English Graduate Newsletter San José State University
Important Deadlines for 2009-2010
(note: does not include due dates from September 2009 Newsletter)
Oct 27: Deadline to submit thesis proposals for Spring 2010 299 credits to Grad Committee.
Oct. 30: Deadline to submit thesis proposals for Spring 2010 299 credits to Department Graduate Committee.
Nov. 6: MFA Comprehensive Exam distributed (9 AM ).
Nov. 7: MA Comprehensive Exam, Part 1, 9-12:30 AM , FO 104.
Nov. 9: MFA Comprehensive Exam due (5 PM ).Nov. 13:Last day for December 2009 graduates to submit signed MA and MFA thesis to Graduate Studies Office.
Nov. 14: MA Comprehensive Exam, Part 2, 9-12:30 AM , FO 104.
Jan. 15: Last day for December 2009 graduates to submit MA and MFA thesis copies for binding. ___________________________________________________________________________________ PROGRAM APPROVAL DEADLINE: AUGUST AND DECEMBER GRADUATES If you are planning to graduate in August or December of 2009, and you have not filed your approved program (i.e. been formally advanced to candidacy) you should see your advisor immediately. Remember, you need to file your program nearly two semesters before you plan to graduate. (The best policy is to file your program one full year before graduation. It is always possible to file revisions to the list of courses you plan to complete.) Find the “Departmental Request for Candidacy” form at http://www.sjsu.edu/gradstudies/Current/Forms.html. The university deadline was February 13 for August graduates, approximately March 31 for December graduate DEADLINE FOR MA AND MFA THESIS PROPOSALS Thesis proposals must come to the Graduate Committee in the semester preceding the semester in which you will enroll for English 299. If you plan to write your thesis in the Fall 2009 term, you must get your proposal to the Graduate Committee by April 1st. But there is no reason to wait until the deadline, and there is every reason to get an early start. Before you can present your proposal to the committee, you must 1) see your program coordinator to get a copy of the program’s guidelines for developing proposals, 2) find a faculty member who will direct your work, 3) develop your proposal in consultation with that faculty member, and 4) show your program coordinator a draft of your proposal and coversheet that has been approved by your director. (MFA students should also propose the names of second and third readers.) Only after you have done all this will you be ready to submit eight copies of your proposal to the committee. All this must be done beforethe deadline. Also note: the committee will be selective in deciding who will be permitted to write an MA thesis, with preference given to students with particularly strong academic records and to proposals that have been carefully prepared. Those planning to write theses in the Spring 2010 term will need to get proposals to the committee by October 27, 2009. CONDITIONALLY CLASSIFIED GRADUATE STUDENTS Conditionally classified students must complete required undergraduate course work before enrolling in graduate seminars. A list of upper-division literature courses approved for conditionally classified students is available from Professor Brada-Williams When you are eligible for classified status, the change is not automatic; see your advisor to file the necessary form (found at http://www.sjsu.edu/gradstudies/Current/Forms.html). APPROVED COURSES FOR THE ENGLISH MA AND MFA Except for undergraduate courses you have to take if you are a conditionally classified student, most graduate work will consist in 200-numbered English classes. Courses taken outside the department will not count except in unusual circumstances. Get prior approval from your advisor before you take such courses. A limited number of upper-division undergraduate English courses can count towards the degree but you must secure the cooperation of the instructor and notify the graduate advisor of your plans. Again, get approval in advance. PhD APPLICATIONS The department would very much like to know about students applying to PhD programs and their success. Please let us know where you are applying and how things are working out. For those of you graduating this May, stopping by the coordinator’s office for an informal “exit” interview should be considered a necessary part of your preparations for graduation. ENGLISH GRADUATE LISTSERV To subscribe to the EngGrad listserv, follow the directions at this website: http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/enggrad. Key information is sent out on the listserv. Joining the listserv is essential for all MA and MFA students. THE MA IN ENGLISH: A GUIDE FOR STUDENTS "The MA in English: A Guide for Students," a six-page brochure is available in the rack outside the English office. The Guide answers most questions about the program. This information is also available at http://www.sjsu.edu/english/graduate/ma/mafaq.html
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS:
ENGLISH 202: Poetic Craft and Theory (Prof. Soldofsky)
Theme: Divergent and Oppositional Poetics
In this course we will read modern and contemporary poems by Bay Area and West Coast poets in
contrast to poems by their (mostly) East Coast peers who represent the more dominant,
academically-sanctioned canon -- what poet/critic Charles Bernstein refers to as "official verse
culture." To better understand a contemporary view of prosody and poetics, we will read Robert
