Graduate Studies

The Graduate Program in English offers the Masters of Arts (M.A.), Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees. Students in the M.A. program emphasize one of two tracks: (1) Literature, Media, and Culture; (2) Rhetoric and Composition. M.F.A. students emphasize Creative Writing. Students pursuing an M.A. in Literature, Media, and Culture must complete the Capstone Course in Professional Writing (ENG 5971). See the Graduate Handbook for description. Students in Rhetoric and Composition may write a thesis or take a portfolio examination. Creative Writing students present a body of creative work for the thesis.

All Ph.D. students satisfy core requirements in literature, language study, and literary theory. Students then take comprehensive examinations and write dissertations in fields such as Medieval and Early Modern British Literary and Cultural Studies (through 1660); British and Irish Literary and Cultural Studies: 1660-1900; Post-1900 Literary and Cultural Studies (American, British, Irish); American Literary and Cultural Studies to 1900; African-American Literary and Cultural Studies; History of Text Technologies; Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Colonial, Postcolonial, and Transnational Literary and Cultural Studies; and Publishing and Editing. (Note: A special feature of the Florida State doctoral program is that students may present a body of creative work for the dissertation.)

Trained at premier research institutions throughout North America and Europe, faculty members are accomplished teachers and scholars. Numerous faculty have won College and University teaching awards. In addition to prize-winning original fiction and poetry, writing faculty have produced nationally acclaimed textbooks, and faculty research regularly appears in books published by distinguished university presses, as well as the foremost journals in the profession, such as Publications of the Modern Language Association, English Literary History, Modern Drama, and the Journal of English and Germanic Philology.For more information on all faculty, please see the full faculty listing.

The teaching apprenticeship program is a strong feature of the Department's graduate program. Each year the Department appoints a number of graduate teaching assistants who normally teach two sections of Freshman English each semester, in addition to enrolling in at least nine hours of coursework (tuition waivers are provided to all eligible students). Faculty supervisors support these teaching assistants in their work. New assistants without previous teaching experience participate in a teacher-training program during the summer term preceding their appointment, for which they receive a stipend; faculty specialists in rhetoric and composition teach this program, and it trains teachers not only for classroom instruction but also for tutorial instruction in the Department's Reading-Writing Center. Three computerized classrooms allow graduate students to work in computer-assisted writing instruction. Each year a number of students in the Department hold University Fellowships, College Teaching Fellowships, or Kingsbury Writing Scholarships; minority students also often hold McKnight Fellowships, Leslie E. Wilson Fellowships, or Delores Auzenne Fellowships.

A variety of activities and facilities are available to all graduate students. The Writing Program sponsors readings by faculty and students one evening a week in the community as well as regular readings by outside writers. The Graduate LMC Colloquium features lectures by FSU and guest experts in literature and scholarship. Two literary magazines, The Kudzu Review and The Southeast Review, are published in the Department. Faculty edit several scholarly journals, including Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America and Arthurian Literature. The Department provides both coursework and practical experience in editing.