Registration opens today, 3/20. Below are a few registration notes. This list will be updated as necessary during the registration window:

• UPDATE: 506 History of Poetic Forms is now active on the summer schedule. The summer ENGL 506 History of Poetic Forms course is not appearing on the schedule. That is an error and will be fixed today, asap, so expect 506 to appear on the schedule soon.
• ENGL 500 is permit locked per the information shared in this earlier post. In order to receive a permit to register for the 500 course, you must (1) be on track to complete your MA degree prior to fall 2024, and (2) receive a permit from the program director by contacting cloots@mercy.edu.
• ENGL 599 Master’s Thesis doesn’t appear on the schedule, since the way you register for the tutorial is unique. Consult this post for instructions and guidance for getting into a 599. After reading that post, contact cloots@mercy.edu with any further questions.
• Summer registration has been brisk right from the start (one class is already full with registration having been opened for just two hours). The 506 course will appear soon to provide more options. Depending on demand, we might schedule another course. The way students can signal whether or not another course is needed is by getting on the waitlist for full courses. If those waitlists climb to the point where we can see that a lot of students are waiting for seats, then another course will appear. If those waitlists don’t fill, then that signals to us that the existing schedule is adequate and has absorbed the expected amount of summer students.

Update 5/2: 515 Latin American Lit is no longer a zoom course.

Update 2/24: students can take multiple instances of courses numbered 514, 515, 540, and 560, as long as the courses running by those numbers are different. So for example you could take ENGL 540 Ulysses and ENGL 540 Fairy Tales because these are two different courses.

Update 2/21: to learn about how to enroll in an ENGL 599 master’s thesis tutorial, which every student must take during their final semester in the program, click here.

Summer and fall 2023 registration will open soon. We’re running three graduate English courses this summer and six in the fall (many students don’t take courses over the summer, which is one reason why summer schedules are always smaller than fall and spring schedules). Each course will have 15 seats, so students interested in taking any of these courses should be online as soon as registration opens to claim seats in your preferred courses.

Please note that if you’re using any of the dubious “schedule planning” tools recently launched in Connect, courses running by the numbers 514, 515, 540, and 560 won’t show up there by the unique titles shown below or listed in Connect itself. They’ll instead show up with generic titles such as “topics in British Literature” or some such thing. Ignore those generic titles, as they don’t necessarily bespeak the nature of the course actually running by that number. Use the numbers, titles, and descriptions below as your guide.

The descriptions below are subject to change.

SUMMER 2023

• ENGL 506 – History of Poetic Forms (Dr. Kilpatrick)

The course will study the major forms and conventions of poetry that have developed from classical models to the present. Wherever possible, particular poems from different historical contexts will be compared and analyzed to demonstrate how these forms and conventions have developed and been adapted to specific personal, ideological, or cultural pressures. (Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective.)

• ENGL 540 – Fairy Tales (Dr. Boria Sax)

This course looks at the discovery, history, intellectual interpretation, and literary adaption of fairy tales. Such tales have been variously viewed as, among other things, a font of primeval wisdom, a guide to growing up, or a response to the stresses of modernity; and students will consider such views while exploring what else fairy tales might be, and why else fairy tales might exist. The semester will begin with a study of classic collections of fairy tales such as those of Perrault and Grimm; will examine permutations of fairy tales over time; and will conclude with a discussion of the continuing popularity of fairy tales in contemporary films such as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Universal Studios’ Shrek. (Fulfills an elective by default. Can fulfill a Literature Group 2 requirement upon request.)

• ENGL 560 – Murder, Mystery & Suspense (Dr. Sean Dugan)

The genre of the murder-mystery novel is often viewed as “escapist “or “diversionary,” but in addition to it being entertaining, for many, the genre rather offers insights into societal values and attitudes including racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. This course will trace the development of the murder-mystery genre from the 19th century to present-day, with a focus on, among many other things, the question of why stories of this genre are so interesting to so many people. (Fulfills either a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective.)

FALL 2023

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

NOTE: All students must complete ENGL 500. The course runs once each fall semester, so if you’re aiming to graduate at the end of fall 2023, spring 2024, or summer 2024 and have not yet completed 500, you must enroll in this course for fall 2023. The next instance of the course will be fall 2024. For this reason this course is registration-locked and requires a permit from the Program Director. Anyone not on pace to graduate in the semesters noted above can request a permit but will only be given one if seats remain after everyone who must have the course during this fall 2024 instance gets a seat. All students who need or want a permit for 500 should contact cloots@mercy.edu to request one.

