Department of English

PhD in Literary Studies

The Graduate Program in Literary Studies is a doctoral program with a single trajectory towards the PhD. It assumes that every student who enters it is a candidate for an advanced research degree, normally with extensive, varied training in being a teacher. The program therefore is designed to give candidates the skills and the command of materials to do original scholarly work of a high order. With this goal it moves through three stages of increasing professional focus. Completing the first stage earns the student an MA degree; completing the second allows her or him to write a dissertation; and completing the third earns the PhD.

The first stage provides a broad background in literature written in English, including but not limited to those of Britain and the USA, as well as exposure to diverse critical and theoretical orientations and, usually, to the study of the English language or composition theory.   For the M.A. program, students take a total of eight courses in the Department of English and demonstrate competence in one foreign language.  To insure breadth of knowledge, the course requirements call for intensive study in five different chronological and geographical areas.  These seven courses must be completed before the beginning of the fifth semester.  When the student's record gives strong predictive evidence of continuing success, he or she will be entitled to move into the second stage of the Program.

Once this broad foundation has been built, the second, more focused stage allows students to work in an area or areas of specialization, beginning to create an ongoing research agenda. During the two or two to three years typically devoted to this stage, students choose another five English courses beyond those taken in the breadth stage (those with Masters degrees from elsewhere choose six English courses). In addition, using the 10-12 credits of minor courses that the University requires, students deepen their knowledge and diversify their skills by cross-disciplinary work. Successful completion of this course work, demonstration of competence in two foreign languages, and passing a two-part Preliminary Examination qualifies them to pass to the third stage, the dissertation, the last step before the PhD. Most students during the second and third stages work as Teaching Assistants, gaining substantial guidance and experience in becoming proficient teachers.

In the third and last stage of the Graduate Program, a doctoral candidate writes a dissertation, with faculty guidance, representing original scholarly work of a high order. The dissertation characteristically becomes key to a career as a publishing critic and scholar, just as the doctoral candidate's teaching experience becomes key to ongoing classroom success. When the candidate completes a dissertation to the satisfaction of the faculty committee he or she has chosen to guide the work, this third stage culminates in the award of a PhD. degree. The Department offers a job placement service to help our students begin their professional careers.

Next>>

(rev. 12/2007)