Registration for spring 2027 opens on 11/5, usually at or near 9am eastern. We’re running three graduate courses in the spring. Descriptions are below. Please contact cloots@mercy.edu if you have questions about any of these courses. Also note that if you have any holds on your account when registration opens, it will prevent you from being able to register. If you have questions about or need help with holds, please contact Dr. Melissa Lenos at mlenos@mercy.edu.

• ENGL 508 – History of Drama in English (Dr. Kilpatrick)

This course will study select dramatic works with an eye to the cultural and historical contexts from which those works emerged. It will use a chronological approach, exploring for example the development of drama in medieval English mystery cycles and morality plays; moving on to the emergence of secular drama in the 16th and early 17th century; proceeding to precursors and contemporaries of Shakespeare; moving onward into Restoration drama, and the development of sentimentalism; then exploring the adaptation of drama to an increasingly middle class audience in the 18th Century; and finally tracing the further development of drama through the 19th and 20th centuries. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective by default, but can work for Literature Group 1 or 2 requirements if needed.

• ENGL 514 – Ulysses: Modern Epic (Dr. Loots)

Students in this course will experience and study one of the most famously-difficult, famously-banned, and (arguably) profound works of the twentieth century: James Joyce’s Ulysses. Much like Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Joyce’s 1922 modernist masterpiece occupies a rare position of being a work almost universally lauded (for those who like lists, the academically-sound Modern Library calls it the greatest novel of the twentieth century) and yet one which for a variety of reasons most people haven’t actually read. In this course we will read the entirety of this massive work, first word to last. We will quest together through Ulysses, helping each other to navigate its complex currents, until come the end of the semester we will arrive together at the absolutely brilliant end, the cosmos-affirming end, of this epic work. Along those lines we’ll consider what an epic even is; why epics emerge all across time, place, and culture; and if/how Ulysses might be the epic for the modern world. Students are encouraged to read either or both of Homer’s The Odyssey and/or Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in preparation for the semester, since both works inform Ulysses; but doing so is not required and your experience with Ulysses will be meaningful and full even if you’re unfamiliar with one or both works. In time with studying Ulysses we’ll also explore some of the people, culture, history, and events surrounding the creation of, publication of, and outrageous reception to the work. Fulfills an elective by default, but can fulfill any of the Literature Group 1, Literature Group 2, or Writing & Literary Forms requirements if needed.

• ENGL 546 Working Women in the USA: 1865 to Present (Dr. Gogol)

This course will examine writings about and by working women from the post-Civil War era to the present. We will review key changes in the American work force, as well as some of the relevant social, economic, and racial factors since 1865, with attention to movements leading up to and informing the cultural and social changes happening between 1865 and today. We will use literature to help us deconstruct the definitions of “women,” “working,” and even “The United States.” We will inquire into the shifting definitions of the term “gender” and explore the differentials of power and opportunity within the word and concept. One of the course’s goals is to explore some of the contradictions and tensions involved in such an inquiry, as well as to explore the history and benchmarks of major events in the lives of women in the USA since 1865. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or elective by default, but can fulfill either the Literature Group 2 or Writing & Literary Forms requirements if needed.