Category Archives: Course Information

Course Information, Course Schedules

Spring 2026 Registration and Course Information

General registration for spring opens on November 6, typically at 9am eastern (when the Registrar’s office manually activates the system on that morning, it’s not automated, so it might not open at 9:00 sharp). If you need assistance with registration note that the current PACT advisor for the MA program is Chris Hernandez at chernandez85@mercy.edu. We’re planning to run three graduate courses in the spring and will expand the schedule beyond this if needs demand. For the spring you will find these course options available for registration starting on 11/6:

  • ENGL 505 Transformations of the Epic (Dr. Sax)

This course is based on the conception of the epic as an encyclopedic narrative of substantial length featuring a central figure who reflects the values of a particular culture. It will proceed chronologically, studying the taxonomy and transformations of the epic, from its earliest Classical manifestations, through its emergence in Medieval and Renaissance texts, to its incorporation after the Renaissance into modern writing. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective by default, but can fulfill a Literature Group 1 or Literature Group 2 requirement upon request.

  • ENGL 515: Reel Stories: Literature & Film (Dr. Loots)

This course explores story as presented through writings and film from around the world and back across time, with an eye to considering questions such as: What is the point, value, or power of story overall, culturally speaking or otherwise, whether written or filmed? Why do some of us create stories, whether written or filmed? And why do so many of us like to experience stories, whether written or filmed? What advantages are there to storytelling through each of these different mediums? What technical aspects and considerations go into the creation of stories in these two different mediums? Why do people create or experience tragic works if they depict such heavy material that it might make us sad? And what value is there to studying story, whether written or filmed, at all, in the university? We will talk about all of this and more throughout the semester. Basically, if you like thinking, and conversing, and stories, and movies, and exploring your ideas about such in a supportive environment, this is the class for you. Fulfills an elective by default but can fulfill a Literature Group 1 or Literature Group 2 requirement upon request.

  • ENGL 525 Victorian Age in Literature (Dr. Dugan)

If one were asked to define the timeline of Victorian literature, one might be hard-pressed to do so. As literary genres are fluid, it is hard to determine when the Romantic Period ends and the Victorian Period begins; and when the Victorian Period ends and Modernism begins. Whatever the dates, a defining characteristic of Victorian England would be change, change matched with a belief in progress: societal, religious, economic, and artistic. While some benefited from these changes, others did not. The semester we will look closely, through Victorian literature, at issues that challenge the notions of change and progress, notably the role of women, industrialism, gender roles, and poverty as shown in fiction, poetry, and drama of the Victorian age. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective by default, but can fulfill a Literature Group 2 requirement or the Writing & Literary Forms requirement upon request.

Course Information

Happy New Year to our Graduate Community (And: Blackboard Ultra)

Cheers and happy new year to all of our MA English Lit program students, alumni, faculty, staff (and to all of your family and friends too). On behalf of all of the faculty and staff in the MA program here at MercyU let me say: we hope that all of our students and alumni had a pleasant holiday, and we wish you all the best for 2025.

One big thing going on behind the scenes this winter is that Mercy is switching from Blackboard (BB) to Blackboard Ultra (BBU). There are many similarities between the two Learning Management Systems (LMS), but visually at least they’re significantly different. So when you log into your spring courses, it’s all going to look strikingly different than what you’ve experienced in the past. Faculty have been training to use BBU but we’ve only now gained access to our spring sections in BBU to build them. And although the spring semester starts on January 22, the BBU sections become visible to students on January 8. So, there might be some “learning moments” during the spring as your professors adapt in real-time to the new LMS; and if you look at your course prior to January 22 it might look like a bit of a mess since your professors will still be working on them, and figuring out how to make them look right, in preparation for January 22.

Below are some of the book orders for the spring courses. The MercyU bookstore will list these too but the store tends to hide the particular edition/ISBN info in hopes of forcing you to purchase books from them; but you can surely find the books for cheaper elsewhere.

510 Theory/Practice of Writing:

  • No book orders/purchases required; everything will be provided as open-access texts within the BBU section.

