Linguistics. All M.A. students also must take at least one 600-level seminar.

Students concentrating in Literature must take one course in each of five separate areas of literature listed below.

• Medieval
• Renaissance (16th and 17th centuries)
• 18th century
• 19th century
• 20th century

Students emphasizing Rhetoric and Composition must take one course in at least three separate areas of literature from the five listed above.

MFA Program

The MFA program requires completion of thirty-six credits plus twelve thesis credits and a mid-sized book-quality manuscript written under the supervision of a committee chaired by a member of the creative writing committee.

The creative writing concentration has its own core requirements which include:

• 12 credits of ENGL 60600  or ENGL 60900  (Writing Poetry or Writing Fiction). It is recommended that all 12 hours be taken in the student’s major genre.
• 3 credits in ENGL 60700  (Craft of Fiction or Craft of Poetry), to be taken in the student’s major genre.
• 15 credits chosen from other English Department Graduate Courses.
• 12 credits in ENGL 69800 .

The creative writing concentration requires demonstration of proficiency in a foreign language. It does not require ENGL 50100 , or ENGL 50600 . It does not require a comprehensive examination, though it does require a thesis defense.

Concentrations (Areas of Study):

• Creative Writing
• Second Language Studies/ESL
• English Language & Linguistics
• Rhetoric and Composition
• Theory and Cultural Studies
• Literary Studies:
  • Medieval
  • Renaissance
  • Eighteenth Century
  • Nineteenth Century
  • Twentieth and Twenty-first Century

Graduate Certificates (Degree or Non-Degree Students):

• English as a Second Language
• Natural Language Processing
• English Language and Linguistics

Regular Graduate Faculty by Rank:

Professor

Janet Alsup
Margie Berns
Marianne Boruch
Angelica Duran
John Duvall
Wendy Stallard Flory
Sandor Goodhart
Shaun Hughes
Richard Johnson-Sheehan
Robert Lamb
Clayton Lein
Brian Leung
Alfred Lopez
Daniel Morris
Venetria Patton
Nancy Peterson
Donald Platt
Arkady Plotnitsky
Victor Raskin
Thomas Richert
Charles Ross
James Saunders
Tony Silva
Patricia Sullivan
Irwin Weiser
Paul Whitfield White

Associate Professor

Emily Allen
Dorsey Armstrong
Jennifer Bay
Elena Benedicto
Samantha Blackmon
Kristina Bross
Mario David
Dorothy Deering
Bradley Dilger
Lance Duerfahrd
Dino Franco Felluga
Elaine Francis
Geraldine Friedman
Roxane Gay
April Ginther
Tara Johnson
Michael Johnston
Christian Knoeller
Maren Linett
Christopher Lukasik
Robyn Malo
Robert Marzec
Mary Niepokuj
Derek Pacheco
Manushag Powell
Aparajita Sagar
Michael Salvo
Ryan Schneider
Melanie Shoffner
Sharon Solwitz

Assistant Professor

Jennifer Freeman Marshall
Nathan Johnson
Shelley Staples

Programs

• English, PHD

• English, MA
• English, MFA

• History of the English Language Graduate Certificate
• Natural Language Process Graduate Certificate
• Second Language Studies/ESL Graduate Certificate

