MA Thesis Examples
Recent graduate theses.
The subjects of MA theses have included studies of individual poets or dramatists, novelists or autobiographers, as well as explorations of literary movements, themes or periods. Some of our more recent titles are:
“‘Memory is all that Matters;’ Queer Latinx Temporality and the Memory-Making Process” (2020 Caicedo)
“Old Wives’ Tales: Mothers & Daughters, Wives & Witches (Stories)” (2020 Champagne)
“‘Numbed and Mortified’: Labor, Empathy, and Acquired Disability in King Lear and Titus Andronicus : (2020 Harrington)
“‘More Forms and Stranger’: Queer Feminism and the Aesthetic of Sapphic Camp (2020 Kennedy)
“A Discourse and Statistical Approach to Intersections of Gender and Race in Melville’s Typee ” (2020 Post)
“Prophetic Un-speaking: The Language of Inheritance and Original Sin in Paradise Lost and S alve Deus Rex Judaeorum ” (2019 Darrow)
“‘The Frame of her Eternal Dream’: From Thel to Dreamscapes of Influence” (2019 Gallo)
“‘The Murmure and the Cherles Rebellying’: Poetic and Economic Interpretations of the Great Revolt of 1381” (2019 Noell)
“Dialogic Convergences of Spatiality, Racial Identity, and the American Cultural Imagination” (2019 Humphrey)
“Troubling Vice: Stigma and Subjectivity in Shakespeare’s Ambitious Villains” (2019 Simonson)
“Beyond Mourning: Afro-Pessimism in Contemporary African American Fiction” (2018 Huggins)
“‘Harmonized by the earth’: Land, Landscape, and Place in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights ” (2018 Bevin)
“(Re)membering the Subject: Nomadic Becoming in Contemporary Chicano/a Literature” (2018 Voelkner)
“Werewolves: The Outsider on the Inside in Icelandic and French Medieval Literature” (2018 Modugno)
“Towards Self-Defined Expressions of Black Anger in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen and Percival Everett’s Erasure ” (2018 Razak)
“Echoes Inhabit the Garden: The Music of Poetry and Place in T.S. Eliot” (2018 Goldsmith)
“‘Is this what motherhood is?’: Ambivalent Representations of Motherhood in Black Women’s Novels, 1953-2011” (2018 Gotfredson)
“Movements of Hunters and Pilgrims: Forms of Motion and Thought in Moby-Dick , The Confidence Man , and Clarel ” (2018 Marcy)
“Speaking of the Body: The Maternal Body, Race, and Language in the Plays of Cherrie Moraga, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Tony Kushner” (2018 King)
“Passing as Jewish: The Material Consequences of Race and the Property of Whiteness in Late Twentieth-Century Passing Novels” (2017 Mullis)
“Eliot through Tolkien: Estrangement, Verse Drama, and the Christian Path in the Modern Era” (2017 Reynolds)
“Aesthetics, Politics, and the Urban Space in Postcolonial British Literature” (2017 Rahmat)
“Models of Claim, Resistance, and Activism in the Novels of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, and Frances Burney” (2017 Smith)
“English Literature’s Father of Authorial Androgyny: The Innovative Perspective of Chaucer and the Wife of Bath” (2017 Ingold)
“’Verbal Hygiene’ on the Radio: An Exploration into Perceptions of Female Voices on Public Radio and How They Reflect Language and Gender Ideologies within American Culture” (2017 Barrett)
“Divided Bodies: Nation Formation and the Literary Marketplace in Salman Rushdie’s Shame and Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India” (2016 Mellon)
“Metaformal Trends in Contemporary American Poetry” (2016 Muller)
“Power Through Privilege: Surveying Perspectives on the Humanities in Higher Education in the Contemporary American Campus Novel” (2016 Klein)
“‘I always cure you when I come’: The Caregiver Figure in the Novels of Jane Austen” (2016 McKenzie)
“English Imperial Selfhood and Semiperipheral Witchcraft in The Faerie Queene, Daemonologie, and The Tempest” (2016 Davis)
“With Slabs, Bones, and Poles: De/Constructing Narratives of Hurricane Katrina in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones , Natasha Trethewey’s Beyond Katrina , and Selah Saterstrom’s Slab” (2016 Lang)
“The Ghost of That Ineluctable Past”: Trauma and Memory in John Banville’s Frames Trilogy” (2016 Berry)
“Breaking Through Walls and Pages: Female Reading and Education in the 18th Century British Novel” (2015 Majewski)
“The Economics of Gender Relations in London City Comedy” (2015 Weisse)
