Annual Director's Welcome

Welcome to the 2018-19 School Year

Welcome, graduate students new and returning, to the 2018-19 academic year. Today, 9/5, we begin again. One of the great things about being involved in education in any way, as student or professor or anything else really, is that we get to experience these punctuated moments of significance in the cycle of the annual calendar, in the cycle of our lives. Here at the start of the academic year the Dobbs Ferry campus, where I sit and write this post, is packed and buzzing. Hallways are dense with students and faculty and administrators on the go as much as with the din of classroom discussions. Down by the river, athletes practice their various sports for the fall season. Out from the dorms spill laughing and hollering students. The library is already a riot of activity and the cafeterias are packed. Parking lots are full. These halls are alive again, and so too today are the virtual halls of our online coursework. I hope you all are ready for a new semester, a new academic year, and are as eager to get into your studies as I and your other MA professors are to start exploring together the literary pathways ahead.

As you go out into your classes this year you might keep in mind the School of Liberal Arts (SLA) theme for 2018-19: transformations. The SLA theme is something that our Dean, Dr. Tamara Jhashi, began several years ago, is selected anew each year by a faculty vote, and is meant to provide a unifying beacon shining across all the many different SLA programs and departments. It provides us a light to which, if you’re interested in the idea and/or in feeling a part of the SLA academic community, you might turn in your studies, paper topics, discussions, etc. It’s nothing formal, and you don’t have to give it another thought if it’s not interesting to you. But if you’re looking for a way to increase the feeling of being a part of an academic community, of being a part of something larger, then you might consider how your studies in any of your classes might engage or involve the theme of transformations. When it comes time for the spring symposium here on the Dobbs Ferry campus, those of you who are able to participate might find the theme of transformations a useful one when developing possible symposium papers. Perhaps!

Another thing you might keep in mind as you go about your studies, and particularly later in the semester as you gear up for writing your various term papers, is the assessment criteria we use internally in the program when evaluating the final ENGL 599 thesis papers which each of you will eventually write during your final semester in the program (and some of you reading this are about to start writing your 599 thesis papers right now). Even though these criteria are only applied to the 599 paper, and even though they are just used internally and are something we need to track as part of our college’s accreditation requirements, they can still be useful for all of you to know and keep it in mind when writing any paper for any class: because as you’ll see in the assessment rubric we use the criteria correspond to the program’s five learning outcomes, which are the big-picture things we hope you are learning throughout your time the program; and because the criteria are just the basic sorts of things all literature students should be working to address, improve, even perfect in all of their scholarly papers. So each of you should take the time to download the 599 rubric and just read over it to learn the sorts of things we look for and measure through it.

Okay that’s it for the main points I wanted to touch on here at the start of the new academic year. Before signing off let me provide you with links to some of the resources available to graduate students here at Mercy College. This information repeats information found elsewhere on this blog but some of you might find it helpful to have it repeated here all at once. Okay this blog post here contains a rundown of resources and contact-info that Mercy College provides for its students, whether on-campus or online. On this post here you’ll find critical information about the incomplete “I” grade which some of you might occasionally receive. For those approaching their last semester, you must pay attention to your required comprehensive exam, to the instructions for how to enroll in the final 599 course, and to the application you must complete in order to graduate. For those hoping to enter the college teaching job market check out this post here where I introduce a variety of resources and information on that topic. If you’re going to be applying to anything in any academic field you’ll need to have your curriculum vitae (CV) polished up and also need to know the difference between a CV and a resume. I talk about that here.

Finally, remember that although you can get advising from Student Services, I serve as faculty advisor to every student in the MA program. I am here to help and to answer any questions at cloots@mercy.edu. Okay that’s it! Have a great school year and fall semester, everyone. Check back here regularly for program news and info. I’ll be putting up a post soon sharing some news on recent faculty publications and other scholarly activity, as well as a post announcing the spring registration-opening date. So make this blog a periodic stop this semester and all during your time in the MA program. Final note: if any current students or alumni have any news about scholarly activity, publications (scholarly or creative), jobs or doctoral-programs, please share this with me. Cheers, all.

 

 

Course Information

Fall Blackboard sections become visible Wednesday 8/22.

Links to the Blackboard sections for your fall courses should become visible to you starting on Wednesday 8/22. Please bear in mind that what you see on 8/22 will in most cases look like a theater several hours before a play begins. Things are still being setup, some people haven’t even arrived yet, and everything is still very much in the works. Some Blackboard sections might have no information loaded into them yet, and might remain that way for some time leading up to the semester-start on Wednesday 9/5. In such cases please keep in mind that your professors aren’t actually under teaching contract until 9/1, and are still on leave and pursuing their own research and scholarship. Everything will be sorted and ready for the start of the school year on 9/5, at the very latest.

