General registration for Summer and Fall 2021 opens simultaneously on 3/22; however early registration for veterans opens on 3/15. Registration typically begins about 9am eastern time. It is not on a timer and begins only when the Registrar personally activates the system, so it might not be at 9am sharp but it should start around that time. (Veterans who want to check that they are registered as such with the college should contact Erika Tremblay at etremblay@mercy.edu.)

Some courses do fill up quickly, some even early on the first day of registration. If a course you are interested in is full by the time you go to register, you can get on the waitlist for the course. Being on the waitlist often works out, but it’s best to register for the next-best courses you see available and get on the waitlist for preferred courses, just in case the waitlist does not work out. Instructions for using the waitlist can be had by contacting the MA program’s PACT advisor Erika Tremblay at etremblay@mercy.edu. Note that being on the waitlist does not automatically place you into the course if a seat opens up; instead, the waitlist system sends an email to your college email address if a seat opens alerting you that you have 24 hours to claim the seat. If you don’t claim the seat within that window of time, the next person on the waitlist will get the email and the 24-hour window. If no one on the waitlist claims the seat in time, the vacant seat opens up to general registration.

Below are the course offerings for fall and summer, listed in that order. Note that we always run a shorter summer schedule because many students in the MA program don’t take summer courses, and prefer to follow the traditional fall/spring pattern. Currently we have six courses scheduled for fall. If those six courses fill up well ahead of September then a seventh course will be offered, but for now we are estimating that six courses will suffice.

FALL 2021

ENGL 500: Theory of Criticism (Dr. David Kilpatrick – DLA section; Dr. Boria Sax, DLB section)

• • 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 will be 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 1: The professor of the DLA section of this course plans to hold optional weekly supplementary zoom sessions. The specifics will be shared by the professor at the start of the semester. Attending such zoom sessions is not required, as all courses in the MA program are asynchronous in order to best accommodate the schedules and lives of our graduate students. Such zoom sessions will only every be optional and supplementary to the core course requirements.

NOTE 2: This is the program’s core course, meaning the course that everyone must take and for which there are no alternative course options. This course runs once each fall semester, so if you’re aiming to graduate at the end of fall 2021, spring 2022, or summer 2022 and have not yet completed 500, you must enroll in this for fall 2021. The next instance of the course will be fall 2022.

NOTE 3: Registration for this course requires a permit, which the Program Director will give to anyone on-pace to complete their degree prior to fall 2022. Contact your PACT mentor Erika Tremblay (etremblay@mercy.edu) or the Program Director (cloots@mercy.edu) to request a permit.

ENGL 509: Perspectives on the Essay (Dr. Kristen Keckler)

The course studies the essay as a distinct literary genre; some of its characteristics and types; some of its history; and some of its role in reflecting authorial consciousness. Further, this course examines the taxonomy of the essay in terms of its medium (verse or prose), its tone and level of formality, its organizational strategies, and its relationship to its audience and to particular modes of literary production (diary, letter, manuscript, book, magazine, newspaper, podcast, blog, etc.). 3 credits. (Fulfills either the Writing & Literary Forms requirement or an elective.)

ENGL 515: 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 typically include works by Hesiod, Ben Johnson, Shakespeare, E. T. A. Hoffmann, J. K. Rowling and others. Textbooks include The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates. 3 credits. (Fulfills an elective by default, but can work for a Literature Group 1 requirement if needed.)

NOTE: The MA program cycles numerous different courses under the catalog codes of 514, 515, 540, and 560. Students can take multiple instances of 514, 515, 540, and 560 courses as long as the title of the course is not the same as before. This Magic and Literature course ran most recently as 540. You cannot take this course again if you took it earlier as 540.

