GRADUATE ENGLISH FLIER
FALL 2025
http://stjenglish.com/
ENG. 110: INTRODUCTION TO THE PROFESSION (70757)
R (Th) 5:00 – 7:00 PM
Dr. Steven Mentz
Email: mentzs@stjohns.edu
This course introduces students to graduate work in English as a discourse, a community,
and an active practice. We will explore tools and techniques for scholarly research,
practice strategies for successful academic writing and presentation, and discuss
pedagogical models and methods. MA and PhD students are welcome. The course will
alternate between in-person and Zoom meetings. There will also be some optional “Field
Seminar” events either on campus or around New York City
For more information, contact Dr. Steve Mentz, mentzs@stjohns.edu.
ENG. 350: MILTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES (75042)
Wed 7:10 – 9:10 PM ONLINE SYNCHRONOUS
Dr. Melissa Mowry
Email: mowrym@stjohns.edu
As the author of Paradise Lost, John Milton remains a towering figure in English literature. But literary history tends to treat Milton as a singular, unique writer whose work “transcends” the cultural moments in which they were produced. This class takes a different approach to Milton and engages his works as part of the complex conversations about liberty, tyranny, enslavement, rebellion, reason and faith. This class will do a deep dive into the history of Milton’s era and compare his prose and poetic works to those of his contemporaries such as Shakespeare, John Donne, William Walwyn, Richard and Mary Overton, John and Elizabeth Lilburne, Andrew Marvell, Richard Crashaw, John Dryden and Aphra Behn. We will also explore how Milton’s work engages with our own time.
ENG. 765: AMERICAN ETHNIC LITERATURE (75154)
THE ASIAN AMERICAN PROBLEMATIC
M 5:00 – 7:00 PM
Dr. Elda Tsou
Email: tsoue@stjohns.edu
The Asian American figure is a troubling figure insofar as it troubles the typical way that race is studied and its incarnation as the model minority is troubling for the way it buttresses white supremacy and anti-Blackness. This class will approach Asian American literature and culture as the interdisciplinary hub through which to explore how this figure “troubles,” in this double-edged way, normative arrangements of kinship, race, class, immigration and gender/sexuality. We will consider material from the early 20th century to the very recent—the role of Hmong American officer Tou Thao in George Floyd’s death, the Asian American plaintiffs behind the Harvard lawsuit that overturned affirmative action. We will engage a variety of cultural texts from Supreme Court cases to social media feuds, from legal scholarship to literary texts and stand-up comedy to explore the various problematics opened up by the Asian American figure: questions of American empire, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, whiteness and Afro-Asia and Asian/Latinx relations.
ENG. 802: TOPICS IN FILM AUTHORS (75054)
QUEER HORROR AND ALTERITY
T. 5:00 – 7:00 PM
Dr. Scott Combs
Email: combss@stjohns.edu
This course traces queer-oriented horror films from early cinema through Hollywood, New Queer Cinema, and more contemporary examples. At stake will be defining the “genre,” as well as looking at ways it has been invoked, identified, and self-identified. To that end, we will deal with omissions and innuendoes enacted by censorship as we move to consider a range of LGBTQ+ films that offer different conceptions of the genre, including character-based and production-identified examples. Horror cinema has asked questions about sexuality since its inception, and we will hear those questions. Films will include works by James Whale, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Smith, Mark Massi and Tom Joslin, Todd Haynes, Barry Jenkins, and Luca Guadagnino. But the oeuvre grows and we will attest to that. Critical readings will include Sedgewick, Miller, Halberstam, Rich, Stockton, Muñoz, Phelan, Bersani, and Crimp.
ENG. 807: TEACHING WORLD LITERATURE (75041)
TEACHING ABOUT ISLAMOPHOBIC RHETORIC
R. 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Dr. Tamara Issak
Email: issakt@stjohns.edu
This course offers a critical investigation of the pedagogical, theoretical, and aesthetic factors in the teaching of “world literature” or “global literature” with a particular focus on literature and media about Muslims, Arabs, and Islam. Students will study texts on anti-Muslim racism and the Islamophobia industry which fuels it, analyze portrayals of Muslims and Arabs in literature and popular media, and gain exposure to the cultural expressions of Muslims in America. The course illustrates the diversity of American Muslim identities through the incorporation of a wide range of texts, poetry, music, artwork, and popular media featuring Muslim voices. The readings and assignments are designed to model teaching about literature in a global context and aimed at increasing students’ critical awareness of the challenges and complications of teaching these texts and topics at the university level. By the end of the course, students will be equipped with teaching materials, tools, and strategies to continue this work in their future professions.