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

This course studies the novel and various narrative methods used in the novel over the centuries and across the British and American traditions. 3 credits. (Fulfills either the Writing & Literary Forms field requirement or an elective.)

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

*THIS 515 CLASS INCLUDES A REQUIRED WEEKLY LIVE ZOOM SESSION ON THURSDAY NIGHTS, 7:00-8:20pm EASTERN*

Our theme this semester will be Protest and Resistance in Latin American Literature. Literature in Latin America has long been a vehicle for explorations of interpretations of social history and cultural identity. Latin American literature has gained international respect for its ability to present social criticism through works of imaginative creation. The Latin American writer uses language to engage readers in the polemics and complexities of the Latin American experience; literature in Latin America is thus not just art, it is also social commentary. In this course we will examine a variety of mediums of protest and resistance in Latin American literature. We will examine texts by the Mexican writer Nellie Campobello, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, the Argentine writer Luisa Valenzuela, and the Cuban filmmaker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. We will also focus on examining the relationships between aesthetics, politics, and history. (Fulfills an elective by default, but can fulfill a Literature Group 1 requirement upon request.)

*NOTE: this course was scheduled as a zoom, however due to lack of enrollment it has been switched to an asynchronous online course in the usual style.

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

This course is an exploration of women’s writing in a variety of genres, such as story, poetry, memoir, and essay. Students will experience and analyze writings by women through a variety of different perspectives, e.g., through the lens of feminist theory, psychology, history, etc. We will as well consider some of the social and cultural forces informing the lives of the women writers we study, and will consider how these forces might intersect with and inform the literature created by women. 3 credits. (Fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective.)

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

This course examines the diverse people, culture, and writings of the expatriate community of the Parisian Left Bank during the modernist movements of the early- and mid-twentieth century. Authors covered typically include Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Hilda Doolittle, Andre Breton, Mina Loy, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin, among others. In the course of our studies we will consider the significance of Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare & Company bookstore and lending library, and of intellectual and artistic salons such as those of Natalie Barney and Gertrude Stein. An emphasis will be placed on studying the historical context of modernism in Paris, as well as on the cultural geography of Paris which attracted so many of the world’s great writers and artists, and gave rise to some of the most profound writings ever created. 3 credits. (Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.)

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

This survey course of cross-generational writers from Africa and the Caribbean will take as its focal point the theme of “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 either a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.)

NOTE: Dr. Morales plans to update the readings for this course after attending and considering ideas presented at conferences this summer. So some of the authors/works listed above could be studied, but some will likely be replaced with different authors/works. The spirit of the class will remain the same as described here.

Registration for spring 2023 courses will open on Wednesday 11/2. Usually it begins at 9:00am eastern, but in the past this wasn’t on a timer so it might not open at precisely 9:00am; it will open whenever the registrar starts working and toggles the system on that morning.

The seven courses for the spring are listed below, along with some info about each. 15 seats will be available for each course. Students who find a preferred course full by the time they go to register can attempt to make use of the waitlist feature and hope that a seat opens in a full course (which actually works some of the time); but in the meantime such students will need to select from whatever courses still have seats available.

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 515 Latino Literature (Dr. Reissig-Vasile) [Unfortunately we had to cancel this course]

• This course focuses on the literature of Latino/a people living in the United States; a growing and important field of American literature. In this course we will examine texts that make salient the great diversity of literary themes, styles, and social concerns of literary texts written by these Latino/a writers. We will study issues such as gender, race, class, diaspora, bilingualism, violence, and community as raised by the various authors whose work we will be examining in this course. Our readings will focus on short stories, poetry, and novels written by writers from various Latino/a groups, including Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Dominican Americans. NOTE: This course last ran in spring 2021 as ENGL 560. Anyone who took that instance of the course may not take this ENGL 515 instance of the course. Fulfills an elective by default, but can fulfill a Literature Group 2 requirement if needed.

