MTLIT-MA - Modern Thought and Literature (MA)
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Program Overview
Modern Thought and Literature (MTL) is an interdisciplinary humanities graduate program advancing the study of critical issues in the modern world. Since 1971, MTL students have helped redefine the cutting edge of many interdisciplinary fields and reshape how disciplinary scholarship is understood and practiced. MTL graduates are leaders in fields such as American studies, ethnic studies, film studies, social and cultural studies, women’s studies, and English and comparative literature.
The program trains students to understand the histories and methods of disciplines and to test their assumptions. It considers how disciplines shape knowledge and, most importantly, how interdisciplinary approaches reshape objects of study. MTL students produce innovative analyses of diverse texts, forms, and practices, including literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, law, and science; film, visual arts, popular culture, and performance; and material culture and technology.
Each student constructs a unique program of study suited to their research. Students have focused on such areas as gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity; science, technology, and medicine; media and performance; legal studies; and critical and social theory. The program’s affiliated faculty are drawn from fields throughout the humanities and humanistic social sciences, as well as from education and law. As interdisciplinary study is impossible without an understanding of the disciplines under consideration, each student is expected to master literary analysis methods and gain a foundation in a second field or discipline.
Minimum Units in the Program
Minimum University Units
Master of Arts (current MTL-Ph.D. students)
The Master of Arts (MA) is available to students admitted to the doctoral program who have not previously been awarded an MA. Students are not accepted into the Ph.D. program to earn a terminal MA degree. Candidates for the PhD who satisfy the committee of their progress and satisfactorily complete at least 45 units of coursework forming a coherent program of study may apply for an MA in Modern Thought and Literature.
Degree Requirements (Coterm)
The candidate for the MA (Coterm) must complete at least 45 units of graduate work, to be divided in the following manner:
The introductory seminar, course Concepts of Modernity I, for five units; in the event of a scheduling conflict, students may substitute course with the director of graduate studies' prior permission
3 quarters of course Master's Thesis work with the student's advisor, taken for 1 unit in the Autumn, Winter and Spring of the student's coterm conferral year
At minimum, 4 courses taken for at least 3 units and letter grade, of advanced coursework in literature to be approved by the director of graduate studies
At minimum, 4 courses taken for at least 3 units and letter grade, advanced coursework in a coherent and individually arranged interdisciplinary program, to be approved by the director of graduate studies
Admitted Coterm students will be required to take course for 1 unit in the Autumn, Winter, and Spring following matriculation.
They will work with a faculty advisor to develop and submit an interdisciplinary Master's Thesis Project (approx. 30 pages, double-spaced, standard margins, 12-point font) that demonstrates depth of research, capacity to build an argument, and showcase the interdisciplinarity of their coursework.
Students are also required to deliver an oral presentation of their thesis research (approximately 20 minutes) at a formal event held by the MTL program in the quarter that they confer their degree.
The project should be completed under the supervision of and approved by the student’s advisor and a secondary reader.
MTL 334D may count towards the overall required 45 graduate units to confer the coterm.