“Objects, People, and Landscapes of Terror: Considering the Sublime through the Gothic Mode in Late 19th Century Novels” (2015 Porter)
“Placing the Body: A Study of Postcolonialism and Environment in the Works of Jamaica Kincaid” (2015 Hutcherson)
“Wandering Bodies: The Disruption of Identities in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy and Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones ” (2015 Martin)
“Mythogenesis as a Reconfiguration of Space in an ‘Alternate World’: The Legacy of Origin and Diaspora in Experimental Writing” (2015 Pittenger)
“Cunning Authors and Bad Readers: Gendered Authorship in ‘Love in Excess'” (2015 Bruening)
“‘The Thing Became Real’: New Materialisms and Race in the Fiction of Nella Larsen” (2015 Parkinson)
“‘Projections of the Not-Me’: Redemptive Possibilities of the Gothic within Wuthering Heights and Beloved” (2015 Glasser)
“Distortions, Collections, and Mobility: South Asian Poets and the Space for Female Subjectivity” (2015 Wilkey)
“From Text to Tech: Theorizing Changing Experimental Narrative Structures” (2015 Ortega)
“A Moral Being in an Aesthetic World: Being in the Early Novels of Kurt Vonnegut” (2015 Hubbard)
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5 Topics for a Master’s in English Thesis
Master's in english thesis topics.
- Write About a Well-Known Author's Lesser-Known Works
- Apply Familiar Ideas to a Contemporary Context
- Study a New Literary Genre
- Write About the Movie
- Look to Other Disciplines
Of all the requirements of a Master's program in English, the thesis is the most daunting. Georgetown University's English department states, "theses [should] reflect original research, analysis, and writing of considerable depth and complexity appropriate to Master's level work." Your Master's thesis in English is an argumentative literary analysis on a topic of your choice, and that argument must be thorough, insightful, and, most importantly, original.
Resource: Top 30 Most Affordable Online Master's in English
The expectation of originality can seem particularly challenging. Is it possible to say something new about Dickens, whose work has inspired thousands of scholarly articles? If you're having trouble choosing a thesis topic that feels original, consider these five approaches.
1. Write About a Well-Known Author's Lesser-Known Works
Everybody loves Pride and Prejudice : it's sold over 20 million copies. It's also been fodder for plenty of academic writing. Scholars have inspected it through a feminist lens, a Marxist lens, and just about every other lens available to the literary critic. But Austen wrote other things as well. Her juvenilia, the short works she composed as a teenager, are less popular than her major novels, but they're a fascinating insight into Austen's early life. If your thesis topic focuses on a well-known author, consider honing in on that author's early or less famous works.
2. Apply Familiar Ideas to a Contemporary Context
Edward Said developed the concept of Orientalism in 1978 as a way to describe attempts in nineteenth-century English literature to imagine the cultural milieus of European colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Orientalism as a literary trope is often discussed in analyses of literature from the European colonial period. But its relevance extends into contemporary American culture, where, since 9/11, an imagined "Middle East" has been a major cultural preoccupation. Said may have been writing about Mansfield Park , but if you're interested in a Master's thesis topic that deals with Orientalism, you can apply his ideas to contemporary works with a post-9/11 focus like The Kite Runner .
3. Study a New Literary Genre
Poetry and drama have existed for thousands of years. The novel has been around since the seventeenth century. And scholars have been writing about poetry, drama, and the novel for almost as long as those genres have been around. Graphic novels, by comparison, have only existed for a few decades. You'll have an easier time finding an original thesis topic if you're working with a newer genre. And if your English department is resistant to the idea that a graphic novel counts as literature , respectfully disagree (nobody thought of the novel as real literature when it was brand-new either).
