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MA in English Theses

Theses/dissertations from 2018 2018.

Implementing Critical Analysis in the Classroom to Negate Southern Stereotypes in Multi-Media , Julie Broyhill

Fan Fiction in the English Language Arts Classroom , Kristen Finucan

Transferring the Mantle: The Voice of the Poet Prophet in the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson , Heidi Brown Hyde

The Effects of Social Media as Low-Stakes Writing Tasks , Roxanne Loving

Student and Teacher Perceptions of Multiliterate Assignments Utilizing 21st Century Skills , Jessica Kennedy Miller

The Storytellers’ Trauma: A Place to Call Home in Caribbean Literature , Ilari Pass

Post Title IX Representations of Professional Female Athletes , Emily Shaw

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

“Not as She is” but as She is Expected to Be: Representations, Limitations, and Implications of the “Woman” and Womanhood in Selected Victorian Literature and Contemporary Chick Lit. , Amanda Ellen Bridgers

The Intrinsic Factors that Influence Successful College Writing , Kenneth Dean Carlstrom

"Where nature was most plain and pure": The Sacred Locus Amoenus and its Profane Threat in Andrew Marvell's Pastoral Poetry , James Brent King

Colorblind: How Cable News and the “Cult of Objectivity” Normalized Racism in Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign , Amanda Leeann Shoaf

Gaming The Comic Book: Turning The Page on How Comics and Videogames Intersect as Interactive, Digital Experiences , Joseph Austin Thurmond

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

The Nature, Function, and Value of Emojis as Contemporary Tools of Digital Interpersonal Communication , Nicole L. Bliss-Carroll

Exile and Identity: Chaim Potok's Contribution to Jewish-American Literature , Sarah Anne Hamner

A Woman's Voice and Identity: Narrative Métissage as a Solution to Voicelessness in American Literature , Kali Lauren Oldacre

Pop, Hip Hop, and Empire, Study of a New Pedagogical Approach in a Developmental Reading and English Class , Karen Denise Taylor

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Abandoning the Shadows and Seizing the Stage: A Perspective on a Feminine Discourse of Resistance Theatre as Informed by the Work of Susanna Centlivre, Eliza Haywood, Frances Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, and the Sistren Theatre Collective , Brianna A. Bleymaier

Mexican Immigrants as "Other": An Interdisciplinary Analysis of U.S. Immigration Legislation and Political Cartoons , Olivia Teague Morgan

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

"I Am a Living Enigma - And You Want To Know the Right Reading of Me": Gender Anxiety in Wilkie Collins's The Haunted Hotel and The Guilty River , Hannah Allford

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Gender Performance and the Reclamation of Masculinity in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns , John William Salyers Jr.

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

"That's a Lotta Faith We're Putting in a Word": Language, Religion, and Heteroglossia as Oppression and Resistance in Comtemporary British Dystopian Fiction , Haley Cassandra Gambrell

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Mirroring the Madness: Caribbean Female Development in the Works of Elizabeth Nunez , Lauren Delli Santi

"Atlas Shrugged" and third-wave feminism: An unlikely alliance , Paul McMahan

"Sit back down where you belong, in the corner of my bar with your high heels on": The use of cross-dressing in order to achieve female agency in Shakespeare's transvestite comedies , Heather Lynn Wright

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Between the Way to the Cross and Emmaus: Deconstructing Identity in the 325 CE Council of Nicaea and "The Shack" , Trevar Simmons

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Graduate Thesis Examples

The subjects of MA theses have included studies of individual poets or dramatists, novelists or autobiographers, as well as explorations of literary movements, themes or periods. View our more recent titles below.

Our Recent Titles:

• “The Bottom and the Orchard: Where Space and Place are Created, Controlled, and Maintained in  Sula  and  Recitatif ” (2024 Anyabwile)
• “The Great (Genre) Escape” (2024 Perrin)
• “Modality and Sociality in Elizabeth Gaskell’s  Cranford ” (2024 Perry)
• “‘Don’t Question the Experts’: Autistic Autobiographies, Expert Paratexts, and Epistemic Injustice” (2024 Thompson)
• “Preracial Panem: Understanding Racial Identity in Suzanne Collins’s  The Hunger Games  Trilogy and Prequel  The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ” (2024 Wooten)
• “Parts of the Story: An Illustrated Short Story Collection” (2023 Beal)
• “‘What lady wouldn’t wish to join causes with women who stood up for other women?’: Heroines’ Rivalries and Friendships in Popular Romance Novels” (2023 Bradford)
• “Breaking Away: Some Essays on Influence” (2023 Ferrer)
• “Posting to Engage: A Study of the Effects of Recovery-Oriented Rhetoric on Community Building for Individuals with Eating Disorders and Associated Symptoms on Instagram” (2023 Horton)
• “Being Born: A Memoir of Self-Making in Four Parts” (2023 Langford)
• “‘Widen the Lens and See’: Poetry, Photography, and the Act of Witness in Muriel Rukeyser’s ‘The Book of the Dead’” (2023 Marlow)
• “Engaging Secondary Students Through Secondary Worlds: An Approach to Teaching Tolkien at the High School Level” (2022 Casey)
• “The Religious and the Secular Mythology in  Idylls of the King ” (2022 Kirkendall)
• “‘…A Hideous Monster’: Social Repression and Rebellion in Gregory Corso’s ‘The American Way’” (2022 LeBey)
• “Individualism, Materialism, and Sacrifice in Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ and Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Nightingale’” (2022 Nalbandian)
• “Burying the Carnival” (2022 Overdurf)
• “Attending to Time in Narratives of Enslavement: Temporal Alterities and Lived Experiences of Time in Toni Morrison’s  Beloved ” (2021 Bischoff)
• “‘Beasts who walk alone’: Narrating Queer Abjection in Djuna Barnes’s  Nightwood  and Jordy Rosenberg’s  Confessions of the Fox ” (2021 McGuirk)
• “Reach Out and Touch Faith: Haptic Reciprocity in Milton’s  Paradise Lost ” (2021 Ricks)
• “Gender Matters: Amante’s Gender Construction in Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘The Grey Woman’” (2021 Willis)
• “Braddon’s Body of Bigamy: A Corpus Stylistics Analysis” (2021 Waxman)
• “‘Memory is all that Matters;’ Queer Latinx Temporality and the Memory-Making Process” (2020 Caicedo)
• “Old Wives’ Tales: Mothers & Daughters, Wives & Witches (Stories)” (2020 Champagne)
• “‘Numbed and Mortified’: Labor, Empathy, and Acquired Disability in  King Lear  and  Titus Andronicus : (2020 Harrington)
• “‘More Forms and Stranger’: Queer Feminism and the Aesthetic of Sapphic Camp (2020 Kennedy)
• “A Discourse and Statistical Approach to Intersections of Gender and Race in Melville’s  Typee ” (2020 Post)
• “Prophetic Un-speaking: The Language of Inheritance and Original Sin in  Paradise Lost  and S alve Deus Rex Judaeorum ” (2019 Darrow)
• “‘The Frame of her Eternal Dream’: From  Thel  to Dreamscapes of Influence” (2019 Gallo)
• “‘The Murmure and the Cherles Rebellying’: Poetic and Economic Interpretations of the Great Revolt of 1381” (2019 Noell)
• “Dialogic Convergences of Spatiality, Racial Identity, and the American Cultural Imagination” (2019 Humphrey)
• “Troubling Vice: Stigma and Subjectivity in Shakespeare’s Ambitious Villains” (2019 Simonson)
• “Beyond Mourning: Afro-Pessimism in Contemporary African American Fiction” (2018 Huggins)
• “‘Harmonized by the earth’: Land, Landscape, and Place in Emily Brontë’s  Wuthering Heights ” (2018 Bevin)
• “(Re)membering the Subject: Nomadic Becoming in Contemporary Chicano/a Literature” (2018 Voelkner)
• “Werewolves: The Outsider on the Inside in Icelandic and French Medieval Literature” (2018 Modugno)
• “Towards Self-Defined Expressions of Black Anger in Claudia Rankine’s  Citizen  and Percival Everett’s  Erasure ” (2018 Razak)
• “Echoes Inhabit the Garden: The Music of Poetry and Place in T.S. Eliot” (2018 Goldsmith)
• “‘Is this what motherhood is?’: Ambivalent Representations of Motherhood in Black Women’s Novels, 1953-2011” (2018 Gotfredson)
• “Movements of Hunters and Pilgrims: Forms of Motion and Thought in  Moby-Dick ,  The Confidence Man , and  Clarel ” (2018 Marcy)
• “Speaking of the Body: The Maternal Body, Race, and Language in the Plays of Cherrie Moraga, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Tony Kushner” (2018 King)
• “Passing as Jewish: The Material Consequences of Race and the Property of Whiteness in Late Twentieth-Century Passing Novels” (2017 Mullis)
• “Eliot through Tolkien: Estrangement, Verse Drama, and the Christian Path in the Modern Era” (2017 Reynolds)
• “Aesthetics, Politics, and the Urban Space in Postcolonial British Literature” (2017 Rahmat)
• “Models of Claim, Resistance, and Activism in the Novels of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, and Frances Burney” (2017 Smith)
• “English Literature’s Father of Authorial Androgyny: The Innovative Perspective of Chaucer and the Wife of Bath” (2017 Ingold)
•  “’Verbal Hygiene’ on the Radio: An Exploration into Perceptions of Female Voices on Public Radio and How They Reflect Language and Gender Ideologies within American Culture” (2017 Barrett)
• “Divided Bodies: Nation Formation and the Literary Marketplace in Salman Rushdie’s  Shame  and Bapsi Sidhwa’s  Cracking India”  (2016 Mellon)
• “Metaformal Trends in Contemporary American Poetry” (2016 Muller)
• “Power Through Privilege: Surveying Perspectives on the Humanities in Higher Education in the Contemporary American Campus Novel” (2016 Klein)
• “‘I always cure you when I come’: The Caregiver Figure in the Novels of Jane Austen” (2016 McKenzie)
• “English Imperial Selfhood and Semiperipheral Witchcraft in  The Faerie Queene, Daemonologie,  and  The Tempest”  (2016 Davis)
• “With Slabs, Bones, and Poles: De/Constructing Narratives of Hurricane Katrina in Jesmyn Ward’s  Salvage the Bones , Natasha Trethewey’s  Beyond Katrina , and Selah Saterstrom’s  Slab”  (2016 Lang)
• “The Ghost of That Ineluctable Past”: Trauma and Memory in John Banville’s Frames Trilogy” (2016 Berry)
• “Breaking Through Walls and Pages: Female Reading and Education in the 18th Century British Novel” (2015 Majewski)
• “The Economics of Gender Relations in London City Comedy” (2015 Weisse)
• “Objects, People, and Landscapes of Terror: Considering the Sublime through the Gothic Mode in Late 19th Century Novels” (2015 Porter)
• “Placing the Body: A Study of Postcolonialism and Environment in the Works of Jamaica Kincaid” (2015 Hutcherson)
• “Wandering Bodies: The Disruption of Identities in Jamaica Kincaid’s  Lucy  and Edwidge Danticat’s  The Farming of Bones ” (2015 Martin)
• “Mythogenesis as a Reconfiguration of Space in an ‘Alternate World’: The Legacy of Origin and Diaspora in Experimental Writing” (2015 Pittenger)
• “Cunning Authors and Bad Readers: Gendered Authorship in ‘Love in Excess’” (2015 Bruening)
• “‘The Thing Became Real’: New Materialisms and Race in the Fiction of Nella Larsen” (2015 Parkinson)
• “‘Projections of the Not-Me’: Redemptive Possibilities of the Gothic within Wuthering Heights and Beloved” (2015 Glasser)
• “Distortions, Collections, and Mobility: South Asian Poets and the Space for Female Subjectivity” (2015 Wilkey)
• “From Text to Tech: Theorizing Changing Experimental Narrative Structures” (2015 Ortega)
• “A Moral Being in an Aesthetic World: Being in the Early Novels of Kurt Vonnegut” (2015 Hubbard)

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English Dissertations and Theses

The English Department Dissertations and Theses Series is comprised of dissertations and thesis authored by Marquette University's English Department doctoral and master's students.

Theses/Dissertations from 2024 2024

Speculative Escapism in Contemporary Fantasy: Labor, Utility, Affect , Liamog Seamus Drislane

Disillusionment and Domesticity in Mid-20th-Century British Catholic Literature , Catherine Simmerer

A LIBERATED WEST?: FEMALE AUTHORS’ REPRESENTATIONS OF THE "REAL AND THE FANTASIZED" ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER , Amanda Diane Zastrow

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Lifting the Postmodern Veil: Cosmopolitanism, Humanism, and Decolonization in Global Fictions of the 21st Century , Matthew Burchanoski

Gothic Transformations and Remediations in Cheap Nineteenth-Century Fiction , Wendy Fall

Milton’s Learning: Complementarity and Difference in Paradise Lost , Peter Spaulding

“The Development of the Conceptive Plot Through Early 19th-Century English Novels” , Jannea R. Thomason

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Gonzo Eternal , John Francis Brick

Intertextuality and Sociopolitical Engagement in Contemporary Anglophone Women’s Writing , Jackielee Derks

Innovation, Genre, and Authenticity in the Nineteenth-Century Irish Novel , David Aiden Kenney II

Reluctant Sons: The Irish Matrilineal Tradition of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and Flann O’Brien , Jessie Wirkus Haynes

Britain's Extraterrestrial Empire: Colonial Ambition, Anxiety, and Ambivalence in Early Modern Literature , Mark Edward Wisniewski

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Re-Reading the “Culture Clash”: Alternative Ways of Reading in Indian Horse , Hailey Whetten

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

When the Foreign Became Familiar: Modernism, Expatriation, and Spatial Identities in the Twentieth Century , Danielle Kristene Clapham

Reforming Victorian Sense/Abilities: Disabilities in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Social Problem Novels , Hunter Nicole Duncan

Genre and Loss: The Impossibility of Restoration in 20th Century Detective Fiction , Kathryn Hendrickson

A Productive Failure: Existentialism in Fin de Siècle England , Maxwell Patchet

Inquiry and Provocation: The Use of Ambiguity in Sixteenth-Century English Political Satire , Jason James Zirbel

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

No Home but the World: Forced Migration and Transnational Identity , Justice Hagan

The City As a Trap: 20th and 21st Century American Literature and the American Myth of Mobility , Andrew Joseph Hoffmann

