LSJ MA Learning Opportunities
MA Students in Literature and Social Justice will:
- develop a critical framework for understanding and evaluating the ethical, political, and formal aspects of texts within and across diverse historical contexts.
- examine language and representation not simply as mimetic endeavors but as acts that constitute ways of being in the world.
- enhance their skills of critical analysis, oral communication, and written argument in courses on literature, theory, and pedagogy.
- learn how literary works develop distinctive perspectives on just or unjust social arrangements and have the potential to imagine more equitable possibilities.
- seek to understand how the intricate formal operations of literary texts function to complement, revise, complicate, or counteract other discourses (historical, political, legal, economic) about urgent social and ethical issues.
- learn the fundamentals of literary theory, including the ways theorists imagine texts as sites of intervention into vital social, cultural, political, and ethical issues
- study the theory, history, and practice of writing pedagogy and put their knowledge to use as instructors in a first-year program that prioritizes writing about pressing issues of public concern.
LSJ MA Learning Outcomes
Graduates of the MA program in Literature and Social Justice will:
- have the knowledge and skills to be informed, active citizen-scholars in a wide range of communities, within and outside institutions of higher education.
- be able to identify social justice issues and propose a theoretical or practical approach that is appropriate to addressing those issues.
- be able to connect and utilize both academic and mainstream discourses about social justice.
- have the knowledge and skills to articulate the ethical, political, and social significance of a wide range of texts--including those not traditionally identified as literary so as to write for a wide range of purposes inside and beyond academia.
- be prepared to pursue further academic study, to work in higher education, and to employ advanced research and writing skills in careers outside of academia.