ENGL 540: Medieval Literature: Seven Deadly Sins – Then and Now  (Dr. Jessica Ward)

This course brings together a wide range of late medieval texts in Middle English and in translation, including Arthurian legends and bawdy romances, in order to understand how this historical period, so far removed from our own, conceived of the seven deadly sins. While this course focuses on medieval literature, our semester long question concerns how our own conceptions of the vices are different or similar to that of their manifestations in the texts we read. We interrogate the ways in which the medieval writers explore their own culture and a cluster of enduringly engaging issues: ethical, sexual, theological, and political. 3 sem hrs. 3 crs. (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 cultural geography of this Paris location which attracted so many of the world’s great writers and artists and gave rise to so many works now considered twentieth century literary masterpieces. 3 credits. (Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.)

ENGL 560: Hip Hop Literature & Culture (Dr. Dana Horton)

Hip hop is a global phenomenon. It started as a form of black expression in the Bronx, NY and has morphed into an international, multicultural powerhouse. This course introduces students to hip hop culture by examining some of the major concepts and political issues that shape the culture. Through listening to hip hop music, analyzing lyrics, reading articles, and watching documentaries, students will learn more about the themes and debates within the culture. This course will take a cultural-studies approach to studying hip hop; will consider the history and politics of New York City in the 1960s-70s as this is crucial to understanding hip hop’s birth, as well as the connection amongst space, power, inequality, and racial dynamics. Questions we will consider include: What is hip hop culture? What are the similarities and differences between old-school hip hop and contemporary hip hop? Why are hip hop lyrics often taken at face value when many rappers exaggerate and lie? Why are some hip hop sub-genres prone to using lyrics and imagery that is misogynistic and/or homophobic? What do you think about prosecutors who use hip hop lyrics against rappers in court? How has hip hop’s large international presence changed the genre and culture? What can we learn about American history and culture through studying hip hop? (Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective.)

NOTE: Please understand that because we will examine the unedited versions of lyrics, music videos, and artwork, the course materials will contain language that is profane, offensive, violent, and/or controversial. Prior familiarity with hip hop is not required, but being open to learning more about hip hop is a must. Please approach the course material with an open mind.

SUMMER 2021

ENGL 514: An Introduction to the History of Textual Transmission (Dr. Jessica Ward)

This course introduces students to critical bibliography, a fast-growing and emerging field that seeks to bring the bibliographic tradition into dialogue with the critical and theoretical insights of twenty-first century humanities scholarship. Students explore the creation of texts across centuries and technologies—from manuscripts to e-books—and consider how meaning and materiality relate. (Fulfills an elective by default but can work for a Literature Group 1 or 2 requirement if needed.)

ENGL 515: Mastering the Past, Literature and National Myths (Dr. Boria Sax)

Every country likes to see itself as heir of to a glorious past, filled with heroic and ultimately successful struggles against oppression. But the construction of such a narrative always leads to the repression or trivialization of uncomfortable aspects of the past. Important authors of Antiquity such as Homer and Virgil have created national myths, while others such as Sophocles and Euripides have challenged them. If the myths themselves can often serve to rationalize complaisance, injustice and chauvinism, correcting them involves hazards as well. It can reopen old resentments, leave people disoriented, and open the way for other, similarly dangerous illusions. This course will look at the contrasting ways in which modern and contemporary writers have tried to come to terms with the collective past, and will likely include readings by Faulkner (USA), Sebald (Germany), Solzhenitsyn (Russia), Lampedusa (Italy) and Ishiguro (Britain and Japan). Students will endeavor to evaluate their intellectual strategies, especially in the light of current controversies such as whether we should continue to display statues that commemorate dubious legacies. Questions to be addressed will include: Can we ever truly come to terms with the past? Can the brutalities of history ever be redeemed or compensated for? What lessons, if any, can we legitimately learn from history? Are some aspects of history better left forgotten? (Fulfills an elective by default but can work for a Literature Group 2 requirement if needed.)

ENGL 525: 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 considered from a variety of critical approaches. Particular attention will be given to the importance of gender, class, and societal expectations. (Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.)