4. Write About the Movie
Many great literary works have been adapted to film. While some adaptations are straightforward, others are exercises in literary analysis in their own right, providing fascinating commentary about the texts on which they're based. Think about the way that Coppola's Apocalypse Now uses the Vietnam war to update the concepts of civilization and violence broached in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness . A good literary adaptation, analyzed in tandem with its source material, could make for an interesting Master's thesis topic.
5. Look to Other Disciplines
English departments are recognizing that the skills required by literary study are strengthened when combined with skills from other fields like history or even the sciences. A unique thesis topic might combine the study of English literature with ideas from other disciplines you enjoy working in–if your interests include both English and math, for example, you can attempt something like this project that conducts a statistical analysis of the language of Shakespeare.
Finding an original topic for your Master's thesis in English doesn't have to be a struggle. If you think outside the box, you'll find an idea no one has come across before.
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100 Best Literature Research Paper Topics For Students

Literary research paper topics are among the most interesting to write about. Books are the best teachers for most learners. And, students love reading interesting literature books. But, when asked to write research papers, most students have difficulties choosing their topics. That’s because many issues can be investigated and written about.
For instance, literary topics can be about characters’ personalities in certain works. They can also be about particular characteristics of specific literary genres. Learners can also choose literary analysis topics that focus on the life story of famous writers or poets. But, regardless of what a learner opts to write about, they should choose interesting topics.
What are Interesting Literary Research Paper Topics?
Several factors make a topic interesting to write about. A topic for a research paper or a graduate thesis should generally be definite, specific, and innovative. Also, it should be interesting to research and write about. Here’s how to select interesting literature topics:
Think about something. Explore the idea to select a topic for which you can find sufficient research data from credible sources. Narrow down your subject if you find it too broad.
English literature topics can be classified into different categories. Here some of these categories and topics can be considered in each category.
Great World Literature Research Topics
Perhaps, you’ve been asked to write a literature research paper with a global perspective. Here are some of the literary analysis research paper topics that you can consider.
- Explain how the supernatural and spirituality help in furthering the development of the plot in the Latin American literature of the early 20th century.
- What themes are common in the Japanese poems of the early 20th century? How do they differ from those of the early 19th century?
- Compare the early Chinese literary works and European literary works of the middle ages. How different or alike are they?
- How were European literary works in the early 20th century shaped by the revolutionary works of Engels and Marx? What examples can demonstrate this influence?
- Explain how the Muslim philosophers’ work of the 15th century led to new ideas and inventions across the globe.
- Compare and contrast different anti-British works that originated in India in the 19th century with pro-colonialist works that came from England at the same time.
- How did the nightmarish utopian future ideas of Aldous Huxley influence modern-day science fiction writers across the world?
- Explain how the Antigone play by Sophocles deals with the conflict between the central characters while relating to the state laws and individual conscience.
- How are the sentiments of the authors reflected in Animal Farm by George Orwell and concerns about the October Revolution?
- Explain some of the examples of literary fiction pieces that have shaped cultures in the world. Have historic, societal, and cultural factors played some roles in shaping these literature pieces?
- Being a prolific writer in the early and mid-19th century, Charles Dickens’s works were published in serialized forms. How and why has this approach become less fashionable?
- Compare and contrast the early Japanese literature works and the early Chinese literature works. How do they differ in terms of values and culture?
- Explain how comedy differs in literature across cultures. What comedy appeared in the early theatrical performances and it’s still present in modern literature?
- Analyze chivalry and honor critically in the Green Knight and Sir Gawain. What are the qualities of these works from a similar period?
- Compare and contrast the Odyssey and Iliad by Homer the Ancient Greek. Explain how cultures across the world have adapted the themes presented in the poem.
Top Literary topics for Research Paper
Some topics for literary analysis stand out among students. These are topics that educators recommend for students across the study levels.
- How is literature an aspect of modern culture?
- Explain how feminism has influenced modern literature
- How is psychology utilized in literature?
- Explain the major social issues that have been exposed by literary works
- Explain the philosophical tradition of Daoism in the Chinese literature
- Explain the roles played by death and honor in Japanese literature in the 20th century
- Explain how the European culture influences the Mid-West literature
- How has European culture affected modern literature?
- Analyze the personality of Don Quixote
- Explain how literature differs between countries.