The Fantastic and the First World War , Brian Kenna

Insane in the Brain, Blood, and Lungs: Gender-Specific Manifestations of Hysteria, Chlorosis, & Consumption in 19th-Century Literature , Anna P. Scanlon

Reading Multicultural Novels Melancholically: Racial Grief and Grievance in the Joy Luck Club, Beloved, and Anil's Ghost , Jennifer Arias Sweeney

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Ethos of Dissent: Epideictic Rhetoric and the Democratic Function of American Protest and Countercultural Literature , Jeffrey Lorino Jr

Literary Cosmopolitanisms of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy , Sunil Samuel Macwan

The View from Here: Toward a Sissy Critique , Tyler Monson

The Forbidden Zone Writers: Femininity and Anglophone Women War Writers of the Great War , Sareene Proodian

Theatrical Weddings and Pious Frauds: Performance and Law in Victorian Marriage Plots , Adrianne A. Wojcik

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Changing the Victorian Habit Loop: The Body in the Poetry and Painting of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris , Bryan Gast

Gendering Scientific Discourse from 1790-1830: Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet , Bridget E. Kapler

Discarding Dreams and Legends: The Short Fiction of Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty , Katy L. Leedy

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Saving the Grotesque: The Grotesque System of Liberation in British Modernism (1922-1932) , Matthew Henningsen

The Pulpit's Muse: Conversive Poetics in the American Renaissance , Michael William Keller

A Single Man of Good Fortune: Postmodern Identities and Consumerism in the New Novel of Manners , Bonnie McLean

Julian of Norwich: Voicing the Vernacular , Therese Elaine Novotny

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Homecomings: Victorian British Women Travel Writers And Revisions Of Domesticity , Emily Paige Blaser

From Pastorals to Paterson: Ecology in the Poetry and Poetics of William Carlos WIlliams , Daniel Edmund Burke

Argument in Poetry: (Re)Defining the Middle English Debate in Academic, Popular, and Physical Contexts , Kathleen R. Burt

Apocalyptic Mentalities in Late-Medieval England , Steven A. Hackbarth

The Creation of Heaven in the Middle Ages , William Storm

(re)making The Gentleman: Genteel Masculinities And The Country Estate In The Novels Of Charlotte Smith, Jane Austen, And Elizabeth Gaskell , Shaunna Kay Wilkinson

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Brides, Department Stores, Westerns, and Scrapbooks--The Everyday Lives of Teenage Girls in the 1940s , Carly Anger

Placed People: Rootedness in G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and Wendell Berry , David Harden

Rhetorics Of Girlhood Trauma In Writing By Holly Goddard Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Sandra Cisneros, And Jamaica Kincaid , Stephanie Marie Stella

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

A Victorian Christmas in Hell: Yuletide Ghosts and Necessary Pleasures in the Age of Capital , Brandon Chitwood

"Be-Holde the First Acte of this Tragedy" : Generic Symbiosis and Cross-Pollination in Jacobean Drama and the Early Modern Prose Novella , Karen Ann Zyck Galbraith

Pamela: Or, Virtue Reworded: The Texts, Paratexts, and Revisions that Redefine Samuel Richardson's Pamela , Jarrod Hurlbert

Violence and Masculinity in American Fiction, 1950-1975 , Magdalen McKinley

Gender Politics in the Novels of Eliza Haywood , Susan Muse

Destabilizing Tradition: Gender, Sexuality, and Postnational Identity in Four Novels by Irish Women, 1960-2000 , Sarah Nestor

Truth Telling: Testimony and Evidence in the Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell , Rebecca Parker Fedewa

Spirit of the Psyche: Carl Jung's and Victor White's Influence on Flannery O'Connor's Fiction , Paul Wakeman

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Performing the Audience: Constructing Playgoing in Early Modern Drama , Eric Dunnum

Paule Marshall's Critique of Contemporary Neo-Imperialisms Through the Trope of Travel , Michelle Miesen Felix

Hermeneutics, Poetry, and Spenser: Augustinian Exegesis and the Renaissance Epic , Denna Iammarino-Falhamer

Encompassing the Intolerable: Laughter, Memory, and Inscription in the Fiction of John McGahern , John Keegan Malloy

Regional Consciousness in American Literature, 1860-1930 , Kelsey Louise Squire

The Ethics of Ekphrasis: The Turn to Responsible Rhetoric in Mid-Twentieth Century American Poetry , Joshua Scott Steffey

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Cognitive Architectures: Structures of Passion in Joanna Baillie's Dramas , Daniel James Bergen

On Trial: Restorative Justice in the Godwin-Wollstonecraft-Shelley Family Fictions , Colleen M. Fenno

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

What's the point to eschatology : multiple religions and terminality in James Joyce's Finnegans wake , Martin R. Brick

Economizing Characters: Harriet Martineau and the Problems of Poverty in Victorian Literature, Culture and Law , Mary Colleen Willenbring

Submissions from 2008 2008

"An improbable fiction": The marriage of history and romance in Shakespeare's Henriad , Marcia Eppich-Harris

Bearing the Mark of the Social: Notes Towards a Cosmopolitan Bildungsroman , Megan M. Muthupandiyan

The Gothic Novel and the Invention of the Middle-Class Reader: Northanger Abbey As Case Study , Tenille Nowak

Not Just a Novel of Epic Proportions: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man As Modern American Epic , Dana Edwards Prodoehl

Recovering the Radicals: Women Writers, Reform, and Nationalist Modes of Revolutionary Discourse , Mark J. Zunac

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

"The Sweet and the Bitter": Death and Dying in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings , Amy M. Amendt-Raduege

The Games Men Play: Madness and Masculinity in Post-World War II American Fiction, 1946-1964 , Thomas P. Durkin

Denise Levertov: Through An Ecofeminist Lens , Katherine A. Hanson

The Wit of Wrestling: Devotional-Aesthetic Tradition in Christina Rossetti's Poetry , Maria M.E. Keaton

Genderless Bodies: Stigma and the Myth of Womanhood , Ellen M. Letizia

Envy and Jealousy in the Novels of the Brontës: A Synoptic Discernment , Margaret Ann McCann

Technologies of the Late Medieval Self: Ineffability, Distance, and Subjectivity in the Book of Margery Kempe , Crystal L. Mueller

"Finding-- a Map-- to That Place Called Home": The Journey from Silence to Recovery in Patrick McCabe's Carn and Breakfast on Pluto , Valerie A. Murrenus Pilmaier

Emily Dickinson's Ecocentric Pastoralism , Moon-ju Shin

The American Jeremiad in Civil War Literature , Jacob Hadley Stratman

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Literary Art in Times of Crisis: The Proto-Totalitarian Anxiety of Melville, James, and Twain , Matthew J. Darling

(Re) Writing Genre: Narrative Conventions and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison , Jennifer Lee Jordan Heinert

"Amsolookly Kersse": Clothing in Finnegan's Wake , Catherine Simpson Kalish

"Do Your Will": Shakespeare's Use of the Rhetoric of Seduction in Four Plays , Jason James Nado

Woman in Emblem: Locating Authority in the Work and Identity of Katherine Philips (1632-1664) , Susan L. Stafinbil

When the Bough Breaks: Poetry on Abortion , Wendy A. Weaver

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Heroic Destruction: Shame and Guilt Cultures in Medieval Heroic Poetry , Karl E. Boehler

Poe and Early (Un)American Drama , Amy C. Branam

Grammars of Assent: Constructing Poetic Authority in An Age of Science , William Myles Carroll III

This Place is Not a Place: The Constructed Scene in the Works of Sir Walter Scott , Colin J. Marlaire

Cognitive Narratology: A Practical Approach to the Reader-Writer Relationship , Debra Ann Ripley

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Defoe and the Pirates: Function of Genre Conventions in Raiding Narratives , William J. Dezoma

Creative Discourse in the Eighteenth-Century Courtship Novel , Michelle Ruggaber Dougherty

Exclusionary Politics: Mourning and Modernism in the Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Amy Levy, and Charlotte Mew , Donna Decker Schuster

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

Toward a Re-Formed Confession: Johann Gerhard's Sacred Meditations and "Repining Restlessnesse" in the Poetry of George Herbert , Erik P. Ankerberg

Idiographic Spaces: Representation, Ideology and Realism in the Postmodern British Novel , Gordon B. McConnell

Theses/Dissertations from 2002 2002

Reading into It: Wallace Stegner's Novelistic Sense of Time and Place , Colin C. Irvine

Brisbane and Beyond: Revising Social Capitalism in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America , Michael C. Mattek

Theses/Dissertations from 2001 2001

Christians and Mimics in W. B. Yeats' Collected Poems , Patrick Mulrooney

Renaissance Roles and the Process of Social Change , John Wieland

'Straunge Disguize': Allegory and Its Discontents in Spenser's Faerie Queene , Galina Ivanovna Yermolenko

Theses/Dissertations from 2000 2000

Reading American Women's Autobiography: Spheres of Identity, Spheres of Influence , Amy C. Getty

"Making Strange": The Art and Science of Selfhood in the Works of John Banville , Heather Maureen Moran

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Home > Dissertations and Theses > English (MA) Theses

English (MA) Theses

Below is a selection of dissertations from the English program in Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences that have been voluntarily included in Chapman University Digital Commons. Additional dissertations from years prior to 2019 are available through the Leatherby Libraries' print collection or in Proquest's Dissertations and Theses database.

Theses from 2024 2024

Interior Chinatown: Chinatown as a Performative Space , Audrey Fong

"Old Cod": The Power of Storytelling in Conor McPherson's The Weir , Sarah Johnson

The Beginning of the End: The Cultivation of Transchronological Perceptuality in Arcadia and “Story of Your Life” , Sawyer Kelly

“No One to Show Us the Way:” Assessing the Contemporary Relevance of the Gay Male Bildungsroman , Matthew Lemas

Posthumanism in Literature: Redefining Selfhood, Temporality, and Reality/ies through Fiction , Eileen Kelley Pierce

Catastrophic Progress: A Queer Materialist Analysis of the 2023 Trans/Bud Light Controversy , Brianna Radke

Banned Books and Educational Censorship: The Necessity of Keeping Queer Books in Schools , Rebecca Rhodes

The New Westward Expansion: Settler Colonialism and Gentrification in Paula Fox’s Desperate Characters and Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s Sabrina and Corina , Miranda Roberts

Navigating Identity Through Education in Literature and in the Classroom , Sofia Sakzlyan

Nobody Inside: Toni Morrison's "Recitatif": An Analysis on Whole/Incomplete Bodies, "The Maggie Thing"and Sick and Dancing Mothers , Emily Velasquez

Theses from 2023 2023

“Everything and Nothing”: Exhibiting Irishness at the Chicago World Fair of 1893 , Jessica Bocinski

Beyond Allegory: Postcolonial Debates in Science Fiction , Su Chen

Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird and Queer Temporalities in Lovecraft Country and Detransition, Baby , Eurydice Dye

The Dictator Novel in YA Latinx Fantasy , Catherine Gallegos

Humanization of the Refugee as the Modern Subject in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West , Ani Gazazyan

“Henrietta and Harriet:” Considering the Marginalized Best Friend in Burney’s Cecilia and Austen’s Emma , Elena Goodenberger

Rising Costs of Universities and the Impact on Teaching Effectiveness and Student Outcomes , Patrick Hanna

Failure Facing Pedagogy in First-Year Rhetoric and Composition Classrooms , Karuna Minh Hin

Steps Toward Healing from the Possessive Other: The Vital Role of Fantastical Literature in Trauma Theory , Rebekah Izard

Mirroring Financial Speculation and Late Capitalism Through Speculative Fiction: Worker Gullibility and Guilt as Re-imagination of Human Value , Ian Koh

Oceans of Literature - The Little Mermaid , Makena Metz

What Makes a Woman "Pious and Good": The Function of Several Grimm Brothers' Cautionary Fairy Tales , Hannah Montante

From the Master’s Maternity to Redemptive Nurturing: Liberating Motherhood in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy , Isabelle Stillman

“Beauty and the Beast” and the Representation of the Female: How Fairy Tales Reinforce and Influence Our Current Understanding of Gender Roles , Elizabeth N. Tran

The Significance of Maintaining Character Integrity in Literary Retellings , Sara Turner

Mrs. Dalloway as a Window for Understanding Life , Kristen Venegas

The Domestic Worker in Latinx Fiction: The Discursive Formation of Latinidad , Constance von Igel de Mello

Dorian Gray: The Myth , Peggy Sue Wood

Theses from 2022 2022

Potential For a Pedagogical Level-Up: Teaching First-Year Composition Through Rhetoric of Gaming , Cayman Beeman

Personhood and Objecthood: Examining the Speaker’s Interiority and Double Consciousness in Citizen: An American Lyric , Winnie Chak

Innately American, Black America’s Inheritance: A Rhetorical Analysis of Black Death & Identity , Montéz Jennings

Examining Wonder Woman through a Feminist Voice: How Patty Jenkins’ 2017 Adaptation Upheaved her Creation, Representation, and 80 Year Legacy , Tatiana Madrid

“Strumpet,” “Huswife,” “Whore”: Centering Othello ’s Bianca , Phoebe Merten

Lack of Affirmative Consent: Trauma in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” , Ansalee Morrison

Traumas and Recovery in Takaya Natsuki's Fruits Basket , Vesper North

Poverty, Social Isolation, Uselessness, and Loneliness: The Fears and Anxieties of 19th-Century British Governesses , Lydia Pejovic

Speaking Up For Generic Asians in Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown , Orel Shilon

The Brain Scan as Ideograph , Paige Welsh

Changing the Definition of the Orient Through Hollywood , Amanda Yaghmai

Theses from 2021 2021

The Dystopian Impulse and Media Consumption: Redefining Utopia Via the Narrative Economics of the New Media Age , Turki Alghamdi

Collaborative Storytelling: Composition Pedagogy and Communal Benefits of Narrative Innovation , Aysel Atamdede

Feminist Rhetorics: Theory and Practice of Strategic Silence , Paolena Comouche

Surveillance: The Digital Dark Side , Brittyn Davis

Fanfiction As: Searching for Significance in the Academic Realm , Megan Friess

Realism & Language: How Luis Alberto Urrea Uses Bilingualism to Elevate His Works of Realism , Ashley Gomez

"A Mind of Metal and Wheels": Agrarian Ruralism in Joss Whedon's Firefly and J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings , Christopher Hines

