MAPH Creative Writing Specialization

The Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH) Creative Writing Specialization is intended for students who plan to complete at least five Creative Writing courses with the goal of building fundamental skills and/or making significant progress toward a project of fiction, literary nonfiction, or poetry. Unlike MFA programs at other institutions that offer more strictly professionally-oriented training in writing, students at UChicago are encouraged to develop their writing skills in the context of interdisciplinary humanistic study. Students may wish to do so in the course of a year of intensive study of literature, or, perhaps, philosophy, music, or art history. MAPH Creative Writing Specialists have gone on to work in publishing, attend MFA and PhD programs, and publish books. 

MAPH Creative Writing Specialists must complete 5 course requirements:

• 1 MAPH Core Course (Foundations of Interpretive Theory)
• 2 Creative Writing Workshops (I and II) in the same genre
• 2 Creative Writing Electives
  • Electives can be any combination of: Optional Winter Quarter Thesis Workshop, Creative Writing Studio Courses, Workshop I's in alternate genres, or additional Workshop IIs in a primary genre. 

MAPH students wanting to declare the Creative Writing Specialization must first meet with the Creative Writing MAPH Liaison (Professor Ryan Van Meter) or Creative Writing Student Affairs Administrator (Matthew Hawkins). In the brief meeting, students will fill out an official worksheet to declare as well as indicate if they’re interested in completing a Creative Writing Thesis and enrolling in a Creative Writing Thesis Workshop. Students must declare the Specialization by Monday, October 19, to be guaranteed a spot in a Winter Quarter Thesis Workshop. 

MAPH Creative Writing Specialists have the option to enroll in a Winter Quarter Creative Writing Thesis Workshop and complete a creative writing thesis. Students must declare the Creative Writing Specialization and indicate their interest in completing a Creative Writing Thesis no later than Monday, October 19, to guarantee a place in a Thesis Workshop. Specialists will register for the class via CRWR and MAPH administration. There is no need to reach out to instructors directly. 

The instructor of the Winter Quarter Creative Writing Thesis Workshop will act as the student's thesis advisor throughout the Spring Quarter. Thesis Workshop students are expected to have a first draft of at least 50% of their project completed before starting the workshop. You can find the course listings for this year’s Thesis Workshops here. In addition to the thesis project, specialists will also complete a critical essay about their project. 

Two seats are reserved for graduate students in Creative Writing Workshop I, Workshop II, and Studio courses. Graduate students must request consent to enroll or be added to a waitlist by reaching out to instructors directly. If the instructor provides consent for the student to enroll, then the student will forward their department administrator, as well as the Creative Writing Student Affairs Administrator (matthewhawkins@uchicago.edu), with the email containing the written instructor consent. The graduate student’s program administrator will then manually add the student to the course. For the 2026 Autumn Quarter, MAPH students can begin reaching out on instructors for consent on Monday, September 14. All other graduate students can begin reaching out on Monday, September 21. 

Graduate students do not have to be declared MAPH Creative Writing Specialists to enroll in Creative Writing courses. However, MAPH Creative Writing Specialists do receive preference when requesting instructor permission to enroll.

The Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH) Option in Poetics is intended for students who are primarily interested in the critical study of poetry and poetics. Offered in cooperation with the University’s Program in Poetry and Poetics, this option facilitates a critical engagement with the poetry of numerous historical periods, geographical regions, and aesthetic traditions, including modern and contemporary English language poetry. 

Students enrolled in this option are required to take the MAPH Core course in Autumn Quarter, the Poetics seminar, and three courses on the study of poetry and poetics from any number of departments and committees across the Arts & Humanities Division. (Relevant courses in the Social Sciences Division may also count toward these requirements.) Of these three courses, one must be on pre-Romantic poetry, one on non-Anglophone poetry (which can be studied in English translation), and one on modern and/or contemporary poetry. Students will consult with their MAPH preceptors and advisors on how to fulfill these distribution requirements, and may petition to substitute other courses for these requirements under special circumstances. Additionally, students in the MAPH Poetics Option will write a thesis with a relation to poetry and poetics under the supervision of a faculty member in the Poetics Program.

Further opportunities for students in the Poetics Option may include internships at Chicago Review—the University’s graduate student-run literary journal—and participation in the Poetics Workshop, a bi-weekly colloquium for the peer review of student and faculty work. Students in the option also benefit from frequent visits to campus by nationally-recognized poets through the Poetics Program’s “Poem Present” reading series, and talks by distinguished visiting scholars through the “History and Forms of Lyric” lecture series.