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

• This course is designed to cultivate students’ awareness of the themes, genres, and issues related to medieval literature and to the study of medieval literature. Students will explore the major genres of medieval literature, including epics, lays and romances. Fulfills either a Literature Group 1 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 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 540 Philosophy of Literature (Dr. Fisher)

• This course explores literature through a philosophical lens. Questions we will consider include the nature of literature; as well as the relation between literature and the emotions, between literature and values, and between interpretation and truth. We will as well consider the relation between different forms of literature, for example between fiction and poetry and drama, in both Western and non-Western perspectives. We will consider whether (and how) such contemporary art forms as video games and comix may be thought of as literature. Our explorations will involve reading literature of various sorts alongside writings by contemporary and historical philosophers. No prior coursework or studies in philosophy are required. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective

ENGL 544 Cyberpunk & Technoculture (Dr. Loots)

• Each instance of ENGL 544 explores different “frontiers” depending on professor specialty. This instance of the course will focus on literature and media that tend to the frontiers of humanity and identity in the age of technoculture (also known as the Information Age, also know as the internet-era, also know as the age of cyberculture). Readings will include “cyberpunk” and other speculative fiction from the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s (e.g. writings of William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Neal Stephenson, and Melissa Scott); and contemporary writings such as Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror and Dave Eggers’ The Circle. Visual media might include episodes of Black Mirror or Mr. Robot; TED talks; and films such as Blade Runner or Ex-Machina. Altogether we will consider, through exploring fiction and essay and film, the implications of humanity’s increasing interweave with cyberculture, technoculture, computer technology, social media, artificial intelligence, online/virtual realities, etc. — with the way that humanity is becoming posthuman or cyborg. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.

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

• This course explores the growing acceptance of black art, particularly Black theatre, as a force in defining contemporary American culture. In Farah Nayeri’s Takedown: Art and Power in the Digital Age, she writes that “this is not a flash in the pan,” and she wonders how after the success of “exhibitions in major museums of major African American . . . artists, how could we then go back?” Jesse Green, theatre critic for The New York Times, in his article on American theatre titled “The Reformation: The world is changing, and so is the theater,” affirms that because of movements like #MeToo and BLM, theatre is becoming introspective and is now talking “openly about its foundation and continuing inequities . . . . But more than ever, practitioners and critics are asking difficult questions about how we make actors, how we make plays, how we make seasons, how we make money — in short, how we make theater.” Consider the example of such evolution as evidenced by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s play Pass Over. Her play premiered at the Steppenwolf Theatre in 2017 where it was also filmed by Spike Lee. Lee’s film screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018. In New York, Pass Over premiered at the Lincoln Center Theatre where it won the 2019 Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway play. In 2021 it played at the Kiln in London and finally moved to Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre in 2022. It was the first play to open on Broadway after the pandemic shut-down. Pass Over was inspired by the death of Trayvon Martin, the trial of George Zimmerman, and 2016 election of Donald Trump; but stylistically it is in the mold of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as well as the Book of Exodus. Nwandu offers that: “At the end of the day, I’m writing for the people who want to go on the journey I’m making, and I’m not writing with one race in mind.” This example of Pass Over illustrates the changing dynamics of work/script, of the spaces such drama occupies, of the recognition such drama receives, and of the audiences for whom such drama is intended. The course will focus primarily on drama, but other art forms will be involved and studied. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.

General registration for the fall (and summer) will open on on March 14. Priority registration, which at the grad level usually only relates to veterans or active military, will open on March 7. Registration on these dates will open at 9:00am eastern. Note that it might not open on that specific minute, might instead open about that time when the Registrar manually logs in and flips the switch.

Not all students take summer courses; many prefer to follow the traditional fall/spring schedule. This is why we run a shorter summer schedule (four, this summer). We’re running seven courses this fall, including the 500 theory course which everyone is required to take at some point. Everyone who is interested in getting their preferred schedule for fall and/or summer should set an alarm and register promptly on the day registration begins. Once a course fills, students will need to select from whatever else remains. There is a waitlist feature, which forms a queue for full courses, and it often works to a small degree; but it only works if someone with a seat in the course elects to vacate it.