Registration for spring 2021 will open on Wednesday 11/4 at 9:00am eastern. In the past this has meant that the registration began on the day-of as soon as the Registrar arrived at work, logged into her computer, and then clicked the button to activate the whole thing; which was usually around 9am eastern. Sometimes that meant 9:00, sometimes that meant 9:15. If you’re trying to register at the stroke of 9am and you’re getting an error, or it says the system isn’t active, just keep trying every few minutes. If you think something is truly wrong with your account access contact helpdesk@mercy.edu and/or the MA staff advisor Erika Tremblay at ETremblay@mercy.edu.

There are 16 seats in each of the six course offerings, which we estimate to be enough to accommodate the graduate English student body. There is no way to “reserve” seats other than to actually register for them (meaning, please don’t email me asking me to save you a seat; I can’t do that, and even if I could it’s not fair for me to do that). If a preferred course is already full at 16, I recommend you get on the wait list while registering for your next-best choice of course(s). Being in line on the waitlist often works out, especially if you’re the first or second person in line on the list. If all of the courses fill up to capacity we will then start opening a few extra seats across the schedule, which will automatically be offered to people on the waitlist in the order they are on the waitlist (contact Erika Tremblay at ETramblay@mercy.edu for more info about the wait list).

You will register for your courses using the self-service registration feature in Mercy Connect. If you need help understanding how that works, again please contact helpdesk@mercy.edu and/or Erika Tremblay at ETremblay@mercy.edu for assistance.

Course descriptions for the six spring courses can be found here on the blog.

UPDATE 11/4: Registration for spring is now open. Courses are already filling up. Once a course is full we won’t consider opening additional seats in it unless all of the other courses fill. Please understand: Each semester the MA program must run a balanced schedule that tends to the various requirements for the degree, and we must balance enrollment across the schedule in order for each course to remain viable and open. As well, we set the course caps at the point where graduate courses should ideally be; and adding students beyond those caps risks over-crowding each classroom and diminishing the learning experience. So please, if you are intent on getting into particular courses this spring, register as soon as possible.

The graduate English schedule for the spring is:

• ENGL 507 Narrative Strategies in the Novel (Dr. 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 514 Hemingway/Modern Cryptography (Dr. Loots)

This course follows Ernest Hemingway, through his writings, from his early days in Paris to his final moments in Ketchum, Idaho. Readings will include many of his major novels and short stories, and some non-fiction. By exploring Hemingway’s travels and writings we will experience through his eyes the rise of modernity; the unprecedented way that the world changed forever in the early twentieth century; and the relationship of modern literature and art to modernity. We will as well consider the interrelated effects of Hemingway’s self-engineered celebrity status—as the rugged bearded “macho” world traveler—which coincided precisely with the rise of modern media technology, and exceeded his literary fame even within his lifetime. And we will consider how Hemingway’s groundbreaking style exemplifies a type of modernist code, requiring of us delicate work to interpret/intuit what secrets and subtle meanings weave through the writings of this giant of 20th-century American literature, arguably the most influential American writer of all time. (Fulfills an elective by default or, upon request, can fulfill a Literature Group 2 field requirement).

• ENGL 515 Fairy Tales (Dr 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 or, upon request, can fulfill a Literature Group 1 field requirement.)

• ENGL 540 Irish Literature (Dr. Dugan)

This course explore themes prevalent to Irish identity, such as nationalism, rebellion, social class, religion, oppression, gender, and family, among others, by close textual analysis of drama, poetry, fiction, and mythology. The materials will be chronologically arranged, allowing for the study of historical events and cultural influences that shaped the literature of Ireland. Readings will most likely be: Elizabeth Bowen The Last September, Maira Edgeworth Castle Rackrent, Ann Enright The Gathering, Biran Friel Dancing at Lughnasa, Seamus Heaney Opened Ground, stories from James Joyce Dubliners, Bram Stoker Dracula, J.M. Synge Playboy of the Western World, as well as Jonathan Swift “A Modest Proposal” and selected poems of W.B. Yeats. (Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.)

