The UTA English Department offers a Masters and a new Ph.D. in English, with two doctoral tracks. The 30-hour track in Rhetoric offers coursework in rhetoric and composition, the analysis of discourse in print and electronic media, in critical theory, and in cultural studies. The 30-hour track in Literature offers coursework on literary texts and contexts, in critical theory, and in cultural studies. Each track includes an option that allows students to minor in the other track.

      Graduate study in literature at UTA is both broad and intense in focus. Students have the opportunity to read primary literary texts in a variety of historical, cultural, and critical settings, and to study various critical strategies. To this end, courses are divided according to periods, genres, special topics, and critical perspectives. Advanced introductions to periods, such as British Romantic Literature, American Literature since 1910, and European modernism are complemented by more specific topics such as primitivism, canon formation, utopian literature, and courses which emphasize critical approaches, such as feminist fiction/feminist theory, or literature and psychoanalysis. Courses in criticism focus either on a critical stance or school, such as critical theory or textual theories of culture, or on significant individual figures such as Freud, Lacan, Derrida, or Foucault. However, most literature courses include a substantial component of critical readings, so that students are well prepared to enter current critical debates. Since previously UTA offered a Ph.D. in the Humanities, the interdisciplinary approaches to literature that program fostered, such as the study of literature and philosophy, history, anthropology, and the visual arts, remains as a component of the Doctoral program in literature. A course in modernist literature, for example, includes consideration of contemporaneous painting; another deals with literature and opera.

     Students have freedom to develop individualized courses of study, according to their literary and critical interests. Of the 30 hours of required courses, only one course, the Theory and Practice of English, a survey of critical methodologies, is required. The 21 hours of literature courses are chosen from a wide spectrum of literature courses, and the 6 required hours in criticism from the department?s offerings in that area. While courses are offered in all aspects of literature and theory from the Renaissance to the contemporary period, the department's particular strengths are in the areas of modern and contemporary English, American, and Comparative Literature, Critical Theory, Gender Criticism, Multi-ethnic Literature, and Cultural Studies.

      Past students concentrating in literature in the English M.A. and Humanities Ph. D. programs have been successful contributors to scholarly and educational communities. They have placed papers and articles at national and regional conferences and in respected journals. The national conferences include the Modern Language Association, the National Women's Studies Association, and the National Association of African American Studies; the journals include Language and Style, Western Historical Quarterly, Studies In American Indian Literatures, and The Journal of Utopian Studies. Several graduates obtained tenure track positions and went on to achieve promotion and tenure at local universities (Texas Wesleyan, for example), regional colleges (Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, for instance), or as far away as Brazil (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarine). One graduate is currently the President of Sweet Briar College. Others have become permanent or adjunct faculty members at community colleges as close as Fort Worth and as far away as Daytona Beach Community College in Florida. A substantial number of the literature graduate students have established careers in public or private high schools, in publishing and media companies, and in government offices. Recently our M.A. graduates have been accepted into respected Ph.D. programs (for example, Penn State, Maryland, and Columbia); several have received generous scholarships.

      Literature students also have the option of participating in the strong program in rhetoric at UTA by declaring their degree to have a secondary focus in rhetoric, in which case they take 9 hours of rhetoric courses. This option is a valuable asset for students seeking jobs that require additional expertise in the teaching of writing.

      For additional information about courses offered, and particular faculty expertise, please refer to the graduate catalog, and also to the websites of individual faculty members. Questions about the M.A. English & Ph.D. English should be directed to Tim Morris, Graduate Advisor.

Literature Faculty

• Stacy Alaimo
• Carolyn Barros
• Philip Cohen
• Martin Danahay
• Emory D. Estes
• Wendy Faris
• Luanne Frank
• Hans Kellner
• Dallas Lacy
• Tim Morris
• Laurin Porter
• Thomas E. Porter
• Kenneth M. Roemer
• Johanna M. Smith

UT-Arlington is situated between Dallas (25 mins.) and Ft. Worth (15 mins). The D/FW Airport is 20 minutes directly north of Arlington. For additional information, visit Yahoo, Dallas/Ft. Worth, the Metroplex.

UTA English Department

UTA English Graduate Advising

UTA M.A. Graduate Humanities Program

Information on Graduate Teaching Assistantships

The Gorgias Society (the graduate rhetoric student organization)

Rhetoric Links

Hermann Lecture Series

Site maintained by Tim Morris.