phd english literature admission 2022

University of Notre Dame

Department of English

College of Arts and Letters

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Ph.D. in English

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The Ph.D. in English is a highly selective doctoral program at a top-ranked private research university that trains students for the academic profession of literary studies while building knowledge and skills relevant to a wide range of careers. As a student in our program, you will enjoy access to outstanding scholars working in a variety of fields and practicing diverse theoretical and methodological approaches.

Through our classes, individual student mentoring, and professionalization practicums, you will gain advanced training in the many facets of scholarship and professional life, including research methods, pedagogy, writing for publication, applying for funding, and the job search. Our faculty are committed to helping you develop your interests, voice, and skills as a researcher, writer, and teacher.

“I chose Notre Dame for my English Ph.D. because I wanted to land in a program with as much community support as possible. The stresses of graduate school are real, and it's important to be surrounded by supportive people who respect your needs, interests, and personal career goals. Notre Dame’s English Department is filled with faculty and administrators who truly care about setting their students up for success, whether that's on the academic job market or beyond. Throughout my dissertation process, I've been grateful to have a network of faculty and graduate students who are interested in supporting both my area of research and my personal goals.” — Logan Quigley, Ph.D. May 2022

Academic Partnerships

Notre Dame is home to renowned centers and institutes that enrich doctoral study and help build interdisciplinary connections. As a student here you will have the opportunity to participate in projects and colloquia—and apply for additional research and conference support—from institutes including:

• Initiative on Race and Resilience
• Institute for Latino Studies
• Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies
• Medieval Institute
• Nanovic Institute for European Studies
• Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values
• Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study

“As an applicant many years ago, Notre Dame struck me as a place where graduate students were encouraged to find multiple intellectual homes outside their own departments, through centers and institutes that recognize not only the promise of graduate student's intellectual contributions but the precarity of those contributions if left unsupported. I'm happy to say the University delivered, rewarding me time and time again with some of the richest, most rigorous academic conversations and, to boot, the means to pursue the research questions that those conversations generated.” — Arnaud Zimmern, Ph.D. May 2021. Now a Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Philosophy and Science at Notre Dame

Graduate Minors

As a Ph.D. student in English you might also decide to pursue one of five graduate minors:

• Gender Studies
• Peace Studies
• Irish Studies
• Screen Cultures
• History and Philosophy of Science

International Opportunities

Our Ph.D. program provides exciting opportunities to participate in an array of international opportunities, events, and partnerships. You might, for instance:

• work with scholars in the UK or Germany as part of the “Global Dome” Ph.D. Summer Workshop in History and Literature;
• live and teach at Notre Dame London while conducting your own research;
• participate in the Irish Seminar, joining scholars and students from other institutions for workshops in locations such as Dublin, Paris, or Buenos Aires;
• participate in the International Network for Comparative Humanities (INCH), a series of workshops that bring Notre Dame students together with faculty and students at Princeton and other major universities worldwide.

And, of course, you will have access to support from the department  and a range of other university sources  for research and conference travel.

“As an Irish grad minor, I participated in the Irish Seminar and traveled to Dublin and Kylemore Abbey where I had the wonderful opportunity of learning about Irish literature and culture from renowned international scholars. My participation in the Irish seminar was complemented with my engagement with INCH. For the INCH annual retreats, I traveled to Athens and Rome and got the opportunity to work with scholars and graduate students from various universities in the US and Europe. The international exposure generously provided by the program has significantly enriched my scholarship." — Shinjini Chattopadhyay, Ph.D. January 2022. Now Assistant Professor of Global Anglophone Literatures at Berry College

Have questions about the Ph.D. in English? Contact:

Susan Cannon Harris Director of Graduate Studies Professor of English Email: [email protected]

Blake Holman Graduate Program Coordinator Email:  [email protected]

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

• PhD in Literature

Doctorate in Literature

Interdisciplinary clusters.

The Department of English's Doctoral program in Literature  offers advanced study and research in literary history, criticism, and theory, with excellent opportunities for interdepartmental and interdisciplinary study. Courses within the department cover major genres, periods, authors, and a broad range of methodological and theoretical approaches.

The graduate curriculum is enhanced by frequent lectures and workshops with Northwestern faculty and visiting scholars from around the world. Student-organized colloquia, conferences, reading groups, and dissertation groups provide opportunities for students to present their research to an audience of peers.

The PhD program provides superb professionalization and training in a variety of settings, including teaching assistantships for undergraduate lecture courses and the opportunity to develop and lead courses in Northwestern's Writing Program and the School of Professional Studies .

English (Literature), PHD

On this page:.

At a Glance: program details

• Location: Tempe campus
• Second Language Requirement: No

Program Description

Degree Awarded: PHD English (Literature)

The PhD program in English with a concentration in literature trains students in various methodologies, pedagogies and areas of inquiry that constitute literary and cultural studies.

With a diverse and distinguished faculty, the program offers opportunities for specialization in traditional areas of literary criticism, cultural analysis and theory, as well as various fields of interdisciplinary study.

A doctorate in literature equips students with a range of highly sought-after skills and competencies: research and analysis of complex material, communication in written and oral modes, collaboration, independence and self-motivation, creativity and adaptability.

The PhD in English (literature) at ASU is a premier graduate program in the U.S. with strong interdisciplinary ties and faculty links to research centers on campus and in the state, including the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, the Institute for Humanities Research, and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. With these resources and a strong mentorship program at their fingertips, our graduates are prepared for a wide array of professional opportunities including careers in college teaching, research, writing, editing, higher education, and humanities-related organizations.

Lee Bebout ,  Director  

Sheila Luna , Program Manager

Faculty in Literature

Doctoral Examinations

Doctoral Procedures and Timeline

Teaching Assistantships

Degree Requirements

84 credit hours, a foreign language exam, a written comprehensive exam, an oral comprehensive exam, a prospectus and a dissertation

A student with an appropriate master's degree must complete a minimum of 54 credit hours of approved graduate work, which includes 12 credit hours of dissertation, provided the student's master's degree is accepted by the supervisory committee and the academic unit. Research hours may be used toward coursework in consultation with the advisor.

A student without an appropriate master's degree must complete 84 credit hours of work at ASU. At the advisor's discretion, students may include up to 12 credit hours of appropriate, graduate-level coursework undertaken at another university and not previously counted toward any other degree.

Specifically required are six credit hours in theory courses and ENG 501 Approaches to Research. Students must complete eight graduate courses in any of the following categories:

• cultural studies
• ethnic studies
• gender studies
• history and structure of the English language
• literature 1500--1660
• literature 1660--1900
• literature since 1900
• literature to 1500
• postcolonial or anglophone literatures

Students must take at least five graduate seminars at the 600 level en route to the doctorate, at least three of which must be taken in the doctoral program. Up to 12 credit hours taken outside the department may be counted toward the degree. Students should consult with their supervisory committees when choosing electives.

Admission Requirements

Applicants must fulfill the requirements of both the Graduate College and The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Applicants are eligible to apply to the program if they have earned a bachelor's or master's degree from a regionally accredited institution.

Applicants must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 (scale is 4.00 = "A") in the last 60 hours of their first bachelor's degree program, or a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.50 (scale is 4.00 = "A") in an applicable master's degree program.