515: Murder, Mystery, and Suspense:

  • Christie, Agatha. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. William Morrow Paperbacks. ISBN: 978-0062073563.
  • Hammett, Dashell. The Maltese Falcon. Vintage Crime. ISBN: 978-0679722649.
  • Neeley, Barbara. Blanche on the Lam. Brash Books, LLC. ISBN: 978-1941298381.
  • Grafton, Sue. A is for Alibi. St. Martin’s, 2005. ISBN: 978-0312938994.
  • Highsmith, Patricia. The Talented Mr. Ripley. ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (June 17, 2008). ISBN: 978-0393332148.

540: Shakespeare:

  • Greenblatt, Stephen, et al., eds. The Norton Shakespeare. 3rd ed. ISBN: 978-0393264029.

560: Hemingway/Modern Cryptography:

Note that there are many editions of Hemingway’s work out there, because many of his works are now entering the public domain meaning anyone in the world can list and sell them. Scribner’s is Hemingway’s original* publishing house and so I recommend you buy Scribner’s publications, which are listed below. Any edition will do, in the end, but I’ll be reading from and referring to the Scribner’s editions.

  • Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. Scribner’s. ISBN: 978-0684801469.
  • —. The Garden of Eden. Scribner’s. ISBN: 978-0684804521.
  • —. A Moveable Feast. Scribner’s. ISBN:  978-1439182710.
  • —. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition. Scribner’s. ISBN:‎ 978-0684843322.
  • —. The Sun Also Rises. Scribner’s. ISBN: 0743297334. Knopf,

Recommended but Not Required:

  • Dearborn, Mary. Ernest Hemingway: A Biography. Vintage, 2018. ISBN: 978-0525563617.
  • Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Scribner’s, 1995 reprint. ISBN: 978-0684803357.
  • Lynn, Kenneth. Hemingway. Harvard UP, 1995. ISBN: 978-0674387324.

*Boni and Liveright is actually Hemingway’s original publishing house but he’s most famous for publishing through Scribner’s, and how he jumped from B&L to Scribner’s is a great story and one we’ll encounter this spring.

Annual Grad Student Symposium, Course Information, Course Schedules

Fall (and Summer) 2024 Course Offerings; Also, Preliminary Grad Student Symposium Info

First please note that the annual Graduate English Symposium will again this year be held on Zoom, in order to accommodate our students at a distance. The date hasn’t been finalized yet but it will likely be near the end of April, and likely on a Saturday. A post with further information and details, including the call for presenters, will be coming soon, so stay tuned to this blog for more on that.

The fall (and summer) 2024 schedules will be appearing soon in Mercy Connect. Many of our students don’t take summer courses, whereas all of our students take fall and spring courses, which is why I’m privileging fall here in my phrasing. It’s also why we offer just a few summer courses. Fall and summer registration will open for veterans on Monday, March 11. General registration will open for all students on Monday, March 18. Registration normally opens at or around 9am, eastern (it begins when the Registrar’s Office opens and they activate the reg system).

Specific book info will be coming later, and some of these descriptions will change as professors refine their courses over the months ahead.

The five fall 2024 course offerings are:

  • ENGL 500 Theory and Practice of Lit Criticism1 (Dr. Kilpatrick)

An introduction to some of the major movements and figures of the theory of criticism. The question “what is literature?” is a primary concern of this course. Such an inquiry necessarily engages other, closely affiliated signifiers such as work/text, writing, reading, interpretation, and signification itself. After brief encounters with ancient antecedents and seminal moderns, influential contemporary approaches to the question concerning literature and its cultural significance are engaged. An assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of current trends in the practice of literary criticism, and their theoretical groundwork, is the ultimate objective of this course. Fulfills the requirement for ENGL 500.

  • ENGL 505 Transformations of the Epic (Dr. Sax)

This course is based on the conception of the epic as an encyclopedic narrative of substantial length featuring a central figure who reflects the values of a particular culture. It will proceed chronologically, studying the taxonomy and transformations of the epic, from its earliest Classical manifestations, through its emergence in Medieval and Renaissance texts, to its incorporation after the Renaissance into modern writing. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective.