“Why Are We Still Reading About Rosa Parks?”: Essential Questions for Continuation Schools , Samantha Mbodwam

Decolonizing the Body , Daniel Miess

Black Panther Shatters Social Binaries to Explore Postcolonial Themes: How Ancestry, Identity, Revenge, and the Third Space Impact the Ability to Navigate Change and Create New Forms of Cultural Hybridity , Deborah Paquin

Anti-Racist Pedagogy: A Practical Means of Building Bonds Between Marginalized Students and Instructors in the Composition Classroom , Santa-Victoria Pérez

Fear Then and Now: The Vampire as a Reflection of Society , Mackenzie Phelps

Monstrous and Beautiful: Jungian Archetypes in Wilde’s Salomé , Nayana Rajnish

Journeying to a Third Space of Sovereignty: Explorations of Land, Cultural Hybridity, and Sovereignty in Ceremony and There There , Jillian Eve Sanchez

Through the Female Perspective: An Analysis of Male Characters in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey , Natalia Sanchez

The Tiered Workshop: The Effects of Using a Paced Workshop in a Composition Classroom , Madison Shockley

Aztlán Potentialities: Queer Male Chicanx Affect and Temporalities , Ethan Trejo

Partying Like It's 1925: A Comparison and Contrast of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Azuela's The Underdogs , Sarah N. Valadez

Theses from 2020 2020

Stephen Dedalus and the Mind as Hypertext in Ulysses , Ariel Banayan

Lessons from Hybridity: A Look into the Coupling of Image and Text in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Letters to Memory , Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric , and Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic , Elizabeth Chen

Dawn of the Undead Classroom: Pop-Culture in the First-Year Composition Classroom , Sierra A. Ellison

Moving Beyond Grades: A Shift in Assessing First-Year Composition , Matthew Goldman

Murmurs of Revolution: Mythical Subversion in Dostoevsky , Connor Guetersloh

The Fallen Woman: An Exploration of the Voiceless Women in Victorian England through Three Plays of Oscar Wilde , Marco Randazzo

The Ubume Challenge: A Digital Environmental Humanities Project , Sam Risak

Student Disposition Towards Discussing Race in the Classroom , Natalie Salagean

Trauma Begetting Trauma: Fukú, Masks, and Implicit Forgiveness in the Works of Junot Díaz , Jacob VanWormer

‘Amore Captus:’ Turning Bedtricks in the Arthurian Canon , Candice Yacono

Theses from 2019 2019

The Contradictory Faces of “Sisterhood”: A Case-Study on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Its Theatrical Adaptation by James Willing and Leonard Rae, Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies and Its Miniseries Adaptation on HBO , Lama Alsulaiman

Terrence McNally’s Universalizing Model: The Role of Disability in Andre’s Mother; Lips Together, Teeth Apart ; and Love! Valour! Compassion! , Alexa Burnstine

A Way to Persist: Storytelling and Its Effect on Trauma in Gábor Schein’s The Book of Mordechai and Lazarus , Duncan Capriotti

Language: A Bridge or Barrier to Social Groups , Adina Corke

Haole Like Me: Identity Construction and Politics in Hawaii , Savanah Janssen

Black Women’s Bodies as the Site of Malignity: Interrogating (Mis)representations of Black Women in 16th and 17th Century British Literature , Tonika Reed

The Efficacy of Varying Small Group Workshops in the Composition Classroom , Daniel Strasberger

Does Money Indeed Buy Happiness? “The Forms of Capital” in Fitzgerald’s Gatsby and Watts’ No One is Coming to Save Us , Allie Harrison Vernon

Theses from 2018 2018

Player-Response: On the Nature of Interactive Narratives as Literature , Lee Feldman

Theses from 2017 2017

The Rhetoric of Disability: an Analysis of the Language of University Disability Service Centers , Katie Ratermann

Theses from 2016 2016

The Ritualization of Violence in The Magic Toyshop , Victor Chalfant

Concrete Reality: The Posthuman Landscapes of J.G. Ballard , Mark Hausmann

Readers in Pursuit of Popular Justice: Unraveling Conflicting Frameworks in Lolita , Innesa Ranchpar

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Linguistics and English Language Masters thesis collection

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Guidelines for the Masters Thesis in English

Please note that these guidelines are not meant to modify or override anything in the Graduate School’s Thesis Procedure Manual , though they do represent what has worked best for thesis writers in English.

The Graduate School will also provide you with a range of information and instructions through the “Mastering Your Thesis” Canvas site, in which you will be automatically enrolled when you are enrolled in the thesis course (ENGL 698). Note that your thesis committee currently does not have access to this Canvas site —do not assume that anyone on your committee is familiar with anything on it.

Please contact the English Department’s Graduate Program Coordinator with any questions . Overview The thesis is the culmination of your MA in English: it’s meant to demonstrate your accomplishments in close reading, research, argumentation, and original thinking, and to showcase the particular interests you’ve developed in your studies. With this in mind, many students have found it helpful to think of the thesis less as a final exam for the MA than as an opportunity to develop their ideas and intellectual interests in a more focused and sustained way than they’ve been able to do before.

It’s also important to remember that at 25-35 double-spaced pages, the thesis is neither a book nor a dissertation. The best model to use is one of your favorite scholarly articles (ideally one published in the last twenty years or so), and it’s important to study a source like that in thinking about how you want to structure your argument, make use of your sources, and foreground your contribution.

You should generally plan to write your thesis in the final semester of your MA program (unless you are a BA/MA student with an undergraduate teaching certification, in which case you may need to take one additional summer course after completing the thesis in the spring). Throughout your MA coursework, you should be on the lookout for topics and term papers that might serve as the basis for your thesis. In the semester before you write your thesis, you will need to write a short proposal, assemble your committee, and send the relevant materials to the Graduate School so that they can enroll you in the thesis course for the following semester. Each of these steps, along with the standard process for the thesis semester itself, are described in detail below. Early planning The thesis project is designed to take shape from a final paper for a graduate seminar. There is no strict requirement for this to be the case, and the thesis can depart quite a lot from the approach of the original paper; but students and faculty should be aware that additional preparation and a significantly more intensive process during the thesis semester will probably be necessary if the thesis does not have a basis in a prior project.

Students are encouraged to consult with their professors about whether a specific term paper might be a good basis for a thesis, and about what approach might be most promising. Semester before the thesis course

Choosing your topic and committee

Early in this semester, you should decide what you’d like to write about and choose a professor who will be available to supervise your work (the thesis “sponsor,” or “supervisor”). Ideally, your choice of what to write about stems directly from one of the final papers you’ve written for a graduate seminar. It can be helpful in some cases for your sponsor to be the professor for whom you wrote that seminar paper, but this is not a requirement.

Your choice of thesis sponsor should be based first on the professor’s expertise in the general topic you’ll be working on. This does not need to be anything like a perfect match: someone whose primary field is in nineteenth-century poetry, for instance, may make a great sponsor for a thesis on nineteenth-century novels, or early twentieth-century poetry. If possible, though, avoid asking a professor to sponsor a thesis that’s unrelated in any clear way to their area of expertise. A second consideration in choosing your sponsor should be whether the professor is someone you’re happy to work closely with. This is a largely personal choice, and may be based on your respect for their scholarship or their teaching, or on an intellectual relationship you’ve established with them. Please do not choose a sponsor based only on whether you think they will be easy on you—this can backfire, in the form of a thesis  that ends up incomplete by the deadline.

Once you’ve decided on a sponsor, get in touch with them and ask whether they’d be willing to serve in that role for you. You’ll want to describe your project to them briefly at this point, and they may ask to see a proposal before they decide (see next section for more on the proposal). They may also, at this point or after asking for and reading a proposal, decide they cannot take on the sponsor role for you. Don’t take this personally: professors have all kinds of reasons that they may have to decline, from over-commitment to other projects to a sense that their areas of expertise are too far removed from your topic for them to supervise your work (though they may still agree to be second or third readers). If your first choice says no, ask them who else they might recommend as a sponsor for your project, and continue this process until someone says yes. As always, get in touch with the Graduate Program Coordinator if you’re running into trouble at this stage.

When you have a thesis sponsor signed on, ask them if they have any recommendations for second and third readers. These roles are required for the thesis, but they are less intensive than the role of your sponsor—second and third readers may have some suggestions based on your proposal, but most often they give their first significant feedback on your first complete draft of the thesis, midway through the thesis semester. As you did in choosing your sponsor, keep asking professors, and asking for recommendations if they decline, until you have a second and third reader. (In rare cases, the Graduate Program Coordinator may agree to sign in place of the third reader, but only if a student can show that they have exhausted all other possibilities.)

Proposal and forms It’s possible to secure a sponsor, second reader, and third reader without writing a thesis proposal, and in some cases it may be useful to discuss your plan with your agreed sponsor before writing the proposal. In most cases, though, potential sponsors will want to see a rough proposal before they sign on, and in any case you will need a proposal in order to enroll in the thesis semester itself.

The proposal can be fairly short: it will eventually have to satisfy your sponsor, of course, but the Graduate School will enroll you in the thesis course on the basis of a proposal in the range of around 4-7 pages, including a provisional bibliography. Keep in mind that the proposal is not a contract, except in as much as it’s an honest representation to your thesis committee about what you’re planning to do.

The proposal should generally include the following elements:

A description of your research question. What are you going to examine, and what do you want to find out? Why might the answers you find be important, and how might they go beyond what’s already been shown by others?

A rough thesis statement. What do you think you might end up arguing? (You can think of this as something like a hypothesis in a scientific experiment.)

A description of your planned analysis and research. What texts (or films) will you be studying in detail, and what will you be looking for? What research do you plan to do? How do you think you might position your approach so that it responds to existing scholarship while saying something new?

Some description of the structure of your thesis. This does not have to be in actual outline form—a general sense of the planned parts of your argument is fine.

A brief, provisional bibliography identifying primary and secondary sources you think you will use in your research.

Once you have your sponsor, second reader, third reader, and proposal, ask all three members of your committee to sign the Approval for Writing a Master’s Thesis form . You can send this around electronically for signatures—just fill out your parts first. Note that one line on the form now requires your thesis sponsor to indicate “Method of Instruction”—i.e., whether you and your sponsor will be meeting face-to-face, synchronously online, or asynchronously online.

When the form is complete, email it, along with your proposal, to the Graduate School. They will enroll you in ENGL 698, the thesis course, for the following semester.

Making a plan with your sponsor

It’s important to consult with your thesis sponsor before the start of the thesis semester, so that you can agree on a specific sequence of events for the research and writing process. The plan you agree on should take into account the roles that your second and third reader would like to play: they may want to meet with you while you’re working on the first draft, for instance, or they may only want to see the completed first draft, or they may want to wait to see your sponsor’s feedback on the first draft before they add their own. A suggested schedule for the semester is in the next section.

Note that any revisions of your thesis proposal should be completed by the end of the semester before your thesis semester—you should not still be revising the proposal during the thesis semester.

The thesis semester

We suggest checking in with your thesis sponsor at least once every two weeks, in whatever modality you agreed on. You may also want to ask specific questions of your second and third readers periodically as you go.

As you research and write your first draft, keep careful track of the calendar and of your progress. Be responsive to what your committee is asking you to do, but make sure that you can understand their suggestions as clear, finite tasks—not confusing, open-ended ones. If you are feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure how to implement what’s being asked of you, ask for clarification and practical advice.

The same strategy should apply to revisions. Work with your sponsor to maintain a clear sequence of submitted drafts and received feedback, with set dates; make sure that your second and third readers are on board with this plan; and hold yourself and your committee to the calendar you agreed on. Try to allow for one extra set of revisions towards the end of the process.

Here is a suggested schedule for the thesis semester:

Week 1:   Finalize research plan and sequence of drafts and feedback with your committee.

Week 7:   First complete draft of thesis sent to your sponsor.

Week 8:   Sponsor feedback on first draft sent to you and to both readers (if readers want to see it at this stage).

Week 9:   Additional feedback from readers.

Week 11:  Second draft to full committee.

Week 12:  Final comments from committee.

Week 14:  Proofreading draft to full committee; final corrections returned the same week.

Week 15:  Submission of thesis to Graduate School.

In the final week, double check that your thesis is formatted according to the Graduate School’s guidelines. All three members of your committee will need to sign off on the appropriate page of the thesis before you turn it in through the “Mastering Your Thesis” Canvas course site.

Extensions The guidelines and proposed schedule above are meant to help you avoid needing an extension for your thesis. Still, in unusual circumstances, extensions are sometimes necessary. If you are in such a situation and find yourself seriously behind schedule at around Week 10 of the semester, consult with your sponsor about whether there is still a viable path to completion by the deadline or whether it looks like you may need to apply for an extension.

If you do think that you will need an extension, contact the Graduate Program Coordinator for English right away. In some cases, the GPC may be able to negotiate a few extra days past the Graduate School’s official deadline. If that is not possible, or if that will not be enough, you will need to work with the GPC and your sponsor to enroll in ENGL 699, the thesis extension course, for the following semester. That semester usually has to be fall or spring—summer thesis extensions are generally not possible, since faculty are not paid or working during July and August (except to teach summer courses).

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MA English literature part 2

Vocational relevance.

You will have the option to learn and develop vocational writing skills, specifically how to write for different kinds of non-academic audiences.  

Qualifications

A894 is a compulsory module in our:

• MA in English Literature (F88)
• Credits measure the student workload required for the successful completion of a module or qualification.
• One credit represents about 10 hours of study over the duration of the course.
• You are awarded credits after you have successfully completed a module.
• For example, if you study a 60-credit module and successfully pass it, you will be awarded 60 credits.

OU	Postgraduate
SCQF	11
FHEQ	7

Find out more about entry requirements .

What you will study

This module requires you to research and write a dissertation on a subject in English Literature of your own choice. The module opens with a taught block focused on the writing of a detailed research proposal. Beginning with guidance in choosing a dissertation subject, you then follow these essential steps for assembling a research proposal:

• identify the primary texts for your study
• generate the research questions driving your inquiry
• undertake literature searches for relevant secondary material
• formulate a preliminary chapter structure.

The second element in the opening block is an opportunity to discover ways in which you can communicate your research to audiences beyond those in academia – such as in public lectures or podcasts; in book reviews for broad readerships; or in catalogue entries for museums and galleries.