Pinsky's The Sounds of Poetry. We will then examine the difference between poetry that is
grounded in the early Modernist impulse toward open form and the later Modernist poetics that
finds virtue in a return to a more formalist poetics. To examine the differences (and overlaps) in
these two modes of poetics, we will read selected works from a number of Bay Area poets from
Robinson Jeffers in the early 20th Century to Robert Hass and Sandra M. Gilbert in the 21st
Century. We will read selected poems -- mostly in anthologies and online -- from a number of poets
(West and East Coast) including: Ezra Pound, Robinson Jeffers, Langston Hughes, W.H. Auden,
Kenneth Rexroth, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, George Oppen, Robert
Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Robert Creeley, Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Denise
Levertov, Bob Kaufman, Frank O'Hara, William Everson, Carolyn Kizer, Diane di Prima, Gary
Snyder, Joanne Kyger, Adrienne Rich, Robert Hass, Lyn Hejinian, Michael Palmer, Mark Doty,
and Sandra M. Gilbert. Each class member will give a seminar presentation during the semester on
one or more of these poets, complete an essay of 2500 - 5000 words (based on the same topic as
the seminar presentation), and complete another project which could either be a small series of
original poems with annotations examining your poetics and/or a second shorter essay 1500 - 2500
words that closely reads a few poems by another poet(s). Class members will also each take a turn
leading part of the seminar discussion of the assigned readings.
English 204 - Seminar in Modern Approaches to Literature (Prof. Brada-Williams)
The Russian Formalists argued that what made literary language different from other forms of
language was that literature defamiliarizes, making us see the world in a new way. One could
argue that the literary theory and criticism of the twentieth century has, in turn, made us see
literature in new ways. The semester will be spent in examining various ways critics and theorists
have come to see the way literature works, and to form the questions we must ask of texts, of
readers, of authors, and of how literature continues to shape the way we see the world around us.
We will read and discuss many challenging critical and theoretical readings, mostly from The
Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. The class will mix lecture and discussion on key issues
and background of the various kinds of theory with hands-on application of the theories in a
workshop environment.
English 208 South Asia: "Narrating the Nation" (Prof. Krishnaswamy)
If nations are "imagined communities," how is the nation called "India" imagined? With this
fundamental question in mind, we will examine the relationship between nation and narration
through an in-depth study of selected literature and film from the Indian subcontinent. Our
examination will be placed within the larger historical context of decolonization in the sense not
only of formal independence from European rule, but also of contemporary struggles against
persistent forms of imperialism and internal colonization. We will focus on three key moments that
highlight the process of nation formation on the Indian subcontinent: (1) the nationalist struggle
against British colonial rule, (2) the partition of the subcontinent by the British at the time of
independence, and (3) the independent modern liberal nation-state in the era of globalization. By
analyzing key texts of literature (in English/in English translation) as well as film, we will attempt
to understand how nationalism mobilizes religion, gender, caste, and class in an attempt to produce
an image of a people.
English 211 - Seminar in Twentieth Century Literature (Prof. Maio)
We will treat the major metrical poets of the modern era--Hardy, Yeats, Auden, Frost--as well as
key poets of the counter-tradition-- Pound, Eliot, and Lowell. Two in-class presentations and one
significant research paper will comprise the graded evaluation for the course.
English 226: Seminar in Tragedy (Prof. Cox)
Beginning with Aeschylus' Agamemnon (458 B.C.E.) and concluding with Miller's Death of a
Salesman (1949 C.E.), this course will engage and explore "Tragic Vision and Form" as manifest in
ten plays and two (very) short novels, and as defined, discussed, and dissected in several critical
essays. Requirements: close, careful, and productive reading of all assigned texts; weekly reader
responses; two presentations, with accompanying two-page handouts for all seminar members; a
research-informed critical pager.
English 233: The Victorian Period (Prof. Wilson)
This seminar will examine significant literary works written circa 1830 to 1900. We will
supplement our readings with important pieces of Victorian art and music. We will read
Bleak House, Middlemarch, Jude the Obscure, and the Victorian section of The Norton
Anthology. One short essay, one seminar research project and two class presentations are
required.
English 240: Poetry Writing Workshop (Lurie Chair Sandra M. Gilbert)
English 240 is a course required for students in the MFA program whose primary or secondary
genre is poetry. Students in the MA program who write poetry at the advanced level may also be
admitted (space permitting) with the instructor's permission. The course may be repeated twice for
credit. Conditionally classified graduate students must also obtain the instructor's permission to
enroll in the course.