Side note: all students taking the 599 thesis tutorial this fall should by now see their 599 section listed in their fall schedules. If you do not, let me know at cloots@mercy.edu.

Course Schedules

Spring 2019 Course Schedule

The fall semester hasn’t yet begun but the MA course schedule for spring 2019 is already set. We don’t yet know when registration will open for spring but as soon as I learn it I will post the information here. Some courses fill up very quickly when registration opens, so remember that the only way to ensure you get your first-pick of courses is to pay attention to the registration dates and to get registered for courses when registration opens. The six graduate English courses for spring 2019 are:

  • 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. 3 credits. Fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms field requirement or an elective.

  • ENGL 514 Sam Shepard: Playwright, Poet, Novelist, Memoirist and Rock Star (Dr. Medoff)

Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017), known professionally as Sam Shepard, was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose body of work spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most given to any writer or director. He wrote 44 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff (1983). Shepard received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described him as “the greatest American playwright of his generation.” Shepard’s plays are chiefly known for their bleak, poetic, often surrealist elements, black humor, and rootless characters, such as cowboys and rock stars, living on the outskirts of American society. This semester, in light of Shepard’s recent passing, we will experience and study a selection of his works and consider his lifetime of artistic achievement. 3 credits. Fulfills an elective by default, but can be made to meet the Literature Group 2 field requirement for students approaching graduation who still need that field requirement met.

  • 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 540 Ulysses – James Joyce (Dr. Loots)

This course will examine one of the most famous, famously difficult, famously banned, and (arguably) profound modern 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 its achievement and significance (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 read. In this class we will experience together the entirety of the work, first word to last. We will throughout the semester journey through Ulysses until, come the end of the semester, we find ourselves standing together at the absolutely brilliant end of this modern epic tale. While reading and exploring Ulysses we will as well discuss some of the people, culture, history, and events surrounding the creation of, publication of, and outrageous reception to the novel. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 1 field requirement or an elective.

  • ENGL 542 Classics of African-American Literature (Dr. Morales)

This course will study classic works of African-American literature in light of Toni Morrison’s statement that “my parallel is always the music because all of the strategies of the art are there.” The course will involve considerations of how in Richard Powell’s words the blues provides “much contemporary literature, theater, dance, and visual arts with the necessary element for defining these various art forms as intrinsically African-American.” Informed by the concept that music is the trope that best illuminates contemporary African American writing, the course will study selections that could include, but are not limited to, Jean Toomer Cane, Zora Neale Hurston Spunk, James Baldwin Go Tell It on the Mountain, Ralph Ellison Invisible Man, Langston Hughes Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, John Wideman My Brother’s Keeper, Toni Morrison Jazz, August Wilson Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and Maya Angelou Selected Poetry. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 field requirement or an elective.

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

This course will examine 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. 3 credits. Fulfills a Literature Group 2 field requirement or an elective.

Useful Program Info & Tips

Quick FYI: All Aspects of the MA Degree Requirements Can Be Completed At Distance/Online

This is just a quick FYI to all current and prospective students who might be reading the blog, and hopefully just repeats information which is already well known, but to be completely clear: students can complete all aspects of the MA degree through our MA English program remotely, meaning through distance learning, meaning online, meaning how current students are doing it already, meaning from wherever it is you are located in the world. This includes the coursework, the comp exam, the final thesis paper: everything. No one will ever need to travel to Mercy’s physical campus in NY, or to any testing center, in order to complete any of the degree requirements or to receive the actual degree. Some grad students do voluntarily travel to our physical campus at various times for various reasons (to attend the spring symposium, to talk with profs, if they happen to be in the area, etc.) but this is not required for the degree.

I’m posting this note because it’s been brought to my attention that Mercy College periodically sends out some sort of generic form-letter to all graduate students taking online coursework informing them that they might need to travel or make other arrangements to complete some degree requirements. That is not the case for the MA English degree. Again, you can complete all requirements through distance learning and will never have to travel or make special testing arrangements. We’ve got that all figured out here in the program. As always if you have any questions drop me a note at cloots@mercy.edu.