All applicants must submit:

• graduate admission application and application fee
• official transcripts
• statement of purpose
• resume or curriculum vitae
• three letters of recommendation
• academic writing sample relevant to the field
• proof of English proficiency

Additional Application Information An applicant whose native language is not English and has not graduated from an institution of higher learning in the United States must provide proof of English proficiency, regardless of current residency. Applicants can find more information about English proficiency requirements on the school website . Please note that official scores must be sent to ASU in order for the application to be processed.

The well-considered, one- to two-page, single-spaced statement of purpose should explain the applicant's scholarly background and training, career goals, proposed research specialization, any secondary field of interest and why the applicant wishes to pursue a PhD in English (Literature) at Arizona State University. Applicants applying for funding must also submit a statement of teaching philosophy.

Courses and Electives

Approaches to Research (3 credits / one class) :  Students must take the core class ENG 501 Approaches to Research.

Theory (6 credits / two courses): Appropriate courses for filling this requirement must be in the area of the history of criticism, literary theory, rhetorical theory, linguistic theory or cultural theory. Examples of courses which meet this requirement, if the specific topic is appropriate, include the following: ENG 502, 503, 504, 550, 551, 552, 554, 556, 602, 604, 651, LIN 510, 516, 517; however, an equivalent or more advanced course in linguistic, rhetorical or literary theory would also be acceptable.

Additional Required Courses (24 credits / 8 classes): Students must complete eight graduate courses in any of the following categories: cultural studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, genre, history and structure of the English language, literature to 1500, literature 1500-1660, literature 1660-1900, literature since 1900, postcolonial or anglophone literatures.

A minimum of five courses counted toward the PhD, which may include those listed above, must be taken at the 600-level (three of which must be taken in the doctoral program at ASU). Students wishing to take courses outside of the department may count up to 12 credit hours toward the degree. These courses may also fulfill some of the above degree requirements. Students should consult with an advisor or their committee chair when choosing electives.

Other Requirements

Language Requirement : PhD students must demonstrate evidence of a competent knowledge of a natural language other than modern English, to be selected by the student, subject to the approval of the chair of the dissertation committee. The language requirement must be completed before the student is eligible to take the doctoral exams. This requirement may be met by

• Earning a “B” (3.00) or higher in a 400- or 500-level course in an appropriate (approved) language.
• Demonstrating comparable proficiency by taking a language examination, administered by the School of International Letters and Cultures, in a language approved by the student’s supervisory committee.
• Demonstrating native-speaker proficiency, as determined by the School of International Letters and Cultures, in a language approved by the student’s supervisory committee.
• Earning a “B” (3.00) or higher in both ENG 530 Old English and ENG 531 Old English Literature or their equivalent.
• Holding a bachelor’s degree in an approved foreign language.
• Having fulfilled a foreign language requirement towards a previously awarded master’s degree that has been completed within five years of the semester for which the student has been admitted to the doctoral program. This foreign language must be in a language approved by the student’s doctoral supervisory committee.
• For languages which the School of International Letters and Cultures does not offer or does not offer above the 200 level, two years (4 semesters) of successfully completed college level coursework at least at the 100 and 200 level with a C or better would fulfill the requirement. The coursework must have been successfully completed no more than six years prior to admission to the degree program.

PhD Examinations :  Essay, oral exam, colloquy on the dissertation prospectus.

Dissertation : Students must take 12 credit hours of ENG 799.

Miscellaneous : Students may take research (ENG 792) for the purpose of working independently in preparation for the doctoral examination. This is an alternative to be elected by the student at the discretion and with the approval of the advisor and supervisory committee and can count towards course work. Satisfactory completion of ENG 792 is indicated by the grade of "Y." Individual interim segments of ENG 792 will be graded "Z" (course in progress), and changed to "Y" (successful completion) after the dissertation defense. No conventional letter grades are awarded for ENG 792 or 799.

The Graduate College also requires that students be enrolled every semester, excluding summer sessions, until they have completed all requirements for the degree. Continuous enrollment may be satisfied by registration for one hour of ENG 799, or, in cases where dissertation or other credit hours are not needed, Continuous Registration (ENG 595 or 795). If students wish to interrupt their programs of study for one or more semesters, they may apply for a leave of absence, not to exceed one year. Failure to enroll or obtain leave status for the semesters in which they are not enrolled will result in dismissal from the program.

Doctoral Supervisory Committee

The doctoral supervisory committee consists of a minimum of three members from the  graduate faculty  selected at the time the student files a program of study. In consultation with the director of the Ph.D. program, the student will select the committee chair, who also serves as the student's advisor. Once a graduate faculty member has agreed to serve as the student's chair, the student and chair will then consult before recommending two other members to the director of the doctoral program. Ideally another member of the supervisory committee in addition to the chair should be in the area of specialization. It is the responsibility of each student to form a supervisory committee very early in the program so that the chair and members of the committee may be involved in shaping the course of study, for example, in determining such matters as the choice of foreign language(s) and in specifying courses that will be required for the student's particular area of concentration.

Important Notice to Current International Students

In order for international students to maintain good standing for their VISAs, they must take a minimum of 9 credit hours per semester (i.e., 3 classes), 6 credits (2 classes) should be face-to-face classes.

Next Steps to attend ASU

Learn about our programs, apply to a program, visit our campus, application deadlines, learning outcomes.

• Identify and evaluate various disciplinary arguments, trends, traditions and debates within the knowledge community of literary and cultural studies scholars.
• Demonstrate the ability to produce written work of publishable quality.
• Demonstrate research skills necessary to bring a project of literary or cultural analysis to fruition, including the ability to evaluate disciplinary debates and developments; and the ability to produce research on historical and cultural meanings of texts and related cultural productions.

Career Opportunities

Graduates are prepared for careers in higher education and other fields that value this expertise. Sectors employing high numbers of arts and humanities graduates include information and communication, financial and insurance, public administration and defense, arts and entertainment, and education.

Career examples include:

• art director
• criminal investigator or special agent
• intelligence analyst
• market research analyst
• museum curator, educator or exhibit designer
• political analyst
• public relations specialist or manager
• technical writer

Global Opportunities

Global experience.

With over 250 programs in more than 65 countries (ranging from one week to one year), study abroad is possible for all ASU students wishing to gain global skills and knowledge in preparation for a 21st-century career. Students earn ASU credit for completed courses, while staying on track for graduation, and may apply financial aid and scholarships toward program costs. https://mystudyabroad.asu.edu

Program Contact Information

If you have questions related to admission, please click here to request information and an admission specialist will reach out to you directly. For questions regarding faculty or courses, please use the contact information below.

• [email protected]
• 480/965-3168

Course Catalog

English, phd.

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English

The Department of English offers programs of study leading to the Master of Arts and the Doctor of Philosophy degrees. We welcome qualified students who wish to pursue their interests in English, American, and Anglophone language, literature and film beyond the undergraduate level. The Ph.D. program is, in general, designed to educate and train teacher-scholars who will take positions in colleges and universities throughout the country. We consider the Master of Arts program to be the first step toward the Ph.D. degree; we expect students admitted to the M.A. program to receive the M.A. and go on to complete a Ph.D.  We therefore do not offer a formal terminal M.A. program.

Both the M.A. and Ph.D. may be earned with a specialization in Writing Studies. Also, doctoral students specializing in other fields may earn a graduate concentration in Writing Studies. 