English 241: Fiction Writing Workshop (Prof. Taylor)
This course is a graduate fiction writing workshop. Participants will submit work on a regular
schedule, with each student having his or her work discussed at least twice over the course of the
semester. Students will submit a substantial revision in lieu of a final exam. Regular assigned
readings of published work will supplement our discussion.
English 241 is a course required for students in the MFA program whose primary or secondary
genre is fiction. Students in the MA program who write fiction at the advanced level may also be
admitted (space permitting) with the instructor's permission. The course may be repeated twice for
credit. Conditionally classified graduate students must also obtain the instructor's permission to
enroll in the course.
ENGL 253: Periods of American Literature (Prof. Shillinglaw)
Their residence in 1920a Paris is legendary: Hemingway slouching in cafes, Stein hosting artists
and writers. "Paris was where the twentieth century was," she declared. Exiles from their country,
each writer gained through dislocation an extraordinary perception of self, of place, of modern
experience. In this course we will read works by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude
Stein and Djuna Barnes, all written either during the writers' residence in Paris or after their
departure, when place and meanings are reimagined. Texts include In Our Time, The Sun Also
Rises, A Moveable Feast, The Garden of Eden (Hemingway); Tender is the Night (Fitzgerald); The
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Stein); and Nightwood (Barnes).
ENGL 254: Genres in American Literature (Prof. Douglass)
An examination of the genre of Science Fiction, including an historical perspective on its
development in the nineteenth century, its codification in the mid-twentieth century, and its
deepening importance for writers of all kinds of fiction in the new century. We will discuss
important themes and motifs of Sci-Fi, including space and time travel, robots, artificial
intelligence, the post-apocalyptic ("last man") moment, viruses and disease, utopian and dystopian
worlds, and gender-bending. We will also consider Sci-Fi in relation to the theory of "genrefiction."
Writers of short stories and novels to be considered include Atwood, Bester, Asimov,
Butler, Bradbury, Card, Clarke, Dick, Gibson, Herbert, Heinlein, Kress, Le Guin, McIntyre, Moore,
Niven, Pohl, Russ, Stephenson, Stewart, Tiptree, Van Vogt, Vonnegut, and Wells.
ENGL 257: History of Rhetoric (Prof. Gabor)
In this seminar-style class, we will read the key texts of rhetoric in the Western tradition, from the
ancient Greeks to 21st century rhetoricians. Because so many (re)discovered texts by female
authors have been published recently, we will be able to read many texts by women alongside the
more well-known canonical rhetorical texts. Students will be expected to read 150-250 pages per
week, turn in short response texts, write a longer paper at the end of the semester, and lead class
discussion from time to time. The study of rhetorical texts is very uncommon at the undergraduate
level; therefore, no knowledge of the history of rhetoric is assumed. The professor will give minilectures
to set the context for each week's reading. WebCT or a class wiki may be employed. Texts:
The Rhetorical Tradition, 2nd ed. Edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg
Available Means: An Anthology of Women's Rhetoric. Edited by Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald.
You may take a limited number of undergraduate upper division courses for graduate credit. Please
look over the entire department schedule of classes for courses that may be of specific interest to
you but which we are not offering at the graduate level in the spring semester (for example, English
165: Asian American Literature and English 148: British Literature 1660-1800).
COURSE OFFERINGS FOR FALL 2009
The number of graduate seminars offered in Fall 2008 will depend on enrollments and faculty
availability but will most likely include English 201, 201C, 203, 240, 241, 242, 259 and a range of
literature seminars. The actual offerings should be in the February newsletter or sent out earlier on
the Enggrad listserve.
CONDITIONALLY CLASSIFIED MA STUDENTS
Conditionally classified students must complete their required undergraduate course work before
enrolling in graduate seminars. A list of upper-division literature courses approved for
conditionally classified students is available in the rack outside the English department and is
posted on the Department website. Be sure to take only courses from this list. When you are
eligible for classified status, the change is not automatic; you need to apply. The form is available
at http://www.sjsu.edu/gape/forms/. Bring this form and a print out of your grades from Mysjsu
when you contact Professor Brada-Williams.
APPROVED COURSES FOR THE ENGLISH MA AND MFA
Courses taken outside the department will not count except in unusual circumstances. Get prior
approval from your advisor before you take such courses. Upper-division English course work can
count if you secure the approval of both the instructor and the graduate advisor to take the class as a
graduate student (with assignments and standards befitting your advanced level).
