The English Graduate Program at LSU
The LSU English department offers graduate students an extraordinarily productive faculty particularly strong in interdisciplinary approaches to modern literature and culture.
In line with the ground-breaking work done by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren in the 1930s, the department continues to emphasize literary theory and American literature, including the literature of the South. With experts in biography, folklore, film, science fiction, African-American literature, humor, ethnicity, women's studies, mass culture, creative writing, literature and geography, and a number of other disciplines, the LSU English department enables graduate students to experience a range of diverse approaches to literature while also allowing them to put together uniquely specialized programs to meet their individual needs.
The editing and publication of literary journals continues to be a departmental strength. During the 1930s, Brooks and Warren collaborated with others in the department to play a central role in shaping the critical temper of the nation. Their Southern Reviewbecame a mainstay of the literary scene, and since its revival in 1965 it has continued to be one of America's most distinguished and honored literary journals. In addition to the Southern Review, department members founded the Henry James Reviewand now edit three other journals -- 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era; Atlantic Studies: Literary, Cultural and Historical Perspectives; and Exquisite Corpse -- and four book series: Theoretical Horizons in American Culture, Literary Conversations, Feminist Theory and Criticism, and Modern Dramatists Research and Production Sourcebooks.
The graduate faculty in English includes internationally recognized figures and a vigorous younger faculty. The past decade has seen growth in size and intellectual horizons. LSU is a Comprehensive Doctoral university in the Carnegie rating system, and the English Department's doctoral program was recently ranked ninth nationwide by the National Research Council in the rate of positive change during the five-year period of their study (1988-93). Our M.A., Ph.D., and M.F.A. programs enjoy a continuing history of success and accomplishment.
While the English department is strong in most traditional fields of study, modern literature, cultural criticism, and critical theory are special strengths of the M.A. and Ph.D. programs, with emphases on American culture and modernism. The M.F.A. program in creative writing combines careful supervision of students' work with extensive literary study. Students in all three programs do almost all their course work in small graduate seminars or workshop classes.