The remaining three blocks are dedicated to independent study. Working closely with your personal tutor, you'll produce first-draft versions of two chapters of your dissertation in blocks 2 and 3.

Drawing together all your research and your tutor’s feedback, in the fourth block you'll write up the final draft of your dissertation.

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor.

You'll have a personal tutor, who provides advice and guidance, and marks and comments on your written work. In the first block, tutors facilitate discussions between you and your fellow students in the online tutor-group and module-wide tutorials. Attendance at the online tutorials is encouraged, but not obligatory, and recordings of the tutorials are made available. In the three independent learning blocks, one-to-one supervision meeting between you and your tutor are scheduled at the key moments in the module: at the outset, to discuss/confirm your dissertation topic, and after the submission of each of the two draft chapters, to provide detailed feedback and guidance.  

The assessment details can be found in the facts box.

Course work includes

Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs)

Future availability

MA English literature part 2  starts once a year – in September. This page describes the module that will start in September 2024. We expect it to start for the last time in September 2034. 

Regulations

Entry requirements.

The expectation is that you will have completed either  MA in English literature part 1 (A893) or the discontinued module A815 before you take this module. In exceptional circumstances, you can apply to study A894 if you have completed the course-work component of an MA in English Literature or a closely related discipline. If you’re in any doubt about the suitability of your qualifications or previous experience, please contact us before you enrol.

Preparatory work

We strongly recommend that you read the study material in advance of starting the module.

Start	End	England fee	Register
07 Sep 2024	Jun 2025	£3715.00	Registration closes 15/08/24 (places subject to availability)
06 Sep 2025	Jun 2026	Not yet available	Registration opens on 15/03/25
This module is expected to start for the last time in September 2034.

Additional costs

Study costs.

There may be extra costs on top of the tuition fee, such as set books, a computer and internet access.

Ways to pay for this module

We know there’s a lot to think about when choosing to study, not least how much it’s going to cost and how you can pay.

That’s why we keep our fees as low as possible and offer a range of flexible payment and funding options, including a postgraduate loan, if you study this module as part of an eligible qualification. To find out more, see Fees and funding .

Study materials

What's included.

You'll have access to a module website, which includes:

• a week-by-week study planner with integrated option pathways
• module materials: each week has a reading guide, online activities, and further study suggestions
• visual and audio resources
• an assessment guide
• access to online forums and linked digital resources
• access to the OU library and its research resources

Computing requirements

You’ll need broadband internet access and a desktop or laptop computer with an up-to-date version of Windows (10 or 11) or macOS Ventura or higher.

Any additional software will be provided or is generally freely available.

To join in spoken conversations in tutorials, we recommend a wired headset (headphones/earphones with a built-in microphone).

Our module websites comply with web standards, and any modern browser is suitable for most activities.

Our OU Study mobile app will operate on all current, supported versions of Android and iOS. It’s not available on Kindle.

It’s also possible to access some module materials on a mobile phone, tablet device or Chromebook. However, as you may be asked to install additional software or use certain applications, you’ll also require a desktop or laptop, as described above.

If you have a disability

Written transcripts of any audio components are available on the module website. 

To find out more about what kind of support and adjustments might be available, contact us or visit our disability support pages .

Request your prospectus

Our prospectuses help you choose your course, understand what it's like to be an OU student and register for study.

Request prospectus    

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Online Only

If you are seeking further information regarding specific programs, please contact individual departments .

For problems accessing information on this website, please contact Teresa Sheppard .

Master of Arts in English

The Master of Arts (MA) in English offers a flexible program that enables students to shape their course of study. Students take core courses in literary analysis, creative writing, literary theory, and public writing, then choose their own areas of specialization through electives. Finally, students complete a capstone thesis project by working closely with a chosen faculty member to delve into an individually designed project.

Transfer Credit Hours

Students may be allowed to transfer up to two graduate courses or eight credit hours of previous or external coursework including credits from other graduate programs, online courses, or non-degree credits if those courses demonstrably contribute to the work required for the Master of Arts in English. Unless transfer courses are clearly equivalent to the required core courses for the Master of Arts, those courses are counted as electives. Students must submit to the Graduate Director a formal request to transfer courses, including brief descriptions of each course identifying how it contributes to the Master of Arts in English, and supporting documentation such as syllabi, assignments, papers, or other relevant material.

Residency Requirement

This is an in-person program. A minimum of 28 credit hours (seven 4-credit courses) must be completed through in-person classes on IU South Bend’s campus. (Individual exceptions considered on a per case basis).

Academic Regulations

An average grade of B (3.0) is required for graduation, and no course with a grade lower than B– (2.7) is counted toward the degree. Students are required to maintain good academic standing, i.e., to maintain a 3.0 GPA. Failure to maintain good standing may result in dismissal from the program.

All courses are 4 credit hours, unless otherwise noted.

Degree Requirements (36 cr.)

Required courses (16 cr.).

Choose one course from each of the four areas. Must be completed in person. Any substitutions or exceptions require the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies.

All courses are 4 credits unless otherwise stated.

1. Literary Scholarship (4 cr.)

• ENG-L 501 Professional Scholarship in Literature
• ENG-L 553 Studies in Literature

2. Literary Theory and Criticism (4 cr.)

• ENG-L 6XX 

3. Creative Writing (4 cr.)

• CMLT-C 694 The Screenplay
• ENG-W 511 Writing Fiction
• ENG-W 513 Writing Poetry
• ENG-W 615 Writing Creative Nonfiction

4. Public Writing (4 cr.)

• ENG-L 502 Contexts for Study of Writing
• ENG-W 600 Topics in Rhetoric and Composition
• ENG-W 616 Prose Style Workshop

Electives (16 cr.)

Select four courses from the list below (Any alternatives require approval of the Director of Graduate Studies)

Students must take at least one course in the area of specialization that they choose for their final M.A. project. For example, students opting to complete a final MA project in creative writing must complete at least one workshop in the project's genre of choice. Likewise, students opting to complete a final MA project in literature must complete at least one elective in the project's area of specialization (genre or historical period).

• ENG-L 590 Internship in English
• ENG-L 612 Chaucer
• ENG-L 623 English Drama from the 1590s to 1800, Exclusive of Shakespeare
• ENG-L 631 English Literature 1660-1790
• ENG-L 639 English Fiction to 1800
• ENG-L 642 Studies in Romantic Literature
• ENG-L 647 Studies in Victorian Literature
• ENG-L 650 Studies in American Literature to 1900
• ENG-L 653 American Literature 1800-1900
• ENG-L 660 Studies in British and American Literature 1900 to Present
• ENG-L 674 Studies in International English Literature
• ENG-L 680 Special Topics in Literary Study and Theory
• ENG-L 681 Genre Studies
• ENG-L 695 Individual Readings in English

Final Thesis Project (4 cr.)

• ENG-L 699 MA Thesis; OR ENG-W 609 Directed Writing Projects

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English and Comparative Literary Studies

Sample dissertation proposal.

Below is an example of a successful MA dissertation proposal. Note particularly the robust referencing, and the way in which the author has already done preparatory work in the field so that clear areas of critical enquiry have already been formulated.

Modernist Poetics and the Acquisition of the Other Tongue

I will reconsider the role that multilingualism plays in modernist poetry, and particularly Ezra Pound’s, by moving away from a text-based model – in which the poem is understood primarily as translation, appropriation or montage of another language’s representative texts – and towards a more author-centric one, in which the poem documents the lived experience of knowing multiple languages, each of which transcends the finite set of words and texts that its author knows. I hope that my work will extend Robert Stark’s recent assertion that Pound acquired poetic style as if it were a foreign language, but by paying attention to the more literal encounters with foreign languages that make this simile possible. However, in contrast to Stark’s model of ‘apprenticeship’, Steven Yao has argued that modernism marked the point at which mastering the source language stopped being a prerequisite for a literary translator: thus, the different ways in which Pound translated or incorporated Chinese texts into English works over the course of his career, or used original ‘handy language’ in Italian alongside quotations, may represent different heuristic approaches to a code that still remained somehow impenetrable. ‘Barbarism and onomatopoeia’, rather than forming the comfortable pair of terms sometimes used by Stark, might define a driving tension in Pound’s verse practice, between seeing another language as pure sound and as the product of another culture incompletely understood.

Mutlu Konuk Blasing’s Lyric Poetry will be an important source: although she focuses almost exclusively on the role of the mother tongue, and uses it to justify lyric’s untranslatability, many of the phenomena which she associates with first language acquisition, such as the delay in recognising phonemes, are also relevant to second language acquisition. I also hope to move beyond Blasing’s cognitive and psychoanalytic approaches, to position Pound within a broader cultural history of language acquisition theory: texts to investigate may include the prose treatises by Dante that he admired, and contemporary reflections on language-learning by Leo Spitzer. I expect to offer a reading of Cantos LXXII and LXXIII (perhaps alongside T S Eliot’s early French poems) in light of this investigation, as possible oversights in Blasing’s argument.

Both Blasing’s and Stark’s monographs are bound up in questions of genre definition which deserve further consideration. I intend to develop the arguments of those critics, such as Simon Jarvis, who have questioned whether Blasing’s arguments define lyric poetry alone. How might language acquisition also be important for a definition of epic, especially in light of its traditional association with nation-building and Wai Chee Dimock’s recent vision of the genre as a carrier of foreign lexis? If, for Blasing, lyric ‘dramatises’ the struggle to enter a language-speaking community, is it more fully dramatised in a text such as Pound’s Elektra, where traumatic experience is manifested in a conflation of American vernacular and untranslated Greek?

Here, it may be fruitful to compare Pound’s choral dramas to Eliot’s: Murder in the Cathedral, for example, updates English vernacular drama, but by incorporating a ‘babbling’ chorus who imitate classical tragedy. While I expect the changes in Pound’s practice over the course of his career to provide the structure for my final project, I look forward to paying attention to points of comparison with other, less canonical modernists. These could include Hope Mirrlees’s use of montage to search for a ‘holophrase’ in Paris; Basil Bunting’s insistence on a regional vernacular, but against a backdrop of international cultural references; and the artificial languages of Futurist and Dada sound art, which work both to reject subjectivity and forge international communities.

Critical Bibliography

Arrowsmith, Richard Rupert, Modernism and the Museum: Asian, African and Pacific Art and the London Avant-Garde (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

(ed.) Bates, Catherine, The Cambridge Companion to the Epic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) [essays by Freccero, Whittier-Ferguson and Merchant].

Blasing, Mutlu Konuk, Lyric Poetry: The Pleasure and the Pain of Words (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007).

Dimock, Wai Chee, Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006).

Ellis, Rod, Second Language Acquisition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Hart, Matthew, Nations of Nothing but Poetry: Modernism, Transnationalism and Synthetic Vernacular Writing (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Jarvis, Simon, ‘The melodics of long poems’, Textual Practice 24.4 (2010).

Kenner, Hugh, The Pound Era (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971).

Moody, A David, Ezra Pound: Poet, I: The Young Genius, 1885-1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

North, Michael, The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language and Twentieth-Century Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Patterson, Ian, ‘Time, Free Verse, and the Gods of Modernism’ in Tradition, Translation, Trauma: The Classic and the Modern, eds. Jan Parker and Timothy Mathews (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) [and other essays in this volume].

Scott, Clive, Literary Translation and the Rediscovery of Reading (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) [and earlier works by Scott].

Spitzer, Leo, ‘Learning Turkish’, tr. Tülay Atak, PMLA 126.3 (2011).

Stark, Robert, Ezra Pound’s Early Verse and Lyric Tradition: A Jongleur’s Apprenticeship (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012).

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English Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2024 2024.

The Drama of Last Things: Reckoning in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Drama , Spencer M. Daniels

African Spirituality in Literature Written by Women of African Descent , Brigét V. Harley

Hidden Monstrosities: The Transformation of Medieval Characters and Conventions in Shakespeare's Romances , Lynette Kristine Kuliyeva

Making the Invisible Visible: (Re)envisioning the Black Body in Contemporary Adaptations of Nineteenth-Century Fiction , Urshela Wiggins McKinney

Lawful Injustice: Novel Readings of Racialized Temporality and Legal Instabilities , Danielle N. Mercier

“Manne, for thy loue wolde I not lette”: Eucharistic Portrayals of Caritas in Medieval and Early Modern English Literature and Drama 1350-1650 , Rachel Tanski

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Of Mētis and Cuttlefish: Employing Collective Mētis as a Theoretical Framework for Marginalized Communities , Justiss Wilder Burry

What on earth are we doing (?): A Field-Wide Exploration of Design Courses in TPC , Jessica L. Griffith

Organizations Ensuring Resilience: A Case Study of Cortez, Florida , Karla Ariel Maddox

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Using Movie Clips to Understand Vivid-Phrasal Idioms’ Meanings , Rasha Salem S. Alghamdi

An Exercise in Exceptions: Personhood, Divergency, and Ableism in the STAR TREK Franchise , Jessica A. Blackman

Vulnerable Resistance in Victorian Women’s Writing , Stephanie A. Harper

Curricular Assemblages: Understanding Student Writing Knowledge (Re)circulation Across Genres , Adam Phillips

PAD Beyond the Classroom: Integrating PAD in the Scrum Workplace , Jade S. Weiss

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Social Cues in Animated Pedagogical Agents for Second Language Learners: the Application of The Embodiment Principle in Video Design , Sahar M. Alyahya

A Field-Wide Examination of Cross-Listed Courses in Technical Professional Communication , Carolyn M. Gubala

Labor-Based Grading Contracts in the Multilingual FYC Classroom: Unpacking the Variables , Kara Kristina Larson

Land Goddesses, Divine Pigs, and Royal Tricksters: Subversive Mythologies and Imperialist Land Ownership Dispossession in Twentieth Century Irish and American Literature , Elizabeth Ricketts

Oppression, Resistance, and Empowerment: The Power Dynamics of Naming and Un-naming in African American Literature, 1794 to 2019 , Melissa "Maggie" Romigh

Generic Expectations in First Year Writing: Teaching Metadiscoursal Reflection and Revision Strategies for Increased Generic Uptake of Academic Writing , Kaelah Rose Scheff

Reframing the Gothic: Race, Gender, & Disability in Multiethnic Literature , Ashely B. Tisdale

Intersections of Race and Place in Short Fiction by New Orleans Gens de Couleur Libres , Adrienne D. Vivian

Mental Illness Diagnosis and the Construction of Stigma , Katie Lynn Walkup

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Rhetorical Roundhouse Kicks: Tae Kwon Do Pumsae Practice and Non-Western Embodied Topoi , Spencer Todd Bennington