- Discuss poetry in the innovative ear of the 21st century
- Examine racism in the novels of the 1960s and 1970s
- Explain the exile’s perception in literature
- Literature and culture? Which one affects the other?
- How has literature addressed homosexuality?
These can also be great literary debate topics. That’s because learners can have varying opinions about them.
British Literature Research Paper Topics
Students have many topics to choose from when it comes to British literature essay topics. Here are some of the best literature topics from the works of British authors.
- Discuss Victorian England’s picture with the works of Charles Dickens in mind
- Discuss the theme of Orphans with the Oliver Twist character in mind
- Explain how British Literature has influenced different cultures
- Explain how British literature has addressed gender issues
- Explain how King Lear highlights the differences between anti-heroes and villains
- Explain William Shakespeare’s personality- Highlight facts and myths
- Choose two famous British novels and then compare the characters in them
- Explain the viewpoint of different writers about the Utopian civilization idea
- With Harry Potter books in mind, explain why some literature books are considered classics
- Explain how love and romantic love are presented in Charlotte Bronte’s works
- Explain how modern literary works have been affected by the Victorian period works
- Discuss the adultery theme in Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Who are the main characters in Lake Poets’ works?
- Explain how violent imagery was used in World War I poetry
- Explain talent as a theme in Milton’s on His Blindness
- Explain innocence loss in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies
- Explain the theme of individualism versus collectivism in Oliver Twist
- Explain why the popularity of detective novels increased in the XIX century
- What role did the supernatural play in Macbeth: a case study of three witches
- Class demarcation in XVII century- The vengeance theme
American Literature Topics
Some teachers ask students to choose American literature research topics for certain reasons. If asked to write on such topics, here are some of the American literature research paper topics to consider.
- Analyze key aspects of American ideology, particularly in the literature written before the 20th century.
- Determine thematic concerns and literary styles of the major historical period of American literature between the colonial period and post-modernism.
- Show the American identity uniqueness of texts
- Propose connections between the American literature concerns and themes in the larger historical development and social issues that face the present world
- Examine major concerns and themes that reappear across the American literature
- Highlight the major themes in Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
- Explain the African American Experience with female authors like Alice Walker, Zora Neal Hurston, and Toni Morrison
- Explain the predominant theme in The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- Explain how Jonathan Edwards epitomizes Puritan definitions in his sermons
- Explain the use of historical personalities and events by Washington Irving as the background for his works
- The Crucible demonstrates how a community can be torn apart by hysteria. Explain
- Explain how Sylvia Plath demonstrates the social pressure faced by women in the 1960s in the Bell Jar.
- Explain how John Knowles demonstrates the impact of war on everyone
- Explain the strong belief in the education power by Maya Angelou as depicted in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Explain how Thornton Wilder conveys life as a gift in Our Town
- Discuss the themes of anger and pity in the Grapes of Wrath
- Explain how Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck portrays the Great Depression struggles
- Discuss the portrayal of the unconquerable spirit in Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.
- Plays by Eugene O’Neil are tragically realistic. Explain
- God is humanized in The Creation poem by James Weldon Johnson. Explain
Some of the ideas here are great poetry topics. Nevertheless, they require careful research and analysis to write about.
High School Literary Essay Topics
Some topics in literature are ideal for high school essays. Here are examples of literary analysis paper topics for high school students.
- Compare and contrast the major characters in your preferred book
- Choose your favorite character in a book and explain your reasons for liking it
- Please explain why the quality of a literature book is not determined by its length
- Highlight the similarities of your favorite books
- Discuss the top 4 authors in horror books
- Explain why reading some books is more difficult than reading others
- Explain what it takes to write a high-quality poem
- Who is your favorite poet and why?
- Explain what makes your favorite book interesting
- Who is your favorite character in literary works and why?
- What makes some literature books difficult to read?
- Who are your favorite top 5 authors and why?
- Should the age of readers be restricted to some books?
- What is your favorite literary genre?
- Explain why the author determines the quality of a book more than the story
- Discuss the literary works of your favorite authors
- Why is it important to captivate readers with the introductory chapter of a book?
- Which book genre makes great movies?
- Why is the work of Harry Potter so popular?