Summer 2022

• ENGL 514 – LGBTQIA+ Literature (Dr. Medoff)

This course introduces students to significant literature and experiences of LGBTQ+ culture. Students in the course will examine some of the major concepts and political issues that shape gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer experiences through literary and cultural productions. Most texts in this course are interested in various forms of same-sex desire (female-female and male-male), as well as complicating our common conceptions of sexual identity and gender identity. This course will take a cultural studies approach in order to understand texts in relation to context – to see how historical contingencies and political debates inform literature, as well as to see how literature and culture can inform (and challenge) public and political opinion. Thus, the course’s texts will include fiction, nonfiction, plays, documentaries, films, poetry, scholarly journal articles, memoirs, and many other genres. Previous students in this course have pursued research on themes of personal interest within LGBTQ+ culture, such as “Sexuality in Young Adult Fiction,” “African American LGBTQ+ Writers,” “Representations of Bisexual Culture,” “Masculinity in LGBTQ+ Culture,” etc. Fulfills an elective by default, but can fulfill a Literature Group 2 field requirement upon request.

• ENGL 515 – Animals in Literature (Dr. Sax)

This course looks at the representation of animals in a wide range of literary and folkloric traditions. It will focus, most especially, on the ways in which the literary depiction of animals is intimately tied to changing perspectives on the human condition, which in turn reflect religious, intellectual, governmental, and technological developments. Fulfills an elective by default, but can fulfill a Literature Group 1 field requirement upon request.

• ENGL 540 – Monsters & Monstrosities (Dr. Dugan)

In this newly-designed 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. Students will be required to participate in weekly discussions, write a paper prospectus, and write a 10-12 page final paper.  Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.

• ENGL 560 – Contemporary African Literature (Dr. Morales)

Chimamanda Adichie’s 2009 TED presentation, “The Danger of a Single Story,” encapsulates how Africa is viewed by the rest of the world… “create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” She couples this with the idea of power and who controls the narrative: “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” She concludes that approaching Africa in this way “robs people of dignity” and separates Africa’s humanity from the rest of the world. Contemporary African Literature’s readings and teachings dispel the idea of that single story.

Modern African literature, a term associated with the liberation of African countries from their colonial powers in the 1950-60’s, has blossomed, especially in the last four decades with five noble laureates–Wole Soyinka ‘86, Naguib Mahfouz ’88, J.M. Coetzee ‘03, Doris Lessing ‘07 and most recently, Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah ’22. The course will certainly feature some of these writers. Thematically, the course looks at the evolving role of African women; and at afropolitanism, a term coined by Taiye Selasi [2005 “Bye Bye Babar”] and defined as young, well-educated African artists with global and multicultural sensibilities who have settled in several cosmopolitan capitals in Europe and North America. In the literary world, these artists have produced intriguing works that describe their hybrid status and identity but also defy categorization; the relationship between Africans and African Americans, a relationship or misalignment that has its roots in the Jim Crow era in the US. This subject is reflected in the literature such as Adichie’s’ Americana and Teju Cole’s Open City. All three themes coalesce around the idea of identity, displacement, and homeland. The course and its ideas will be filtered through the novel, drama, poetry, the essay, film, and social media. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 field requirement or an elective.

Fall 2022

• ENGL 500 – Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism (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.

NOTE: The professor of this course plans to hold optional zoom sessions to discuss the course’s readings on some Wednesdays at 9pm eastern. Attending such sessions is not required and students will not miss any essential aspect of the course if they elect not to attend.

NOTE: All students must complete ENGL 500. The course runs once each fall semester, so if you’re aiming to graduate at the end of fall 2022, spring 2023, or summer 2023 and have not yet completed 500, you must enroll in this course for fall 2022. The next instance of the course will be fall 2023. For this reason this course is registration-locked and requires a permit from the Program Director. Anyone not on pace to graduate in the semesters noted above can request a permit but will only be given one if seats remain after everyone who must have the course during this fall 2022 instance gets a seat. All students who need or want a permit for 500 should contact cloots@mercy.edu to request one.

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

This course will study select dramatic works from the vantage of the cultures of the historical epochs in which they are embedded. It will use a chronological approach, beginning with the drama in England: the medieval mystery cycles and morality plays; the emergence of secular drama in the 16th century and earlier 17th century, focusing on the precursors and contemporaries of Shakespeare; Restoration drama; the development of sentimentalism and the adaptation of drama to an increasingly middle class audience in the 18th Century; the closet drama of the Romantic era; 19th-century melodrama in Britain and America; and the emergence of the modern theater in the United Kingdom and the United States. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms field requirement or an elective.

