FAS - English

Contact Information

Department Chair: David Bartholomae

Main Office: 526 Cathedral of Learning

Phone: (412) 624-6506

Fax: (412) 624-6639

Web site: http://www.pitt.edu/~englweb/

Admissions

The department offers an MA, MFA, and PhD in English. The PhD emphasizes cultural and critical studies. Admission to graduate standing in English presupposes an undergraduate major of at least 24 credits in English language and literature courses. Students with fewer credits may be required by their advisor to take certain undergraduate courses to make up their deficiencies.

All applications for admission to the graduate programs in literature or cultural studies (MA, PhD) must be accompanied by certified scores on the verbal section of the Graduate Record Examination; the Advanced section of the GRE is optional but highly recommended. Those seeking admission to the graduate programs in writing (MFA) must provide the verbal score. Applications for financial aid must be completed before January 15.

The applicant to the MFA in English should read the department's information about admission requirements, regulations, and teaching assistantships and fellowships and should fill out the standard application form for admission to graduate study in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The applicant should be familiar with the stipulations that pertain specifically to the writing program and should submit the writing sample, which is described below, in the application to the writing program. The writing sample is particularly important.

Candidates for admission to the MFA in English need not have been undergraduate writing or English majors but should be prepared to submit a sample of recent writing. Applicants will be judged upon Graduate Record Examination scores (general aptitude only in the writing program), undergraduate grades, recommendations, and_especially_writing samples. The applicant should submit as a writing sample approximately 50 pages in fiction or nonfiction or approximately 20 pages in poetry of his/her best work.

Graduate courses are also open to qualified persons who may not be formally enrolled in the graduate program; details are available from the departmental office.

Financial Assistance

With the exception of a few competitive fellowships available throughout the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (primarily for PhD students in their last years), the Department of English can support students with teaching assistantships and, for PhD students, teaching fellowships.

Advising

Dr. Fiore Pugliano, who is knowledgeable about the curriculum, program requirements, departmental policies, and procedures, is the initial academic advisor for graduate students.

Degree Requirements

Students should consult the Graduate Student Handbook, available in 526 Cathedral of Learning, for a fuller description of the requirements and procedures for the MA, MFA, and PhD degrees. The minimal requirements established by the Graduate Faculty of the University, as described under General Academic Regulations, and any additional requirements of FAS Graduate Studies described under FAS Degree Requirements, should be read in conjunction with department-specific degree requirements described in the following sections.

Requirements for the Master's Degree

The Department of English offers both the MA and the MFA degrees amongst its master's programs. The respective degree requirements are detailed below.

Master of Arts Requirements

Course requirements for the MA are as follows: nine English courses (27 credits). Normally, all nine courses shall be taken at the graduate level (2000- and 3000-series).

For the MA degree, the department requires reading knowledge of one foreign language. French, German, Latin, Classical Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian are acceptable languages; others may be offered only with departmental approval. This requirement will be fulfilled by examinations administered by faculty of University language departments or in consultation with members of language departments at other institutions. A student may substitute for the examination a specifically designated graduate course in a language department (requiring extensive translation) passed at the A or B level. Under certain circumstances, language examinations passed at other graduate schools may be applied toward fulfillment of this requirement.

The MA examination requirement is satisfied by passing, with a grade of B or higher, four designated graduate courses—Institutions of Literature (ENGLIT 2040), Practices and Texts (ENGLIT 2567), Seminar in Rhetoric and Literacy (ENGLIT 2700), and Film History/Theory (ENGLIT 2451).

MA Students Pursuing the PhD

MA students who wish to continue for the PhD degree should apply in writing to the department's Director of Graduate Studies by February 1 of the year in which they expect to begin PhD studies. Due to the competitive nature of the program, MA students cannot be guaranteed a place in the PhD program. MFA students who wish to enter the PhD program should read the requirements for the MFA degree below.

