It appears that registration for both summer and fall 2015 semesters is going to open at the same day and time this year. That’s really odd but that’s what they’re telling me. So, that means that fall registration opens on March 4th, just like summer. As I wrote in the summer-schedule post, it usually opens at 9am Eastern. Those of you who know that you MUST enroll in this fall’s running of 500 because you’re nearing the end of your time in the program should be online at 9am on the 4th in order to secure a seat in that course, a course which all students must take (consult the Graduate Student Handbook which you can download in the left-hand menu or refer to the post on the degree audit to see what courses you need for the MA degree). We’re running six courses in the fall, and here they are:
- ENGL 500 Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism.
Dr. David Kilpatrick
This course offers an introduction to major movements and figures of the theory of criticism. The question “what is literature?” is the 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. This course is a core course and so is required of all students in the program. 3 credits.
- ENGL 506 History of Poetic Forms
Dr. Alison Matika
This course investigates the relationship between meaning and form. We are concerned with developing the depth of understanding afforded by close reading, precise writing, and shared discussion, and we will develop a coherent overall context that problematizes the consideration of poetic forms through both creative and critical engagements using full class and small group reading and workshop. This course fulfills the Writing & Literary Forms group requirement, or can count as an elective. 3 credits.
- ENGL 515 Working Women’s Literature in the US: 1865 to Present
Dr. Miriam Gogol
This online 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. We will use literature to help us deconstruct the definitions of “women,” “working,” and “The United States” up to the present writings about the millennials. 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. A goal of this course will be to deconstruct and reconstruct these and other pivotal terms. Breaking what the feminist writer Tillie Olsen calls the “habits of a lifetime” is not a trivial pursuit. One of the course’s goals is to accept contradictions and tensions, to be prepared for them, and know the history and benchmarks of major events in the lives of women. This course defaults to an elective but can be used to fulfill a Literature Group 2 requirement, upon request. 3 credits.
- ENGL 522 Humanism in Renaissance Texts
Dr. David 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. This course fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective. 3 credits.
- ENGL 524 From Reason to Imagination
Dr. Boria Sax
This course looks at the tension between reason and imagination in representative literature from cultural movements such as neo-Classicism, Enlightenment and Romanticism. This course fulfills a Literature Group 1 requirement or an elective. 3 credits.
- ENGL 560 Modern Cryptography: Hemingway
Dr. Christopher 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. The course will consider the interrelated effects of Hemingway’s self-engineered celebrity status—as the rugged bearded world traveler—which coincided precisely with the rise of modern media technology, and exceeded his literary fame even within his lifetime. The concept by which we’ll angle into our semester of study is that Hemingway’s writing, written in a then-groundbreaking style of seeming simplicity, might be considered a modernist code. Like any code, his method seeks to communicate hidden meanings which are not readily apparent upon casual read. Students will work to critically decipher Hemingway’s modern crytography so to interpret/intuit what meanings lurk in the writings of this giant of 20th-century American literature, arguably the most influential American writer of all time. This course fulfills a Literature Group 2 requirement or an elective. 3 credits.
As a final note, students who took the 514 Hemingway course a few years ago are not eligible to take this 560 Hemingway course.
Program Director's Blog for the Mercy University MA in English Literature Program 