9/11 Then and Now: How the Performance of Memorial Rhetoric by Presidents Changes to Construct Heroes , Kristen M. Grafton

Kinesthetically Speaking: Human and Animal Communication in British Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century , Dana Jolene Laitinen

Exploring Refugee Students’ Second Language (L2) Motivational Selves through Digital Visual Representations , Nhu Le

Glamour in Contemporary American Cinema , Shauna A. Maragh

Instrumentalization Theory: An Analytical Heuristic for a Heightened Social Awareness of Machine Learning Algorithms in Social Media , Andrew R. Miller

Intercessory Power: A Literary Analysis of Ethics and Care in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon , Alice Walker’s Meridian , and Toni Cade Bambara’s Those Bones Are Not My Child , Kelly Mills

The Power of Non-Compliant Logos: A New Materialist Approach to Comic Studies , Stephanie N. Phillips

Female Identity and Sexuality in Contemporary Indonesian Novels , Zita Rarastesa

"The Fiery Furnaces of Hell": Rhetorical Dynamism in Youngstown, OH , Joshua M. Rea

“We developed solidarity”: Family, Race, Identity, and Space-Time in Recent Multiethnic U.S. American Fiction , Kimber L. Wiggs

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Remembrance of a Wound: Ethical Mourning in the Works of Ana Menéndez, Elías Miguel Muñoz, and Junot Díaz , José Aparicio

Taking an “Ecological Turn” in the Evaluation of Rhetorical Interventions , Peter Cannon

New GTA’s and the Pre-Semester Orientation: The Need for Informed Refinement , Jessica L. Griffith

Reading Rape and Answering with Empathy: A New Approach to Sexual Assault Education for College Students , Brianna Jerman

The Karoo , The Veld , and the Co-Op: The Farm as Microcosm and Place for Change in Schreiner, Lessing, and Head , Elana D. Karshmer

"The weak are meat, and the strong do eat"; Representations of the Slaughterhouse in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature , Stephanie Lance

Language of Carnival: How Language and the Carnivalesque Challenge Hegemony , Yulia O. Nekrashevich

Queer Authority in Old and Middle English Literature , Elan J. Pavlinich

Because My Garmin Told Me To: A New Materialist Study of Agency and Wearable Technology , Michael Repici

No One Wants to Read What You Write: A Contextualized Analysis of Service Course Assignments , Tanya P. Zarlengo

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Beauty and the Beasts: Making Places with Literary Animals of Florida , Haili A. Alcorn

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature , Timothy M. Curran

Seeing Trauma: The Known and the Hidden in Nineteenth-Century Literature , Alisa M. DeBorde

Analysis of User Interfaces in the Sharing Economy , Taylor B. Johnson

Border-Crossing Travels Across Literary Worlds: My Shamanic Conscientization , Scott Neumeister

The Spectacle of The Bomb: Rhetorical Analysis of Risk of The Nevada Test Site in Technical Communication, Popular Press, and Pop Culture , Tiffany Wilgar

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Traveling Women and Consuming Place in Eighteenth-Century Travel Letters and Journals , Cassie Patricia Childs

“The Nations of the Field and Wood”: The Uncertain Ontology of Animals in Eighteenth-Century British Literature , J. Kevin Jordan

Modern Mythologies: The Epic Imagination in Contemporary Indian Literature , Sucheta Kanjilal

Science in the Sun: How Science is Performed as a Spatial Practice , Natalie Kass

Body as Text: Physiognomy on the Early English Stage , Curtis Le Van

Tensions Between Democracy and Expertise in the Florida Keys , Elizabeth A. Loyer

Institutional Review Boards and Writing Studies Research: A Justice-Oriented Study , Johanna Phelps-Hillen

The Spirit of Friendship: Girlfriends in Contemporary African American Literature , Tangela La'Chelle Serls

Aphra Behn on the Contemporary Stage: Behn's Feminist Legacy and Woman-Directed Revivals of The Rover , Nicole Elizabeth Stodard

(Age)ncy in Composition Studies , Alaina Tackitt

Constructing Health Narratives: Patient Feedback in Online Communities , Katie Lynn Walkup

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Rupturing the World of Elite Athletics: A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of the Suspension of the 2011 IAAF Regulations on Hyperandrogenism , Ella Browning

Shaping Climate Citizenship: The Ethics of Inclusion in Climate Change Communication and Policy , Lauren E. Cagle

Drop, Cover, and Hold On: Analyzing FEMA's Risk Communication through Visual Rhetoric , Samantha Jo Cosgrove

Material Expertise: Applying Object-oriented Rhetoric in Marine Policy , Zachary Parke Dixon

The Non-Identical Anglophone Bildungsroman : From the Categorical to the De-Centering Literary Subject in the Black Atlantic , Jarad Heath Fennell

Instattack: Instagram and Visual Ad Hominem Political Arguments , Sophia Evangeline Gourgiotis

Hospitable Climates: Representations of the West Indies in Eighteenth-Century British Literature , Marisa Carmen Iglesias

Chosen Champions: Medieval and Early Modern Heroes as Postcolonial Reactions to Tensions between England and Europe , Jessica Trant Labossiere

Science, Policy, and Decision Making: A Case Study of Deliberative Rhetoric and Policymaking for Coastal Adaptation in Southeast Florida , Karen Patricia Langbehn

A New Materialist Approach to Visual Rhetoric in PhotoShopBattles , Jonathan Paul Ray

Tracing the Material: Spaces and Objects in British and Irish Modernist Novels , Mary Allison Wise

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Representations of Gatsby: Ninety Years of Retrospective , Christine Anne Auger

Robust, Low Power, Discrete Gate Sizing , Anthony Joseph Casagrande

Wrestling with Angels: Postsecular Contemporary American Poetry , Paul T. Corrigan

#networkedglobe: Making the Connection between Social Media and Intercultural Technical Communication , Laura Anne Ewing

Evidence of Things Not Seen: A Semi-Automated Descriptive Phrase and Frame Analysis of Texts about the Herbicide Agent Orange , Sarah Beth Hopton

'She Shall Not Be Moved': Black Women's Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home , Rondrea Danielle Mathis

Relational Agency, Networked Technology, and the Social Media Aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing , Megan M. Mcintyre

Now, We Hear Through a Voice Darkly: New Media and Narratology in Cinematic Art , James Anthony Ricci

Navigating Collective Activity Systems: An Approach Towards Rhetorical Inquiry , Katherine Jesse Royce

Women's Narratives of Confinement: Domestic Chores as Threads of Resistance and Healing , Jacqueline Marie Smith

Domestic Spaces in Transition: Modern Representations of Dwelling in the Texts of Elizabeth Bowen , Shannon Tivnan

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Paradise Always Already Lost: Myth, Memory, and Matter in English Literature , Elizabeth Stuart Angello

Overcoming the 5th-Century BCE Epistemological Tragedy: A Productive Reading of Protagoras of Abdera , Ryan Alan Blank

Acts of Rebellion: The Rhetoric of Rogue Cinema , Adam Breckenridge

Material and Textual Spaces in the Poetry of Montagu, Leapor, Barbauld, and Robinson , Jessica Lauren Cook

Decolonizing Shakespeare: Race, Gender, and Colonialism in Three Adaptations of Three Plays by William Shakespeare , Angela Eward-Mangione

Risk of Compliance: Tracing Safety and Efficacy in Mef-Lariam's Licensure , Julie Marie Gerdes

Beyond Performance: Rhetoric, Collective Memory, and the Motive of Imprinting Identity , Brenda M. Grau

Subversive Beauty - Victorian Bodies of Expression , Lisa Michelle Hoffman-Reyes

Integrating Reading and Writing For Florida's ESOL Program , George Douglas Mcarthur

Responsibility and Responsiveness in the Novels of Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley , Katherine Marie McGee

Ghosts, Orphans, and Outlaws: History, Family, and the Law in Toni Morrison's Fiction , Jessica Mckee

The "Defective" Generation: Disability in Modernist Literature , Deborah Susan Mcleod

Science Fiction/Fantasy and the Representation of Ethnic Futurity , Joy Ann Sanchez-Taylor

Hermes, Technical Communicator of the Gods: The Theory, Design, and Creation of a Persuasive Game for Technical Communication , Eric Walsh

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Rhetorical Spirits: Spirituality as Rhetorical Device in New Age Womanist of Color Texts , Ronisha Witlee Browdy

Disciplinarity, Crisis, and Opportunity in Technical Communication , Jason Robert Carabelli

The Terror of Possibility: A Re-evaluation and Reconception of the Sublime Aesthetic , Kurt Fawver

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Thesis Proposal & Thesis Resources

Thesis models.

Students electing the Thesis Option must select from among two thesis project models and are required to complete a thesis project appropriate to their concentration. Dual concentration students may choose to focus on only one of their concentrations for the thesis, or combine the two disciplines in some way.

Students writing the Alternative Thesis generally complete their work in one semester while taking English 6973. Students choosing the Traditional Thesis should note that this option could likely take longer than one semester.

A. Traditional Thesis

The first thesis model option is a traditional thesis: an independent project that demonstrates mastery of both the subject matter and the written discourse of the discipline and results in an original manuscript of approximately 60 pre-formatted pages plus bibliography.

To pursue this option, students develop an acceptable thesis project and prepare a proposal in accordance with program guidelines, consisting of a 1000-word proposal and an annotated bibliography.

B. Alternative Thesis

The second thesis model option is a professional paper that demonstrates mastery of both the subject matter and the written discourse of the discipline and results in an original manuscript of approximately 30 pre-formatted pages plus bibliography. Depending on the student's chosen concentration and project, this professional paper will take the form of one of the following:

• Academic Journal Article (30 pages)
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Article (30 pages)
• Policy Paper
• Public or Professional Project

After completion of the alternative thesis the student will present his or her work at a department-sponsored colloquium.  

Thesis Proposal Workshop / Declaration of Intent

Students planning to take the thesis option will attend a mandatory thesis proposal workshop in the semester before they plan to take 6973. During that semester, they should also read and sign the Declaration of Intent document for the thesis and turn it in to their coordinator.

Declaration of Intent Form for Thesis.pdf

Alternative Thesis Proposal

Alternative Thesis Proposal Cover Sheet and Instructions.pdf

• Requirements and form for submitting your alternative thesis proposal to your concentration coordinator

Alternative Thesis Format

• Requirements for formatting your alternative thesis

Traditional Thesis Proposal

• Requirements for submitting your thesis proposal to the Graduate Committee and the forms needed for submission

Sample Thesis Proposals

Thesis Proposal Sample Archive

• Sample thesis proposals for each concentration

The Genre of the Thesis Proposal

A thesis proposal identifies a research problem or question. Its function is to argue that the project is worth doing in terms of contributing to disciplinary knowledge and that a solution or answer can be found using the methods specified.

To meet these goals, a proposal usually contains the following parts:

• Establishing the background and context of the research problem or question
• Explaining the problem, issue, or question set within the context of the field
• Defining key terms
• Showing that the proposal writer is familiar with the relevant literature
• Explaining the approach, theory, or method that will be used
• Describing a likely structure for the final product

from Writing the Successful Thesis and Dissertation: Entering the Conversation by Irene L. Clark. (2007)

Thesis Certification Process

The thesis certification process is now digital and thesis consultations are available through Zoom. Please consult the Graduate Studies website to learn about this process.

Thesis Format and Submission Workshops

• Very helpful workshops offered by the Graduate Studies Office.

Thesis Filing Deadline Dates

• These are the dates set by the Graduate Studies Office for filing of your thesis. 

Home > ARTSCI > ENG > ENG_ETD

English Department Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Muscadine: Poems , Albert Hosia Jerriod Avant

MIDDLE CHILDREN OF HISTORY: MALE-AUTHORED POST-1960s FICTION & THE NIHILISM OF WHITE MALE PROTAGONISTS , Emma C. Baughman

THE (MIS)FORMATION OF IDENTITY IN JOSEPH CONRAD’S NOVELS: IDEOLOGY, COMMUNITY, AND THE SELF , Youngji Cho

COMPUTATIONAL CLOSE READING: A CRITIQUE OF DIGITAL LITERARY METHODOLOGY , Damiano Consilvio

DIAGNOSTIC BRAINS, EXPERIENTIAL MINDS AND METAMODERNISM: MCEWAN, SELF, AND MCCARTHY AS CASE STUDIES , Mohamed Anis Ferchichi

RESISTING ARREST: AN (AUTO-THEORETICAL) ESSAY ON PRISON LITERATURE , James A. Ferry

WAITING TOO LONG TO MOVE AT GREEN LIGHTS , Michael Landreth

IS IT FREEDOM YOU WANT?: FEMINIST MORMON HOUSEWIVES “DEAR FMH” COLUMN AS A PARTICIPANT IN THE ETHICS OF CARE IN AMERICAN WOMEN’S ADVICE COLUMNS , Julia Unger

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

THE TEXT(TILES) OF ADINKRA SYMBOLS: WEST AFRICAN ART, GENDER, & POETIC TRANSLATIONS , Rachel A. Ansong

BLACK FEMINIST AUTOETHNOGRAPHY: HOW IDENTITY CAN AFFECT PEER REVIEW PRACTICES IN THE COLLEGE WRITING CLASSROOM , Eileen M. James

TO SCALE DRAGONS: COMPRISING THINGS LOST AND TWO ESSAYS ON FANTASY , André V. Katkov

THE ALICE ATOM COMPENDIUM , Nick Mendillo

BROKEN DOZER, HAUNTED VALE: THE ECOPOETICS OF AMBIENT LANGUAGE , Andrew Merecicky

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

TRUE CRIME, WOMEN, AND SENSATIONALIZED REPRESENTATIONS IN THE ITALIAN AMERICAN IMAGINARY , Francesca Borrione

FANTASIZING REPRODUCTION: THE BIOLOGIZATION OF THE DESIRE FOR PROGRESS IN VICTORIAN LITERATURE , Xinqiang Chang

GENDERED & GENREFIED BODIES: HEROISM AS PRODUCTION AND PERFORMANCE IN SWORD & SORCERY FANTASY , Anthony Conrad Chieffalo

INTIMATE DISTANCES: AN ARCHIPELAGO , Elizabeth Foulke

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

PREPARING FOR DEATH: CANNIBALISM, CONSUMPTION AND INCORPORATION IN WOMEN’S SHIPWRECK NARRATIVES , Danielle Cofer

FEMALE COMIC GROTESQUE CHARACTERS IN VICTORIAN NOVELS: INVESTIGATING THE POSSIBILITIES OF LIMINALITY , Barbara A. Farnworth