Master of Fine Arts Requirements

The MFA in English will be awarded for the completion of a minimum of 36 course credit hours with a minimum quality point average of 3.00, plus the completion of an acceptable final manuscript (details later in this section).

MFA Credit Requirements

The 36 required credits are distributed as follows:

• Twelve credits are to be earned in four three-credit writing courses, at least nine of the twelve in workshops in the student's area of major interest (fiction, nonfiction, or poetry), and three in a graduate-level readings course. The graduate-level readings course should be taken as early as possible. The first workshop taken upon the student's entering the program should be one in the area of major interest. (Allowance can be made for a student's possible change of mind about the area of major interest.)
• Twelve credits are to be earned in the literature program. Nine are to be earned in English literature courses at the graduate level. A maximum of three may be earned in English or American literature courses at the 1000 level.
• The remaining twelve elective hours may be taken in literature or writing. (See the Graduate Student Handbook for restrictions on electives.)

Teaching seminars will not be required of all students; students applying for teaching assistantships or teaching fellowships, however, should note that registration and participation in teaching seminars are required of students holding those positions.

There are no foreign language requirements for the student in the writing program.

MFA Final Manuscript Requirement

The final manuscript is equivalent to the MA comprehensive examination. It consists of a book-length manuscript of the student's best work in the area of major interest. The manuscript shall be submitted to a committee of three Department of English faculty members-two writing Graduate Faculty in the student's area of major interest and one member of the literature Graduate Faculty. The student may recommend committee members, but the writing program director has final approval.

MFA Students Pursuing the PhD

Students in the MFA program who wish to enter the PhD program will be required to pass the MA examination requirement detailed under Master of Arts Requirements above or they may complete two or three of the MA examination courses and submit a portfolio of work (not from creative writing courses) which they have completed in this department.

Requirements for the PhD Degree

The PhD emphasizes cultural and critical studies and has been designed to address the intellectual opportunities and the professional needs of a discipline experiencing fundamental change. Recognizing the importance of certain kinds of traditional work, as well as the challenge of a number of recent developments, the program is based on a commitment to:

1. Ground its teaching and research in a continuing process of self-scrutiny, by serious engagement with the theoretical and critical debates of the time
2. Understand literary texts as historical productions, with the corollary that "high" literature may be read in conjunction with texts traditionally seen as marginal or as not "literary" at all (popular literature, texts by women and minorities, film, discursive writing, student writing, etc.)
3. Bring together areas of scholarly inquiry which, for largely institutional reasons, have been kept apart: primarily, composition research and pedagogy dealing with the social constitution of writing, literary and intellectual history, and theoretical inquiry into the power of language and its relationship to social order and social change

The following requirements specific to English should be read in conjunction with the general PhD requirements for all FAS students. (See Requirements for the PhD Degree and Regulations Pertaining to Doctoral Degrees.)

PhD Credit Requirements

For the PhD, the student must earn at least 48 credits in addition to those earned for the MA. These must include at least 24 credits in course work and six credits in dissertation research. The remaining 18 credits may be earned either in course work or in dissertation research. Several seminars each year will be held specifically for advanced students. A PhD candidate may not include courses from the 1000 series. The student's advisor may approve courses in other departments if such courses will strengthen the student's program.

All PhD students are required to teach for at least two terms and to complete successfully the teaching seminar (2510)

Foreign Language Requirement

The department requires reading knowledge of two foreign languages or comprehensive command of one language. The language requirement passed at the MA level will partially satisfy the PhD language requirement. Any language relevant to the student's project or, more generally, to the anticipated conditions of future scholarship and teaching may fulfill this requirement. This requirement will be fulfilled by examinations administered by faculty of University language departments or in consultation with members of language departments at other institutions.

A student may substitute for the comprehensive command examination a graduate course in a language department (when taught in the language in question) passed at the A or B level. Under certain circumstances, language examinations passed at other graduate schools may be applied toward fulfillment of this requirement. Tools of research other than languages (such as proficiency in computer science) may be substituted for a second language subject to departmental approval.

