Online English Graduate Courses
Online English Graduate Courses
MU English offers online graduate courses for high school teachers and other qualified students seeking graduate-level credit hours, post-baccalaureate experience, or enrichment in English literature, language, and creative writing.
- Certify to teach dual credit courses: This program of 6 courses fulfills the Higher Learning Commission requirement for 18 credit hours at the graduate level, needed to teach dual-enrollment high school/college English courses. If you already have a Master’s degree in another subject, you only need 18 additional credit hours in English to teach college-level English courses.
- Earn a Graduate Certificate in English with 18 credit hours
- Take electives for your Masters of Education (English Education emphasis) degree
- These courses do not count towards Mizzou's MA or PhD degrees in English for students receiving assistantships but are open to self-funded English MA students with the Director of Graduate Study’s approval.
- Learn about and apply for admission for non-degree students
- Any questions? See Mizzou Online (enrollment and finances) or contact Frances Dickey (curriculum)
Schedule of courses:
All courses listed below are 100% asynchronous (no scheduled sessions to attend); other courses may be available with a synchronous component. Contact Frances Dickey at dickeyf@missouri.edu for more information.
Spring 2022: 16-week courses
- Taught by Maureen Konkle
- U.S. autobiography and memoir from the later nineteenth century to the present, from U.S. Grant to Patti Smith.
- Taught by Frances Dickey
- Early 20th-century fiction and poetry from Britain, Europe, and the United States in the context of technological revolutions, world war, changing gender roles, and an explosion of artistic creativity
- Taught by Elizabeth Chang
- Novels by Charlotte, Emily, and Ann Brontë in the context of Victorian literature and the history of women's writing
Spring 2022: 8-week courses
- Taught by Julija Sukys
-
In telling stories about the world around them and in drawing lessons from their lives, skilled memoirists and personal essayists offer their readers insight, artistry, self-critique, and honesty. Essays that really work are always about something bigger than their author. Not only do the most successful of such texts reveal something about the subject at hand and about the person writing them, but also about the one reading them.
In this workshop we will read the works of authors who elevate the personal voice to an art form, and taking inspiration from them, we will craft and workshop our own.
- Second 8-week session
Summer 2022: 8-week courses
- Taught by Sheri-Marie Harrison
- Multinational fiction of the postwar and contemporary eras
- Taught by Michael Marlo
- Introduction to English linguistics. Study of the grammar and pronunciation of contemporary English, with the major focus on syntax.
- Taught by Phong Nguyen
- An intensive writing workshop in which student stories and related literary texts receive close reading and analysis
Fall 2022: 16-week courses
- Taught by Professor Elizabeth Chang
-
Who doesn’t love a great mystery? In this course we will investigate the hidden stories of the Victorian novel from the both the perspective of a 19C reader and a 21C critic. Along the way, we will ask questions about Victorian attitudes towards race, gender, and sexuality, towards the inhabitants and territories of the expanding British empire, and towards the approaching turn of the century. We will also think and write a lot about how novels work. Books to be read include Dickens, Great Expectations, Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, Haggard, She, Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and short stories by Conan Doyle and others.
- Taught by Professor Elizabeth Chang
- Novels by Charlotte, Emily, and Ann Brontë in the context of Victorian literature and the history of women's writing
- Taught by William Kerwin
- Shakespeare’s plays with some attention to other Renaissance texts
- Semester-based: Fall (odd years)
- Instructor: Professor Carsten Strathausen
This course studies the relation between literature and film via a detailed analysis of popular movies and the literary texts—and narratives in particular—that inspired them. Although we shall discuss some historical and theoretical texts, particularly at the beginning the course, the emphasis overall lies on close readings of the chosen texts (e.g. Solaris, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?) and the corresponding films. A central goal of this course is to question the “fidelity” model on which most comparative analyses of film and literature are (still) based. A second goal is to explore the central theme commonly shared by all texts and movies we will discuss, namely post-humanism. What does the term mean? How has the non-human “other” of humanity been depicted differently in literature and film over the last 200 years?
Texts: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1831), Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897), Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Franz Kafka, The Trial, Stanislav Lem, Solaris (1961), Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? (1968), Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)
Films: Murnau, Nosferatu (1922), Whale, Frankenstein (1931), Browning, Dracula (1931), Fisher, Horrors of Dracula (1958), Crain, Blacula (1972), Tarkovsky, Solaris (1972), Scott, Blade Runner (1982), Coppola, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Coppola, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Soderbergh, Solaris (2002), Hillcoat, The Road (2009)
Spring 2023: 16-week courses
- Taught by Maureen Konkle
- A comparison of colonial literature from varied countries and eras
- Taught by Elizabeth Chang
- Novels by Charlotte, Emily, and Ann Brontë in the context of Victorian literature and the history of women's writing
- Taught by John Evelev
- The American novel as an attempt to capture the distinctiveness of American identities and experiences from its rise in the post-revolutionary era to the brink of the 20th century
Spring 2023: 8-week courses
- Taught by Johanna Kramer
- History of the English language, explored through literature, with an emphasis on its development from the early Middle Ages through the Early Modern period (ca. 500-ca. 1700)
- Offered in first 8 weeks of semester
- Taught by Gabriel Fried
- An intensive writing workshop with the theme of "childhood," in which student poems and related literary texts receive close reading and analysis
- Second 8-week session
Create a schedule that meets your needs:
- Work at home or on the road; no on-campus meetings or scheduled times
- Courses may be taken in any order
- Start in August, January, or June
- Complete 18 credits in 18 months, or take courses at your convenience
- Not necessary to take all six courses unless seeking to fulfill the 18-credit requirement
- Earn Graduate Certificate in English with 18 credits
Develop key skills and knowledge:
- Study classic works and encounter new authors
- Deepen your knowledge of the English language and literature in historical and cultural context
- Learn and apply a variety of critical methods for interpreting literature
- Develop advanced analytic and writing skills through structured assignments and feedback from experienced doctoral faculty
Eligibility:
- Bachelor’s degree or higher from an accredited college or university
Tuition:
- For the 2021-22 academic year, distance graduate students pay $460 per credit hour including fees (= $1380 per 3-credit course) (see Cashier's office webpage for more information)
I want to get started! What do I do now?
I am already enrolled in a program at MU other than the English PhD or MA:
- Sign up for courses on Mizzou Online
I’m not enrolled in any program right now:
- Learn about and apply for admission for non-degree students (apply now for summer classes!)
Questions?
Contact Mizzou Online with other questions about application, tuition, technology, or how to enroll
Contact online program director Frances Dickey with questions about course content, faculty, preparation, and other aspects of curriculum
Frances Dickey
Director of Online Programs
dickeyf@missouri.edu