- Explain why your favorite horror book is scary
Unique Research Topics in English Literature
Some literature research topics are unique and can be written about by learners at different study levels. Here are examples of such topics.
- Analyze the use of literary devices in novels
- Discuss the author’s autobiography
- Analyze literary genres and the role played by an artist in them
- Compare the works of a similar genre
- Highlight the gender roles of characters in literary works
- Social stratification and Harry Potter- Discuss
- With Charles Dickens’ work in mind, explain the peculiarity of the bildungsroman genre.
- Explain how The Lord of the Rings uses artificial language
- Explain how the Sherlock Holmes image influences the world of detective fiction
- Explain the war theme in the world literature
These are also great literary journalism topics. Nevertheless, they require extensive research to write about.
In a nutshell, students have many literary argument topics to consider. The most important thing is to choose an interesting topic that you can find sufficient data to write about. Also, don’t hesitate to check our history topics .
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The following represent a sampling of outstanding English honors thesis projects.
“This Is Hardly the Happy Ending I Was Expecting”: NIER ’s Rejection of the Heteronormative in Fairy Tales (PDF)
Author: Emily Cerri Thesis Type: Independent Thesis Approved By: Caroline Yang and TreaAndrea Russworm, English Department Published 2019
Abstract: Despite the perception they are just entertainment, video games have the potential to present criticisms on aspects of culture such as race, gender, and sexuality. Games such as Gone Home and The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories subvert stereotypes of gender and sexuality or highlight the struggles of sexually marginalized groups in a heteronormative society. However, games often miss the opportunity to subvert expectations or represent racially marginalized communities. The game NIER both creates and overlooks critiques of this lack of attention through its use of the fairy tale genre. NIER ’s destabilization of binaries and refusal to conform to gender roles and performance present a critique of heteronormativity and the gender binary of the fairy tale canon. And yet, NIER also misses the opportunity to fully present criticisms on the topics of race, gender, and sexuality. The game’s presentation of race is especially lacking, particularly through its tacit assumption of whiteness as the “unmarked” race. Though attempts to it dismantle some stereotypical racial imagery, it shuts out the possibility of nonwhite people persisting through the apocalypse. Furthermore, while its portrayal of nonheteronormative characters destabilizes the stereotypes of these characters in other media, censorship and pandering to the male gaze ultimately hinder the representation of these marginalized characters. That is, the localization explicitly alters characters’ identities in favor of heteronormativity and the game uses clothing and camera angles to hypersexualize the female protagonist. Its use of fairy tales, which are typically European tales, sometimes highlights their normalized gender and sexual stereotypes and expectations and sometimes subvert them. In other cases, it misses the opportunity to destabilize these notions and instead maintains the status quo. In such ways, NIER also fails to completely queer the fairy tale canon even as it tries to subvert the genre. Nonetheless, while NIER falls short of being a queer critique, it provides the opening for the critical player to do so.
Using Genre Theory to Understand the Way Opinion Journalism is Changing in Today’s Digital World (PDF)
Author: Tess Halpern Thesis Type: Independent Thesis Approved By: Donna LeCourt and Janine Solberg, English Department Published 2019
Abstract: As an editor of opinion journalism during my college years, I have always struggled to not only articulate but also determine which texts constitute opinion journalism and which are simply opinion. As opinions become more ubiquitous with the rise of the digital era, and as they can now be published on platforms like blogs, podcasts, and social media with no regulation or editorial review, this distinction has become even harder to make. Unfortunately, the blurring of the line between opinion journalism and opinion has happened at the precise moment that the legitimacy of journalism has also begun to be questioned more than ever before in my lifetime. The purpose of this research was to definitively draw that line, separating opinion journalism from opinion. To do this, I first determined the genre norms of opinion journalism by studying the texts, the writers, and the publications that define the genre. Following, I then determined where the genre set of opinion journalism ends by studying articles written for non-reputable, digital-only platforms, and platforms that were self-publishing or otherwise had minimal editing and regulation processes. A total of 63 articles from The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post , The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Odyssey Online , and personal blogs were analyzed for this research. The results of this study allowed me to track the transformation that opinion journalism, and journalism in general, is currently undergoing. Additionally, it clarified the distinction between opinion journalism and ordinary opinion, allowing me to better understand the genre and the texts that are excluded from that genre.
