English and Creative Writing

Graduate Chair: Noel Chevalier, PhD

Faculty Listing

Department Description

The MA Programs in English and Creative Writing
The University of Regina Department of English and Creative Writing is a medium-sized department offering courses and research opportunities in most areas of English, American, Indigenous and Canadian literatures. The size of its student body ensures that students have ample opportunity for intellectual discussion with their peers, but also the close contact with faculty members that larger institutions are unable to provide. The Department currently offers three routes for the MA in English: course-based, project-based and thesis-based. The course-based MA (ten courses) provides an opportunity to achieve a breadth of knowledge in many areas of English literature. The project-based MA (seven courses plus project) and the thesis-based MA (five courses plus thesis) provide an opportunity to do in-depth research, and an extended piece of writing, on one area of English literature. The Master's degree is normally the highest offered in the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Regina, and affords the Department the opportunity for close support of Master’s students and high-priority supervision of Master's project and Master's thesis. All three pathways offer students excellent preparation for graduate studies at the doctoral level, or for jobs and careers in English. The Department of English and Creative Writing also offers an MA in Creative Writing: the thesis-based degree consists of five courses (two in Creative Writing, and three in English Literature/Theory), and a creative thesis with a critical/theoretical introduction; the project-based degree consists of seven courses (two in Creative Writing, and five in English Literature/Theory) and a special project (with a Critical introduction). For further details, please contact the Graduate Chair, Department of English and Creative Writing.

Approximately six to eight graduate courses per year are offered in aspects of British, American, Canadian, Indigenous, and Global literatures; literary theory; Creative Writing and bibliography and research methods. Students are encouraged to choose thesis topics according to their own interests: some of the topics on which theses have recently been written, or are currently being written, include John Donne, George Herbert, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti, D.H. Lawrence, Evelyn Waugh, Sherman Alexie, Thomas King, Salman Rushdie, Indigenous Fiction, Representations of War in Literature and Film, Canadian Fiction, Prairie Women’s Diaries, Children’s Literature and Film, Modern American Drama, Confessional Discourse in the Contemporary British Novel, Cybertext, Fairy Tales and Horror Film. Recent Creative writing theses have included memoir, micro-fiction and ekphrastic poetry.

The research interests of the Department are reflected in the holdings of the University Library, which are fully adequate for MA research in all traditional areas of literary study, and have particular strengths in the following areas: early printed books 1485-1700 on microfilm, namely complete holdings of the Pollard and Redgrave Short Title Catalog and the Wing continuation; Early English Books Online; the 18th Century Online Collection; Victorian writers and periodicals; Romantic poets and novelists; literary theory; American fiction and periodicals 1741-1910; Hemingway and Fitzgerald; CIHM (Canadian Institute for Historical Microproductions) archive; utopian literature; the criticism of fantastic literature (science fiction, fantasy, horror); North American Indigenous Literature; literature and religion, e.g. Patrologiae Cursus Completus; and a number of important electronic databases, including The Oxford English Dictionary online; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; the bibliographical tool RefWorks; Shakespeare in Quarto; and Women Writers Online. The Department’s website contains fuller descriptions of upcoming classes.

Courses

Course catalogue and current course offerings

Departmental Facilities

The Department provides limited shared office space for graduate students. The University Library has strong holdings in English and through the Internet; an efficient interlibrary loan system also offers access to a wide variety of databases and library catalogues and collections.

Admission

Applicants must satisfy the admission requirements of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research and additionally have an overall grade point average of 75%. Applicants must have successfully completed ENGL 399 or an equivalent course in Literary Theory. At the discretion of the Graduate Chair (in consultation with the departmental Honours/Graduate Committee), students without this qualification may be admitted and required to pass ENGL 399 in addition to the required MA course work.

Applicants to the MA in Creative Writing and English are reminded to submit a writing sample and a portfolio of creative material with their application package. Applicants to the MA in English are reminded to submit a writing sample with their application package. Please see the Supplementary Material page for additional details.

MA in Creative Writing and English

The purpose of this MA program is to give graduate students in English the opportunity to complete an MA that has a creative writing emphasis and requires the submission of an extended creative work. At the same time, it will be a degree that requires a substantial amount of work within the field of English, which we also see as a valuable part of the education of creative writers. It is hoped that the degree will be the foundation for careers in creative writing and editing. It is aimed at students who have aspirations in this field but have not had the rather more extensive professional experience involved with gaining admission to an M.F.A. degree.