Admission A student who wishes to be considered for admission to graduate studies in English must present the equivalent of at least 20 semester hours of undergraduate work in English and American literature, excluding required work in rhetoric or composition. Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores are required for those applying for the Literary Studies and Writing Studies programs. The GRE subject test for literature in English is not required. For the 2021-2022 application season, the English Department is not requiring the GRE general test, and such scores will not be considered by the readers of applications in their deliberations. All applicants whose native language is not English are required to submit Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores. Currently, a minimum score of 550 on the paper-based test (213 on the computer-based test) is required. Before a teaching assistantship involving classroom instruction or student consultation can be awarded to a non-native speaker of English, the applicant must take the Test of Spoken English (TSE) and achieve a score of 50 or higher (230 or higher before 1996). Because applications for admission usually far exceed capacity, in recent years undergraduate grade point averages of students admitted have been significantly higher than the 3.0 (A = 4.0) required by the Graduate College. The committee on admissions tends to select those applicants who have a solid array of undergraduate courses, knowledge of a foreign language, strong recommendations, and a compelling writing sample: in short, an academic record that shows promise of doing outstanding work in the field and earning degrees within a reasonable time. We do not admit part-time students. Applicants are considered only in spring for fall admission, and the deadline for submitting applications is noon on December 2nd.

Graduate Teaching Experience Experience in teaching is considered a vital part of the graduate program and all M.A. and Ph.D. candidates will have ample opportunity to teach undergraduate writing classes.

Financial Aid Financial aid is available to students in the form of fellowships, teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and waivers of tuition and service fees. For complete information about the program, prospective applicants should consult our website  or write to the above address.

Students in the program who have earned their master's degrees must apply formally to the Ph.D. program. Applicants who have completed their master's degrees elsewhere may also apply. Seldom are applicants accepted with graduate grade point averages below 3.5. Students must choose to complete a specialization in Literature or Writing Studies. In addition, students may choose to complete the graduate concentration in Writing Studies .

Interdisciplinary work is encouraged. Students may take courses outside of English. The special field examination is taken as the student completes coursework and prepares to write the thesis. The student then goes on to complete and defend the thesis under the direction of a committee composed of four professors. A full-time student can complete this program in four years beyond the master's degree.

For additional details and requirements refer to the department's  Graduate Studies in English  Website and the  Graduate College Handbook .

Total Minimum Hours: 64

Core requirements for both specializations , literature specialization requirements , writing studies specialization requirements.

Course work listing for Ph.D. requirements for the Literature Specialization:

• Eight additional semester-long courses at the 400 and 500 level. These, selected in consultation with a faculty advisor, either focus on the proposed field of specialization and allied fields--in English or in other disciplines--or fill gaps in the student's background.
• Doctoral students in literature will either take a Professional Seminar in the teaching of literature or film or act as a teaching assistant for two semesters in a large lecture course before they teach literature courses. They are expected to teach at least one literature course during their Ph.D. work.
• The Foreign Language Requirement (if not already satisfied at the M.A. level) may be satisfied by demonstrating a reading knowledge of an appropriate foreign language in one of the following three ways: By completing the equivalent of three full years of undergraduate work; By passing a proficiency exam administered by a UIUC foreign language department; By passing a non-credit 501 language course with a grade of B or better.
• Completion of a Special Field Examination (oral, written, or both). The exam, administered by a committee of four faculty members selected by the student, is based upon the student's approved Special Field list of primary and secondary sources, including a discussion of its rationale and relation to the proposed dissertation topic. Approved fields include historical periods, genres, film, and critical theory.
• Completion and two-hour oral defense of a dissertation. Students working on their dissertations are eligible for fellowship support or released time from teaching. All students in good standing and making good progress will ordinarily receive at least one semester free from teaching. A few students receive a year or more of fellowship aid to work full-time on their dissertations.

Course work listing for Ph.D. requirements for the Writing Studies Specialization:

• Eight additional semester-long courses at the 400 and 500 level. These selected in consultation with a faculty advisor, focus on the proposed field of specialization and allied fields--in English or in other disciplines--or fill gaps in the student's background and include ENGL 505 and 2 methodology courses (at least one of which is an ENGL 582 ; the second methodology course should be approved by the advisor and typically will be approved by the Center for Writing Studies for the methodology requirement in its Writing Studies Graduate Concentration). In addition, students must take one course in Literature or Theory. Specific courses taken at the MA level ( ENGL 505 and ENGL 582 ) are counted as fulfilling those specific requirements at the PhD level.
• Students who enter the Ph.D. program with an M.A. from another institution must show demonstrated reading knowledge of a foreign language.
• Completion of a Special Field Examination (oral, written, or both). This exam, administered by a committee of four faculty members selected by the student, is based upon the student's approved special field list--which includes a discussion of its rationale and relation to the proposed dissertation topic. Lists are representative of the field of Writing Studies and include two or three concentrations within it. Approved fields include: Cognition and Composition, Computers and Composition Studies, Classical Rhetoric, Critical Theory, Discourse Processes, Gender and Writing, Literacy Studies, Technical Communication, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing in the Disciplines, and Writing Assessment. Other combinations of fields are possible, including those that combine disciplines (e.g. African-American Studies, women's studies, and literacy).

Graduate Degree Programs in English

• concentration:  Medieval Studies
• Writing Studies

for information on the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) program in Creative Writing, see  Creative Writing .

Affiliated Programs offering certificates or minors:

• Department of African American Studies
• Asian American Studies Program
• American Indian Studies
• Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
• Gender and Women's Studies Program
• The Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies Initiative
• Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
• Latina-Latino Studies Program
• The Program in Jewish Culture and Society
• Unit for Cinema Studies
• Unit for Criticism and Theory

English Department Head of Department: Bob Markley Director of Graduate Studies: Andrew Gaedtke English Department website 210 English Building, 608 South Wright Street, Urbana, IL 61801 (217)  333-3646 English  email

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences College of Liberal Arts & Sciences website

Admissions English Department Admissions & Requirements Graduate College Admissions & Requirements

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• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

PHD PROGRAM

in English and American Literature

The graduate program in English and American literature at Washington University in St. Louis is innovative, collegial, competitive, and generously funded, offering one of the top financial packages in the nation. All incoming students receive full tuition scholarships plus ample living stipends for six years. Our faculty includes Guggenheim Fellows, winners of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Curious as to what our faculty are working on? Check out our faculty's areas of expertise. A participant in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, we exemplify an integrated community of scholars and writers, and are home to one of the top ten MFA programs in the U.S. 

Building on our many interests, we sponsor multiple reading groups , regular faculty and student colloquia, and an extensive lecture series. The Hurst Visiting Professorship brings multiple distinguished creative and critical voices to the department each year for public lectures and small workshops. Recent Hurst Professors have included Charles Altieri, Rita Copeland, Peter Coviello, Jed Esty, Rita Felski, Carla Kaplan, James Longenbach, Jerome McGann, Charles Taylor, Daniel Vitkus, and Michael Wood.

While our program is rooted in the materials of literary history, from medieval to contemporary, interdisciplinarity is more than aspirational.  Certificate programs  connect students to multiple departments and initiatives, building on the resources of the broader community. We believe that a strong intellectual community is fostered by concrete working relationships between professors and students and offer collaborative teaching opportunities with experienced faculty. After two years spent solely on coursework, research, and writing, students begin mentored teaching experiences in one course per term. Tailored to student interests, these experiences offer careful pedagogical attention in writing and literature courses, with the option of professional internships and training. At the end of the program, Ph.D. students spend a final year without teaching focused on finishing their dissertation and entering the job market.