Courses

• ENGL 50100 - Introduction To English Studies
• ENGL 50200 - Practicum In Teaching College Composition
• ENGL 50500 - Approaches To Teaching College English
• ENGL 50600 - Introduction To English And General Linguistics
• ENGL 50700 - Poetry Writing
• ENGL 50900 - Fiction Writing
• ENGL 51000 - History Of The English Language
• ENGL 51100 - Semantics
• ENGL 51200 - English Syntax And Syntactic Theory
• ENGL 51300 - English Phonology
• ENGL 51500 - Advanced Professional Writing
• ENGL 51600 - Teaching English As A Second Language: Theoretical Foundations
• ENGL 51800 - Teaching English As A Second Language: Principles And Practices
• ENGL 52700 - Medieval Drama In English Society
• ENGL 52800 - Medieval English Literature
• ENGL 52900 - Language Study For Educators
• ENGL 53000 - English Language Development
• ENGL 53100 - The Rise Of The Novel
• ENGL 53200 - The English Novel In The Nineteenth Century
• ENGL 53400 - Seventeenth-Century Literature
• ENGL 53500 - Restoration And Early Eighteenth-Century Literature
• ENGL 53700 - Drama In Early Modern England
• ENGL 53800 - English Drama From The Restoration To The Modern Period
• ENGL 54100 - Studies In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
• ENGL 54200 - Shakespeare’s Dramatic Art
• ENGL 54300 - Shakespeare In Critical Perspective
• ENGL 54400 - Milton
• ENGL 54700 - British Romanticism
• ENGL 54800 - Victorian Literature
• ENGL 54900 - Late Victorian And Edwardian Literature
• ENGL 55000 - Studies In Major Early British Authors
• ENGL 55200 - Studies In Major American Authors
• ENGL 55300 - Colonial And Early American Literature
• ENGL 55400 - American Literary Culture 1820-1860
• ENGL 55700 - Nineteenth-Century African-American Narrative
• ENGL 55800 - American Literature In The Later Nineteenth Century
• ENGL 56000 - Modern American Poetry
• ENGL 56100 - Modern British Poetry
• ENGL 56300 - Historical Linguistics
• ENGL 56500 - Sociolinguistics
• ENGL 56900 - Contemporary Criticism And Theory
• ENGL 57000 - Introduction To Semiotics
• ENGL 57300 - Tragedy
• ENGL 57600 - Philosophy And Literary Theory
• ENGL 57800 - Early Twentieth-Century American Fiction
• ENGL 57900 - Modern British Fiction
• ENGL 58000 - Theories Of Modernity And Postmodernity
• ENGL 58300 - U S Ethnic/Multicultural Literature
• ENGL 58500 - Creative Nonfiction Writing
• ENGL 58600 - Theory Of Film
• ENGL 58900 - Directed Writing
• ENGL 59000 - Directed Reading
• ENGL 59100 - Introduction To Composition Theory
• ENGL 59200 - Postcolonial Studies
• ENGL 59300 - Contemporary British Fiction
• ENGL 59400 - Contemporary Poetry
• ENGL 59500 - Contemporary American Fiction
• ENGL 59600 - Advanced Studies In Literature Or Language
• ENGL 59700 - Contemporary Black Feminist Literature
• ENGL 59900 - Academic Language And Content Area Learning
• ENGL 60100 - Teaching Literature At The College Level
• ENGL 60500 - Computers In Language And Rhetoric
• ENGL 60600 - Seminar In Poetry Writing
• ENGL 60700 - The Theory And Craft Of Creative Writing
• ENGL 60900 - Seminar In Fiction Writing
• ENGL 61100 - Old English Language
• ENGL 61200 - Old English Literature
• ENGL 61300 - Middle English Language
• ENGL 61400 - Middle English Literature
• ENGL 61500 - A Reading Of Beowulf
• ENGL 61700 - Contemporary English
• ENGL 61800 - Quantitative Research In Second Language Studies
• ENGL 61900 - Qualitative Research In Second Language Studies
• ENGL 62000 - Classroom Communication In ESL For Teaching Assistants
• ENGL 62100 - Written Communication For International Graduate Students
• ENGL 62200 - Issues In Composition Studies: Classical Period To The Renaissance
• ENGL 62400 - Issues In Composition Studies: Modern Period
• ENGL 62500 - Seminar On Empirical Research In Writing
• ENGL 62600 - Postmodernism And Issues In Composition Studies
• ENGL 62700 - Seminar In Linguistics
• ENGL 62800 - Natural Language Processing
• ENGL 62900 - Seminar In English As A Second Language
• ENGL 63000 - Seminar In Second Language Writing
• ENGL 63100 - World Englishes
• ENGL 63300 - Seminar In English Literature Before 1660
• ENGL 63500 - Seminar In English Literature 1660-1783
• ENGL 64200 - Seminar In Shakespeare
• ENGL 64700 - Seminar In The Romantic Movement
• ENGL 64800 - Seminar In Victorian Literature
• ENGL 64900 - Seminar In English Literature 1880-1920
• ENGL 65700 - Seminar In American Literature 1630-1900
• ENGL 66500 - Seminar In Comparative Literature
• ENGL 66700 - Seminar In Poetics And Aesthetics
• ENGL 66800 - Seminar In Interpretation And Cultural Theory
• ENGL 67200 - Seminar In Women’s Literature And Feminist Theory
• ENGL 67300 - Seminar In Postcolonial Studies
• ENGL 67400 - Seminar In Language Testing
• ENGL 67700 - Seminar In Modern Literature
• ENGL 67800 - Seminar In Modern American Literature
• ENGL 67900 - Seminar In Modern British Fiction
• ENGL 68000 - Seminar In Rhetoric And Composition