Examination Requirements

As part of learning to initiate a serious critical project, each doctoral student, in conjunction with an exam committee, should define the program of study and readings on which he or she would be tested. Work on the exams might well lead fairly directly into the dissertation, but it should not be considered as simply a first attempt at that task. Rather, it should be a broader investigation of topics and issues that might then be the subject of a more detailed written inquiry. Preparation for the exams might well include course work/readings in other disciplines and genealogical research on the topic as well as the traditional literary historical studies.

The critical project may include composition or film. The department offers an optional minor in composition.

Course Listings

Undergraduate courses numbered in the 1000 series sometimes may be taken for graduate credit by master's students, but only within the limits listed previously. English departmental undergraduate courses at this level are separated into two distinct series, one for literature and language, the other for writing. Descriptions of these courses are available in the Course Descriptions, which is published just before registration each term.

A variety of undergraduate courses is offered in each of the following categories each term: introductory literature courses, theories of literature and culture, British literature, American literature, fantasy, myth, folktale, international Modernism/Postmodernism, film, language, genre, mode, specialized textual practices, gender, race, class, nation, popular culture, theme and interdisciplinary, Senior Seminar, and English writing.

Graduate courses, numbered 2000 and higher, vary greatly from term to term. The following list includes all seminars offered in recent years. In the average term, a dozen or more courses or seminars in literature and in writing are available, as well as one or two teaching seminars. Students should consult the Schedule of Classes and the Course Descriptions published prior to the term for which they are registering.