Career Advice, Student News, Useful Program Info & Tips

Call for Papers: NEMLA 2019 Panel

Mary Reading, a colleague of our Dr. Fritz, is chairing a panel at the 2019 NEMLA convention on the topic of: “In, Beyond, Between Bodies: Transgender Identity through Interpersonal Spaces in Visual Media.” The call for papers (CFP) for potential panelists is open until September 30. You can learn more about the CFP, including contact info and submission guidelines, here on the UPENN bulletin board (which if you didn’t know is pretty much where everyone in the profession goes to look for CFPs since the UPENN board collates CFPs from around the country and world.) You can learn more about the 2019 NEMLA convention here. Any Mercy grad students working in this area of inquiry (or interested in working in this area of inquiry) and who can be in Washington DC in March 2019 to attend the convention should put together a paper proposal and submit it before the deadline. Any questions about the panel should be directed to Mary Reading at: m.a.reading@iup.edu.

The Incomplete "I"

A Reminder About the Incomplete “I”

This post duplicates information found earlier in the blog (and accessible by clicking the “The Incomplete ‘I'” category in the right-hand column). But this is critically important information which all students need to keep in view, and so as July turns to August and the fall semester starts to rise on the horizon, let’s just make sure everyone is clear on the policy surrounding the incomplete “I.”

First off an incomplete might be granted by a professor in place of a real course grade to students who have completed most of the required work for a course and who have met attendance requirements. The incomplete is not intended for students who get buried under other work and life-responsibilities and need more time. It is intended for emergency situations, for students who experience an unexpected crisis (such as a debilitating illness or major life-upheaval) at a specific point during the term which unexpectedly interrupts their ability to complete all required work for a course by the end of the semester. Each professor has the right to not grant an incomplete and instead grant some other grade, including an F, based on whatever work the student completed during the regular term.

Students who find themselves in a situation which might warrant an incomplete must request it of the professor. Even if the professor agrees, she or he might still require you to complete a form to initiate the incomplete.

Sometimes an incomplete can be a life-saver for students who experience sudden crisis and find themselves unable to complete the work for course in a timely way, but in just about all cases students should avoid incurring an incomplete. Many students who take an incomplete never resolve it: because life goes on, new responsibilities and coursework come along, and it just becomes very difficult to find time to go back and do work on past requirements. It is also difficult for your professors to deal with incompletes because your professors’ work, responsibilities, and lives move forward too. It is a big deal for everyone when a student takes an incomplete, which is one reason why a professor simply might not grant it.

If a student is granted an incomplete for a course, the student should work to complete the missed work and so remedy the incomplete as soon as possible–and prior to the start of the next semester. At the maximum, students have no more than one year in which to remedy the incomplete: after that year the potential credits for the course and tuition for the course are lost, and the incomplete cannot be changed into any real grade. The incomplete “I” is thereafter locked permanently on your transcript.

So for example students who have an incomplete from any fall semester have at the most until the end of the subsequent fall semester to remedy the incomplete. Once that subsequent fall semester ends, if the incomplete hasn’t been fixed it becomes locked permanently as an incomplete and the student loses the potential credits for it.

In all cases it is the responsibility of a student who receives an incomplete to pay attention to deadlines and do what is necessary to fix the incomplete well before the one-year window closes: to stay in touch with the professor, to know what work needs to be done, to keep the one-year maximum deadline in view. It is not the responsibility of any professor to keep track of incompletes granted in the past, or of the one-year deadline for any incomplete. If anyone has any questions about this please, as always, contact the program director at cloots@mercy.edu

Course Information

[UPDATED 6/7] Update Regarding ENGL 500 for the Fall

Update 6/7: A second section ENGL 500 is now open. Some of those on the waitlist for the original section have already gone and registered for the new section (which is the right thing to do). All those still on the waitlist should now go and grab a seat in the newly opened section. Mercy’s staff advisors will be reaching out to everyone on the waitlist encouraging you to go register for a seat in the new section, just as I am doing here.

Course Information

Some Books for Fall 2018 Courses

Below are some of the books that professors have indicated will be included in their fall semester syllabuses. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive and some of this could change. Titles and missing ISBNs will be updated as I received them over the spring and summer. Ultimately the book orders sent to the Mercy College bookstore mark the definitive list.

Before I list the books I want to just give a word of caution as to why you might not want to read ahead in some cases. When you’re reading a book on your own it will be a different experience from when you’re reading it in-time with a class, in the structure and flow of a class. You’ll be seeing works in certain ways when reading them in the flow of the semester, ways which might not be apparent when reading ahead. Also, in some instances you might find a work confusing, even off-putting, and be wondering “what in the world is this?” when reading it ahead of time on your own, without the context of the class to frame it and provide an immediate platform for studying it together. Only consider that there’s a reason why professors choose certain works and schedule them in a certain pattern, and in some cases it might be better to not read ahead so that you’re experiencing a work for the first time, or for the first time in a long time, in-time with the class.