"You Can Be Useful to Us in a Hundred Different Ways”: A Study of Stage and Screen Adaptations of Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby (PDF)
Author: Emma Piscia Thesis/Project Type: Independent Honors Thesis Approved By: Heidi Holder and Suzanne Daly, Department Of English Published 2016
Abstract: Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby has been adapted since 1839, when it was still in the midst of its initial serialized publication. It has since been adapted into plays, films, and television miniseries over 250 times, and the number continues to grow. This thesis investigates the history of Nickleby as adapted for stage and screen from 1838 to the present. While there has been much scholarly consideration of adapted Dickens, there has been little in the way of examination of any particular work across periods and genres; Nickleby, with its varied history on stage and screen, certainly merits such critical examination. Works discussed here range from Edward Stirling’s early farce Nicholas Nickleby: or, Doings at Do-The-Boys Hall (1838), through David Edgar’s marathon stage adaptation The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Royal Shakespeare Company 1980), to David Innes Edwards’s and Joy Wilkinson’s The Life and Adventures of Nick Nickleby (a 2012 miniseries). This thesis explores the cultural uses and revisions of Dickens’s text. Key topics of discussion include the highly varied representation of the orphan Smike; the portrayal of physical, sexual, and financial violence; and the sociopolitical and economic themes of the novel that allow it to resonate with contemporary audiences down through the centuries. Using reviews, historical context, literary and film criticism, performance history, and gender theory, this thesis endeavors to explain the persistence of an early Victorian novel in popular culture.
Eye on Research (PDF)
Author: Alexandra Foley Thesis/Project Type: Capstone Thesis Approved By: David Toomey, Department Of English Published 2012
Abstract: A collection of the newest discoveries and breaking edge research taking place on the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. Here is a list of some of the research published in this thesis: a new synthetic material called “Geckskin” which mimics the adhesion power of Gecko feet developed in Polymer Science department; UBot, a robot designed by UMass’s Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics, can learn by interacting with its environment; Gregory Tew, of the Polymer Science department, has found a way to look inside their previously impenetrable membranes of T cells; and Dr. Caitlyn Shea Butler of the Environmental Engineering department has designed a “Microbial Fuel Cell Latrine” that purifies human waste and produces electricity at the same time.
“How could the body politic be made to work in the absence of its head?”:Beheadings, Gender, and Power In Malory’s Morte Darthur (PDF)
Author: Kerry Ditson Thesis/Project Type: Independent Honors Thesis Approved by: Jen Adams, English Department and Sonja Drimmer, Art History Program Published: 2015
Abstract: The Wars of the Roses were without a doubt one of the most transformative and traumatic events of medieval England. This bloody conflict called into question commonly accepted notions of nobility, masculinity, kingship, governance, and violence. The deposition of Richard II in 1399 set into motion aftershocks that would be felt half a century later, as the notion of divinely anointed kingship was called into question—in a world where kings could be gotten rid of, who had the right to rule? The answer came down, in many ways, to one issue: blood.
Closets and Transylvanian Castles: Vampires and Queerness in the Nineteenth-Century Literature and Beyond (PDF)
Author: Maxwell Heath Thesis/Project Type: Independent Honors Thesis Approved by Heidi Holder and Jenny Spencer of the Department of English Published 2015
Abstract: My thesis examines how vampires have been used in literature to depict queer people and explore issues of queerness. Focusing primarily on the nineteenth century with a brief foray into the twentieth, I analyze seven key texts, both well known and relatively obscure, from John Polidori’s groundbreaking “The Vampyre” (1819) to G.S. Viereck’s The House of the Vampire (1907). This wide range is significant: previous work in the field has tended toward individual studies. I track how the depictions of vampirism and queerness evolved over time, focusing especially on the tropes of disorientation of space and narrative structure, complex patterning of relationships between characters, and conflict between humans and vampires for control of narrative. To this end ideas drawn from theorists such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick have been deployed in my analysis. I have discovered that from the first there is a degree of sympathy for queerness which is often occluded by gothic tropes. While the vampires themselves only begin to shift from villains towards more ambiguous figures at the end of the nineteenth century, their victims are often figured as queer and portrayed sympathetically. This suggests that vampires have been used as a way to mask queerness in metaphor so that it could be explored and discussed during a time when any explicit examination was forbidden.