  • ENGL 525 Victorian Age in Literature (Dr. Dugan)

If one were asked to define the timeline of Victorian literature, one might be hard-pressed to do so. As literary genres are fluid, it is hard to determine when the Romantic Period ends and the Victorian Period begins; and when the Victorian Period ends and Modernism begins. Whatever the dates, a defining characteristic of Victorian England would be change, change matched with a belief in progress: societal, religious, economic, and artistic. While some benefited from these changes, others did not. The semester we will look closely, through Victorian literature, at issues that challenge the notions of change and progress, notably the role of women, industrialism, gender roles, and poverty as shown in fiction, poetry, and drama of the Victorian age. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective.

  • ENGL 543 American Renaissance (Dr. 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 notion of an American Renaissance has expanded to encompass a greater diversity of representative works, writers, and perspectives from this era. In this course we’ll study selections from across the American Renaissance, most likely engaging works by: Harriett Jacobs; Frederick Douglass; Harriet Beecher Stowe; Frances Harper; Sojourner Truth; Margaret Fuller; Sara Willis (Fanny Fern); as well as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Melville.  Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or works as an elective.

  • ENGL 560 Tilting at Windmills: Riding with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza though 16th century Spain2 (Dr. Reissig-Vasile) [Note: if you use the Mercy schedule-planning tool, the title for 560 will show as “Topics in American Literature.” Ignore that title, it’s just a generic place-holder title in the planning tool. The real title is the one in Mercy Connect, Tilting at Windows]

It is often said that the long and tangled history of the modern novel begins in Europe, and it begins with Cervantes.  Through a close reading and analysis of Cervantes’ literary masterpiece, Don Quixote de la Mancha (which many readers, including many authors, consider to be among the greatest works ever written), we will explore this issue and many others.  The course will focus on questions of literary, linguistic, cultural, and historical heterogeneity in Don Quixote. We will seek to understand why so many celebrate Cervantes for teaching us “to comprehend the world as a question.”  We will explore the polemics of 16th century Spain and how Cervantes used Don Quixote to raise ethical issues relevant to his time. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or works as an elective.

And for those nearing the end of the program, note that ENGL 599 Master’s Thesis is a one-on-one tutorial that needs to be taken during your final semester. You don’t enroll in 599 as you do a normal class. Check out this page on the blog for more about 599 and how you enroll in it.

The two summer 2024 course offerings are:

  • 509 Perspectives on the Essay (Dr. Keckler)

[Updated description 2/26] The course will study of the essay as a distinct literary genre; its characteristics, types, and structures; its history; and its role in reflecting authorial consciousness. This course will focus in particular on the personal essay and sub-genres such as nature writing, cultural criticism, travel writing, and academic-personal essay hybrid forms. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective; can work in other ways, as needed, for the degree, by request.

  • 540 Monsters2 (Dr. Dugan)

In this course we will read classic and contemporary literary works to explore notions of monsters and monstrosities from the perspectives of the monster and the creator. Historical, societal, political, and cultural issues will be explored and addressed. Types of monsters and monstrosities will also be considered: e.g. human, beast, and scientific. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective by default; can work in other ways, as needed, for the degree, by request.

1 ENGL 500 runs once a year, in the fall, and because it’s a requirement for the MA degree seats are locked and reserved for students who are on track to graduate prior to fall 2025. Students who have not taken it already, and are on track to graduate prior to fall 2025, can get a seat by contacting the program director at cloots@mercy.edu. Students who are on track to graduate in fall 2025 or later can still contact the program director requesting a seat in the fall 2024 instance, but will be prioritized behind students who must have the course this fall to graduate on time.

