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At 04:51 AM 1/22/2005, you wrote: >Excuse me, I feel really dumb - but I've been reading all these knowing >comments on MFA & its courses for some time now, but just what the hell >is MFA? .... >My best guess is Master of Fine Arts. What a weird title, if this is true! >mj - who made up one of the above, natch The very same. It's no weirder than the designation Ph.D. Doctor of WHAT philosophy? I worked in English Literature. Philosophy was not required. Maybe I was supposed to philosophize? If so, bad luck, I faked 'em out. Physicists also get a Doctor of Philosophy unless they get a D.Sci. I know there is a philosophy of science out there but most people I've met with doctorates in "hard sciences" and engineering were too busy being driven into the ground by their committees to worry over the philosophical struts of their disciplines. MFA used to cover the visual arts. I suppose a "normal" MA should suffice for writers but somehow MFA got assigned to imaginative writing as well as painting, printmaking, photography, etc. In fact I think some universities Stateside in fact DO give MA degrees in writing but the MFA has become the gold credential. I have no idea how any of this started. I work with a man at Sarnoff who has a few years on me, perish the thought. He has a BA and Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University, and an MFA from the same institution. I once asked him what he did to earn an MFA. "Oh, nothing. They gave it to all of us before we finished our dissertations." Do I understand this? Maybe Physics also is a fine art. In fact, probably, if it is parked in the right mind. Ken ------------------------------------------------- Kenneth Wolman www.kenwolman.com kenwolman.blogspot.com "This is the best of all possible worlds only because it is the only one that showed up."-- Russell Edson