Master of Arts in English
- Fall January 10
- Pullman: Yes
Degree Description:
Master of Arts in English: Literature Emphasis
This broad program provides a solid foundation for more specialized doctoral study in English or American literature, American studies, comparative literature, or postcolonial anglophone literatures, as well as for professional training in such areas as law, information technology, divinity, journalism, and business. Students pursuing an M.A. in literature may choose either to write a thesis or to prepare a final portfolio.
Master of Arts in English: Rhetoric and Composition Emphasis
This program allows students to specialize in the theory and pedagogy of composition. The degree is designed to prepare candidates for teaching positions at the college level or for doctoral programs with a specialization in composition and rhetoric. Language proficiency requirements are based on the candidate’s expected needs and may be met by linguistics or other language studies. Candidates in this degree option must fulfill the following requirements.
Student Learning Outcome:
All graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate a broad understanding of contemporary English Studies and its various sub-disciplines.
- Demonstrate substantial knowledge of more specialized areas within English Studies, accompanied by the ability to locate and synthesize scholarship in such.
- Demonstrate the ability to conduct original research in such sub-disciplines as literary studies, rhetorical theory, composition studies, digital technology, second-language learning, etc.
- Demonstrate the ability to present original research findings to appropriate academic audiences.
- Demonstrate the ability to write scholarly essays or to create texts of other kinds which articulate new claims and present the results of original research and thinking.
- Demonstrate the ability to teach a range of courses in English Studies, including, for example, Freshman Composition, Writing Research Papers, introductory courses in literary or rhetorical study, etc.
Student Opportunities:
See http://libarts.wsu.edu/english/malit.html
See http://libarts.wsu.edu/english/marhetcomp.html
Career Placements:
Faculty Members:
Bell, Nancy Dolores, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Benedict, Leah
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Boyd, Ashley, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Professor Boyd’s research centers on issues related to social justice and English Education. With regard to preservice teacher education, she examines pedagogies that seek to enhance the critical consciousness and social justice dispositions of those who plan to enter the profession of teaching. Related to practicing teachers, she investigates how teachers implement texts related to social justice themes including addressing race, class, and gender, as well as how critical approaches can be applied to canonical texts. She also explores how teachers engage in discursive constructions about these issues, investigating the ways that we construct our beliefs and pedagogies through language. As a whole, her work is aimed at broadening traditional notions of multicultural education so as to open space for action-oriented methods that encourage students to see themselves as agents of change in their present contexts.
Burwick, Kimberly
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Butler, Todd Wayne, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Professor Butler’s current research focuses on the intersection of law and literature in the early modern period. His particular interest lies with the nature of treason–not only how it was conceived but also how differing forms of circulation (thought, manuscript, print) help shape the period’s understanding of this crime. The project draws upon archival research completed at both the Folger and British libraries, as well as printed and staged accounts (ballads, pamphlets, drama) of crime during the period. Butler’s research has been supported by external grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Folger Shakespeare Library, as well as internal WSU funds.
Campbell, Donna Marie, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
American literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a special interest in local color or regional fiction, realism, and naturalism.
Chilson, Peter M, M.F.A.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Chilson’s work has primarily focused on literary journalism, with an emphasis on Africa and the American West. He is interested in travel writing, the memoir, investigative journalism and fiction. He is also interested in African literature and borderlands studies. He is presently working on a book about African borderlands for University of Nebraska Press.
Christen, Kim
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Christopher, Renny
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Cozza, Vanessa, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Student enculturation and assimilation, cultural differences in communication styles and its impact on literacy learning, teaching composition to U.S.-educated multilingual writers, Latino/as education, visual literacy and rhetoric, writing studies, critical pedagogy and social justice.
Delahoyde, Michael Edmund, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Research Interests
Delahoyde is currently obsessed with his heretical work in the Shakespeare Authorship Controversy. On back burners are popular culture topics and interdisciplinary Humanities projects.
Eddy, Robert F, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Rhetoric and racism
Malcolm X rhetoric and the renaming of the U.S.A.
Teaching writing to nontraditional students
Prison writing and restorative justice
Identity and representation issues in writing across cultures
Edwards, Michael
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Fry, Bryan J, MFA
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Goodrich, Rebecca M.
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Gordon, Lynn Martha, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Grigar, Rudyne M, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Hamlin, William Michael, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Hellegers, Desiree E, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Civil Liberties, Environmental Literature and Eco-criticism, Gender, Homelessness and Poverty, Seventeenth-century English Literature, Shakespeare , Social Movements, Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century American Literature
Johnson, Wendy, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
history and theory of rhetoric, 19th century American Women’s poetry.
Lee, Debbie, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
– Creative Writing, Nonfiction, Environmental Humanities, Wilderness Studies.
– Literature, Culture, and History of the American West, Oral History, Public History, Ecocriticism.
– British Romantic Literature, 18’th and 19’th century British History and Culture, Postcolonial Theory.
– Lifewriting/Biography/Autobiography.
Levy, Lynn T, M.A.
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Research Interests
Technical & Professional Writing
Creative Writing, all genres
American Indian Literature
Adventure/Lifestyle/Journalism
Mays, Michael, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Modern and Contemporary Irish and English Literature.
McAuley, Louis Kirk, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Narayanan, Pavithra, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Oforlea, Aaron Ngozi, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
African American Literature , 20th-Century American Literature , African American Intellectual Traditions and Literary Theory , African American Folklore , African American Rhetoric , Literacy Studies
Olson, Wendy Michelle, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Plemons, Anna Charis
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Potts, Donna, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
Irish Studies, Postcolonial Studies and World Literature, Ecocriticism, Women’s Studies, and Trauma Theory
Russo, Linda, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Siegel, Carol R, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Siler, Elizabeth A, M.A.
Serves as: member only on graduate committee
Research Interests
– ESL Specialist
– Second language reading.
Staggers, Julie
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Villanueva, Victor, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Whitson, Roger, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee
Research Interests
The adaptation of nineteenth-century literature into digital media, and how this adaptation effects the future of the English discipline.
Wilde, Patricia
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member on graduate committee