English Literature

ENGLIT 2010 Introduction to Modern Critical Practice

ENGLIT 2011 Issues in Cultural Studies

ENGLIT 2012 Introduction to Critical/Cultural Study

ENGLIT 2013 Criticism in Society

ENGLIT 2017 Reader-Response Criticism

ENGLIT 2018 Reception Theories

ENGLIT 2020 Ideology and Criticism

ENGLIT 2021 History and Spectacle

ENGLIT 2022 Post Structuralism

ENGLIT 2027 Roland Barthes and Cultural Criticism

ENGLIT 2028 History and Philosophy of Economics

ENGLIT 2029 Readings in Critical Theory

ENGLIT 2031 Gender in Literature

ENGLIT 2032 Gender and Discourse

ENGLIT 2033 Feminist Theory

ENGLIT 2034 Women and Literacy

ENGLIT 2035 Black Literary Criticism and Theory

ENGLIT 2040 Institutions of Literature

ENGLIT 2043 Theory of Popular Culture

ENGLIT 2045 Philosophy of Science in the Humanities

ENGLIT 2052 Defoe and Swift

ENGLIT 2053 Metaphor and Critical Theory

ENGLIT 2105 Middle English Literature

ENGLIT 2106 Medieval Literature and Culture

ENGLIT 2107 Society and Dissent in Early English Literature

ENGLIT 2108 Arthurian Literature

ENGLIT 2109 Epic Background

ENGLIT 2110 History and Representation

ENGLIT 2115 Chaucer

ENGLIT 2118 Allegory and Iconography

ENGLIT 2120 Early Modern London

ENGLIT 2125 English Renaissance

ENGLIT 2126 Shakespeare

ENGLIT 2127 Shakespeare, Cinema and Society

ENGLIT 2128 Renaissance Discourses of Gender

ENGLIT 2132 Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama

ENGLIT 2133 17th-century Poetry

ENGLIT 2140 Milton

ENGLIT 2143 Debauched Puritan

ENGLIT 2150 Restoration and the 18th Century

ENGLIT 2151 18th-century British Social Theory

ENGLIT 2154 Social Theory 18th-century Novel

ENGLIT 2155 Sensibility

ENGLIT 2156 The Culture of Advice

ENGLIT 2160 Blake

ENGLIT 2170 British Romantics

ENGLIT 2175 Victorian Women Novelists

ENGLIT 2176 19th-century British Novel

ENGLIT 2177 Dickens

ENGLIT 2178 The Victorian Age and After

ENGLIT 2190 1890s Represent Fin De Siecle

ENGLIT 2202 Conceptualizing Traditions

ENGLIT 2205 Reconstructing American Literature

ENGLIT 2208 Culture of American Literacy

ENGLIT 2210 American Renaissance

ENGLIT 2211 "Scribbling Women"/Classic American Authors

ENGLIT 2213 American Transcendental Theory of Language

ENGLIT 2215 Literature and Culture of the South

ENGLIT 2221 Literature of Reform 1820-1890

ENGLIT 2223 Literature and Hegemony

ENGLIT 2230 Anglo-American Cultural Exchange

ENGLIT 2231 Blood, Class and Nostalgia

ENGLIT 2235 Periodicals and the Public

ENGLIT 2243 New World Slave Narratives

ENGLIT 2245 Black Literature

ENGLIT 2246 Literary Images: Afro-American Artists

ENGLIT 2247 African-American Autobiography

ENGLIT 2248 Abolitionist Discourse

ENGLIT 2250 20th-century American Literature

ENGLIT 2251 U.S. Culture 1929-1973

ENGLIT 2255 American Drama

ENGLIT 2256 Dramatizing American Women

ENGLIT 2257 Disciplining American Drama

ENGLIT 2280 Contemporary American Novel

ENGLIT 2282 History of American Film 1

ENGLIT 2285 Race and Gender in 20th-century Poetry

ENGLIT 2320 The Avant-Garde

ENGLIT 2325 Modernism

ENGLIT 2326 Modern Poetry

ENGLIT 2329 Contemporary Novel

ENGLIT 2350 Postmodernism

ENGLIT 2382 Irish Literary Revival

ENGLIT 2385 Post-colonial Discourse and Cultural Critique

ENGLIT 2387 Imperialism and Modernity

ENGLIT 2388 Third World Feminisms

ENGLIT 2389 Third World Literature

ENGLIT 2390 History of Colonialism 1492-Present

ENGLIT 2391 Women Writers from Africa and the Diaspora

ENGLIT 2392 Literature of Slavery

ENGLIT 2393 African Narratives

ENGLIT 2394 Diaspora and Transnational Identity

ENGLIT 2451 Film History/Theory

ENGLIT 2460 Film and Literature

ENGLIT 2461 Genre and Film

ENGLIT 2462 Comic Theory and the Cinema

ENGLIT 2463 Cinema and Nation

