Educate students in both the artistry and utility of the English language through the study of literature and other contemporary forms of culture.
Provide students with the critical faculties necessary in an academic environment, on the job, and in an increasingly complex, interdependent world.
Graduate students who are capable of performing research, analysis, and criticism of literary and cultural texts from different historical periods and genres.
Assist students in the development of intellectual flexibility, creativity, and cultural literacy so that they may engage in life-long learning.
Students should be familiar with representative literary and cultural texts within a significant number of historical, geographical, and cultural contexts.
Students should be able to apply critical and theoretical approaches to the reading and analysis of literary and cultural texts in multiple genres.
Students should be able to identify, analyze, interpret and describe the critical ideas, values, and themes that appear in literary and cultural texts and understand the way these ideas, values, and themes inform and impact culture and society, both now and in the past.
Students should be able to write analytically in a variety of formats, including essays, research papers, reflective writing, and critical reviews of secondary sources.
Students should be able to ethically gather, understand, evaluate and synthesize information from a variety of written and electronic sources.
Students should be able to understand the process of communicating and interpreting human experiences through literary representation using historical contexts and disciplinary methodologies.