Program Requirements

Courses & requirements.

Explore the timeline and requirements for the PhD in English and American Literature as well as the Combined PhD in English and Comparative Literature.

Admissions Information & FAQ

Interested in applying? Learn more about the admissions requirements, funding and fellowships, teaching and training, and other frequently asked questions.

Special Collections

Perhaps the most important resource for graduate students outside of the English Department is the University's  Special Collections Department , home to a first-rate archive of twentieth-century writers' manuscripts and other papers.  The Modern Literary Manuscripts Collection  focuses on the careers of 125 major literary figures including Samuel Beckett, Howard Nemerov, Stanley Elkin, William Gass, Mona Van Duyn, William Gaddis, and the world's most complete holding of writings by and about the American poet James Merrill. Taken as a whole, the collection consists of more than a quarter of a million manuscript items, correspondence, and ephemera, thousands of photographs, scores of unique audio-taped readings from the 1950s onward, and numerous videotaped readings. The Special Collections Department also coordinates occasional exhibitions of collected authors' papers, such as the 2000 exhibition  "James Merrill: Other Writings,"  which included essays and related Merrill scholarship from several English department graduate students.

Interdisciplinary Research

The department encourages interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary work in addition to the regular interdisciplinary course offerings. Various centers on campus, such as the Center for the Humanities , the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics , and the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Equity , bring together scholars from a wide range of backgrounds and interests with programs, lectures, seminars, and colloquia. Meanwhile, programs such as Early Modern Studies,  American Culture Studies  and  Women and Gender Studies  draw from across the university. Students regularly have professors on their dissertation committees from multiple departments. These opportunities are just a few of the many ways that our students cross paths with esteemed scholars and fellow graduate students from other disciplines.

In addition to its many interdisciplinary programs and centers, the university offers several graduate certificates aimed specifically at encouraging and enhancing interdisciplinary study. The certificates give students additional qualifications in a second area. Beyond Early Modern Studies, American Culture Studies, and Women and Gender Studies—all of which have their own certificate programs—we also offer graduate certificates in Film and Media Studies (Program in Film and Media Studies),  Translation Studies (Program in Comparative Literature), and  Data Science in the Humanities  (Humanities Digital Workshop). For more information, contact the programs involved directly or contact the Director Graduate Studies in English.

Recent Dissertations

Curious to explore what our research our recent alumni have completed? 

Explore PhD Dissertations

Careers & Outcomes

Learn more about our job placement and career outcomes for recent alumni.

Graduate Student Resources

Graduate Student Organizations

learn more about graduate student reading groups and organizations on campus

Graduate Student Handbook

learn more about policies and procedures for the doctoral program

Statement on Content Provision

review WashU's policies for use of creative and intellectual works in teaching and research

search more resources

• The Office of Graduate Studies
• The Graduate Center

Life in St. Louis

A culturally diverse and exciting city, St. Louis is one of the most affordable and livable major metropolitan centers in the United States. Perhaps the greatest surprise to visitors and newcomers is just how green are our neighborhoods. One rarely goes more than two or three city blocks without finding an attractive and welcoming park in which to stroll, run, bike, or rollerblade. In addition, with affordable housing, excellent restaurants, numerous sporting events, and varied cultural activities, St. Louis is one of the most pleasant American cities in which to live and to work.

Learn More about Life in St. Louis

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• Schools & departments

English Literature PhD

Awards: PhD

Study modes: Full-time, Part-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: English Literature

Upcoming Introduction to Postgraduate Study and Research events

Join us online on the 19th June or 26th June to learn more about studying and researching at Edinburgh.

Choose your event and register

Research profile

Doctorate-level study is an opportunity to expand upon your interests and expertise in a community that really values research; and to make an original, positive contribution to learning in literature and related fields.

As the oldest department of English Literature in the UK, based in one of the largest and most diverse Schools in the University of Edinburgh, we are the ideal place for PhD study.

Our interdisciplinary environment brings together specialists in all periods and genres of literature and literary analysis.

Research excellence

Based on our performance in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF), over 90 per cent of our research and impact is classed as world-leading and internationally excellent by Research Professional. 69 per cent is graded at the world-leading level – the highest of REF’s four categories.

In Times Higher Education's REF analysis, English at Edinburgh is ranked fifth in the UK (out of more than 90 institutions) for:

• the overall quality of our publications and other outputs
• the impact of our research on people’s lives
• our supportive research environment

Given the breadth and depth of our expertise, we are able to support students wishing to develop research projects in any field of Anglophone literary studies. These include American studies, literary and critical theory, the history of the book, gender and sexuality studies, and global Anglophone literatures - where our specialisms include Pacific, African, South Asian, and African-American writing.

We have particular strengths in each of the main periods of English and Scottish Literature:

• Renaissance/early modern
• Enlightenment
• 21st century
• Contemporary

Emergent research themes in the department include the digital humanities, the economic humanities, the environmental humanities and literature and medicine.

• Explore our range of research centres, networks and projects in English and Scottish Literature

Working with colleagues elsewhere in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, and across the wider University, we are able to support PhD theses crossing boundaries between disciplines and/or languages.

• Be inspired by the range of PhD research in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Over the course of your PhD, you’ll be expected to complete an original body of work under the expert guidance of your supervisors leading to a dissertation of usually between 80,000 and 100,000 words.

You will be awarded your doctorate if your thesis is judged to be of an appropriate standard, and your research makes a definite contribution to knowledge.

• Read our pre-application guidance on writing a PhD research proposal

Go beyond the books

Beyond the Books is a podcast from the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at research and the people who make it happen.

Listen to a mix of PhD, early career and established researchers talk about their journey to and through academia and about their current and recent research.

• Browse Beyond the Books episodes and hear our research community talk about their work

Training and support

Between the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC), the Careers Service, and the Institute for Academic Development (IAD), you’ll find a range of programmes and resources to help you develop your postgraduate skills.

You will also have access to the University’s fantastic libraries, collections and worldwide strategic partnerships.

Part of a community

As part of our research community, you will be immersed in a world of knowledge exchange, with lots of opportunities to share ideas, learning and creative work.

Activities range from talks by visiting speakers and work-in-progress seminars, to reading groups, conferences, workshops, performances, online journals and forums, many of which are led by PhD candidates.

Highlights include student reading for the James Tait Black Prizes, Britain's oldest literary awards which typically involve reading submissions across fiction and biography and advising the judges on the shortlists.

• Read an interview with 2022 James Tait Black reader, Céleste Callen

Our graduates tell us that they value the friendliness of the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC), the connections they make here and the in-depth guidance they receive from our staff, who are published experts in their field.

A UNESCO World City of Literature, Edinburgh is a remarkable place to study, write, publish, discuss and perform prose, poetry and drama.

Take a PhD with us and you will be based in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) in the historic centre of this world-leading festival city.

You will have access to the University’s many literary treasures. These include the libraries of:

• William Drummond
• Lewis Grassic Gibbon
• Hugh MacDiarmid
• Norman MacCaig

The Centre for Research Collections holds the W.H. Auden collection; the Corson Collection of works by and about Sir Walter Scott; and the Ramage collection of poetry pamphlets.