READING THE READER: ANALYZING DEPICTIONS OF MALE READERS IN SERIAL VICTORIAN FICTION , Ashton Foley-Schramm

REORIENTING THE FEMALE GOTHIC: CURIOSITY AND THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE , Jenna Guitar

ECOLOGIES OF MATERIALITY AND AESTHETICS IN BRITISH MODERNIST WAR-TIME LITERATURE, 1890-1939 , Molly Volanth Hall

FICTIONS OF CAPTIVITY: RACIALIZING RELIGION IN EARLY U.S. LITERATURE AND CULTURE , Serap Hidir

BETWEEN SIBLINGS: HOW THE SIBLING METAPHOR REIMAGINES AFFECTIVE ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE VICTORIAN NOVEL , Beth Leonardo Silva

OPENING CEREMONY: A WRITING PRACTICE TOWARDS QUEER FUTURITY , Laura Marie Marciano

“THE SKIPPING KING”: MASCULINITY AND EFFEMINACY IN EARLY MODERN DRAMA , Danielle Johanna Sanfilippo

THE MARK OF THE VANISHING READER: INTRADIEGETIC INTERACTION IN MULTIMODAL NARRATIVE , Catherine Ann Winters

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

PRACTICING TRANSLINGUALISM: FACULTY CONCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES , Adrienne Jones Daly

TO BE CONTINUED: SERIALITY IN NEW MEDIA , Ryan Engley

CONSTRUCTING TRANSGRESSION: CRIMINALITY IN EXPERIMENTAL LITERATURE , Charles Kell

WELCOME TO THE CLUB: AN ARCHIVAL INQUIRY INTO THE DEWEY LABORATORY SCHOOL AS RHETORICAL EDUCATION , Krysten Manke

“THERE IS NO RACISM IN CUBA”: A FIELD STUDY OF THE “POST-RACE” RHETORIC OF MODERN CUBA , Clarissa J. Walker

CHARMED MODERNISMS: FANTASIES OF SOCIALITY AND DIFFERENCE IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE , Kara Watts

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

THE NEW SINCERITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE , Matthew J. Balliro

Understanding Reading Sponsorship Through Analysis of First-Year Composition Students’ Literacy Narratives , Nancy A. Benson

Widening the Sphere: Mid-to-Late Victorian Popular Fiction, Gender Representation, and Canonicity , Anna J. Brecke

Demonstrating Feminist Metic Intelligence Through the Embodied Rhetorical Practices of Julia Child , Lindy E. Briggette

The Men That Sleep Built , Samuel Simas

Questing Feminism: Narrative Tensions and Magical Women in Modern Fantasy , Kimberly Wickham

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Writing Irish America: Communal Memory and the Narrative of Nation in Diaspora , Beth O'Leary Anish

Speaking Truth to Power: Stand-Up Comedians as Sophists, Jesters, Public Intellectuals and Activists , Jillian Belanger

Architectures of Captivity: Imagining Freedom in Antebellum America , Rachel Boccio

Virginia Woolf's Pedagogical Art , William R. Bowden

Undergraduate Student Perspectives on Electronic Portfolio Assessment in College Composition Courses , Bridget Fullerton

Metadata and Relational Architecture: Advancing Arrangement, Agency, and Access with New Methodology , Jenna Morton-Aiken

Agency in Eating Disorders: American Literary and Visual Memoirs of Anorexia and Bulimia , Jenny Platz

To Start, Continue, and Conclude: Foregrounding Narrative Production in Serial Fiction Publishing , Gabriel E. Romaguera

"You Will Hold This Book in Your Hands": The Novel and Corporeality in the New Media Ecology , Jason Shrontz

Exploring the Use of NoRedInk as a Tool for Composition Instruction , Alyson Snowe

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

You Are What You Eat: Investigating Food Discourse and Digitally-Mediated Identities , Katelyn Leigh Burton

Exquisite Clutter: Material Culture and the Scottish Reinvention of the Adventure Narrative , Rebekah C. Greene

“A Peculiar Power of Perception”: Scottish Enlightenment Rhetoric and the New Aesthetic of Language , Rosaleen Greene-Smith Keefe

Absurdity and Artistry in Twentieth Century American War Literature , Brittany B. Hirth

The Color of Grammar and the Surface of Language: 20th Century Avant-Garde Poetics in Gertrude Stein, Mina Loy, and Blaise Cendrars , Sarah E. Kruse

Consent Puzzles: Narrative Ambiguities of Girls' Sexual Agency in Literature and Film from the 1990s , Michele Meek

John Dewey's Letters from Asia: Implications for Redefining "Openness" in Rhetoric and Composition , Karen Pierce Shea

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Automated Essay Evaluation and the Computational Paradigm: Machine Scoring Enters the Classroom , Catherine M. Barrett

Bringing the World Inside: British Modernism and Taste – Gustatory, Social, and Aesthetic , Michael David Becker

Permeable Boundaries: Globalizing Form in Contemporary American and British Literature , Nancy Caronia

AT HOME IN THE DIASPORA: DOMESTICITY AND NATIONALISM IN POSTWAR AND CONTEMPORARY CARIBBEAN-BRITISH FICTION , Kim Caroline Evelyn

AN EXAMINATION OF ARGUMENTATION IN UNDERGRADUATE COMPOSITION TEXTBOOKS , Wendy Lee Grosskopf

Stories That Shape: The Work of Writing Program Administration , Marcy Isabella

OFF THE HIP: A THERMODYNAMICS OF THE COOL , Rebecca Kanost

INSOMNIA AND IDENTITY: THE DISCURSIVE FUNCTION OF SLEEPLESSNESS IN MODERNIST LITERATURE , Sarah Kingston

TEMPERANCE IN THE AGE OF FEELING: SENSIBILITY, PEDAGOGY, AND POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY , Sarah Hattie Maitland

UNCONSCIOUS STATES: A NOVEL , Rachel May

Life vs. Unlife: Interspecies Solidarity and Companionism in Contemporary American Literature , Barnaby McLaughlin

TOWARD A PSYCHOSOCIAL UNDERSTANDING OF SUICIDE IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE OF THE 1990’S , Sara E. Murphy

THE SENTINELLE AFFAIR: A STUDY IN MULTILINGUAL LANGUAGE PRACTICES , Jason Peters

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Firefighters’ Multimodal Literacy Practices , Timothy R. Amidon

ARGUMENT, RHETORIC, AND TRANSCENDENCE: “THE ADHERENCE OF MINDS” WITHIN THE DISCOURSE OF SPIRITUALITY , Gavin Forrest Hurley

OPTING-IN ONLINE: PARTICIPANTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION IN PUBLIC FORUM COMMUNITIES , Jennifer C. Lee

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

LIGHTNING-ROD MEN, MAGNETIC LIVES, BODIES ELECTRIC: ELECTROMAGNETIC CORPOREALITY IN EMERSON, MELVILLE, & WHITMAN , James Patrick Gorham

Women's Historiography in Late Medieval European Literature: Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan , Eva M. Jones

SAVING PRINCE PEACH: A STUDY OF “GAYMERS” AND DIGITAL LGBT/GAMING RHETORICS , M. William MacKnight

Affective Reconfigurations: A New Politics of Difference , Laurie Rodrigues

Theses/Dissertations from 2003 2003

Manifestoes: A Study in Genre , Stevens Russell Amidon

Making the Grade: Academic Literacies and First-Generation College Students in a Highly Selective Liberal Arts College , Theresa Perri Ammirati

Theses/Dissertations from 2000 2000

The Colors and Shadows of My Word(s) , Lydia A. Saravia

Theses/Dissertations from 1999 1999

Toni Morrison: Rethinking the Past in a Postcolonial Context , Hanan Abdullatif

Theses/Dissertations from 1998 1998

(Re)Envisioned (Pre)History: Feminism, Goddess Politics, and Readership Analysis of The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of the Horses , Glenna M. Andrade

Theses/Dissertations from 1997 1997

Indicated Silences in American Novels , Catherine Adamowicz

Cynics, Spaces, and Subjects: Toward a Tactical Ethics of Rhetoric , Kristen Francis Kennedy

Theses/Dissertations from 1995 1995

Our Beloved Lizzie; Constructing an American Legend , Gabriela Schalow Adler

My Cambodian Son: Another Race: Another Culture , Patricia Russell

Theses/Dissertations from 1994 1994

An NEH Fellowship Examined: Social Networks and Composition History , Stephanie A. Almagno

The "Fine Line" of Otto Rank , Philip J. Hecht

Theses/Dissertations from 1993 1993

REWRITING THE BODY POLITIC: THE ART OF ILLNESS AND THE PRODUCTION OF DESIRE IN THE DIARIES AND JOURNALS OF ALICE JAMES AND ACHSA SPRAGUE , Susan Grant

Theses/Dissertations from 1992 1992

*Baby Shoe Tattoo*: A Film Script and Critical Preface , Anthony R. Amore Jr.

Out of the Shadows: A Structuralist Approach to Understanding the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft , James A. Anderson

Lilacs in November , Marjorie L. Briody

The Jeovah Imperative: Images of Incest and Blood Sacrifice in Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto" and Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood" , Penelope Hope Goff

Theses/Dissertations from 1988 1988

Sub-Versions of History in Three Twentieth-Century Novels , Gabriella Schalow Adler

Joyce and the Dialogical: Literary Carnivalization in Ulysses , Stephanie A. Almagno

Home Before Morning: A Teleplay , Susan E. Apshaga

"Dear Uncle George" Ezra Pound's Letters to Congressman Tinkham of Massachusetts , Philip J. Burns

Theses/Dissertations from 1984 1984

Style in Children's Literature: A Comparison of Passages from Books for Adults and for Children , Celia Catlett Anderson

Theses/Dissertations from 1978 1978

Robert Frost: A Twentieth Century Poet of Man and Nature , Pauline Elaine Allen

Theses/Dissertations from 1977 1977

CHAUCER AND THE GAME OF LOVE: AN ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS, THE HOUSE OF FAME AND THE PARLIAMENT OF FOWLES , Stephen Hyginus Murphy

Theses/Dissertations from 1972 1972

Man's Relationship to Nature and Society in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter , Sherry E. Adams

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• English, MA

The Department of English offers a PhD in English (with specializations in Composition and Rhetoric, English Language and Linguistics, or Literary Studies). Additionally, the English Department offers an MFA in Creative Writing . 

This master’s program is offered for work leading to the English PhD (for students in the Literary Studies pathway and English Language and Linguistics pathway 1 )

Literary Studies Pathway (MA + PhD): Students enrolled in the literary studies PhD specialization become eligible for an MA English degree in the literary studies area when they successfully complete the first-stage doctoral requirements. The literary studies specialization does not offer an MA apart from the doctoral program. The literary studies track offers a rigorous course of study leading to the completion of a doctoral dissertation in any field of English, American, or Anglophone literature and culture, or in any field of literary theory and criticism. The program prepares students for active careers in higher education among other potential fields and combines a sharp focus on conceptual approaches to literary and cultural works with a commitment to broad coverage of the field of Anglophone literature. Graduate seminars taken during the first phases of the doctoral program serve to prepare students to develop research projects for the dissertation. As they progress toward the PhD, students are invited to consider interdisciplinary subspecialties: literary theory and criticism, visual studies, ecocriticism and environmentalism, transnational and global literature, material culture, print culture and book history, digital humanities, disability studies, gender studies, race and ethnic studies, feminist theory, LGBTQ literature and queer theory, postcolonial studies. The program provides opportunities for teaching writing and literature and for administrative experience.

English Language and Linguistics Pathway (MA+ PhD) 1 : The English language and linguistics area is intended for students with a solid foundation in the English language, applied linguistics, and related fields. Students enrolled in the English language and linguistics PhD specialization become eligible for an MA English degree when they successfully complete the first-stage doctoral requirements. The English language and linguistics specialization does not offer an MA apart from the doctoral program. Through program of course work and seminars, English language and linguistics doctoral students attain advanced knowledge in the core areas of English syntax and phonology and in the applied areas of second language acquisition, discourse analysis, and language variation and change. On reaching the dissertation stage, students pursue individual research in close cooperation with their faculty advisor. In recent years, students have written dissertations on code-switching, critical pedagogy, interactional competence, and conversation analysis, syntactic problems in second language acquisition, classroom discourse, and psycholinguistics. Graduates of the program have taken faculty positions at universities throughout the country.

The MA pathway, English Language and Linguistics, is effective for students admitted Fall 2025 and after. Students admitted to the terminal MA pathway, Applied English Linguistics, prior to Fall 2025 will adhere to the same curricular requirements with the addition of the final comprehensive exam. The MA pathway in Applied English Linguistics will discontinue with the current cohort and those admitted to the pathway starting Fall 2024.

This master’s program is offered for work leading to the PhD (for students in the Literary Studies pathway and English Language and Linguistics pathway). Students may not apply directly for the master’s, and should instead see the admissions information for English PhD .

Graduate School Resources

Resources to help you afford graduate study might include assistantships, fellowships, traineeships, and financial aid.  Further funding information is available from the Graduate School. Be sure to check with your program for individual policies and restrictions related to funding.

Program Resources

Prospective students should see the program website for funding information.

Minimum Graduate School Requirements

Major requirements.

Review the Graduate School minimum academic progress and degree requirements , in addition to the program requirements listed below.

Mode of Instruction

Mode of Instruction

Face to Face	Evening/Weekend	Online	Hybrid	Accelerated
Yes	No	No	No	No

Mode of Instruction Definitions

Accelerated: Accelerated programs are offered at a fast pace that condenses the time to completion. Students typically take enough credits aimed at completing the program in a year or two.

Evening/Weekend: ​Courses meet on the UW–Madison campus only in evenings and/or on weekends to accommodate typical business schedules.  Students have the advantages of face-to-face courses with the flexibility to keep work and other life commitments.

Face-to-Face: Courses typically meet during weekdays on the UW-Madison Campus.

Hybrid: These programs combine face-to-face and online learning formats.  Contact the program for more specific information.

Online: These programs are offered 100% online.  Some programs may require an on-campus orientation or residency experience, but the courses will be facilitated in an online format.

