English (MA)

The Department of English roots its Graduate Program in recognition of the African Diaspora as a founding event of modern history and culture. The courses of the Department address such fundamental literary issues as genre and period formation, authorial techniques, rhetorical strategies, thematic motifs, and critical theories. Attention to these issues is intended to foster the skills in critical reading, research, and analysis requisite to professional careers in the language arts. At the same time, the Program generally conceives its offerings within paradigms of the changes wrought by conflict, accommodation, and adjustment in the passage from traditional to modern and contemporary ways of life and writing.