Students admitted to graduate study in the Department of English normally follow a 30-credit program of courses leading to the Master of Arts degree. Those whose undergraduate degree was not in English will usually be asked to complete a 39-credit program.

The department offers concentrations in Traditional Literary Study, Creative Writing, Composition, Poetry and Poetics, and Women’s Studies.  All concentrations are designed to promote breadth and depth of knowledge in British and American literature.  The curriculum combines a core of period-based courses with a changing roster of topics courses reflecting faculty interests.

The degree provides valuable training for teachers of English at the secondary level, and a solid preparation for doctoral work in the field. In the scheduling of its courses and in the scope of the comprehensive examination, the Department presents a substantial and coordinated curriculum of graduate study. The English Department is home to the National Poetry Foundation, which regularly hosts international conferences on modernist and postmodernist poetry, and publishes the scholarly journal Paideuma: Modernism into the Present as well as many books of and on poetry.  To these enterprises graduate students have sometimes contributed editorial assistance as well as articles, and the NPF offers a graduate work-study assistantship providing experience in the practical side of scholarly publishing.

Admission Requirements

Applicants normally are expected to have at least a 3.0 grade-point average in English from an accredited institution, and a verbal score of at least 600 on the General Test of the Graduate Record Examination. The GRE Subject Test in Literature in English is recommended but not required.

Applicants should specify on their application forms the concentration or concentrations to which they wish to apply. All applicants must submit a 10-20 page sample of formal literary analysis.   Applicants to the creative writing concentration must also submit a 10-20 page sample of creative work.   In addition, those wishing to be considered for teaching assistantships should include a 1-2 page statement about their philosophy of teaching and their teaching experience, if any. The department offers 21 assistantships, of which about half are awarded to incoming students in a typical year.

The Department requires a reading knowledge of one foreign language for admission. An applicant who has not met this requirement by passing six credit hours of a college intermediate language course with a “C” or higher may be admitted on a provisional basis and must then meet the requirement through coursework or by taking a written equivalency test before registering for more than 12 credit hours of graduate work.  The test involves translating into English, dictionary in hand, a passage of scholarly or literary prose.

Applicants wishing to be considered for a teaching assistantship should have their complete application materials (transcripts, test scores, writing samples, and three letters of recommendation) on file with the department by February 15. 

Degree Requirements

Of the usual 30 hours of coursework, at least 24 hours must be in English courses numbered 500 or above, including up to six hours of thesis credit (ENG 699). Students with teaching assistantships normally need two years to complete the program; other full-time students sometimes finish more quickly. Typically, seven to eight graduate courses are offered each semester and two to three each summer.

A six-hour comprehensive written examination, graded “Pass” or “Fail,” is required of all students. Based on the department’s M.A. Reading List, the examination is offered twice each year, in spring and fall. Thesis candidates, including creative writers, also do one-hour defenses of their theses.

Thesis candidates take 3-6 credits of thesis work. All students in the creative writing concentration produce a thesis consisting of a substantial body of original work (e.g. a novel, a collection of stories, a collection of poems). The thesis is optional for students in other concentrations.

Coursework:

In the thirty hour program, at least fifteen hours of graduate literature courses are required for students in all concentrations. Graduate teaching assistants are also required to take ENG 693 Teaching College Composition, during their first semester of teaching.

Remaining credits are allocated according to concentration requirements, as follows:

Traditional Literary Study:  additional literature courses, selected with an eye toward breadth of knowledge in British and American literature.  May include one creative writing course.

Concentration in Composition: ENG 579 Theory of Composition, ENG 693 Teaching College Composition, and  an additional six credits of composition-related study.  These may include courses in literacy or rhetoric outside of the department, as approved by the student’s advisor.

Concentration in Creative Writing: 12 credit hours in writing, typically including six credits of workshop and six thesis credits.

Concentration in Poetry and Poetics: six credit hours of ENG 580 Topics in Poetry and Poetics, and nine credit hours in other courses focused on poetry and/or theory, which may include three credits in creative writing.

Interdisciplinary Concentration in Women’s Studies:   WST 510 Advanced Studies in Feminist Theory, ENG 549 Studies in Women’s Literature, and one other women’s studies or women’s literature course, as approved by the student’s women’s studies advisor.

To learn more about graduate study in English, go to http://www.umaine.edu/english/gradprog.htm.

Graduate Faculty

David Adams, M.F.A. (Bowling Green), Assistant Professor. Director of Professional Writing Program. Technical communication, Randall Jarrell.

Carla Billitteri,  Ph.D. (SUNY at Buffalo, 2001), Assistant Professor. Literary  theory;  feminist theory and gender studies; poetry and poetics; nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American  Literature; drama.

Robert A. Brinkley, Ph.D. (Massachusetts at Amherst, 1979), Associate Professor. Romanticism, critical theory, Spenser, Milton.

Richard T. Brucher, Ph.D. (Rutgers, 1978), Associate Professor. British and American drama, technical writing.

A. Patricia Burnes, Ph.D. (St. Louis University, 1977), Associate Professor and Director of College Composition. American literature, the development of writing ability.

Laura Cowan, Ph.D. (Princeton, 1988), Associate Professor. Modernist literature, poetry, nature literature.

Steven Evans, Ph.D. (Brown, 1999), Associate Professor. Postmodern American poetry, critical theory. 

T. Jeff Evans, Ph.D. (California at Davis, 1974), Associate Professor. American literature, film, popular culture.

Benjamin Friedlander, Ph.D. (SUNY-Buffalo, 1999), Associate Professor. Poetry and poetics; nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature.

Burton N. Hatlen, Ph.D. (California at Davis, 1971), Professor. Milton, Spenser, Donne and the Metaphysicals, Shakespeare, modern American poetry.

Alexander Irvine,  Ph.D. (Denver University, 2005), Assistant Professor. Creative writing, fiction, new media.

Naomi Jacobs, Ph.D. (Missouri, 1982), Professor. British and American fiction, women’s literature, utopian literature.

Harvey Kail, Ph.D. (Northern Illinois, 1977), Professor and Director of the Writing Center. Composition theory and practice; American poetry and poetics; maritime literature.

David Kress, Ph.D.  (Pennsylvania State University, 2002), Assistant Professor. Creative writing, fiction, critical theory.

Margaret A. Lukens, Ph.D. (Colorado, 1991), Associate Professor and Chair. Nineteenth-century American literature, Native American literature, multi-cultural studies, theatre.

Jennifer Moxley, M.F.A. (Brown, 1994),  Assistant Professor. Creative writing, poetry & poetics, translation.

Virginia Nees-Hatlen, Ph.D. (Iowa, 1980), Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence. Composition theory and practice; teaching literature and writing; Renaissance.

Kenneth W. Norris, Ph.D. (McGill, 1980), Professor. Canadian literature, creative writing.

Deborah D. Rogers, Ph.D. (Columbia, 1982), Professor. Restoration and eighteenth-century English literature.

John R. Wilson, Ph.D. (Kansas, 1969), Associate Professor. Victorian literature; religion and literature; Liberal Studies.