On the other hand, there are some reasons you might read ahead. There is an advantage to re-reading things, so it can be a good strategy to read some works (particularly large works) ahead of time so that you’re re-reading them later in-time with the class. For people who read slowly, or who expect to have a lot of other responsibilities in the fall, it might also be to your advantage to get ahead on some of the larger readings. Some courses (like Narrative Strategies) have larger reading lists than others and for these classes it might be practical to get at least a few of the books read beforehand, to balance the semester workload out. And it’s often a good idea to read around a syllabus ahead of time: e.g., reading off-syllabus works from an author or era, or perhaps biographies of authors, or critical/historical studies of the culture and era you’re about to study, so to prepare for the semester ahead. This is all only to say to be conscious and critical of why and what you might be reading ahead of time, if you are, in preparation for the fall.

ENGL 500 Theory
  • For Dr. Reissig Vasile’s 500 DLA section the book is: Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th Edition, 2011 ISBN 9780205212149. Dr. Sax’s book order is different and can be located by checking for his 500 DLB book order on the Mercy College Bookstore website. Note that you don’t have to purchase the books through the college bookstore and might be able to find them cheaper elsewhere; but the bookstore is also coy about listing some of the specifics of the book orders in order to try and force you to purchase the books through them. You can check with Dr. Sax at BSax@mercy.edu if you have any questions about his book orders for the fall.
ENGL 507 Narrative Strategies in the Novel

Note: Any edition of the following works will do so specific ISBNs aren’t provided or necessary here. Also note: some of these will be read in their entirety, others will only be read in part.

  • Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
  • Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations (selected chapters only).
  • Eliot, George. Middlemarch. (“Miss Brooke” section only).
  • Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
  • James, Henry. Daisy Miller.
  • Lawrence, D.H. Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
  • McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses.
  • Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple.
  • Twain, Mark. Pudd’nHead Wilson.
  • Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome.
  • Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway.
  • Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief.
ENGL 515 Graphic Novel
  • Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. ISBN: 0618871713.
  • Eisner, Will. The Contract with God Trilogy. ISBN: 0393061051.
  • Gaiman, Neil. The Sandman: Brief Lives. ISBN: 1563891387.
  • Moore, Alan and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. ISBN 9780930289232.
  • Spiegelman, Art. Maus I and Maus II. ISBNs: 1435262352 and 0141014083.
  • Tomine, Adrian. Killing and Dying. ISBN: 9781770462090.
  • Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. ISBN: 0375714545.
ENGL 524 Reason to Imagination
  • Bacon, Frances. Francis Bacon: The Major Works (Oxford World’s Classics). ISBN: 0199540799.
  • Blanning, Tim. The Romantic Revolution: A History. ISBN: 9780812980141.
  • Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. ISBN: 0765356155.
  • Sax, Boria. City of Ravens: The True History of the Legendary Birds in the Tower of London. ISBN: 9781590207772.
  • Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. ISBN: 0486282112.
  • Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. 2 ed. ISBN: 0140137440.
ENGL 525 Victorian Age in Lit.
  • Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. ISBN: 9680486419206.
  • Eliot, George. Mill on the Floss. ISBN: 9780486426806.
  • Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th ed. Vol. E. The Victorian Age.ISBN: 9780393912531.
  • Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. ISBN: 9780486278070.
ENGL 560 Hemingway/Modern Cryptography
  • Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. ISBN: 0684801469.
  • —. The Garden of Eden. ISBN: 0684804522.
  • —. A Moveable Feast. ISBN:  068482499X. (Original Mary Hemingway edition preferred over the “restored” 2010 Sean Hemingway edition, but either will do).
  • —. The Old Man and the Sea. ISBN: 0684801221.
  • —. The Short Stories: The First Forty-Nine Stories with a Brief Introduction by the Author. ISBN: 0684803348.
  • —. The Sun Also Rises. ISBN: 0743297334.

Recommended:

  • Dearborn, Mary. Ernest Hemingway: A Biography. ISBN: 030759467X.
  • Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. ISBN: 0684803356. (The one major novel we’re not covering during the semester).

 

Annual Grad Student Symposium

Wrap-Up: W.I.T 2018 MA English Symposium

On Tuesday 5/15 the graduate English program hosted it’s 2018 Writing Image Text (WIT) symposium. Because most of our MA students live in other parts of the country and even in other countries, we know that it’s impractical for many of our students to travel to attend. Hopefully this post can give those of you at a distance a feel for the event, of which I hope you know that all of you were a part in spirit. Turnout was good as a number of students and alumni (mostly from around the north-east) made it to campus to attend and enjoy some friendly conversation with each other, faculty, and the school Dean.


The picnic area outside Maher Hall. The calm before the storm: literally, our area was hit with a massive storm just a few hours after the event ended.