2 ENGL 540 and 560 are numbers by which we run a variety of new or experimental coursework. Students can take multiple instances of ENGL 540 and 560, as long as they’re not taking the same course with the same title twice. So for example a student who took 540 Fairy Tales last summer can take 540 Monsters this summer because those are different courses, even though they both use the 540 number; likewise, students who took 560 African and Caribbean Lit last fall can take 560 Tilting at Windmills this fall.

Course Information

Book Info for Spring 2024

Below are some details about book orders for spring 2024 courses. This is a work in progress, as professors are still considering materials for the spring. The list will be updated throughout December and January as further details are provided by professors. In many cases professors will be providing materials within the course in the form of PDFs or links, so the book listings below won’t always tell the whole story of what materials/texts students will encounter during the semester.

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

  • Gainor, J. Ellen, et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of Drama, Third Edition (Two-Volume Set). Norton, 2017. ISBN: 9780393283495. [Please note, this includes Vol 1: ISBN: 9780393283471 and Vol 2: ISBN: 9780393283488.]

ENGL 515 Hispanic and Latino Literature (Dr. Reissig-Vasile)

  • Garcia, Cristina.  Dreaming in Cuban . Ballantine Books, 1993. ISBN: 978-0345381439.

ENGL 524 From Reason to Imagination (Dr. Sax)

  • Bacon, Frances. Francis Bacon: The Major Works (Oxford World’s Classics). Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 0199540799.
  • Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History. Modern Library Chronicles, 2010. ISBN: 9780812980141. 
  • Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Mass Market Paperback, 2006. ISBN: 0765356155.  
  • Hoffmann, E. T. A. Tales of Hoffmann, trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Penguin, 1982. ISBN: 9780140443929.
  • Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Dover, 1994. ISBN: 0486282112.
  • Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. 2 ed. Penguin, 2012. ISBN: 0140137440.

ENGL 541 Search for Identity in American Lit (Dr. Loots)

The books listed below are recommended but not necessarily required. It will be possible to navigate the semester without purchasing these specific books by locating versions of the assigned readings online or in a library. And I will provide PDFs of some of the shorter readings from the Norton, as much as I am allowed. Still, if you’re focusing on American Lit during your MA studies, or want to be on the exact same page as I, or just want to build up your library with quality books, I highly recommend purchasing these:

  • Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Amistad 75th Anniversary edition, 2006. ISBN: 978-0061120060.
  • Levine, Robert, et al., editors. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter 10th Edition (Two-Volume Set). W.W. Norton, 2022. ISBN: 978-0393884449.

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

  • Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. Vintage Classics, 2021. ISBN: 9780593314883.
  • Oates, Joyce Carol. Marya: A Life. EP Dutton, 1986. ISBN: 9780062269218.
Course Information, Course Schedules

Quick poll to help determine the fifth and final course for the spring schedule

The spring 2024 schedule is mostly set. Unless things change the schedule will become visible in Connect on 10/18, priority registration for veterans will begin on 10/25, and general registration will begin on 11/1. The four courses which will be scheduled for sure are:

  • ENGL 508 History of Drama
  • ENGL 515 Hispanic & Latino Lit
  • ENGL 524 From Reason to Imagination
  • ENGL 546 Working Women in the USA

Then the fifth course will be one of the following: The American Renaissance, or Search for Identity in American Lit, or Hemingway / Modern Cryptography. Click here to read descriptions for those courses.

We invite students in the program who will be taking courses in the spring to vote below to indicate your preference (please only vote if you will be taking courses in the spring, and please only vote once, so that we have an accurate measure of genuine interest):

Course Information

Book Order Info for Fall 2023

Below is some info regarding book orders for fall 2023 courses. This will be updated throughout August as professors finalize their courses. Note that in many cases professors will supplement these materials with links, PDFs, and other materials provided in Blackboard during the semester. So what you’re seeing here might not spell all of what you’ll be studying in any particular class. The college’s online bookstore is here. Books do not need to be purchased from the college store. The MA program recommends supporting your local bookseller, if one still exists; or using Powells.com for new books, or Alibris.com for used books. Books from the library are perfectly fine as well, though part of your graduate studies should involve marking up your books with notes and thoughts and building a personal library.

