Online Master's in English

Fitchburg State’s online MA in English is built to be flexible, allowing you to choose between a Master’s Thesis for deep research or a Graduate English Exit Exam. You will begin with foundational courses in advanced research and literary theory. These classes give you the critical tools to analyze texts from new perspectives.

As you move through the program, you can choose from a wide range of specialized courses that cover different eras and genres. Whether you are interested in the classics or modern media, our curriculum has something for you. You might explore the "Quiet Revolution" of 19th-century women writers, discover folklore across American literature, or study the timeless plays of Shakespeare.

Two-Year Course Rotation

Ethnic, multicultural, and world literature

• ENGL 9048 Multicultural Children’s Literature
• ENGL 9061 Africa Through the Novel
• ENGL 9064 Three American Literatures: Native American, African American, and Asian American
• ENGL 9066 Latin American Novels
• ENGL 9067 Asian English Literature in Cultural Context
• ENGL 9004 Contemporary Ethnic American Literature

American and British literature

• ENGL 9011 The Literature of the Middle Ages
• ENGL 9020 Shakespeare’s Major Plays
• ENGL 9035 Revisiting the Romantics
• ENGL 9040 Mark Twain and American Humor
• ENGL 9052 20th-Century British and American Poetry
• ENGL 9055 Modern Irish Literature
• ENGL 9026 American Satire

Gender and cultural studies

• ENGL 9060 Women Writers Around the World: Stories of Maturation and Initiation
• ENGL 9025 Romantic Women Writers
• ENGL 9036 The Quiet Revolution: 19th-Century American Women Writers
• ENGL 9047 Women in European Literature
• ENGL 9065 Women in Contemporary Society
• ENGL 9072 British Representations of Disability and Disease
• ENGL 9023 Women in World Cinema

Literature and media

• ENGL 8085 Literature and Film
• ENGL 9015 Folklore in American Culture
• ENGL 9017 Genre, Adaptation and Hybridity
• ENGL 9046 American Art and Literature 1800-1860
• ENGL 9044 Graphic Novel as Literature
• ENGL 9003 Resisting the Page: Media Conscious Literature

Teaching

• ENGL 7010 Children’s Literature
• ENGL 7012 The Modern Secondary School
• ENGL 7020 Teaching College Writing
• ENGL 7850 Advanced Special Methods in English
• ENGL 8000 Advanced Methods of Teaching at the Secondary Level
• ENGL 8070 Literature in the Classroom
• ENGL 8071 Literature for Young Adults
• ENGL 8076 Creating Literacy Experience: Building Reading and Writing into the Content Areas

Students develop their research projects with the liberty to follow their own inquiries and the security of faculty support. As such, student theses cover a wide range of topics and interests using literary, cultural, or rhetorical frameworks. Titles of recent theses include:

• The Merry War: Love and Courtship in Much Ado about Nothing and Cinematic Adaptations
• 20th Century/Current Asian-American Writers and Motherhood
• Sensibility, Sexuality, and the Woman in 18th Century Literature
• The Battle for your Hearts and Minds: The Occupation of Iraq, information warfare, and American war culture
• Protest and Promotion: Hip Hop's Oral Narratives of the Black American Identity Crisis
• Native American Hybrid Leaders: Layers of Feminine Identity with the First Native American Women Writers Sarah Winnemucca and Mourning
• Rage and Redemption in Boxing Films and Literature: An Analysis
• Tomboys in the American South

As an English master’s student at Fitchburg State, you’ll enrich your graduate experience by extending your learning beyond the classroom through opportunities like: 

The Falconer

As a graduate journal, The Falconer has published student and alumni essays and articles since 2010 since replacing our previous journal, The FSC Review. Journal volumes are thematically defined. Our most recent volume themes were:

• Romantic Women Writers
• Analyzing 21st Century America
• Fringe Literature
• American Art and Literature 1800-1806
• Satire
• The Art of Memory

View an archive of our English literary journals.

Graduate Colloquium Series

The English Studies department hosts a Graduate Colloquium series featuring talks by faculty, graduate students, alumni, and guest speakers. Some of our recent talks include:

• Dr. Wafa Unus "Facts are not Truth: Why Journalism Education and Media Literacy Matter"
• Dr. Kisha Tracy “Cultural Heritage, Image, and the Student of the Pre-Modern” 
• Dr. Diego Ubiera “Critical Pedagogy and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed” 
• Dr. Steven Edwards “Critical Exploration: A Pedagogy of Listening” 
• Dr. Albert Turner “Resistance Made Futile – African-American Vigilantism in the Post- Civil Rights Era Fiction of John Edgar Wideman, Chester Himes, and Toni Morrison”
• Ross Caputi “Theory of Reparations: Extending Praxis to Theory”
• Dr. Benjamin Railton “History, Hope, and Critical Patriotism in American Literature”
• Dr. Heather Urbanski “Joyful Disruption: Narratology and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Franchise”

Students in the English master’s program will:

• Produce graduate-level scholarship in the study of literature and culture.
• Research and respond to fellow literary and cultural studies scholars.
• Develop a wide range of literary knowledge, including a global perspective.
• Polish and expand their writing style and techniques.
• Explore major literary theories and the history of English Studies as a discipline.
• Refine and expand their pedagogical philosophies and practices.
   

Ready to earn your Master of Arts in English? Submit these materials with your completed application:

• Official transcript of a bachelor’s degree, preferably with (but not limited to) a major or minor in English from a regionally accredited institution
• Three letters of recommendation
• Professional resume
• Official transcripts of graduate-level coursework from a regionally accredited institution (if applicable)
• Graduate application fee

We review applications on a rolling admission basis.

At Fitchburg State, we commit ourselves to offering an affordable graduate education and providing transparent tuition information to help you plan for your future. Financial aid and graduate scholarship opportunities are available to support you throughout your studies.

Graduate Tuition and Fees