It also holds a truly exceptional collection of early Shakespeare quartos and other early modern printed plays put together by the 19th century Shakespearean James Halliwell-Phillipps, the correspondence of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (the focus of one of the major editorial projects in Victorian studies of the last half-century), and the extensive Laing collection of medieval and early modern manuscripts, as well as letters and papers by - and relating to - authors including:

• Christopher Isherwood
• Rudyard Kipling
• John Middleton Murry
• Walter de la Mare
• George Mackay Brown
• Compton Mackenzie

Many of the University's Special Collections are digitised and available online from our excellent Resource Centre, Computing Labs, and dedicated PhD study space in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC).

Look inside the PhD study space in LLC

In the city

Our buildings are close to the National Library of Scotland (where collections include the Bute Collection of early modern English drama and the John Murray Archive), Edinburgh Central Library, Scottish Poetry Library, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Writers’ Museum and a fantastic range of publishing houses, bookshops, and theatres.

We have strong links with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which annually welcomes around 1,000 authors to our literary city.

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK masters, or its international equivalent, with a mark of at least 65% in your English literature dissertation of at least 10,000 words.

If your masters programme did not include a dissertation or included a dissertation that was unmarked or less than 10,000 words, you will be expected to produce an exceptional research proposal and personal statement to show your ability to undertake research at the level required by this programme.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 62 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

• Fees and costs

Read our general information on tuition fees and studying costs:

Scholarships and funding

Featured funding.

There are a number of scholarship schemes available to eligible candidates on this PhD programme, including awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Please be advised that many scholarships have more than one application stage, and early deadlines.

• Find out more about scholarships in literatures, languages and cultures

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• Phone: +44 (0)131 650 4086
• Contact: [email protected]
• School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• 50 George Square
• Central Campus
• Programme: English Literature
• School: Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• College: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

This programme is not currently accepting applications. Applications for the next intake usually open in October.

Start date: September 2024

Awards: PhD (36 mth FT, 72 mth PT)

Application deadlines

Due to high demand, the school operates a number of selection deadlines. We will make a small number of offers to the most outstanding candidates on an ongoing basis, but hold the majority of applications until the next published selection deadline when we will offer a proportion of the places available to applicants selected through a competitive process.

Deadlines for applicants applying to study in 2024/25:

• How to apply

The online application process involves the completion of a web form and the submission of supporting documents.

For a PhD programme, you should include:

• a sample of written work of about 3,000 words (this can be a previous piece of work from an undergraduate or masters degree)
• a research proposal - a detailed description of what you hope to achieve and how
• Pre-application guidance

Before you formally apply for this PhD, you should look at the pre-application information and guidance on the programme website.

This will help you decide if this programme is right for you, and help us gain a clearer picture of what you hope to achieve.

The guidance will also give you practical advice for writing your research proposal – one of the most important parts of your application.

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

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• Ph.D. Program

Prospective Student Information

The UC Santa Cruz doctoral program in literature offers an innovative multilingual and multidisciplinary approach to literary studies, involving the use of more than one language literature. The program is relatively small, and students work closely with faculty throughout their graduate careers. They are encouraged to take advantage of the rich array of intellectual and cultural events, research clusters, and lectures offered on campus.

The doctoral program combines critical and independent thought with global perspectives. Working across linguistic, national, and period boundaries, students blend critical approaches, literary traditions, and/or cultural archives in comparative and interdisciplinary projects.

A Creative/Critical Writing concentration within the Ph.D. program is available, for which prospective students apply during the admissions process. Creative/Critical applicants submit additional creative writing samples of poetry, prose fiction, creative nonfiction or hybrid/cross genre. Students in the Creative/Critical concentration complete all the requirements for the literature Ph.D. with the addition of a creative/critical degree component in the form of coursework, original creative work with a critical introduction and, if desired, work in poetics, translation, form and/or critical writing focused on creative practices.

Students may apply for a designated emphasis on the literature doctoral diploma in programs and departments such as Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Education, Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness, Latin American and Latino Studies, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology, and the History of Art and Visual Culture. Applications and requirements are available at the respective department offices.

Course Requirements

• LIT 200, Proseminar, to be taken in fall quarter of the first year;
• LIT 201, Pedagogy of Teaching/Teaching Assistant Training, to be taken prior to or in conjunction with the first Teaching Assistant appointment;
• Twelve additional courses leading to the definition of an area of concentration. At least two of these must be in a second-language literature; at least one must focus on pre-modern literature and culture. A minimum of six courses must be regularly scheduled Literature seminars;
• LIT 291F, a two-credit advising course, each quarter.

Second Language Requirements

The program requires significant literary work in two languages. All students are required to complete the Literature Department's intensive three-week Graduate Summer Language Program or its equivalent and a minimum of two graduate courses in a second-language literature in which 50 percent or more of the reading is done in the original language. The second-language literature must serve as a component of the qualifying examination.

Teaching Requirements

Students must complete at least three quarters of supervised teaching experience. 

Qualifying Examination

The qualifying examination must be taken by the first quarter of the fourth year. It consists of three components: 

• a portfolio with a field statement and comprehensive bibliography, a topic statement, a paper of publishable quality, and a dissertation sketch; 
• translation examination; and 
• oral examination. 

Post-Qualifying Requirements

Students must submit a prospectus outlining and defining the dissertation project within a quarter following the qualifying examination, but no later than the end of the fourth year. The prospectus identifies the research problem, methodologies, and case studies, with chapter outlines, footnotes, and bibliography.

Non-Terminal Master’s Degree

A master of arts (M.A.) degree is conferred upon request to doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) candidates who have successfully completed the literature Ph.D. qualifying examination or who have completed the coursework required for the doctorate (Teaching Assistant training and supervised teaching experience exempted) and elect to write a master’s thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor.

Dissertation

The dissertation is a substantial piece of original research in the field of literature.

A dissertation submitted for the Creative/Critical concentration may take alternative forms:

•  A book-length original creative project—novel, novella, collection of poems, collection of stories, creative nonfiction, or a hybrid/experimental form (including but not limited to digital/new media, performance/performativity/screenplay, the lyric essay) with a critical chapter or chapters totaling at least 75 pages exploring the historical, methodological, and/or theoretical foundations of the creative work; or
• A dissertation on theory, form, poetics or literary history; a translation of a creative work with a 30-50-page, substantive, critical introduction; a critical edition.

The dissertation committee is composed of three members, with the dissertation advisor acting as chair. The majority of the membership of a dissertation committee shall be members of the Santa Cruz Division of the Academic Senate. 

Detailed instructions for the preparation of the dissertation are available on the Graduate Division website .

Academic Progress

To maintain satisfactory academic progress and eligibility for fellowships and other benefits, students must:

• complete required coursework in the first two to three years;
• satisfy the department’s second-language requirement;
• pass the qualifying examination (QE) during the third year or fall quarter of the fourth year;
• complete a dissertation prospectus and advance to candidacy by the end of the fourth year; and
• complete the dissertation by the end of the seventh year.

Applying for Graduation

For information on how to apply for graduation, visit the Graduate Division website .

Further Information

Additional detailed information for prospective graduate students, including procedures for application and admission to graduate studies, examinations, and requirements for the doctor of philosophy degree, is available from the Division of Graduate Studies and on the department website .