ENGL 500 – Theory & Practice of Lit Criticism (Dr. David Kilpatrick)

  • Leitch, Vincent B., et al, eds.  The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  3rd ed. Norton, 2018. ISBN: 9780393602951.

ENGL 507 – Narrative Strategies in the Novel (Dr. David Fritz)

  • Calvino, Italo. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. ISBN 0099430894.
  • Diaz, Herman. Trust. ISBN 9780593420317.
  • Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. ISBN 1594483299.
  • Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. ISBN 9781400032716.
  • Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. ISBN 006112009X.
  • Morrison, Toni. Beloved. ISBN 1784876437.
  • Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. ISBN 9798799065454.
  • Wolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. ISBN 0156628708.

ENGL 515 – Latin American Literature (Dr. Celia Reissig-Vasile)

Only one book purchase will be required, the Campobello book listed below. Other works will be assigned, such as Pablo Neruda’s Canto General and the film Strawberry and Chocolate by Tomas Guiterrez Alea, but links or copies of those readings and media will be provided by the professor of the course during the semester.

  • Campobello, Nellie. Cartucho and My Mother’s Hands. Translators Doris Meyer and Irene Matthews. University of Texas Press, 1988. ISBN: ‎ 9780274695508.

ENGL 540 – Literature by Women (Dr. Miriam Gogol)

More readings may be listed or shared in Blackboard, but as of now the following books are required:

  • Oates,  Joyce Carol. Beasts. Carroll & Graf, ISBN 0786711035.
  • Fern, Fanny. Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time. Penguin Classics, ISBN 0140189521.
  • Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Vintage International, ISBN 9781400033416.

ENGL 545 – Literature of the Left Bank, Paris (Dr. Christopher Loots)

Much will be provided in Blackboard in the form of PDFs (e.g. stories by Edith Wharton, selections from Joyce’s Ulysses, poetry by H.D., fiction by Zelda Fitzgerald, essays and poems by Richard Wright, etc.). But students should secure a copy of the follow required readings (any edition will do, it does not have to be the specific edition assigned here):

  • Baldwin, James. Giovanni’s Room. Vintage, 2013. ISBN: 9780345806567
  • Benstock, Shari. Women of the Left Bank Paris: 1900-1940. University of Texas Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780292790407. (This is out of print but there are dozens of used copies for sale on Alibris.com for cheap.)
  • Breton, Andre. Nadja. Grove Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780802150264
  • Hemingway, Ernest. A Moveable Feast – Restored Edition. Scribner, 2010. ISBN: 9781439182710. (If you have the original edition, that works fine too, and that’s actually the one I usually work from, though the two editions are significantly different.)
  • Loy, Mina. The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. ISBN: 9780374525071
  • Stein, Gertrude. Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein. Vintage, 1990. ISBN: 9780679724643. (We’ll be studying The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas.)

Recommended additional materials for those who want to go even deeper into the lit and culture of this era, or who want to own copies of works from which I’ll be providing PDF exerpts:

  • Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. Beacon, 2012. ISBN: 9780807006238. (We won’t be studying this directly but it’s relevant to our units on Baldwin and Wright.)
  • Cunard, Nancy. The Poems of Nancy Cunard. Bodleian Library, 2005. ISBN: 9781842331071. (I will provide PDFs of what poetry in this we’ll be studying, but you might want to own the book.)
  • H.D. Trilogy: The Walls Do Not Fall; Tribute to the Angels; The Flowering of the Rod. New Directions, 1988. ISBN: 9780811213998. (I will provide PDFs of what poetry in this we’ll be studying, but you might want to own the book.)
  • Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. Scribner, 2014. ISBN: 9781476764528. (We won’t be studying this directly but it’s highly relevant to our unit on Hemingway.)
  • Fitzgerald, F Scott. Tender is the Night. Scribner, 1995. ISBN 9780684801544. (We won’t be studying this directly but it’s relevant to our unit on Zelda and will loom large in the unit lecture.)
  • Fitzgerald, Zelda. The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald. University of Alabama Press, 1997. (I will be providing a PDF of the Zelda work we’re studying, but if you’re interested in her you should own this.)
  • Wright, Richard. Native Son. Perennial Classics, 2005. ISBN: 9780060837563. (We won’t be studying this directly but it’s relevant to our unit on Wright.)

