Our Mission
We, the Graduate Faculty in the Master of Arts in English at Florida International University, seek to create a rich and supportive environment of critical inquiry, imagination, creativity, and social responsibility, for students, faculty, and staff. Our research is fundamental to our teaching, and our work as critics and scholars allows us to help students engage with the latest developments in our fields. Our shared point of departure is a belief in the immense power and reach of language and the corresponding conviction that we, as human beings, cannot detach ourselves from its forces.
As scholars and teachers of literature, we examine and seek to understand the stories that constitute us and our world. Appreciating the power of language necessarily means recognizing its reach into every facet of human life. It also means recognizing the role of language and interpretation in establishing and contesting unjust power structures that perpetuate colonial institutions and knowledge formations. We seek to foster a community of inquiry, inclusion, and social responsibility poised to addressing these many aspects of our human existence and its material and symbolic contexts.
As scholars and teachers of writing and rhetoric, we are dedicated to understanding how communication, literacy, technology, and culture interact in creating an informed, engaged public. We view rhetoric as both a practice and a subject of study: rhetoricians hone their own communication skills and study the choices made by other rhetoricians, choices that are shaped by and shape specific contexts. Understanding writing as a rhetorical practice also means understanding writing as a mode of learning and a nonlinear process that reflects our identity positions. Our approach thus works within and across the borders of language, media, and mode. We seek to engage students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds as resources and to build upon students’ 21st-century literacy practices. We support students as they learn how to compose socially situated texts in university, community, K-12, and professional contexts.
We consider ourselves fortunate to be in a place shaped by its proximity to Latin American and the Caribbean; we take the International in our institutional name very seriously. We therefore understand that diversity of experience must be represented in our curriculum, even as we pursue diversity beyond the goal of mere pluralism. Rather, we recognize the productive potential of non-normative experiences, understandings, and values as central to critical humanistic inquiry, regardless of field.
For information about degree requirements and courses, consult the Graduate Catalog.