Mar 28, 2024  
Loyola Marymount University Bulletin 2019-2020 
    
Loyola Marymount University Bulletin 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

English


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Faculty

Chairperson: Barbara Roche Rico

Professors: Theresia de Vroom, Paul Harris, Holli G. Levitsky, Juan Mah y Busch, Steven Mailloux (President’s Professor of Rhetoric), Rubén Martínez (Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing), Robin Miskolcze, Barbara Roche Rico, Chuck Rosenthal, Stephen H. A. Shepherd, Gail Wronsky, Kelly Younger, Molly Youngkin

Associate Professors: Stuart Ching, Evelyn McDonnell, Alexandra Neel, Judy Park, K.J. Peters, John Reilly, Dermot Albert Ryan

Assistant Professors: Julia Lee, Kate Pickert, Tara Pixley

Contact Information

Department Chair: Barbara Roche Rico

E-mail: brico@lmu.edu

Graduate Director: Dermot Ryan

E-mail: Dermot.Ryan@lmu.edu

Websites: www.lmu.edu/english/
bellarmine.lmu.edu/English/graduateprogram

Office Location: University Hall 3800

Telephone: 310.338.3018

Fax: 310.338.7727

Senior Administrative Coordinator: Maria Jackson

E-mail: mjackson@lmu.edu 

English Graduate Program

Mission Statement

The Department of English at Loyola Marymount University offers a Master of Arts degree in English with a Literature Emphasis, a Master of Arts degree in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis, and a Master of Arts degree in English with a Rhetoric and Composition Emphasis. We are committed to the interdependence between literature and writing. We believe that the act of engaging the literary and rhetorical fields involves the production of literary, critical, or theoretical texts, and that broadbased reading in the tradition of literature provides the necessary foundation for more focused study and analysis. Therefore, we offer Literature Emphasis, Creative Writing Emphasis, and Rhetoric and Composition Emphasis students an introduction to graduate scholarship within a range of possible critical, rhetorical, and creative modes, while offering the intellectual background and literary study which makes their course of study both theoretically and historically self-conscious.

All emphases within the M.A. program address the needs of a diverse student population; those going on to doctoral programs in literature, literary theory, rhetoric, or creative writing; those pursuing literary or commercial writing careers; those teaching in high schools and community colleges.

Admission Requirements

  1. The applicant for the degree of Master of Arts in English should have completed with a 3.0 (“B”) average a minimum of five upper division undergraduate English courses. Excellence in upper division courses in closely related fields like journalism and screenwriting may be taken into consideration.
  2. Applicants must submit an application, $50 application fee, and two letters of recommendation. Recommendations should be obtained from individuals who are in a position to comment on the applicant’s academic and personal suitability for pursuing graduate work in English.
  3. Applicants should write an ambition statement (1½-2 pages) in which they indicate which emphasis (Literature, Creative Writing, Rhetoric/Composition) they wish to enter. Applicants should also discuss relevant prior experiences (i.e., Academic, research work, creative writing, or other life experiences) and their career goals. This statement should be included with the basic application.
  4. A 10-15 page writing sample is required of all applicants. Applicants to the Literature or Rhetoric/Composition Emphasis should submit a sample of their critical writing; applicants to the Creative Writing Emphasis should submit both a 10-15 page critical writing samples AND a sample of their best creative writing. The two combined samples may not exceed 30 pages total. Both writing samples should be combined into one document for upload to the application website.
  5. The deadline for the receipt of all materials is March 15.

Teaching Fellowships

Students applying for Teaching Fellowships are asked to include, along with their application materials, the following: a resume or C.V.; a letter of application for the Teaching Fellowship; and one of the candidate’s two letters of recommendation should specifically address the candidate’s potential abilities as a teacher of College Writing.

Rains Research Assistantships

Rains Research Assistantships are available to qualified graduate students by invitation of individual faculty members. These assistantships are paid at $12 per hour for a maximum of 120 hours per academic year. Teaching Fellows are not eligible for Rains Research Assistantships due to federal government financial aid restrictions.

Graduate Assistantships

A Graduate Assistantship and an internship with the William H. Hannon Library’s Special Collections are also available. Students who qualify would work an average of 20 hours per week during the regular semesters. The rate of pay is about $18.00 per hour.

English Undergraduate Program

English Department Mission

Believing that literature is a profound expression of human experience, the English Department uses a range of critical methods to introduce students to literatures in English from a variety of cultural traditions. The course work reveals the art form’s creative beauty, strategies for representing the human experience, and its power to shape the reader.

The English Department encourages an understanding of the critical and creative union of reading and writing as fundamental to the processes of developing the self. Through their imaginations, students who major or minor in English interact with language and literature, thereby encountering another equally open and attentive mind: that of the writer they are reading or of the reader who comes to the work they have created. As students of the literary arts, English majors and minors prepare for a lifetime of reading and writing, enlightenment and fulfillment, learning to do what Toni Morrison describes as a dance of two minds.

Programs

    BachelorsMastersMinor

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