Our first panel of presenters consisted of Dr. Kristen Keckler, who started the symposium off by reading several of her “flash fiction” pieces. Dr. Keckler (who in addition to teaching in the MA program is also our undergraduate English program director) discussed “flash fiction” a bit and we talked as a group about what we thought one of the stories was really about. After that we switched to hearing some scholarship from two graduate students: Richard Kovarovic presented “The River, the Tiger, the Fire: Borges and the Reimagining of Modernist Time in Ficciones“; and Daniel Campbell then presented “The Literature of the Celtic Periphery: The Commonality of Constituent Elements.”


L-R: Dr. Keckler reading flash fiction; Dr. Loots, Richard, Daniel.

After some lunch (in the picnic area featured above!) Dr. Celia Reissig-Vasile, Chair of the Department of Literature and Language, gave a talk on research activities she recently performed in Argentina while researching the film Tunel de Los Huesos/Tunnel of Bones and the historical events it depicts.


Dr. Reissig-Vasile discussing her on-site research in Argentina. Dr. Dana Horton (right) watches on.

The lights were turned low, and Dr. Dana Horton discussed her poster-presentation “‘Where One Time I Served, Now I Got Others Serving Me’: Women as Post-Neo-Slave Owners in 12 Years a Slave.” Dr. Horton discussed not just the topic of her poster and related research but the whole idea of a poster-presentation, which has long been a standard presentation method in the sciences but has only recently sprung up as a method in literary fields.


Dr. Horton discussing her poster-presentation (the projection was bright and clear in the room, not washed-out as it looks in this photo).

Throughout the event the audience sat enraptured!


L-R: Kari; Dr. Sax (a bit of his shirt at least); Lynne; Richard; Dr. Tamara Jhashi, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts; Dr. Fran Biscoglio (just peeking up above Dean Jhashi’s head); Dr. Keckler. Not depicted: Daniel sitting to the left (sorry Daniel, too far to the left!). Dr. Dugan and Dr. Medoff were present for the event but also out of the frame (alas!).

At this point we switched over to poetry readings. Gloria Buckley, who recently completed her degree as part of the MA English class of 2018, read two selections: “Tide of the Mind” and “November Night Woods.”


Gloria introducing her first poem. Dr. Horton watching on.

After Gloria’s reading Dr. Boria Sax closed out the event with several of his poems, each of which shared a common theme relating to leaves. They included “Which Leaf?,” “Death of a Tree,” and “Sing Sing Prison at Night” (Dr. Sax teaches classes to inmates at Sing Sing as part of Mercy College’s outreach in association with a project called Hudson Link).


Dr. Sax, on the right, having just finished his poetry reading. Gloria, Dr. Reissig-Vasile, and Dr. Horton sit together with Dr. Sax here at the end of the event answering questions related to their presentations.

The symposium was overall just filled with interesting ideas, scholarship, creative fiction, poetry, and research; as well as with good humor, laughter, conversation, and camaraderie. (And food!) In addition, our student-presenters earned a valuable line-item to list on the scholarship section of their CV. Altogether it was a very good day. Thank you, everyone, who attended. And to everyone else in the program who for understandable reasons could not attend (distance, obligations, etc.), please know that you were there with us in spirit, that this event involved each one of you; because we are all in this together, all of us in this graduate English program. This time next year we’ll be having the 2019 symposium. Start planning for it now! We in the faculty hope to see as many of you there as can possibly attend. Until then, cheers to you all.

Course Information

Summer Book Orders

The book orders for the two summer courses are:

ENGL 510 Theory and Practice of Expository Writing:
  • Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1999. ISBN: 9780743273565.
  • Miller, Susan. The Norton Book of Composition Studies. 2009. ISBN: 978039393158.
  • Oates, Joyce Carol & Robert Atwan, eds. The Best American Essays of the Century. 2000. ISBN: 9780155873.
  • Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. 2003. ISBN: 9780743477123

RECOMMENDED:

  • Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User Friendly Guide. 2006. ISBN: 0415974100.
  • MLA Handbook, 8th Ed. 2016. ISBN: 9781603292627.
ENGL 540 Mastering the Past:
  • Di Lampedusa, Guiseppe. The Leopard. 2007. ISBN: 9780375714795.
  • Faulkner. The Portable Faulkner. 2003. 9780142437285.
  • Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Buried Giant. 2016. 9780307455796.
  • Sebald, W.G. On the Natural History of Destruction. 2004. ISBN: 9780375756573.
  • Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. 2008. ISBN: 9780451228147.

This is the director's blog for the Mercy University MA in English Literature Program. This is not the official University site.