ENG. 880: TOPICS INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES ( )
POSTCOLONIALISM: ROOTS AND FUTURES
R. 2:50 – 4:50 PM
Dr. Dohra Ahmad
Email: ahmadd@stjohns.edu
This class will investigate the multiple origins and manifestations of postcolonial theory. In the second half of the twentieth century, postcolonial theory (or “postcolonialism,” for short) emerged from and in conversation with many other intellectual and political movements, including anti-colonial nationalism, poststructuralism, feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, and critical race theory. After spending some time studying the central debates within each of these movements, we’ll then look at the ways that postcolonialism has absorbed and reshaped newer critical schools like queer theory and ecocriticism. We’ll end the semester with independent research into postcolonialism’s intersections with other areas that interest you, for example children’s literature studies, composition and rhetoric, popular music studies, disability studies, or any others. All semester, we’ll be using literary texts (i.e. novels, poems, short stories, and personal essays) to elucidate the overlaps and tensions among these many incarnations of postcolonialism.
ENG. 975: DOCTORAL RESEARCH (74298)
T 5:00 – 7:00 PM ONLINE SYNCHRONOUS
Dr. Granville Ganter
Email: ganterg@stjohns.edu
This is a practical, workshop based course in writing the dissertation prospectus, and drafting dissertation chapters. Most of the homework is students’ own writing; class time will be spent reading and discussing each other’s work in a supportive environment. To some extent, we will talk about keeping productive relations with advisors; job market considerations; publication strategies for one’s career. The course will emphasize prospectus writing, techniques for revision, and strategies for completion like time management and smaller writing support groups. Students will meet weekly for a two-hour workshop that will include peer discussions, in-class writing exercises, and brainstorming. If students begin ENG 975 with an approved prospectus then they can use our regularly scheduled peer-review workshops to draft and revise significant portions of the dissertation. This course is not intended as a substitute for mentoring with your advisor, and students will be encouraged to schedule regular meetings with their dissertation advisors as they draft work for the course.
ENG. 105: Comprehensive Portfolio/Masters (71152)
Course designation for MA students in their last semester of coursework if they choose the Portfolio option rather than the M.A. thesis.
ENG. 105: Comprehensive Portfolio/Doctoral (71153)
ENG. 105P: Doctoral Dissertation Defense (74711)
ENG. 105Q: Doctoral Qualifying Exam (71154)
Preparation for and oral examination in three scholarly fields of the doctoral student’s devising, in consultation with three faculty mentors/examiners.
ENG. 105T: Master’s Thesis Defense (71685)
Placeholder designation for students who have written the M.A. thesis in the previous semester and who are in their last semester of coursework. Please only register for this class if you have already registered for ENG 900 in the previous semester and have completed or are intending to complete the thesis as your capstone project for the MA. Students who are pursuing the Portfolio as their capstone project should register instead for ENG 105.
ENG. 900: Master’s Research (70255)
M.A. thesis; capstone project of the M.A. student’s devising, written in consultation with a mentor and several faculty readers.
ENG. 901: Readings and Research (71727)
Independent readings and research supervised by, and in conversation with, a faculty mentor.
ENG. 906: English Internship (71875)
ENG. 925: Maintaining Matriculation (MA) (70042)
Designation for M.A. students pausing studies for personal reasons not medical in nature; a zero-credit course, available for no more than two consecutive semesters.
Students who enroll for Maintaining Matriculation should be aware that MM does not keep their payment of student loans in forbearance
ENG. 930: Maintaining Matriculation (PhD) (70041)
Designation for Ph.D. students pausing studies for personal reasons not medical in nature; a zero-credit course, available for no more than two consecutive semesters.
Students who enroll for Maintaining Matriculation should be aware that MM does not keep their payment of student loans in forbearance
ENG. 975: Doctoral Research (1 credit) (74413)
This is the one-credit version of Eng. 975, only to be taken after the student has completed one semester of the three-credit version of Eng. 975. Doctoral research colloquium or independent doctoral research supervised by doctoral committee.