ENGL 560 – African & Caribbean Literature (Dr. Donald Morales)

Partial book info is below; the professor is still building the reading list but so far this is for certain:

  • Adichie, Chimamanda. Purple Hibiscus. Algonquin Books, reprint edition, 2012. ISBN 9781616202415.
  • Coetzee. J.M. Disgrace. Viking, 1999. ISBN ‎ 978-0670887316. [South Africa]
  • Danticat, Edwidge. Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (The Toni Morrison Lecture Series). Vintage, 2011. Appears to be out of print but new or used copies are widely available online, and also it is available in some digital formats, e.g.. Apple Books, Kindle.
  • Danticat, Edwidge. Dew Breaker. Vintage, 2005. ISBN  978-1400034291. [Haiti]
  • Mafouz, Naguib. Midaq Alley. Anchor, Reprint edition, 1992. ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0385264761. [Egypt]
Course Information

ENGL 515 Latin American Lit is moving to asynchronous (no weekly zoom requirement)

Due to lack of enrollment in the zoom-enhanced fall ENGL 515 Latin American Literature course, we’re changing the course to the standard asynchronous format. This means there will no longer be the Thursday night zoom requirement attached to the course. The change in modality will appear in Connect by the end of this week. Please contact cloots@mercy.edu with any questions.

Course Information

Take a chance on 515 Latin American Lit and 560 African & Caribbean Lit

After one month of fall registration being open, one course is already full, and a few others have just a few seats left. There’s lots of time yet, all spring and summer long, but two courses with a lot of seats still available are 515 Latin American Lit and 560 African & Caribbean Lit; so I wanted to send this note out across the graduate student community and encourage you to consider these courses for your fall schedule.

515 Latin American Lit will include a live zoom discussion once a week, on Thursday nights, from 7:00-8:20pm eastern. We’re running this course in this way as an experiment, based on feedback from the program-wide survey in which a significant amount of students indicated that they wanted live-zoom choices added to the schedule. Whether or not we run courses in this modality in the future will depend much on whether or not this class draws students. So for any students who want there to be live-zoom options in the program, we need you to stand up for that by registering for this fall 515 course. The course is listed in Connect as running both on Tuesday and Thursday night on zoom, but in fact it will only be on zoom on Thursday nights.

The theme of the 515 Latin American lit course will be Protest and Resistance in Latin American Literature. Students will examine works by the Mexican writer Nellie Campobello, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, the Argentine writer Luisa Valenzuela, and the Cuban filmmaker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, among others.

The 560 African & Caribbean Lit course will explore works of writers from a variety of African and Caribbean nations. Students in previous instances of this course explored works by writers such as Naguib Mafouz [Egypt], Wole Soyinka [Nigeria], V.S. Naipaul [Trinidad], J.M. Coetzee [South Africa], Nadine Gordimer [South Africa], Derek Walcott [St Lucia], Chimamanda Adichie [Nigeria], Jamaica Kincaid [Antigua], Edwidge Danticat [Haiti], Mariama Ba [Senegal], Tsitsi Dangaremba [Zimbabwe], and Athol Fugard [South Africa]. Some of these writers will likely be included in the class this fall.

Both of these courses will offer students a unique and inspiring experience. On behalf of all of the faculty in the MA program, I hope that our graduate students find a way to fit one or both of these courses into your fall schedule. Please write to cloots@mercy.edu with any questions.

Course Information, Useful Program Info & Tips

Book Order Info for Spring 2023

Below you will find some info for books/materials required for your spring MA courses. This will be updated as professors finalize their courses and readings.

