Proseminar: Introduction to Graduate Studies in Dramatic Arts, English, and Religion

In this proseminar, students develop the skills necessary to produce graduate-level research on a topic relevant to a humanities-related field. This course focuses on magical realism in global modern fiction. During the first part of the course, we read Guinean author Camara Laye's The Radiance of the King, a classic in the genre of magical realism, early twentieth-century modernism, and African and world literature. In the second part, students write a ten-page research paper, analyzing a work of magical realism and engaging in the existing scholarship about it. Apart from expository writing prerequisites, this is the first course that prospective Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) candidates should take toward the degree. While not designed to be a thesis or capstone proposal course, this course does serve as a foundation for eventual work on the thesis or capstone.