• ENGL 514 – James Joyce’s Ulysses (Dr. Loots)

Students in this course will experience and explore one of the most famously difficult, famously banned, and (arguably) profound novels 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 class we will read the entirety of this massive work, first word to last. We will throughout the semester quest 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 for the modern world. While studying Ulysses we will as well explore some of the people, culture, history, and events surrounding the creation of, publication of, and outrageous reception to the novel. Fulfills an elective by default, but can fulfill a Literature Group 1 field requirement upon request.

• ENGL 515 – Magical Realism (Dr. Reissig-Vasile)

This course focuses on Latin American magical realist fiction, a genre where elements of the magical, the fantastical, are included in otherwise realistic narratives. This literary style has had a profound impact on literature and has generated an array of interesting and diverse experimental literary texts. We will examine some of the most innovative magical realist texts written by some of Latin America’s most important writers: the Mexican writer Elena Garro, the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, and the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  The short story genre will be the main focus of our analyses as well as a novella. Assignments will include discussion, essays, response papers, and a research paper. No books are required for the course. The following literary texts will be provided as PDFs or links: It’s the Fault of the Tlaxcaltecas, Elena Garro; A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; The Kingdom of this World, Alejo Carpentier; and Journey Back to the Source, Alejo Carpentier. Fulfills an elective by default but can fulfill a Literature Group 2 field requirement upon request.

• ENGL 540 – Shakespeare [updated professor – Dr. Fritz]

[Update – as a result of the original professor no longer being available to run her specialized Shakespeare course, this will now be a general Shakespeare course involving a study of select Shakespearean drama.] Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.

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

This course examines writings about working women from the post-Civil War era to the present. We will review key changes in the American work force, and social, economic, and racial factors since 1865, with attention to movements leading up to changes in the second half of the 19th century. In this multi-genre course, we will read literature (fiction, short stories, poetry, memoirs, biographies, and essays) to help us deconstruct the definitions of “women,” “working,” and “The United States” from the Civil War era to present writings about the millennial generation. We will inquire into the shifting definitions of the term “gender.” We will start with gender as a concept, a social construction reflecting differentials of power and opportunity, breaking what the feminist writer Tillie Olsen calls the “habits of a lifetime.” An important goal of the course is for students to know the literature, history, and benchmarks of major events in the lives of women. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 field requirement or an elective.

• ENGL 560 Literature of the Black Atlantic World (Dr. Morales)

A full description for this new course will be coming soon, but is not ready yet since Dr. Morales is still developing the course and its syllabus. He created an undergraduate version of this course, “The Black Atlantic World,” years ago and is now revisiting that theme and is reshaping that course up into a graduate level version for our fall 2022 MA schedule. The title and focus of the course emerges from the phrase “Writings of the Black Atlantic World, ” which is a term popularized by Paul Gilroy [The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1992)]. The term traditionally includes Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Dr. Morales has previously taught graduate courses devoted to authors from this literary genre: e.g. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, V.S. Naipaul, Caryl Phillips, Derek Walcott. Some of these authors might be included in this new course. Other writers and works that might be included are Edwidge Danticat, Dew Breaker, Create Dangerously; Marquez, OF Love and Other Demons; Zadie Smith, On Beauty. But again, a full and more specific description will be provided a bit later. For now, know that this will be another new course from one of the most inventive and prolific professors teaching and designing curriculum in the Mercy MA program. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 field requirement or an elective.

NOTE: The course numbers 514, 515, 540, and 560, are “topics course” shell numbers under which a variety of new or experimental coursework cycles. Students can take multiple instances of any of these course numbers as long as the different instances are actually different courses. So for example students could take ENGL 514 LGBTQIA+ in the summer and ENGL 514 James Joyce’s Ulysses in the fall because those are two different courses, even though they both use the same 514 number. Sometimes a “topics course” runs by one course number one semester, and a different number in another semester, and when that happens students can’t take that course again even though the course number is different. So for example ENGL 515 Magical Realism last ran in summer 2020 as ENGL 560 Magical Realism. Students who took the course in summer 2020 cannot take the course again this fall. Any questions contact cloots@mercy.edu.