Curricular Requirements

University General Education Requirements

Requirements	Detail
Minimum Credit Requirement	30 credits
Minimum Residence Credit Requirement	24 credits
Minimum Graduate Coursework Requirement	15 credits must be graduate-level coursework. Details can be found the Graduate School's Minimum Graduate Coursework (50%) Requirement policy: .
Overall Graduate GPA Requirement	3.5 GPA required. Refer to the Graduate School: Grade Point Average (GPA) Requirement policy: .
Other Grade Requirements	Grades of BC or lower cannot be used to meet an English Course Requirement. A student who fails to meet the GPA requirement requirement may be reviewed for Satisfactory progress or placed on Departmental Probation.
Assessments and Examinations	Students admitted to the terminal MA pathway Applied English Linguistics, prior to Fall 2025 will be required to complete a final comprehensive exam.
Language Requirements	Demonstrate proof of adequate competency in one non-English language by the time of MA degree completion. PhD students will complete an additional language requirement(s), see PhD requirements.

Required Courses

Students completing the MA pathway should refer to the  PhD  for more information on requirements. 

English Language and Linguistics Pathway (previously Applied English Linguistics) 1

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
Required Courses
	Structure of English	3
	English Phonology	3
	English Syntax	3
	English Grammar in Use	3
Electives		18
	English Language Variation in the U.S.
	Second Language Acquisition
	English Words: Grammar, Culture, Mind
	Global Spread of English
	Introduction to TESOL Methods
	English in Society
	History of the English Language
	Topics in English Language and Linguistics
	Old English
	Advanced English Syntax
	Advanced English Phonology
	Interaction Analysis: Talk as Social Organization
	Research Methods in Applied Linguistics
	Topics in Contemporary English Linguistics
	Advanced Second Language Acquisition
	Seminar-Topics in Applied English Linguistics
	Seminar-The English Language
Total Credits		30

 Language Requirement: Demonstrate proof of adequate competency in one non-English language by the time of MA degree completion.

These pathways are internal to the program and represent different curricular paths a student can follow to earn this degree. Pathway names do not appear in the Graduate School admissions application, and they will not appear on the transcript.

Of the 18 elective credits, at least six credits must be numbered 700-799 and at least three credits in coursework numbered 900-999.

Literary Studies Pathway 1

All courses for this pathway must be completed in English ( ENGL ) graduate level courses as specified below.

Students take a total of ten courses in the Department of English. To ensure breadth of knowledge, the course requirements call for intensive study in different chronological and geographical areas. These requirements must be completed before the beginning of the fifth semester. When the first stage requirements are completed, provided the student meets the program standards for satisfactory progress, he or she will be entitled to move into the second stage of the PhD program.

• Two graduate-only courses in literatures in the English Department, one pre-1800 and one post-1800 in content.
• ENGL 800 Critical Methods in Literary Studies  taken during the first semester of residence because of its general applicability to all scholarly work in literature.
• One of two courses:  ENGL 700 Introduction to Composition Studies  or  ENGL/​MEDIEVAL  520 Old English
• An English graduate-level course that focuses on topics of race, ethnicity and/or indigeneity
• Five additional graduate seminars.
• Competency in non-English language in at least an adequate proficiency.

Note: Up to a total of 9 credits of this MA and/or PhD coursework may come from UW programs or departments outside of English.

Regarding catalog course listings: Graduate seminars in English reflect the faculty's current areas of research and therefore change importantly from year to year. Please consult the department website for more detailed information.

Graduate School Policies

The  Graduate School’s Academic Policies and Procedures  provide essential information regarding general university policies. Program authority to set degree policies beyond the minimum required by the Graduate School lies with the degree program faculty. Policies set by the academic degree program can be found below.

Major-Specific Policies

Prior coursework, graduate credits earned at other institutions.

With program approval, students may transfer up to 6 credits of graduate coursework from other institutions. Coursework earned ten or more years prior to admission to a master’s degree is not allowed to satisfy requirements.

Undergraduate Credits Earned at Other Institutions or UW-Madison

Relevant graduate level courses taken as an undergraduate student may transfer up to 6 transfer credits towards the MA coursework, with the program director's approval. 

Credits Earned as a Professional Student at UW-Madison (Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Veterinary careers)

Refer to the Graduate School: Transfer Credits for Prior Coursework policy.

Credits Earned as a University Special Student at UW–Madison

With program approval, students may transfer up to 6 credits of relevant graduate level coursework, numbered 700 or above or designated with the "Grad 50%" attribute, taken as a UW–Madison University Special student. Coursework earned ten or more years prior to admission to a master’s degree is not allowed to satisfy requirements. 

*Note: Students may request to transfer up to 6 credits of prior-coursework in total. 

Refer to the Graduate School: Probation policy.

Advisor / Committee

Refer to the Graduate School: Advisor and Graduate School: Committees (Doctoral/Master’s/MFA) policies.

Credits Per Term Allowed

Students in the English Department’s PhD programs are expected to enroll full-time. Students with a fellowship, holding a university appointment percentage or holding dissertator status may have different credit-loads which equate to full-time student status. Please see the Graduate School’s policy for full-time enrollment credit requirements. 

Time Limits

Refer to the Graduate School: Time Limits policy.

Grievances and Appeals

These resources may be helpful in addressing your concerns:

• Bias or Hate Reporting  
• Graduate Assistantship Policies and Procedures
• Office of the Provost for Faculty and Staff Affairs
• Employee Assistance (for personal counseling and workplace consultation around communication and conflict involving graduate assistants and other employees, post-doctoral students, faculty and staff)
• Employee Disability Resource Office (for qualified employees or applicants with disabilities to have equal employment opportunities)
• Graduate School (for informal advice at any level of review and for official appeals of program/departmental or school/college grievance decisions)
• Office of Compliance (for class harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual violence)
• Office Student Assistance and Support (OSAS)  (for all students to seek grievance assistance and support)
• Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards (for conflicts involving students)
• Ombuds Office for Faculty and Staff (for employed graduate students and post-docs, as well as faculty and staff)
• Title IX (for concerns about discrimination)

Students should contact the department chair or program director with questions about grievances. They may also contact the L&S Academic Divisional Associate Deans, the L&S Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning Administration, or the L&S Director of Human Resources.

• Professional Development

Take advantage of the Graduate School's  professional development resources to build skills, thrive academically, and launch your career. 

• Learning Outcomes
• Demonstrates a broad understanding of key traditions, emerging trends, and important problems in the field of study.
• Capacity to identify evidence pertinent to field of study, to analyze evidence using methodologies and practices appropriate to field of study, and to evaluate and synthesize information.
• Communicates research findings in a clear manner that indicates the value of research to the field of study.

Graduate Faculty by Area

Faculty: Professors Castronovo (chair), Auerbach, Barry, Bearden, Begam, Bernard-Donals, Bow, Britland, Dharwadker, Foys, Friedman, Guyer, Hill, Johnson, Keller, Kercheval, Olaniyan, Ortiz-Robles, Purnell, Raimy, Sherrard-Johnson, Wanner, M. Young, R. Young, Zimmerman; Associate Professors Allewaert, Cooper, Fawaz, Olson, Samuels, Trotter, Vareschi, Yu, Zweck; Assistant Professors Amine, Calhoun, Cho, Druschke, Edoro, Fecu, Huang

• Requirements

Contact Information

English College of Letters & Science english.wisc.edu

Department of English 608-263-3751 7195 Helen C. White Hall 600 N. Park St., Madison, WI 53706

For interested applicants, please contact: [email protected]

Professor Martin Foys, Director of Graduate Studies [email protected]

Composition and Rhetoric http://www.english.wisc.edu/comprhet-graduate.htm

Literary Studies https://english.wisc.edu/programs/literary-studies/graduate/

English Language and Linguistics https://english.wisc.edu/programs/english-language-and-linguistics/graduate-program/

Creative Writing https://creativewriting.wisc.edu/masters/

Graduate School grad.wisc.edu

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Dissertation examples

Listed below are some of the best examples of research projects and dissertations from undergraduate and taught postgraduate students at the University of Leeds We have not been able to gather examples from all schools. The module requirements for research projects may have changed since these examples were written. Refer to your module guidelines to make sure that you address all of the current assessment criteria. Some of the examples below are only available to access on campus.

• Undergraduate examples
• Taught Masters examples

These dissertations achieved a mark of 80 or higher:
The following two examples have been annotated with academic comments. This is to help you understand why they achieved a good 2:1 mark but also, more importantly, how the marks could have been improved. Please read to help you make the most of the two examples. (Mark 68) (Mark 66) These final year projects achieved a mark of a high first: For students undertaking a New Venture Creation (NVC) approach, please see the following Masters level examples:
Projects which attained grades of over 70 or between 60 and 69 are indicated on the lists (accessible only by students and staff registered with School of Computer Science, when on campus).
These are good quality reports but they are not perfect. You may be able to identify areas for improvement (for example, structure, content, clarity, standard of written English, referencing or presentation quality).
The following examples have their marks and feedback included at the end of of each document.         The following examples have their feedback provided in a separate document.
School of Media and Communication .
The following outstanding dissertation example PDFs have their marks denoted in brackets. (Mark 78) (Mark 72) (Mark 75) (Mark 91) (Mark 85) (Mark 85) (Mark 85) (Mark 91) (Mark 85) (Mark 75)
This dissertation achieved a mark of 84: .

LUBS5530 Enterprise
MSc Sustainability
.
The following outstanding dissertation example PDFs have their marks denoted in brackets. (Mark 70) (Mark 78)

• Postgraduate study
• Postgraduate taught courses

English Studies (online)

Explore this course:.

Applications for 2024 entry are now open. Apply now or register your interest to hear about postgraduate study and events at the University of Sheffield.

School of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Course description

2 years part-time

This course is taught entirely online.

As part of the teaching component you'll be set regular study tasks, which you'll discuss online with your tutors and peers. You can post to discussion boards at any time within the duration of a task and tutors will give you regular feedback on your ideas.

This MA uses a range of assessment types, including:

• Short written pieces derived from your online discussions
• Longer essays and projects
• Project proposals
• Reflective writing
• Dissertation

Your career

School of English

We're a research-intensive school with an international perspective on English studies. Students can specialise in their chosen subject, while taking modules from other programmes, forging interdisciplinary connections. We encourage you to get involved and to apply your academic learning, working in partnership with external organisations both within the city of Sheffield and beyond.

Our staff are researchers, critics, and writers. They're also passionate, dedicated teachers who work tirelessly to ensure their students are inspired.

We keep seminar groups small because we believe that's the best way to stimulate discussion and debate. Our modules use a range of innovative assessments and can include designing websites, writing blog posts, and working with publishing software, in addition to writing essays and delivering presentations.

We're committed to providing you with the pastoral support you need in order to thrive on your degree. You'll be assigned a personal tutor with whom you'll have regular meetings. You're welcome to see any of our academic staff in their regular student consultations if there's anything you want to ask.

Entry requirements

Minimum 2:1 undergraduate honours degree in English literature, linguistics or a related subject (eg history, philosophy, modern languages).

There are a number of studentships and fee bursaries available, funded by the University. Deadlines for funding applications are usually in winter/early spring.

You can apply now using our Postgraduate Online Application Form. It's a quick and easy process.

More information

[email protected] +44 114 222 0220

English (M.A.)

The English M.A. program at UMD provides broad training in literature, language and theory for students and professionals in the greater Washington D.C./Baltimore metropolitan area.

Related Resources

• M.A. Handbook
• Current Courses

The English M.A. and PhD program at the University of Maryland is characterized by scholarly engagement across various fields. The program has a wide reach within the English Department not only through our graduate courses, but also lectures, colloquia, and academic events that speak to the interdisciplinary focus of its students and professors. The program affords graduate students the opportunity of receiving credit for interdisciplinary work in a variety of fields. Certificates are  available in Critical Theory, Digital  Studies in the Arts and Humanities, Jewish Studies,  and Women’s Studies.

Students in the M.A. program can additionally pursue concentrations in literature as well as in rhetoric and writing.

A full-time student will finish the M.A. in four to five semesters. English M.A. students who are employed as professionals outside the university are permitted to pursue the program on a part-time basis. 

Concentration in Literature

The M.A. in literature focuses on literary history and methods and theories of literary study. This degree does not require an area of specialization, but many students find that the generous opportunity to take electives (12 credits/4 courses) enables them to concentrate their studies in a particular area if they so choose. Students wishing to concentrate on composition may be interested in our concentration in writing studies and rhetoric.

Course Requirements

The M.A. in literature requires 30 hours of graduate work. All students must meet the following requirements:

ENGL 601, “Introduction to Graduate Studies” (3 credits) 1 course in Critical Theory, Genre, or Rhetoric (3 credits) 1 course in each of the following (12 credits):

• Medieval and/or Early Modern
• The Long Eighteenth Century
• The Long Nineteenth Century
• Modern and Contemporary

The distribution of the remaining 12 hours depends upon the student's selection of the M.A. thesis or M.A. capstone project option. All students, however, must take at least 9 of their 30 credits in 700-level seminars or their equivalent. Students may take up 6 credits of independent-study courses to fulfill 600-level electives requirements. Students may also, in place of three credits of an independent-study class, take one 400 level course to fulfill the elective requirement. Students interested in taking an independent-study course for 600-level course credit should collaborate with their professor in writing up an intended course of study and file it with the Graduate Studies Office for approval by the director of Graduate Studies (DGS) before the first day of classes each semester (please reach out to the Graduate Studies Office for more information regarding independent studies).

Students may also make special arrangements to do additional work in their 600-level courses to have those courses count as a seminar/700 level course. Students wishing to take a 600-level class as a seminar must provide the Graduate Studies Office with a proposal and syllabus detailing the additional work that will be undertaken in order for the course to be counted as a 700-level seminar. The proposal and syllabus must be signed by both student and instructor and submitted to the Graduate Studies Office for approval by the DGS at the beginning of the semester. Please see form for taking a course for seminar credit here. Students may not take an independent study for seminar/700 level credit except in extreme circumstances and only after receiving permission from the DGS.

Please note that students can't retake courses for credit; only one course number can count towards their degree requirements. Courses that end in a letter can count towards their degree requirements, given that the ending letter is different for both courses.

The student who chooses to complete the M.A. writing project will complete 30 credits of coursework. The student who chooses the thesis option will take a total of eight courses (24 credits) and will register for six credits of thesis research (ENGL 799).

