MA English Studies
Our innovative funded 2-year MA program offers you a chance to pursue an advanced path in any area of English studies in a department that values creative development, versatility, interdisciplinary experiment, and support.
At WWU, you can engage in graduate seminars and workshops in literature, creative writing, rhetoric, cultural studies, film, critical theory, and pedagogy. Most students and faculty work synergistically at the intersections of more than one of these fields and approaches.
Our culminating MA Capstone Project offers you the opportunity to conceive of and create a project that excites you and meets your future goals. Capstones might include scholarly articles, teaching portfolios, public humanities projects, creative-critical investigations, experimental essays, translations, or multimodal products, including film production, audio designs, or performance.
We offer a combination of exploration and direction that empowers students with intellectual purpose, autonomy, and flexibility; provides time and space to engage in meaningful research, production, and revising practices; and nurtures faculty-student mentoring and student collaboration in a small and supportive intellectual cohort. You may also gain hands-on editorial experience as readers and editors of the nationally-recognized journal, Bellingham Review.
Students receive their funding through full-time TAships, which give you the opportunity to teach your own 1st Year Writing classes. The entire time you’re here with us as a TA, you’ll receive training in pedagogical theory and practice, and you’ll build your class and reflect on your developing classroom practices within a purposeful teaching community.
Program Requirements: 60 credits
Core Requirements
- ENG 501 - Literary Theories and Practices
- ENG 513 - Seminar in Teaching College Composition (for Graduate TAs only)
- ENG 591 - Capstone Seminar
- ENG 691 - Capstone Research and Writing
- 25 credits in literature, composition/rhetoric, film, or critical theory
Electives
- 20 credits in literature, criticism, creative writing, rhetoric, pedagogy, and film (in areas beyond the student’s focus). Occasionally electives in other departments may be chosen in consultation and with permission of the English Department graduate program advisor.
- With the permission of the graduate advisor, a student may take up to 5 credits of some combination of 400-level courses, ENG 500 (independent study), and ENG 594 (practicum in teaching).
- With the permission of the graduate advisor, a student may also take up to 5 credits of ENG 509 (Internship in Writing, Editing and Production through the Bellingham Review).
Graduate Seminars in the English department vary by quarter and are shaped by faculty expertise and interest. The broad topics include the following (all are repeatable):
- English 510: Seminar: Topics in Rhetoric
- English 515: Studies in Literary and Critical Theory
- English 540: Studies in Global Literatures
- English 550: Studies in American Literatures
- English 560: Studies in British Literature
- English 565: Studies in Post-Colonial Literatures
- English 570: Topics in Cultural Studies
- English 575: Studies in Women’s Literature
- English 580: Studies in Film
- English 520: Studies in Poetry*
- English 525: Studies in Fiction*
- English 535: Studies in Nonfiction*
*These courses may be taken as either literature or elective credits (depending on the nature of your final project).
- English 502: Seminar in the Writing of Fiction
- English 504: Seminar in the Writing of Poetry
- English 505: Seminar in the Writing of Nonfiction
- English 506: Seminar in Creative Writing: Multigenre
- English 598: Research in the Teaching of English