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

Any questions, write to cloots@mercy.edu. Book orders for these classes will be provided later in a different blog post.

Next week or the week after, at the latest, another course will appear on the fall schedule, something brand new and just designed by Dr. Donald Morales. A few weeks ago we knew we were going to need a sixth course due to increase in enrollment. We wanted to run something new, unique to Mercy, something that spoke to the times; and in response Dr. Morales came up with the following. I hope you will find it interesting, exciting even, and will consider enrolling in it (and remember, you can switch in/out of courses without issue or problem, as you like, until the start of the semester):

ENGL 560 The Literary Accretion of Black Lives Matter

“In the agony of his final moments, while crying out for his mama, water, and breath, George Floyd reached out to and became all of us. He has joined a vast community of people, across the globe, who see echoes of the injustices and the inequalities of their own societies in his American story and recognize their own torment in his suffering. Floyd’s seemingly unending death, in the midst of a pandemic that has disproportionately killed black, brown, and indigenous people, also underscores the fact that many of us are mourning and are uncertain about how long we ourselves will be able to breathe.”

–Edwidge Danticat, “So Brutal a Death,” New Yorker

“Black creativity emerges from long lines of innovative responses to the death and violence that plague our communities. ‘Not a house in the country ain’t packed to its rafters with some dead Negro’s grief,’ Toni Morrison wrote in Beloved, and I am interested in creative emergences from that ineluctable fact.

–Elizabeth Alexander, “The Trayvon Generation,” New Yorker

This new course explores the dynamics of the racial turmoil that has disrupted this nation in ways much like during the civil rights era of the sixties. The question arises: is this a momentary period of protest or a defining movement ushering in profound change? In this class, through mostly non-fiction, we will look through the prism of literature at the origin and continued life of systemic racism in America; at how artists have responded and creatively documented it. The course will also expand beyond America and view the global response to the spring+summer of 2020 through works and articles from international writers.

Students will encounter works such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “A Case for Reparations,” W. E. B. Du Bois’ Souls of Black Folk, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage, Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore or Nature of Blood, Teju Cole’s Open City, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, August Wilson’s King Hedley, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, Oladipo Agbouuaje’s The Hounding of David Oluwale, and Debbie Tucker Green’s ear for eye or random. Other or different works might be studied as well. The course will be supplemented with audio, video, and other media arising out of the events of this period. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or works as an elective.

Note: you can take this course even if you’ve taken an earlier course coded as 560. Multiple topics courses cycle under the course codes of 560, 540, 515, and 514, and students can take as many different courses running by these codes as they like.

A sixth graduate literature course will be added soon, probably by the start of July, to the fall schedule. We schedule as many courses during each fall/spring semester as seems sustainable based on projected enrollment, and informed by the idea that most students take two courses each of these semesters. Our enrollment projections are rising, though, perhaps due to increased interest in well-established online graduate programs such as ours during this COVID-19 situation. Dr. Morales has responded to the call for an additional course offering and is working on something that we will schedule soon. Students currently enrolled in fall courses might find that the new course is more interesting than one of your current courses, and might want to switch. This is fine, as students can change their schedules, can freely add and drop classes as often as you like, up until the first day of any semester. As a finale note, preliminary book orders for the fall classes will be posted here on the blog near the start of July.

SUMMER 2020

• ENGL 517 Advanced Creative Writing (Dr. Keckler)

Advanced Creative Writing, despite the name, is open to anyone in the MA English program no matter how much or little previous experience you’ve had with creative writing. If you are interested in expressing yourself creatively through words, you are welcome and encouraged to enroll. The form of writing emphasized in the course changes depending on the preferences of the instructor running it. In this summer 2020 instance, students will be doing poetry only. Students will not be required to purchase any books. Instead, articles, textbooks, and other sources will be either linked or provided as PDFs. 3 credits. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms field requirement or an elective.