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Information for Prospective Ph.D. Students

Application deadlines, the appliation for fall 2024 will be available in september 2023. application deadline is december 1 2023..

PhD Admissions Open House Want a PhD in English? Why NYU? New York University, Department of English

Friday, October 20, 2023 at 11:00AM EST https://nyu.zoom.us/j/91310527661  (approximately 1 hour)

2022 Open House:  Zoom Recording 

Are you considering a PhD in English? Come meet faculty and graduate students from the NYU Department of English, who will share their experiences about the structure and culture of the program. You will get a quick overview of what a degree here entails, including the university’s new Advanced Certificate in Public Humanities. We hope to highlight what we (and New York City’s landscape of civic and arts institutions and archives) can offer you as you prepare for a future in teaching, research, and writing. 

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS 

Your application to the PhD program should consist of the following components:

• The Online Application .
• A Curriculum Vitae (CV) or resume.  This should provide an overview of your academic and, if applicable, professional experience.
• A Statement of Academic Purpose.  The work of the faculty of the Department of English at NYU is characterized by a wide variety of interdisciplinary approaches, encompassing literary history, theory, and criticism, as well as careful reflection on the methods of literary study. We are especially interested in graduate students who will be comfortable bridging historical periods in their reading and writing, and who are curious about a wide variety of approaches to literary studies. The admissions committee requires from all applicants a statement of academic purpose, which will be judged as a piece of writing. It will use this statement to evaluate how well your aspirations and interests suit those of the Department of English at NYU. This statement of academic purpose should be succinct (no more than 1200 words) and address most, if not all, of the following questions: What kinds (genres, styles, forms, etc.) of literature most engage you? What, for you, is the purpose of reading literature critically? Are there particular kinds of criticism/theoretical approaches/methods of literary study that you would like to work within or learn more about? How have your intellectual and scholarly interests been shaped by your time outside and beyond the college classroom? In the light of the description above, do you have a particular reason for wishing to work within the Department of English at New York University?
• A Writing Sample  of academic literary criticism is required. It should demonstrate your strongest work in that mode and should not exceed 20-25 double-spaced pages, including any bibliography or notes.
• Three Letters of Recommendation . It is important to have strong letters of recommendation that come from professors and instructors who know you and are familiar with the your academic work. Applicants who have been out of school for several years should make every effort to reconnect with former teachers to ensure that their letters of recommendation address their academic preparation and abilities and their readiness to pursue the degree for which they are applying.  http://gsas.nyu.edu/admissions/gsas-application-resource-center/faqs/letters-of-recommendation.html
• Transcript . An official, electronic copy of your transcript.For further Admissions information, please visit http://gsas.nyu.edu/admissions/gsas-application-resource-center/faqs/academic-transcripts.html  
• TOEFL or IELTS:  TOEFL or the IELTS is required of all applicants who are not native English speakers or who do not have a bachelor's or master's degree from an institution where the language of instruction is English.  http://gsas.nyu.edu/admissions/gsas-application-resource-center/faqs/testing-requirements.html

All accepted Ph.D. students in English receive up to five years of funding through the Graduate School’s MacCracken program. In 2023-2024 students will receive a $32,888 stipend for nine months, plus a full tuition scholarship, registration and services fees, and full coverage of NYU student health insurance for an individual under the comprehensive plan. The MacCracken award includes a one-time $1,000 Dean's Supplementary Fellowship Grant. This grant is intended to provide support for start-up research and educational expenses such as books, academic supplies, and computer equipment. In addition, the Department of English offers a one-time $3,000 Supplementary Grant that may be used at the student's discretion and a $5,500 stipend during both the first and second years of study to help defray the cost of housing. While teaching is not required as a condition of the MacCracken award, the English Department still sees teaching as crucial to the professional development of its doctoral candidates. We therefore expect that our Ph.D. students will teach for four semesters starting after the second year of study, typically scheduled across the third through fifth years. Students who participate fully in the department's teaching program will receive in excess of $22,000 in adjunct-instructor compensation for their four semesters of teaching service, over and above the fellowship stipend payments they will receive during the term of the MacCracken award.

The English Ph.D. program is designed to be completed within the five-year term for which the MacCracken award ensures full funding. However, students can arrange to set aside as much as half of the fellowship stipend they receive during each semester in which they teach, to be drawn on at later points in the period of their enrollment. Thus if they follow the Department’s recommendation and teach for a total of four semesters during the MacCracken term, they can guarantee themselves an additional year of full funding in case they require a sixth year of matriculation in order to secure employment and complete the degree.

Teaching opportunities primarily include serving as a recitation leader in general education courses in the undergraduate college, and in departmental undergraduate survey courses. Students who follow the department's teaching protocol will be assigned to a range of different courses over their four semesters of service, and will thereby achieve the breadth of literacy-historical knowledge appropriate to doctorate holders in the discipline. Students who forgo teaching may be required to demonstrate the breadth of their literary-historical knowledge through other means.

If your question is not answered, please contact the director of graduate admissions, Jenny Mann. 

Open House for Newly Admitted Doctoral Students

Students who are admitted to the Ph.D. program are invited to attend our annual Open House for Newly Admitted Doctoral Students, which this year will take place on (dates to be determined). Admitted students will be asked to arrive in New York City the afternoon of (TBA), when there will be an informal cocktail party with English Department faculty and current students. Scheduled events on (TBA) will allow admitted students the opportunity to interact with faculty as well as current graduate students and other admitted, prospective students, attend classes and tour the campus.

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The Doctor of Philosophy

Successful applicants for regular admission to the PhD program usually have a GPA of 3.5 in all (undergraduate and graduate) English courses and will typically have completed a BA and/or an MA in English. The PhD with an emphasis in literature offers direct admission to the doctoral program from the BA. For specific details, see program requirements below. Application materials include GRE general test scores, transcripts, three letters of recommendation, a statement of purpose, and a substantial writing sample. Letters of recommendation should be from persons qualified to assess the applicant’s readiness for graduate study. For further information and links to application materials, see www.usm.edu/english .

Conditional admission is sometimes possible for applicants who do not meet all the criteria for regular admission. To remove conditional status, students must meet the Graduate School requirements described in the Admission Requirements and Procedures   section of this Bulletin, and they must satisfy all additional requirements stipulated by the department.

Members of all underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

Research and Scholarly Integrity Education

All faculty holding Regular or Associate graduate faculty status, must complete CITI training modules required by the Graduate School and their departments. All graduate students must complete the CITI training modules required by the Graduate School and their departments the first semester they are enrolled in graduate school. The RSIE policy and training information are found on the Graduate School web page – www.usm.edu/graduate-school . Contact the Dean of the Graduate School if you have any questions regarding the policy of training information.

Residency: Doctoral students must meet the residency requirements specified in this Bulletin .

