OVERVIEW

The Department of English and American Studies at Tel Aviv University offers an M.A. degree in English Literature. This program, conducted in English, consists of courses, workshops and guest lectures. The program of the department is designed to provide students with scholarly knowledge of English and American literature and train students in the critical use of scholarly methods of literary study. Courses reflect a variety of approaches aimed at sharpening the student's analytic and linguistic skills by close readings of representative texts in their social, historical and cultural contexts. The department awards several grants and prizes for excellence in student writing. Department faculty members conduct research in a wide range of fields and serve on the editorial boards of journals both in Israel and abroad.

REQUIREMENTS

This program is individually tailored to suit the needs and interests of each student. In order to do so, the graduate advisor, Dr. Shirley Sharon-Zisser, meets with each student on a continual basis throughout his or her studies.

• Admission to the thesis track is conditional upon achieving an average of 90 or above in at least 12 hours of coursework.
• 28 hours of graduate seminars in the English Department. Students may not take more than 2 seminars with the same instructor.
• A written paper of at least 10 pages at the end of each seminar.
• A seminar paper of at least 25 pages based on advanced and independent research beyond the course work of a chosen seminar.
• Certified competence in a language other than English and Hebrew.
• Complete a thesis of approximately 60-80 pages.

• 32 hours of English graduate seminars. Students may not take more than 2 seminars with the same instructor.
• A written paper of at least 10 pages at the end of each seminar, in addition to up to 15 pages of written work submitted in the course of each semester
• 2 seminar papers of at least 25 pages based on advanced and independent research beyond the course work of a chosen seminar. Each seminar paper should be written for a different instructor

COURSE OFFERINGS & CURRICULUM

Recent course offerings include:

• Courtly Love in Literature and Psychoanalysis
• Literature and the City
• American Orientalism
• The English Radical Tradition
• Literature and Topology
• Fictions of Masculinity
• American Literature and Ethnicity
• Engendering Canadian Identity
• Cross-Cultural Translation in Jewish-American Literature
• Science Fiction
• Post-Modern Narratology

The curriculum is enriched by a program of seminars, international conferences and visiting scholars who are invited to lecture and participate in workshops devoted to current issues in the field. These include lectures sponsored by the Cohen-Porter Fund for the English Department, the Sheila Carmel Lecture, and the Yael Levin Writer-in-Residence Program.

The Department of English and American Studies initiates and coordinates the American Studies Forum, a meeting of scholars and graduate students in various disciplines from universities throughout Israel who address such topics as ethnic diasporas in the United States, sentimental fiction, American immigration policies, and the cultural legacy of the 1960s. The Department has sponsored several conferences, including Autobiography in American Literature and Culture (with the Israel Association of American Studies), Canonization in American Literature (with the Porter School of Cultural Studies), and Knowledge, Power and Society (with the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and the Aranne School of History).

Graduate students are very strongly encouraged to attend the graduate-student organized M.A. Forum, lectures and events organized by the Department, and other advanced-level intellectual activities on campus.

Past guests of the Department have included:

Admission Requirements:

• Completion of a B.A. in English with an average of above 80. Applicants may be invited for an interview with the Head of Department and/or graduate advisor.
  
  • Candidates who have a B.A. in fields other than English may be required to take up to 32 hours of supplementary courses in the English Department's B.A. program and to earn a grade of at least 80 in each course before they can officially begin their M.A. studies.
• No student will be admitted to the M.A. program or to supplementary courses towards M.A. studies before obtaining an exemption in English language.
• Students who did not graduate from an Israeli high school must pass a University test in Hebrew.

The Department also welcomes semester or year-long students pursuing graduate degrees in U.S. universities who wish to supplement their studies.

TO APPLY

For more details regarding admissions requirements, faculty, Prizes and Awards and other useful information, please visit the Department of English and American Studies. To apply online now, please log in to the OSP Student Portal by creating a Student Profile.