English and American Literature (MA)
Program Overview
The NYU Department of English warmly welcomes qualified applicants who wish to pursue advanced study towards an MA in English. We are a large department that values historical coverage of the field but also embraces innovative approaches to the discipline. We teach in a wide variety of areas and have research clusters among our faculty and graduate students spanning medieval to twenty-first-century literatures, as well as modernist, postcolonial, African American and Black Diasporic, Latinx, and Asian American literatures. Students in the department’s MA program explore and deepen their scholarly interests, develop their skills in critical thinking and writing, and write a 35-45-page Master’s Thesis under the supervision of a faculty adviser. The program is typically taken over two years, with the thesis written in either the Fall or Spring of the second year.
Together with the department’s PhD students, MA students originate, organize and receive funding for their own working and reading groups, which currently include Critical Theory and Medievalisms; Cultures of War and the Post-War; Creative Writing; Early Modern Literature; the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Literature Working Group; the Marxism Working Group; Modern and Contemporary Colloquium; Politics of Empowerment; Postcolonial, Race and Diaspora Studies Colloquium; and the Organism for Poetic Research.
The English MA program can be taken as part of the Library and Information Science Dual Degree program with Long Island University, and we also offer an Advanced Certificate in Digital Humanities. Please note that NYU’s Creative Writing Program, while affiliated with the Department of English, is administered separately, and a different application process is required for students interested in their MFA Program. See Creative Writing Program for more information.
Note: Students admitted to the MA program in English and American Literature will receive an English Department Scholarship, which covers 50% tuition (not registration and services fees).
Admissions
All applicants to the Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS) are required to submit the general application requirements, which include:
- Academic Transcripts
- Test Scores (if required)
- Applicant Statements
- Résumé or Curriculum Vitae
- Letters of Recommendation, and
- A non-refundable application fee.
See English for admission requirements and instructions specific to this program.