45-63 credit hours

Master’s to PhD

Students who are admitted to the PhD program with an earned Master’s degree must complete a minimum of 45 credit hours*, to include:

• ENG 640 - Critical Reading and Methods in English 3 hrs.
• ENG 641 - Advanced Research and Methods in English 3 hrs.
• One course in literary theory 3 hrs.
• One course in each of six distribution areas (18 hrs.): 1) American Literature to 1890, 2) British Literature to 1660, 3) British Literature, 1660-1890, 4) British & American Literatures, 1890-1960, 5) Literatures in English after 1960, 6) Non-traditional Literatures in English (The Dean of Graduate School may review the student’s MA transcript to determine which distribution areas have already been satisfied.)
• Two electives 6 hrs.
• ENG 898 - Dissertation 12 hrs. (9-12 hrs. required)

Additional requirements and guidelines:

• Students must complete two Research Tools: either two foreign languages or one foreign language plus 12 hours of coursework in an allied area of study approved by the Dean of the Graduate School. For information on how to meet the foreign language requirement, see the English Department Graduate Handbook at www.usm.edu/english .
• 500-level classes count towards a degree only with the approval of the Dean of the Graduate School; at least 15 hours (5 courses) must be at the 700-level.
• Students must take ENG 690 - Practicum in the Theory and Teaching of Composition   if they hold an assistantship that includes teaching as one of their duties.
• Students must successfully complete a Doctoral Qualifying Examination in August, after the first year of study. The exam may be retaken once, in the following December. Students who fail the exam twice will be dismissed from the PhD program. For further information about the Doctoral Qualifying Examination, see www.usm.edu/english .
• Students must successfully complete a PhD Comprehensive Exam. For further information about the PhD Comprehensive Exam, see www.usm.edu/english .
• Students must write a dissertation, a substantial project embodying the result of significant and original research on a subject chosen by the candidate and approved by the student’s Doctoral Committee.
• A 3.0 GPA is required for graduation.
• Students must submit their signed, official Plan of Study to the Graduate School by the end of the first semester in which they are enrolled. The Plan of Study forms are available at www.usm.edu/graduateschool/planofstudy.php - click on the “Plans of Study” link; or on the Resources page at www.usm.edu/english .

*Students who earned their MA degree in English at USM in accordance with degree requirements as stipulated in this Bulletin will consult with the Dean of the Graduate School to determine specific requirements.

Bachelor’s to PhD

• One course in each of six distribution areas
• Six electives 18 hrs.
• ENG 698 - Thesis 1-6 hrs. for a total of 6 hours. (3-6 hrs. required)

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English Literature MPhil, PhD

The research-led English Literature MPhil and PhD enable you to study a specialist area of literature.

You are currently viewing course information for entry year:

Start date(s):

• September 2024
• January 2025

Join our thriving School with an energetic, creative and well-resourced research culture. Throughout your English Literature MPhil/PhD, you'll benefit from expert supervision.

Our specialist areas of literature range in periods from the medieval to the contemporary. We normally offer supervision in the following areas:

• Medieval and Early Modern literature
• 18th-century and Romantic
• Victorian literature
• Postcolonial and Black Atlantic literature
• American literature
• children’s literature
• medical humanities
• poetry criticism
• scholarly editing and animating text
• theatre and performance

Important information

We've highlighted important information about your course. Please take note of any deadlines.

Please rest assured we make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the programmes, services and facilities described. However, it may be necessary to make changes due to significant disruption, for example in response to Covid-19.

View our  Academic experience page , which gives information about your Newcastle University study experience for the academic year 2023-24.

See our  terms and conditions and student complaints information , which gives details of circumstances that may lead to changes to programmes, modules or University services.

Related courses

Qualifications explained.

Find out about the different qualification options for this course.

An MPhil is available in all subject areas. You receive research training and undertake original research leading to the completion of a 40,000 - 50,000 word thesis.

Find out about different types of postgraduate qualifications

A PhD is a doctorate or doctoral award. It involves original research that should make a significant contribution to the knowledge of a specific subject. To complete the PhD you will produce a substantial piece of work (80,000 – 100,000 words) in the form of a supervised thesis. A PhD usually takes three years full time.

How you'll learn

Your work will focus on a single, sustained piece of writing and research. The MPhil thesis is a maximum of 50,000 words and the PhD thesis is a maximum of 100,000 words.

You'll be assigned a supervisor or a supervisory team who you will meet on a regular basis. Your supervisor will be able to give you advice on reading and research training. They'll help you use our research facilities and support you in the development of your work. Our research training programme will support you with researcher development training throughout the programme.

You'll be taught and based on our Newcastle campus. There may be opportunities to carry out work with our School's partner institutions .

Depending on your modules, you'll be assessed through a combination of:

We offer a wide range of projects for the thesis. These will be provided by our academics. You can also propose your own topic.

Our mission is to help you:

• stay healthy, positive and feeling well
• overcome any challenges you may face during your degree – academic or personal
• get the most out of your postgraduate research experience
• carry out admin and activities essential to progressing through your degree
• understand postgraduate research processes, standards and rules

We can offer you tailored wellbeing support, courses and activities.

You can also access a broad range of workshops covering:

• research and professional skills
• careers support
• health and safety
• public engagement
• academic development

Find out more about our postgraduate research student support

Your development

You'll have plenty of opportunities to network with fellow students and staff and become part of our School research community. These include:

• our Postgraduate Speaker Series
• lunchtime Postgraduate Forum seminars
• an annual postgraduate conference organised by our postgraduate students

You can also take part in a range of university and regional research groups and centres.

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) researcher development programme 

Each faculty offers a researcher development programme for its postgraduate research students. We have designed your programme to help you:

• perform better as a researcher
• boost your career prospects
• broaden your impact

Through workshops and activities, it will build your transferable skills and increase your confidence.

You’ll cover:

• techniques for effective research
• methods for better collaborative working
• essential professional standards and requirements

Your researcher development programme is flexible. You can adapt it to meet your changing needs as you progress through your doctorate.

Find out more about the Researcher Education and Development programme

Doctoral training and partnerships

There are opportunities to undertake your PhD at Newcastle within a:

• Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT)
• Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP)

Being part of a CDT or DTP has many benefits:

• they combine research expertise and training of a number of leading universities, academic schools and academics.
• you’ll study alongside a cohort of other PhD students
• they’re often interdisciplinary
• your PhD may be funded

Find out more about doctoral training and partnerships

If there are currently opportunities available in your subject area you’ll find them when you search for funding in the fees and funding section on this course.

The following centres/partnerships below may have PhD opportunities available in your subject area in the future:

• ESRC Northern Ireland/North East (NINE) Doctoral Training Partnership
• Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership

Your future

Our careers service.

Our award-winning Careers Service is one of the largest and best in the country, and we have strong links with employers. We provide an extensive range of opportunities to all students through our ncl+ initiative.

Visit our Careers Service website

Quality and ranking

All professional accreditations are reviewed regularly by their professional body

From 1 January 2021 there is an update to the way professional qualifications are recognised by countries outside of the UK

Check the government’s website for more information .

The School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics is a lively and diverse community with over 700 undergraduates and 200 postgraduates.

We are based in the Percy Building. Our purpose-built postgraduate suite includes:

• several dedicated computer clusters
• meeting rooms
• lounge area

Our award-winning  Philip Robinson Library has an extensive audio-visual collection.

You will also be part of the rich research culture in the  Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and may be able to participate in and lead events for our research groups.

We encourage the use of the archival opportunities offered by our various partner institutions, including the Seven Stories Centre for the Children's Book, the Wordsworth Trust (Dove Cottage), and the Keats-Shelley House in Rome.

Fees and funding

Tuition fees for 2024 entry (per year), home fees for research degree students.

For 2024-25 entry, we have aligned our standard Home research fees with those set by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) . The standard fee was confirmed in Spring 2024 by UKRI.