Transplanted (PDF)
Author: Michael Sirois Thesis/Project Type: Independent Honors Thesis Approved by John Hennessy, Department of English Published May 2015
Abstract: My honors thesis project is a manuscript consisting of twenty-four poems. This collection of poetry reflects my transition from a working-class upbringing to completing my degree at the university. The many years I spent working in agriculture influence my poetry significantly, so natural settings and elements serve as a prism for my themes of work, the working-class, and the family. The introduction to my thesis project is included to show the departures from my literary influences.
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- Sample MA Project Proposal: SAMPLES OF PROJECT PROPOSALS ARE AVAILABLE IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT.
Project Timeline
In order to ensure that the student will complete all Master's Project requirements, receiving by the end of the final semester both a grade and verification that the Project has been completed, the Department provides the following timetable for progress toward completion. Students who miss deadlines as set forth below, will not pass the Project requirement.
In the Spring Semester one year (or two terms) before the submission of the Final Project: students should settle on a Project Director by the end of this term; students should attend the mandatory workshop on the Project Proposal. See information below for more details
In the Fall semester before submission of the Final Project: students may want to return having worked on the Proposal in the Summer, as the deadline comes early in the Fall; if it has not been done before, students must attend the mandatory workshop; a draft of the Proposal must be submitted in the first weeks of the semester to the Project Director for comment and revision; a Project Director is required to sign the Project Proposal Cover Sheet; proposals are due before 5PM to the Graduate Studies secretary at the end of the fifth week of the regular semester. See information below for more details.
In the student’s final Spring semester: students enroll in ENG 595; the Project is completed in regular consultation with the Project Director and the 595 Instructor; drafts of portions of the Project must be submitted at regular intervals to be receive suggestions for revision from the Director and 595 Instructor; the Project Director and 595 Instructor must sign the Project Title Sheet before the work is accepted as complete. See information below for more details.
THE PROJECT PROPOSAL:
Based on their interests and in conjunction with their adviser, students must choose a project topic. In the Spring semester before submitting the project proposals--two semesters before the final semester--students will attend a mandatory workshop on writing and submitting a proposal. The proposal must include a description of their project. The project proposal must be approved by the Graduate Studies Committee.
SUBMISSION OF THE MA PROPOSAL:
- Students will submit five copies of the project proposal each with a signed coversheet provided by the Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics to the graduate secretary.
- The Graduate Studies Committee will then review the project proposal.
- If the project proposal is not approved, the Graduate Studies Committee will consult with the project director.
- After revising the project proposal the student may resubmit it to the project committee for approval and then to the Graduate Studies Committee.
- Resubmitted proposals must include an updated cover sheet.
- If the revised project proposal is not approved by the Graduate Studies Committee, the student may, after revision and consultation with the project director, resubmit the project proposal the following semester.
With an adviser and in conjunction with ENGL 595, Project Writing, students must complete a minimum 25-30 page project (excluding bibliography and other ancillary materials). The project can emerge from their own professional and personal interests in the discipline, or from papers or presentations completed in seminars. The project must consist of an intensive exploration of a student's chosen subject matter resulting in the creation of a professional quality document. Projects may be written in a variety of genres and may have a critical, pedagogical, or creative emphasis.
The project will be evaluated by each student's faculty adviser in conjunction with the instructor in ENGL 595. Each project will be evaluated for its completeness and quality in relation to the parameters the student has set in the original proposal, the thoroughness of its research (where appropriate), and the extent to which it has been revised and polished in light of the feedback received from the faculty advisor and the instructor in ENGL 595. The student is expected to have followed the timeline of the 595 Instructor in completion of portions of the Project and been in regular consultation with the Project Director. Obtaining final signatures on the Title Sheet is crucial. In order to obtain signatures, the student must submit a final, revised project to the Director by mid-week of the fourteenth week of classes in order to ensure the Director has adequate time to evaluate the Project before the end of the Fifteenth Week. By noon on the last day of classes, the student must submit to the Department a bound copy of the Project. The Project Defense will be conducted as the final activity of the 595 course.
POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FOR THE M.A. PROPOSAL AND PROJECT
The following policies and procedures are intended to assure high quality in the project as well as to clarify the responsibilities and requirements of those involved: the student, the project director, any additional readers, and the members of the Graduate Studies Committee.
THE PROJECT DIRECTOR:
- The director must be a full-time professor in the Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics, unless the Graduate Adviser has approved another CSUF full-time faculty member.
- The director should be a professor whose studies and interests qualify him or her for involvement in the project.
- The student is responsible for finding the director and for receiving his/her approval of the project proposal.
- Read drafts of the project proposal.
- Make suggestions for appropriate revisions and corrections.
- When the project proposal is ready for submission to the Graduate Studies Committee, signs the cover sheet.
- Regularly consult with the project writing course instructor.
Additional Committee Members:
After consultation with the project director and the graduate adviser, the student may add additional members to his/her project committee, if desired. Any additional project committee members must approve the proposal prior to submission to the Graduate Studies Committee
The MA proposal is a clear, well-researched description and justification of a student's MA project. In the semester before submitting the proposal, students must attend a mandatory workshop on writing and submitting a proposal. In no more than five double-spaced pages, not including the Bibliography (if relevant), the proposal should present the subject matter, methods, and context that will inform the student's project and demonstrate the relevance/significance of the project to the student's field of study.
If a student intends to include human participants in the project, the student should consult the IRB website for the requirements and timeline for approval: http://www.fullerton.edu/research/research_compliance/irb/
Following are guidelines for the different kinds of Projects (Academic, Pedagogical, Creative/Professional) a student might pursue:
Academic professional project.
A successful project proposal will demonstrate that the student has a worthwhile project that fosters inquiry into an academic/professional topic and that the student has finished the preparation necessary to write this project. It should address the following elements:
- A clear and convincing description of the student's argument that includes discussion of the subject matter, a statement of the emerging argument on this subject (as a tentative thesis or research questions), and definition of the scope of this argument.
- An understanding of the methodology that the student intends to use that includes a description of the kind of research involved (i.e., archival, historical, cultural) and the criticism and/or critical theories involved in making this argument as well as a clear sense of what has been accomplished and how the student will complete what remains.
- A survey of relevant scholarship that reflects the student's research and outlines what has been written on this subject (i.e., the major interpretations, debates, or controversies in the ways that the subject has been addressed or a significant "gap" that the student has discovered) and how the project engages with the field of study.
- An outline or summation of the sections/chapters of the project that provides an overview of how the student will introduce the subject, methodology, and scholarship as well as the different parts of the student's argument.
Pedagogical Project
A successful project proposal will demonstrate that the student has a worthwhile project that fosters inquiry into a pedagogical topic and that the student has finished the preparation necessary to write this project. It should address the following elements:
- A clear and convincing description of the student's argument that includes discussion of the subject matter or problem, a statement of the emerging argument on this subject (as a tentative thesis or research questions), and definition of the scope of this argument.
- An understanding of the methodology that the student intends to use that includes a description of the kind of research involved (i.e., empirical, cultural, historical) and the critical and/or pedagogical theories involved in making this argument along with a clear timeline and explanation of how the evidence will be collected, analyzed, and validated.
Creative/Professional Project
A successful project proposal will demonstrate that the student has a worthwhile project that fosters inquiry into a creative/professional topic and that the student has finished the preparation necessary to write this project. It should address the following elements:
- A clear and compelling description of the student's creative/professional project that includes discussion of the subject matter, an explanation of the central conflicts, themes, and other major creative considerations, as well as an elaboration of the project's scope.
- An explanation of the style and technique that the student will employ in developing this project, which includes description of the literary conventions that are most relevant to the genre of this project (i.e., imagery, metaphor, character) or how the project deliberately reimagines the style and techniques for significant ends.
- An established connection between the project and the literary traditions and aesthetic principles behind the genre with which the student is engaging. Such connections might be made to major writers in those traditions and/or theorists of that genre as well as the most significant/relevant features of that genre.
- An outline or summation of the sections/chapters of the project that provides an overview of how the student will exemplify and engage with the subject, the style, and the literary traditions.
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