Concentration in Writing Studies and Rhetoric

The M.A. with a concentration in writing studies and rhetoric is a 30-credit degree program, allowing course work in any one of three areas: the rhetorical study of texts, the teaching of writing or professional/non-academic writing. The student takes courses selected from a list of courses involving various aspects of the theory of writing/composition, rhetoric and language studies, and successfully completes an M.A. capstone project or master’s thesis (for a total of 30 credits). Students wishing to concentrate on literary studies may be interested in our concentration in literature.

For more details about the strengths of the language, writing and rhetoric program, upcoming courses and graduate student profiles, please see their area group page.

1. Two required courses (6 credits):

• ENGL607, “Readings in the History of Rhetoric to 1900”
• ENGL775, “Seminar in Composition Theory” or ENGL776, “Seminar in Modern Rhetorical Theory”

2. Four courses chosen from the following (12 credits):

• ENGL 605, “Readings in Linguistics”
• ENGL 609, “Technologies of Writing”
• ENGL 611, “Approaches to College Composition”
• ENGL 612, “Approaches to Professional and Technical Writing”
• ENGL 618, “Writing for Professionals”
• ENGL 649, “Readings in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy”
• ENGL 668, “Readings in Digital Studies”
• ENGL 708, “Topics in Rhetoric”
• ENGL 776, “Seminar in Modern Rhetorical Theory”
• ENGL 779, “Topics in Language Study”

3. Four electives (12 credits, unless a thesis is chosen, then two electives (6 credits) plus 6 credits of thesis hours.)

Students may also elect to take a course in another discipline (communication, iSchool, education, classics, etc.). The course must be approved by the director of Graduate Studies or the rhetoric and composition adviser (currently Dr. Sara Wilder) prior to the start of the semester.

Students may take up 6 credits of independent-study courses to fulfill 600-level electives requirements. Students may also, in place of 3 credits of an independent-study class, take 1 400 level course to fulfill the elective requirement. Students interested in taking an independent-study course for 600-level course credit should collaborate with their professor in writing up an intended course of study and file it with the Graduate Office for approval by the DGS before the first day of classes each semester (please see Independent Study Form here). Students may also make special arrangements to do additional work in their 600-level courses to have those courses count as a seminar/700 level course. Students wishing to take a 600-level class as a seminar must provide the Graduate Studies Office with a proposal and syllabus detailing the additional work that will be undertaken in order for the course to be counted as a 700-level seminar. The proposal and syllabus must be signed by both student and instructor and submitted to the Graduate Studies Office for approval by the DGS at the beginning of the semester. Please see form for taking a course for seminar credit here. Students may not take an independent study for seminar/700 level credit except in extreme circumstances and only after receiving permission from the DGS.

At least three seminar-level courses are required, which may be counted toward any of the above requirements.

Please note that students can't retake courses for credit; only 1 course number can count towards their degree requirements. Courses that end in a letter can count towards their degree requirements, given that the ending letter is different for both courses.

4) M.A. Capstone Project or Master’s Thesis

Option One: M.A. capstone project. The capstone, directed by a faculty advisor, may be based on a traditional seminar paper, revised and resubmitted; it may be a pedagogy portfolio; or it may be a digital project.

Option Two: Master’s thesis, ENGL799 (6 credits). If this option is chosen, the student may take 2 electives instead of 4.

Capstone Project

The M.A. capstone project is a graduate-level piece of critical inquiry that contributes to an established area in English language and/or literary studies. The M.A. capstone can take various forms or platforms to be determined in collaboration by the student, their director and reader and the DGS. These forms and platforms may include an article-length (approximately 5,000-7,500 words) critical essay based on a traditional seminar paper, revised in collaboration with the student’s director and reader; a pedagogy portfolio with a critical component; a digital project with a critical component; a personal essay or literary ethnography with a critical component; a translation or edition with a critical component; or, a project done at the discretion of your capstone committee that meets the scholarly rigor expected of this project.

Completion of the M.A. capstone project does not involve any additional registration beyond the 30 credits of coursework. An independent study to revise an existing paper cannot be used as one of the 10 required classes for the M.A.

Committee: The committee consists of a director, a reader and a representative of the Graduate Studies Office (the director of Graduate Studies or a member of the Graduate Committee).  In many cases involving a paper revision, the director will be the professor for whom the paper was written and the reader will be a professor in the same field of study. In all cases, the director and reader oversee the capstone project; the representative of the Graduate Studies Office reads only the final version of the project.

Timing: Full-time M.A. students should begin the process of choosing a project and finding a director and reader during their second semester of study in time for the First Year Meeting. This meeting will be held with the student, a prospective director, and the Graduate studies Office to discuss the student's course of study, progress to degree, the capstone or thesis requirement, and their goals after the M.A.

Students should defend the capstone project sometime in the first 12 weeks of their final semester in the M.A. program. Students work with their directors to schedule the defense and must submit the project to their committee members at least two weeks before the defense. Students should contact the Graduate Office to reserve a room for the defense at least six weeks prior to the proposed date. At that time, the student should inform the Graduate Studies Office of the date, time and committee members of the capstone project.

Defense: The one-hour defense of the capstone project begins with the student giving a brief presentation of the project, focusing on the work completed for the capstone. In the case of revised papers, this includes a focus on the revision process. The presentation is followed by an open discussion of the paper by the committee members and the student.

At the conclusion of the discussion, the committee assigns to the writing project one of three grades: "High Pass," a recognition of truly exemplary work requiring agreement of all committee members; "Pass," a judgment by at least two committee members that the paper fulfills the main goals of the writing project; and "Fail," a judgment by at least two committee members that the paper does not fulfill those goals. Students who receive a "High Pass" or "Pass" will make final revisions at the discretion of the director; the final revision must be submitted to the director no later than the end of the semester. Students who receive the grade of "Fail" may resubmit a revised paper in a subsequent semester. A second "Fail" will disqualify the student from receiving the M.A.

The M.A. thesis is a critical and scholarly work (approximately 75 pages in length, including abstract and works cited) produced under the close supervision of a director chosen by the student in consultation with the director of Graduate Studies.

Committee: The student must identify and secure the agreement of a faculty member who will direct the M.A. thesis. Two additional members of the faculty, chosen by the student in consultation with the director, comprise the thesis committee. The committee reads the completed thesis; unlike the M.A. writing project, the M.A. thesis must be deemed ready for defense before the defense is scheduled.

Timing: The student who chooses the thesis option must submit to the Graduate School the Nomination of Thesis Committee form by the posted deadline. Students should work with their directors to schedule the defense well in advance of its anticipated occurrence.

Defense: The defense runs approximately one hour. Typically, the defense begins with a statement by the student on the project, which is then followed with either consecutive questioning by the examiners or a more open discussion. At the conclusion of the discussion, the committee assigns to the M.A. thesis one of three grades: "High Pass," a recognition of truly exemplary work requiring agreement of all committee members; "Pass," a judgment by at least two committee members that the paper fulfills the main goals of the writing project; and "Fail," a judgment by at least two committee members that the paper does not fulfill those goals. Students who receive a "High Pass" or "Pass" will make final revisions at the discretion of the director; the final revision must be submitted to the director no later than the end of the semester. Students who receive the grade of "Fail" may have a second defense in a subsequent semester. A second "Fail" will disqualify the student from receiving the M.A.

Submission of thesis: The approved thesis must be submitted electronically to the Graduate School by the deadlines posted for graduation in a given semester. Information about all aspects of electronic submission of the thesis is available on the Graduate School website .

Deadlines and Paperwork

The M.A. program takes two academic years to complete if pursued full-time.

Completing the M.A. involves careful attention to deadlines imposed and paperwork required by the Graduate School. 

Specific deadlines for students intending to graduate will be announced on the English graduate-student reflector and on the Graduate School's Deadlines for Graduate Students .

The forms required to apply for graduation and complete the M.A. are available at the Graduate School’s General Forms for Graduate Students .

M.A. Application Instructions

Submit the complete application and all supporting materials by December 1, 2023 . Please note that the system will close promptly at midnight, so you will be unable to edit your application past 11:59pm on this date. The system is set to Maryland time (EST). If you are uncertain about what time that the system will close in your timezone, please look it up. We are unable to make exceptions for late applications based on timezone.

University of Maryland's Graduate Application Process

The University of Maryland’s Graduate School accepts applications through its application system . Before completing the application, applicants are asked to check the Admissions Requirements site for specific instructions.

As required by the Graduate School, all application materials are to be submitted electronically:

• Graduate Application
• Non-refundable application fee ($75) for each program
• Statement of Goals, Research Interests, and Experiences. The statement, which should be around 1000 words, should address relevant aspects of your educational experience, the focus of your academic interests, and reasons for applying to our program. If you are applying to the PhD program but would like to be considered for the MA if you are not selected for the PhD, please indicate that here.
• Unofficial transcripts of your entire college/university record (undergraduate and graduate), including records of any advanced work done at another institution. Electronic copies of these unofficial transcripts must be uploaded along with your on-line application. Official transcripts will be required after an applicant is admitted to the program.
• Three letters of recommendation . In your on-line application, please complete fully the information requested for your recommenders and ask them to submit their letters electronically. We do not accept letters through Interfolio.
•  A single sample of critical writing of approximately 12-20 pages double-spaced (not including works cited/bibliography). While we encourage you to submit your best writing sample, we prefer a writing sample in your declared field of interest. If you are submitting an excerpted selection, please include a brief description or introduction to the selection. The MLA citation format is preferred.
• Academic CV/Resume

The electronic submission of application materials helps expedite the review of an application. Completed applications are reviewed by an admissions committee in each graduate degree program. The recommendations of the committees are submitted to the Dean of the Graduate School, who will make the final admission decision. Students seeking to complete graduate work at the University of Maryland for degree purposes must be formally admitted to the Graduate School by the Dean.  To ensure the integrity of the application process, the University of Maryland authenticates submitted materials through TurnItIn for Admissions .

Information for International Graduate Students

The University of Maryland is dedicated to maintaining a vibrant international graduate student community. The office of International Students and Scholars Services (ISSS) is a valuable resource of information and assistance for prospective and current international students.  International applicants are encouraged to explore the services they offer, and contact them with related questions.

The University of Maryland Graduate School offers admission to international students based on academic information; it is not a guarantee of attendance.  Admitted international students will then receive instructions about obtaining the appropriate visa to study at the University of Maryland which will require submission of additional documents.  Please see the Graduate Admissions Process for International applicants for more information.

Questions related to the admissions process, prospective students may contact the Graduate School .

Prospective Student FAQ

Because many of our applicants share general questions about the application process, we have compiled a list of frequently asked questions to make applying a bit easier.

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• Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates

Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates

Published on June 7, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical early steps in your writing process . It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding the specifics of your dissertation topic and showcasing its relevance to your field.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation , such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review, research methods, avenues for future research, etc.)

In the final product, you can also provide a chapter outline for your readers. This is a short paragraph at the end of your introduction to inform readers about the organizational structure of your thesis or dissertation. This chapter outline is also known as a reading guide or summary outline.

Table of contents

How to outline your thesis or dissertation, dissertation and thesis outline templates, chapter outline example, sample sentences for your chapter outline, sample verbs for variation in your chapter outline, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis and dissertation outlines.

While there are some inter-institutional differences, many outlines proceed in a fairly similar fashion.

• Working Title
• “Elevator pitch” of your work (often written last).
• Introduce your area of study, sharing details about your research question, problem statement , and hypotheses . Situate your research within an existing paradigm or conceptual or theoretical framework .
• Subdivide as you see fit into main topics and sub-topics.
• Describe your research methods (e.g., your scope , population , and data collection ).
• Present your research findings and share about your data analysis methods.
• Answer the research question in a concise way.
• Interpret your findings, discuss potential limitations of your own research and speculate about future implications or related opportunities.

For a more detailed overview of chapters and other elements, be sure to check out our article on the structure of a dissertation or download our template .

To help you get started, we’ve created a full thesis or dissertation template in Word or Google Docs format. It’s easy adapt it to your own requirements.

 Download Word template    Download Google Docs template

It can be easy to fall into a pattern of overusing the same words or sentence constructions, which can make your work monotonous and repetitive for your readers. Consider utilizing some of the alternative constructions presented below.

Example 1: Passive construction

The passive voice is a common choice for outlines and overviews because the context makes it clear who is carrying out the action (e.g., you are conducting the research ). However, overuse of the passive voice can make your text vague and imprecise.

Example 2: IS-AV construction

You can also present your information using the “IS-AV” (inanimate subject with an active verb ) construction.

A chapter is an inanimate object, so it is not capable of taking an action itself (e.g., presenting or discussing). However, the meaning of the sentence is still easily understandable, so the IS-AV construction can be a good way to add variety to your text.

Example 3: The “I” construction

Another option is to use the “I” construction, which is often recommended by style manuals (e.g., APA Style and Chicago style ). However, depending on your field of study, this construction is not always considered professional or academic. Ask your supervisor if you’re not sure.

Example 4: Mix-and-match

To truly make the most of these options, consider mixing and matching the passive voice , IS-AV construction , and “I” construction .This can help the flow of your argument and improve the readability of your text.

As you draft the chapter outline, you may also find yourself frequently repeating the same words, such as “discuss,” “present,” “prove,” or “show.” Consider branching out to add richness and nuance to your writing. Here are some examples of synonyms you can use.

Address	Describe	Imply	Refute
Argue	Determine	Indicate	Report
Claim	Emphasize	Mention	Reveal
Clarify	Examine	Point out	Speculate
Compare	Explain	Posit	Summarize
Concern	Formulate	Present	Target
Counter	Focus on	Propose	Treat
Define	Give	Provide insight into	Underpin
Demonstrate	Highlight	Recommend	Use

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

The title page of your thesis or dissertation goes first, before all other content or lists that you may choose to include.

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review , research methods , avenues for future research, etc.)

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

George, T. (2023, November 21). Dissertation & Thesis Outline | Example & Free Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved July 2, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/dissertation-thesis-outline/

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We work closely with policy makers, stakeholders and citizens to establish evidence-based international standards and to find solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges. From improving economic performance and strengthening policies to fight climate change to bolstering education and fighting international tax evasion, the OECD is a unique forum and knowledge hub for data, analysis and best practices in public policy. Our core aim is to provide advice on international standard-setting – and help countries forge a path towards stronger, fairer and cleaner societies. 

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