ENGLISH GRADUATE LISTSERV
To subscribe to the EngGrad listserv, follow the directions at this website:
http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/enggrad. Key information is sent out on that listserv. Consider
joining the listserv a requirement of all MA and MFA students.
PHD APPLICATIONS
The department would very much like to know about students applying to Ph.D. programs and their
success. Please let us know where you are applying and how things are working out.
GRADUATE BULLETIN BOARD AND OTHER INFORMATIONAL RESOURCES
The SJSU Graduate Admissions and Program Evaluations website publishes important forms,
deadlines, rules, and information useful to graduate students. Go to http://www.sjsu.edu/gape/
and click on "Current Students." Important dates and other useful information will also be
posted on the English Graduate Bulletin Board in the first-floor hall of the Faculty Office Building.
New information will be posted as we receive it. So make a point to check the bulletin board
frequently and check, too, the English department website: http://www.sjsu.edu/english/. If you
would like to restart the English Graduate Organization or start your own version, let Professor
Brada-Williams know and she will look into what support the department and university can offer.
MA & MFA FOREIGN LANGUAGE EXAMS
Both degree programs require a level of fluency in a second language roughly equivalent to two years of
college study of a language. If within five years of filing your program (achieving Candidacy), you have
completed the fourth semester (or sixth quarter) of an approved university-level foreign language course
sequence with a grade of "B" or better, you have already satisfied this requirement. Just be sure to bring this to the attention of your advisor when you file for candidacy. Students who have taken coursework longer than five years previous to filing for candidacy or who have acquired their language skills and knowledge outside of an academic institution can satisfy the foreign language requirement in French, German, or Spanish, by taking an examination offered in the Foreign Language Department that has been specially devised for our graduate students. Please contact:
Examiner email phone
Professor Trudeau (French): trudeau@sjsu.edu 924-4594
Professor Sabalius (German): sabalius@email.sjsu.edu 924-4616
Professor Eleanor Marsh (Spanish): eleanor.marsh@sjsu.edu 924-4592
Evidence of a first-language literacy other than English also satisfies the requirement. For answers to
questions about this requirement, or to satisfy this requirement in a language other than French, German, or Spanish, please contact Professors Brada-Williams or Soldofsky.
KEY DATES FOR SJSU ENGLISH GRADUATE STUDENTS
Jan. 16 Once Graduate Admissions & Program Evaluation (GAPE) has approved your thesis,
you submit it for binding and this is the last day for December 2008 graduates to have
their thesis bound.
Feb. 13 August 2009 graduates should submit approved Candidacy forms to Graduate
Admissions & Program Evaluation by this date. The form can be found on the GAPE
website but your advisor will need to sign it. To be safe, do it before the end of fall
semester 2008.
Feb. 15 Last day for May 2009 graduates to file or reactivate application for graduation at
GAPE
Feb. 24 & 25 Poet Mark Doty speaking on campus via the Center for Literary Arts
March 3 Last day to sign up for the Spring 2009 MFA Exam.
March 3 Last day to submit MA and MFA thesis to 2nd and 3rd readers.
March 20 Last day that campus is open before the candidacy form is due to GAPE for December
graduates, and thesis proposals, TA and GA application April 1st deadline are due to the
English Department Graduate Coordinator
March 21-March 31 Campus closed for Spring Break and Cesar Chavez Day
March 31 December 2009 graduates should submit approved Candidacy forms to GAPE
April 1 TA and GA applications for Fall 2009 due to Graduate Coordinator.
April 1 Deadline for thesis proposals to be submitted to the graduate committee to sign up for
Fall 2008 299 units.
April 6 Deadline for May graduates to submit approved theses to Graduate Studies.
April 3 MFA comprehensive exam distributed (9:00 AM).
April 4 MA Comprehensive Exam, Part 1, 9-noon, FO 104.
April 6 MFA comprehensive exam due (5:00 PM).
April 11 MA Comprehensive Exam, Part 2, 9-noon, FO 104.
April 14 GRE Subject Test in English offered
April 15 Lurie Chair, poet, and critic, Sandra Gilbert will be speaking at two CLA events.
June 5 Last day for May 2009 graduates to submit MA and MFA thesis copies for binding.
June 8 Last date for August 2009 graduates to reactivate or file application for graduation.
July 3 Deadline for August graduates to submit approved theses to Graduate Studies. |
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