So spring registration opens on Wednesday, November 4. The online registration system should go active at 9:00am eastern.

Note that Mercy Connect, the place where you manage your student account and register for courses, logs you off after a short period of time (something like ten or fifteen minutes I think) EVEN IF you’re actively doing things in Connect. It’s a highly annoying security feature meant to protect students on campus if they’re working at a public computer and walk away without logging out of their Connect account. You won’t know you’ve been logged-out until you click on something and then get a confusing message about access being denied because of your “break-in attempt.” Just ignore this, it just means you got logged-out. When this happens you need to go back to the sign-in page and log back in.

Fairly soon the registration period will open for spring 2016. I’ll post a note here on the blog as soon as I learn the registration opening date/time. If you want to get your choice of courses, you should be online and ready to register the minute the registration opens. For now, I’m listing here the six courses we’ll be running in the graduate English program this spring. I’m particularly excited about this spring schedule and think we’ve got a good balance here of traditional and eclectic options for you to choose from. When picking your courses keep in mind the structure of the 10 course requirement for the degree, which I’ll list here (note that courses can be taken in any sequence, except for 599 which is always taken during your final semester):

1. 500
2. Writing & Literary Forms – any one course from 505-510, or 517
3. Literature Group 1 – any one course from 521-540
4. Literature Group 2 – any one course from 541-560
5. Literature Group 1 or 2 – one more course from 521-560
6. Elective – any one course from 501-598
7. Elective – any one course from 501-598
8. Elective – any one course from 501-598
9. Elective – any one course from 501-598
10. 599

Okay, so here now is the spring schedule:

ENGL 508: History of Drama in English

• Dr. David Fritz

This course will study selected dramatic works from across a variety of eras, and will study them chronologically as the dramatic form develops and changes over time. Selections might include Medieval, Renaissance, or Restoration British drama; as well as British and/or American works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Specific works will be selected by the professor closer to the semester’s start. 3 credits. Fulfills the “Writing & Literary Forms” group requirement, or can work as an elective.

ENGL 515: Graphic Novel

• Dr. Richard Medoff

In this course we will explore the ways in which meanings emerge in several celebrated texts of the graphic novel genre, as well as some emerging classics. Our readings of these texts will be informed by a diversity of theoretical perspectives, including visual culture studies, postmodernism and intersectionality. We will interrogate the relationships between the concepts “graphic novel” or “comic book” and “popular culture,” with each of us bringing our lived experiences to our readings and discussions. Through in-depth studies of several primary texts, including Watchmen, Maus, Fun Home, and V for Vendetta, we will learn how graphic novelists use and manipulate historical and contemporary social issues as the building blocks for their art. 3 credits. Fulfills an elective.

ENGL 525: The Victorian Age in Literature

• Dr. Sean Dugan

This course will explore representative literature and the culture of the Victorian Age ( 1837-1901), a period of exploration, industrialization, empire, and imperialism. The poetry and novels of Tennyson, Carroll, the Brontes, Eliot, Wilde, and others will be approached from a variety of critical approaches. Particular attention will be given to the importance of gender, class, and societal expectations. 3 credits. Fulfills a “Literature Group 1” requirement, or works as an elective.

ENGL 540: Magic in Literature

• Dr Boria Sax

This course examines alchemy, together with related activities that now impress us as “magical,” as a virtually all-inclusive discipline which laid much of the foundation for later literature, art, and science. It looks at the beginnings of alchemy in the ancient world, and how these developed, along with the revival of Classical learning, in the Renaissance. Finally, it looks at the continuing influence of magic in Romantic, Modern, and Post-Modern literature and culture. Readings include works by Hesiod, Ben Johnson, Shakespeare, E. T. A. Hoffmann, J. R. Rowling and others. Textbooks include The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates. 3 credits. Fulfills a “Literature Group 1” requirement or works as an elective.

ENGL 543: The American Renaissance

• Dr. Christopher Loots

This course will study representative American writings from “The American Renaissance,” a period during the mid-nineteenth century (roughly 1832 to 1865) which saw the rise of the first truly non-Colonial, non-Revolutionary body of national literature; a literature which no longer concerned itself with European precedent, engagement, or approval. When F.O. Matthiessen coined the term “The American Renaissance” in 1941 he did so in light of five monumental American works by five different writers, all produced within five years (1850-55): Emerson (Representative Men), Thoreau (Walden), Melville (Moby Dick), Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), and Whitman (Leaves of Grass). Since Matthiessen’s time the term has rightfully come to encompass a greater diversity of works and writers from this era: works at least equally as important as Matthiessen’s noted five; and writers whose situations are deeply woven through the heart of the socio-cultural-literary renaissance of the era. In this course we’ll be reading selections from across this American Renaissance, including works by: Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville; Harriett Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe; Margaret Fuller and Sara Willis (Fanny Fern). 3 credits. Fulfills a “Literature Group 2” requirement or works as an elective.

ENGL 560: African and Caribbean Literature

• Dr. Donald Morales

This survey course of cross-generational writers from African and the Caribbean will take as its focal point the theme of the 2016 African Literature Conference in Atlanta: “Justice and Human Dignity in Africa and the African Diaspora.” The course looks at writers whose works address the idea of justice and human dignity in the domestic, political, religious and moral arenas. Some possibilities include Nobel Laureates Naguib Mafouz [Egypt], Wole Soyinka [Nigeria], V.S. Naipaul [Trinidad], J.M. Coetzee [South Africa], Nadine Gordimer [South Africa] and Derek Walcott [St Lucia]. Other options are Chimamanda Adichie [Nigeria], Jamaica Kincaid [Antigua], Edwidge Danticat [Haiti], Mariama Ba [Senegal], Tsitsi Dangaremba [Zimbabwe] and Athol Fugard [South Africa]. As a group these writers look critically at their societies, with, at times, grave consequences but nonetheless seek a just life for themselves and their fellow citizens. 3 credits. Fulfills a “Literature Group 2” requirement or works as an elective.