• ENGL 560 Magical Realism (Dr. 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 responses. This summer 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. All readings will be provided as PDFs or links. Readings will likely be: 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. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 field requirement or an elective.

NOTE: The course numbers 514, 515, 540, and 560, are “topics” shell numbers under which a variety of coursework cycles. Students can take multiple instances of any of these course numbers as long as the different instances are actually different courses with different titles. So students who have previously taken a 560 course can take this 560 course, as long as the previous instances wasn’t Magical Realism.

FALL 2020

• ENGL 500 Theory & Practice of Literary Criticism (Dr. Kilpatrick)

This is the program’s core course, meaning the course that everyone must take and for which there are no alternative course options. This course runs once each fall semester, so if you’re aiming to graduate at the end of fall 2020, spring 2021, or summer 2021 and have not yet completed 500, you must enroll in this for fall 2020. The next instance of the course will be fall 2021. Enrollment requires gaining a permit from the Program Director (contact cloots@mercy.edu). Here’s the catalog description for the course:

This course provides an introduction to 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 will be engaged. 3 credits.

• ENGL 510 Theory & Practice of Expository Writing (Dr. Proszak)

In this course, students learn about how writing has been studied and theorized across writing studies and related disciplines. The course specifically focuses on cultural issues endemic to writing and how race, ethnicity, gender, and class enter into conversations on writing instruction and assessment. Students who take this course will understand how writing functions across contexts and communities, including within higher education. All course texts will be scanned or available online. Readings will include chapters from A Short History of Writing Instruction; Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies and chapters from texts on the open-access WAC Clearinghouse, including Situating Writing Processes; Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and the Advancement of Opportunity; Genre in a Changing World. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms field requirement or an elective.

• ENGL 522 Humanism in Renaissance Texts (Dr. Fritz)

This course will focus on humanism and the concepts arising from it in relation to the production and appreciation of literature during the Renaissance. The revival of interest in the arts and ideas of Greco-Roman antiquity and the dependence of Renaissance thought on classical themes will be among the issues discussed. Readings could include (but aren’t limited to) works by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Machiavelli, More, Spenser, among others. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.

• ENGL 526 Modernism (Dr. Sax)

This course explores the various “isms” of modernism, while questioning if these trends emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are of the past or remain present and relevant to contemporary intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities. Among the features of modernism that we will explore in this course are themes of fragmentation, parody, and irony; the self-conscious retrieval of myth; the collapse of traditional distinctions between subjective and objective reality; and the iconoclastic transgression of Victorian norms of religion, the family, and sexuality. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or works as an elective.

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

This course will study the search for identity, individually and collectively, as it manifests in American (United States) literature from Colonial times through the turn of the twentieth century. Attention will be paid to the rapidly changing historical/cultural contexts from which such literature emerged, as well as to different literary movements emerging in America over the eras studied (e.g. Romanticism, Realism, etc). Part of the goal of the course is to provide students with a foundation of American literature, and with an understanding of the foundations of literature in America. Readings this fall will likely include works by Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Olaudah Equiano, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Phillis Wheatley, Philip Freneau, Poe, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Charles Chestnutt, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or works as an elective.

As some of you learned today when you went to register, general registration has now been pushed back from 3/2 to 3/9. I was only made aware of this change to the registration date today (this moment). I apologize for the confusion I know that some of you experienced this morning when attempting to register.

Registration for spring is open as of this Wednesday morning, 11/6. The servers were overwhelmed for the first hour or so from extraordinary demand, so if you experienced registration issues at that time, that was why. It should be working now. Be sure to register as soon as possible to ensure you get your preferred selection of courses. If you find yourself closed out of a preferred course you can get on the waitlist for that course, but in the meantime should select the next best schedule you can find of what is available. Be sure to check the course descriptions in the post down below. And any creative writers or artists, be sure to check out the call for submissions for the college’s creative journal in the post directly below this one. Any questions or issues with registration, let me know at cloots@mercy.edu.