ENGLIT 2464 Masculinity in Cinema

ENGLIT 2465 Cinema, Comedy and Society

ENGLIT 2466 Film and Modernism

ENGLIT 2470 Women and Film

ENGLIT 2471 Maternal Discourse in Film/Literature

ENGLIT 2472 Black Images in American Cinema

ENGLIT 2477 Classical Hollywood Cinema

ENGLIT 2480 Film Directors

ENGLIT 2510 Seminar in Teaching Composition

ENGLIT 2511 Seminar in Teaching English

ENGLIT 2514 Seminar in Teaching Basic Writing

ENGLIT 2516 Professionalism and the American University

ENGLIT 2518 Western PA Writing Project Summer Institute for Teachers

ENGLIT 2519 Writing and Agitations of Power

ENGLIT 2520 Writing As Teachers

ENGLIT 2525 Composition Studies

ENGLIT 2529 Designing Fiction for Teaching Composition

ENGLIT 2531 Sequencing

ENGLIT 2533 Advanced Research in Composition

ENGLIT 2535 Formative/Summative Evaluation of Writing

ENGLIT 2538 Literature and Instruction

ENGLIT 2539 Broken English

ENGLIT 2540 Writing and Difference

ENGLIT 2541 WPWP Advanced Institute

ENGLIT 2565 Producing Books, Producing Subjects

ENGLIT 2566 Figuring Writing

ENGLIT 2567 Practices and Texts

ENGLIT 2568 Stylistics: Composing Sentences

ENGLIT 2581 Materials and Methods

ENGLIT 2584 Proseminar 1

ENGLIT 2585 Proseminar 2

ENGLIT 2589 Topics in English Studies

ENGLIT 2590 Project Research Seminar

ENGLIT 2601 Comedy

ENGLIT 2602 Tragedy

ENGLIT 2603 Satire

ENGLIT 2604 From Heroic to Mock Heroic

ENGLIT 2609 Melodrama

ENGLIT 2610 The Novel: Texts and Theory

ENGLIT 2611 The Self as Child

ENGLIT 2612 Fascism and Euro-American Literature

ENGLIT 2615 Imperialism and Childhood

ENGLIT 2621 Seminar: Shaw

ENGLIT 2622 Seminar in Ibsen

ENGLIT 2641 Memory, Narrative, Nostalgia

ENGLIT 2648 Misrecognition of Innocence

ENGLIT 2700 Seminar in Rhetoric and Literacy

ENGLIT 2900 Museum Internship_Film Video 1

ENGLIT 2901 Museum Internship_Film Video 2

ENGLIT 2970 Teaching of English

ENGLIT 2990 Independent Study

ENGLIT 3000 Research and Dissertation for the PhD Degree

ENGLIT 3010 Dissertation Workshop

ENGLIT 3018 Theories of Reception

ENGLIT 3101 Discourse of Primitivism

ENGLIT 3103 Literature of Slavery

ENGLIT 3104 Made in U.S.A.: American French Culture, 19451968

ENGLIT 3113 Pre-Enlightenment Criticism

ENGLIT 3120 Marx

ENGLIT 3121 Marxist Literary Criticism

ENGLIT 3125 Derrida

ENGLIT 3126 Walter Benjamin

ENGLIT 3128 Historical Discourses of Gender

ENGLIT 3130 Interrogating Canonicity

ENGLIT 3141 Intellectuals

ENGLIT 3143 Critique of Humanism

ENGLIT 3145 Theory and Emergent Subjects

ENGLIT 3150 Literacy and Pedagogy

ENGLIT 3155 History of Rhetoric

ENGLIT 3160 Film Theory/Literary Theory

ENGLIT 3161 Cinema and Desire

ENGLIT 3165 Theories of National Cinema

ENGLIT 3167 Nationalism and Sexual Politics

ENGLIT 3169 Topics in 19th-century Culture

ENGLIT 3205 Henry Adams

ENGLIT 3300 Composition: History, Theory and Practice

ENGLIT 3461 Genre and Film Melodrama

ENGLIT 3475 The Body in the Cinema

ENGLIT 3589 Advanced Topics in English Studies

ENGLIT 3902 Directed Study for PhD Student

English Writing

ENGWRT 2010 Fiction Workshop

ENGWRT 2080 Graduate Playwriting

ENGWRT 2092 Writer's Journals

ENGWRT 2094 Readings in Contemporary Fiction

ENGWRT 2095 Topics in Fiction

ENGWRT 2210 Poetry Workshop

ENGWRT 2290 Readings in Contemporary Poetry

ENGWRT 2291 Underground and Avant-Garde

ENGWRT 2292 Contemporary Poetry in Translation

ENGWRT 2293 Topics in Poetry

ENGWRT 2310 Non-Fiction Workshop

ENGWRT 2390 Readings in Contemporary Non-Fiction

ENGWRT 2392 Documentary Film Writing

ENGWRT 2400 Topics in Non-Fiction: Magazine

ENGWRT 2401 Topics in Non-Fiction: Electronic Media

ENGWRT 2402 Topics in Non-Fiction: Newspaper

ENGWRT 2970 Teaching of English

ENGWRT 2990 Independent Study

ENGWRT 3009 Directed Study