"American Literatures" might be the most accurate label for UTA's undergraduate and graduate courses that emphasize the United States. We have designed our course offerings to meet the needs for students with diversified interests and career goals. The courses draw upon the expertise and enthusiasm of professors who specifically define themselves as Americanists, as well as faculty who have strong backgrounds in British and Comparative literature, cultural studies, theory, and rhetoric.

The courses draw upon the expertise and enthusiasm of professors who specifically define themselves as Americanists, as well as faculty who have strong backgrounds in British and and Comparative literature, cultural studies, theory, and rhetoric. For undergraduate and graduate students whose primary interest is in teaching at elementary or secondary schools that structure their curricula around national literatures, established time periods, and well-known authors, we offer more than a dozen courses that emphasize historical approaches or a specific focus, either on a period, a single author, or a selected group of authors.
These courses begin at the sophomore level and culminate with seminars designed for graduate students. They cover periods beginning before Columbus's voyages up through the present. Authors who have been the focus of courses or parts of courses include Poe Hawthorne, Melville, Momaday, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Twain, James, Chopin, Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Neill, O'Connor, Moore, Bishop, Shepard, Anzaldúa, and Morrison.

For students and teachers whose present or anticipated careers call for approaches to literature that go beyond traditional period and author orientations, we offer a wide spectrum of courses, again from sophomore to graduate level. Some of these concentrate on familiar genres, such as poetry and drama. Other genre approaches include examinations of autobiography, utopian literature, detective and mystery novels, children's literature, and baseball fiction. In several of these courses American texts are considered along side non-American texts. This comparative technique is also evident in a Magical Realism course that features authors from Latin America as well as the U. S. We offer many different courses in ethnic and women's literatures. Every semester we schedule multi-ethnic, African American, Mexican American, or Native American literatures, as well as courses on women in literature, literature by women, or feminist literature and theory. Many courses explore visual arts, film, music, and various aspects of popular culture along with the literature. Several American literature courses, especially at the graduate level, include interdisciplinary theories such as postmodernism, as well as cultural studies.

On both the undergraduate and graduate levels, students have the flexibility of emphasizing courses in American literature. On the undergraduate level they have the opportunity to pursue teacher certification, a writing minor, and/or apply to the Honors College, which offers a strong interdisciplinary American Studies sequence. On the graduate level students can define a focus in American literature in both the English M.A. and Ph.D. Graduate Students may also be interested in participating in the Center for Theory.

The faculty and their courses are the major resources for students interested in American literature. They are complemented by three areas in the UTA library: the Minority Cultures Collection (African American, Asian American, Mexican American and Native American resources from the Southwest), the Borderlands collections in the Library's Special Collections Department, and strong holdings in the period of 1880 to 1910. The latter originally supported the Journal American Literature Realism, which for two decades was published at UTA. The MCC is the only special collection that concentrates on minority literatures in North Central Texas, and the Borderlands materials are world renowned. Both gain support form the library's Center for Southwestern Studies and History of Cartography.

Advising Schedule:

Dr. Kevin Gustafson - Associate Chair for Graduate Studies

Phone: 817.272.2739
Fax: 817.272.2718
Email: gustafson@uta.edu

Advising Hours Fall 07:
   Monday: 1:00 - 3:00 PM
   Wednesday: 3:00 - 5:00 PM
   and by appointment.