Apply Now!

Applications are processed online through the Graduate College website. All materials should be submitted to the Graduate College, including a 10 to 15 page sample of critical (not creative) writing. For more information about the program, please contact the Director of Graduate Studies, Professor Helen Scott.

Visit our Careers page to see what some of our MA alums have gone on to do!

Funding

  • Graduate Teaching Assistantships provide a full tuition waiver plus a stipend (currently $23,000) for both years of the program. GTAs receive training in pedagogy, and teach in the university's First-Year Writing Program (3 courses each academic year).
  • Non-teaching merit scholarships are available for MA students (18-credit tuition scholarship) and AMP students (12 credit tuition scholarship)

  • Why pursue an M.A. in English at UVM?

    • “I got my M.A. at UVM because I wanted to prepare for a PhD and see if I liked teaching at the university level. Through my job as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, I discovered how much I love teaching while also continuing to build my research skills!” -Mckenzie, second-year GTA
    • “As an AMP student, it was a great way to further develop relationships with professors I met in undergrad while continuing rigorous study” -Cam, second-year AMP
    • “I like the experience of teaching writing while still doing my own studies.
      There’s a nice balance!” -Madeleine, first-year GTA
    • Student Perspective -A Q&A with Casey O'Reilly '19

Applying to UVM

To Apply:

Applications are processed through the Graduate College. The deadline to apply is February 1st

Application Requirements:

  • Electronic Application
  •  Statement of Purpose
  •  Application Fee of $65.00
  •  Email addresses for three people who will provide letters of recommendation. This information is submitted within the application and letters are sent from the recommender directly to us through the application portal.
  •  One transcript from each institution you have attended, including the one you currently attend. Unofficial transcripts uploaded by you are sufficient for the review process for most programs (Public Health applicants, please review your requirements). Official transcripts are only required if you are admitted. Please have official transcripts sent directly from your institution(s) to graduate.admissions@uvm.edu.
  •  Residential Status Questionnaire (for in-state tuition purposes)
  • Test scores for English proficiency for applicants whose native language is not English.
  •  Resumes are not required but may be submitted .
  •  English Department Requirements::
  • Statement of Purpose: This should be a 1-2 page document that explains your motivations for pursuing graduate study in English at UVM and gives a sense of how you have prepared for that study. The document should focus on your intellectual and professional interests rather than on personal issues
  •  Writing Sample: Submit a 10 to 15 page sample of critical writing that showcases your best work in literary analysis. An essay from an undergraduate English class would be ideal. Do not submit creative writing. Successful writing samples will demonstrate a clear ability to analyze texts within a particular critical or theoretical framework.
  •  GRE: This program does not require the GRE General Test or the GRE Subject Test

Recent Seminars

  • Jazz and the Cultural Imagination
  • Queer Literature
  •  Schuyler & the New York School
  •  The Book of Mormon & Its World
  •  Morrison & Walker
  •  Postcolonial Shakespeare
  •  Poe & the Gothic
  •  Rhetoric and Social Justice
  •  Victorian Literature & Culture
  •  The Darkroom Collective

 

Recent Master's Theses

2020

  • Adams, Jeffrey Garfield (2020) Apocalypse Out of Time: William Apess's Political Theology
  • Adler, Nicholas (2020) The Vicissitudes of Lack : Situating Asexuality Within Psychoanalysis
  • Conroy, Ryan Anthony James (2020) What Is Wardian? : Formulating Jesmyn Ward's Literary Style and Technique Through Textual Analysis, Comparison, and Differentiation
  • Frodeman, Annie (2020) Aridity in the Literature of the American West : Water in Stegner' Angle of Repose and Abbey's the Monkey Wrench Gang
  • Gray, Kelly (2020) "Saved? What Is Saved?" : The Potentiality of Bakhtinian Ecology in DeLillo's White Noise
  • Keel, Jesse Marie (2020) Autobiography She Wrote : Agatha Christie and the Problem of Female Authorship
  • O'Day, Meghan (2020) The Intersection of Motherhood and Manipulation: How Slavery Informs the  Maternal Identity [M.A.] English
  • Pomykaj, Edward (2020) "Do You Want to Live?": Law, Freedom, and Psychosis in the Modernist Novel
  • Royce, Amelia (2020) The Axes of Fantasy : A Lacanian Exploration of Time and Space
  • Theoret, Claire (2020) Waking the Dragon : Routes to Female Empowerment in Fantasy

2019

  • Adams, Zackary Michael (2019) Comedy Basque Style: A Recontextualization of Commedia All'Italiana
  • Burkett, Matthew Luis (2019) The Body in Avant Garde Poetry
  • Leahy, Sean (2019) As One Who From a Volume Reads: A Study of
    the Long Narrative Poem in Nineteenth-Century America
  • Nordle, Ryan (2019) Ethics in Iran : Jacques Lacan and the Films of Abbas Kiarostami's "Koker Trilogy"
  • O'Reilly, Casey Michelle (2019) Phantom Limb: An Exploration of Queer Manner in Nineteenth-Century Gothic Tales
  • Ridgeway, Andrew Joseph (2019) Digital Affect and the Rhetorical Situation After the Las Vegas Shooting

2018

  • Jessica Slayton “A Par/ergon for Poe: Arthur Rackham and the Fin de Siècle Illustrators”
  • Georgia Googer  “The Radical Ekphrasis of Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons”
  • Kimberly Dean “Simulacra of the (Un)Real: Reading Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle as a Feminist Text of Bodily Resistance”
  • Alana Smith “Cutting the Gordian Knot: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Moby Dick and Absalom, Absalom!”