ENGL 505 Transformations of the Epic (Dr. Sax)

  • Boroff, Marie, trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009. ISBN: 0393930254.
  • Alighieri, Dante. Inferno. Trans. Mark Musa. New York: Penguin, 2002. 0142437220.
  • Fagles, Robert, trans. The Iliad. New York: Penguin Classics, 1998. ISBN:  0140275363.
  • Harrison, Robert, trans. The Song of Roland. New York: Dover, 2002. ISBN: 0486422402.
  • Hatto, A. T., trans. The Nibelungenlied. New York: Penguin, 1965. ISBN: 0140441379.
  • Raffel, Burton, trans. Beowulf. New York: Signet, 2008. ISBN: 0451530969.
  • Sandars, N. K., trans. The Epic of Gilgamesh: An English Version with an Introduction. New York: Penguin Classics, 1960), ISBN: 014044100X.

ENGL 521 Themes & Genres of Medieval Lit (Dr. Fritz)

  • Black, Joseph, et al, eds. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Volume A – Third Edition: The Medieval Period – The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century – The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century. ISBN: 9781554813124

ENGL 525 Victorian Age in Literature (Dr. Dugan)

  • Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Lady Audley’s Secret. Broadview Literary Texts, 2003.  978-1-55111-357-9.
  • Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. Dover Thrift Editions, 20003.  978-0-486-42680-8.
  • Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Dover Thrift Editions, 2001.  978-0-486-41920-6
  • Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 2019, 978-0-486-26688-6.

ENGL 540 Philosophy of Literature (Dr. Fisher)

  • Noël Carroll and John Gibson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature, Routledge (2006). ISBN 9780367360399
  • Eileen John and Dominic McIver Lopes (eds.), Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and Classic Readings, Wiley-Blackwell (2004). ISBN 9781405112086
  • Numerous other short readings will be provided as PDFs or links in Blackboard.

ENGL 544 Cyberpunk & Technoculture (Dr. Loots)

Required

  • Eggers, Dave. The Circle. ISBN 9780345807298.
  • Gibson, William. Neuromancer. ISBN 9780441007462.
  • Scott, Melissa. Trouble and Her Friends. ISBN 9780765328489. (But this is out of print [OOP] so a PDF will be provided in class. You can find used copies for cheap on Alibris.com, if you don’t like reading from PDFs. I use the hardcover 1994 edition but any edition will do.
  • Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. ISBN 9780553380958.
  • Numerous other shorter works will be provided as PDFs or links in Blackboard. Also note that students will be required to view a selection of relevant films and shows, and so should budget perhaps $25 for the cost of a few streaming rentals and a month of Netflix.

Recommended, not required:

  • Cadigan, Pat, ed. The Ultimate Cyberpunk. ISBN 9780743452397. (OOP, relevant selections from this will be provided in class as PDFs)
  • Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ISBN: 9780345404473.
  • Mill, Anna, and Luke Jones. Square Eyes. ISBN 9780224097222.
  • Sterling, Bruce, ed. Mirrorshades. ISBN: 9780877958680 (OOP and expensive, but you can sometimes find fairly priced copies on Alibris)
  • For anyone who games, I recommend you play through CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 which despite what you may have heard is a brilliant game; and the many issues/bugs present during its infamous 2020 release-debacle have been fixed through patches.

ENGL 560 Black Theatre, Art, and Power in the Digital Age (Dr. Morales)

  • London, Todd, and Ben Pesner. Outrageous Fortune. ISBN-13:‎ 978-0984310906
  • Nayeri, Farah. Takedown: Art and Power in the Digital Age. ISBN-10: ‎1662600550
  • Wilson, August. King Hedley II. ISBN-13:978-1559362603

Other materials will be provided as PDFs or links online.

Course Information, Course Schedules

Should the MA Program Add Live-Online (Zoom) Options to Future Course Schedules?

Attention all students in the MA English Lit program: Please click here to complete a survey regarding your thoughts on whether or not the MA program should add synchronous or hybrid (meaning, live online Zoom courses) to future schedules.

(Also: if anyone wants to express anything else on this topic to the Program Director personally, please do so by contacting me at cloots@mercy.edu.)