If your studies last longer than one year, your tuition fee may increase in line with inflation.

Depending on your residency history, if you’re a student from the EU, other EEA or a Swiss national, with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, you’ll normally pay the ‘Home’ tuition fee rate and may be eligible for Student Finance England support.

EU students without settled or pre-settled status will normally be charged fees at the ‘International’ rate and will not be eligible for Student Finance England support.

If you are unsure of your fee status, check out the latest guidance here .

Scholarships

We support our EU and international students by providing a generous range of Vice-Chancellor's automatic and merit-based scholarships. See  our   searchable postgraduate funding page  for more information.  

What you're paying for

Tuition fees include the costs of:

• matriculation
• registration
• tuition (or supervision)
• library access
• examination
• re-examination

Find out more about:

• living costs
• tuition fees

If you are an international student or a student from the EU, EEA or Switzerland and you need a visa to study in the UK, you may have to pay a deposit.

You can check this in the How to apply section .

If you're applying for funding, always check the funding application deadline. This deadline may be earlier than the application deadline for your course.

For some funding schemes, you need to have received an offer of a place on a course before you can apply for the funding.

Search for funding

Find funding available for your course

Entry requirements

The entrance requirements below apply to 2024 entry.

Qualifications from outside the UK

English language requirements, admissions policy.

This policy applies to all undergraduate and postgraduate admissions at Newcastle University. It is intended to provide information about our admissions policies and procedures to applicants and potential applicants, to their advisors and family members, and to staff of the University.

Download our admissions policy (PDF: 201KB) Other policies related to admissions

Credit transfer and Recognition of Prior Learning

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) can allow you to convert existing relevant university-level knowledge, skills and experience into credits towards a qualification. Find out more about the RPL policy which may apply to this course

• How to apply

Using the application portal

The application portal has instructions to guide you through your application. It will tell you what documents you need and how to upload them.

You can choose to start your application, save your details and come back to complete it later.

If you’re ready, you can select Apply Online and you’ll be taken directly to the application portal.

Alternatively you can find out more about applying on our applications and offers pages .

Open days and events

You'll have a number of opportunities to meet us throughout the year including:

• campus tours
• on-campus open days
• virtual open days

Find out about how you can visit Newcastle in person and virtually

Overseas events

We regularly travel overseas to meet with students interested in studying at Newcastle University.

Visit our events calendar for the latest events

• Get in touch

Questions about this course?

If you have specific questions about this course you can contact:

Sherelle Coulson Programme Administrator School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 7199 Email: [email protected]

For more general enquiries you could also complete our online enquiry form.

Fill in our enquiry form

Our Ncl chatbot might be able to give you an answer straight away. If not, it’ll direct you to someone who can help.

You'll find our Ncl chatbot in the bottom right of this page.

Keep updated

We regularly send email updates and extra information about the University.

Receive regular updates by email

Chat to a student

Chat online with current students with our Unibuddy platform.

Social media

Get involved with the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics   social media

• How You'll Learn
• Your Development
• Your Future
• Quality and Ranking
• Fees and Funding
• Entry Requirements
• Open days & events

Autumn 2023 Admissions

Poetry and poetics.

For the 2022-2023 graduate admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants planning to focus on poetry and poetics. Comparative and multilingual approaches to literature are welcome, as are students from international and diverse backgrounds. We are particularly interested in applicants whose intellectual projects engage with one or more of the following: comparative poetics; ecopoetics and environmental humanities; historical poetics; translation and translation studies; the poetry and poetics of migration, indigeneity, empire, and/or colonialism; hemispheric poetics and intercultural exchange; poetics in relation to sound and performance studies; poetry and inter-arts exchange; emerging archival practices; the convergence and polarities of creative and critical thinking; and poetry and poetics in relation to race, gender, class, and sexuality.

Past Admission Cycles

Pre-1900 Research

Black Studies

For more information, visit Admissions.

All applications must be completed online through UChicago Humanities Division's  Online Application .

The Autumn 2023 application cycle is now closed. The application deadline was December 15, 2022.

Division of the Humanities FAQ

English Faculty Bookshelf

Creative Writing Faculty Bookshelf

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: should i apply this year if my research interests are outside of the disciplinary focus for this year’s application cycle  ​.

No. For the application cycle 2022-23 the department is only considering the applications of students planning to focus on Poetry and Poetics. However, if your interests include other topics in addition to  primarily poetry and poetics we would be interested in considering your application.​

Q: Will enrolled students be able to take courses and work with faculty outside of the research area specified in the admissions application?​

Yes. New students will benefit from the robust array of poetry and poetics faculty and courses within the department but also from the entire departmental faculty, who have unanimously supported this admissions initiative and are uniformly committed to support the thriving of all of our graduate students, this year and thereafter. In addition, many of our students do coursework in other departments such as History, Cinema and Media Studies, Comparative Literature, etc. ​

Q: Will this year’s focus apply to future admissions cycles?​

No. This year’s focus applies to the admissions cycle for the Autumn 2023 application cycle only. ​

Q: What kinds of courses are offered for graduate students? ​

For a list of current course offerings, please see our  course catalog .

Partial List of Faculty Working on Poetry and Poetics

Suzanne buffam.

I am the author of three books—two collections of lyric poetry ( Past Imperfect,  2005,   and  The Irrationalist,  2010) and a hybrid book-length poem in prose ( A Pillow Book,  2016). My fourth book, currently in progress, will be a collection of microfictions / prose poems that explore the contradictions of contemporary life with regard to gender, class, aging, and mental health. What unites these books, across a range of forms and modes, is an attempt to leverage humor and irony in service of existential and metaphysical inquiry. 

Poetry and poetics, fiction, nonfiction, hybrid literature, translation, gender studies 

James Chandler

My research and teaching interests include the Romantic movement; the study of lyric poetry; the history of the novel; relations between politics and literature, history and criticism; the Scottish Enlightenment; modern Irish literature and culture; the sentimental mode; cinema studies; and the history of humanities disciplines.  Poetry and poetics have always been central to my work, from my first book on Wordsworth through writings about Blake, Barbauld, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron, Tighe, Tennyson, Hardy,  Yeats, and Heaney. My most recent book,  Doing Criticism,  returns to I.A. Richards famous experiments with student responses  to poetry to find new departures for critical writing.

18th Century British/Romanticism, Poetry and Poetics, British Literature, Global Literatures, Critical Theory and Objects of Study

Alexis Chema

I specialize in Romantic literature and culture, with particular interest in poetry, visual art, and the civic functions they have been engaged to serve. The book I am writing,  Roads of Excess: Poetry and Public Address in the Age of Revolutions , is about changes to the public sphere over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the impacts these changes had on poetry—who wrote and read it, how it circulated, and, most of all, on how matters of language and style adapt to the perceived conditions of mass reading.

Poetry and Poetics, Gender and Sexuality, 18th Century British Literature, Romantic Literature, Victorian Literature, History of Ideas, History of the Book, Literary History, Literature and Philosophy, Literature and the Arts, Visual Culture and Iconography

Rachel DeWoskin

Rachel DeWoskin is the award-winning author of the poetry collection, Two Menus (University of Chicago Press, 2020); five novels: Someday We Will Fly (Penguin Random House, 2019); Banshee (Dottir Press, 2019); Blind (Penguin Random House, 2015); Big Girl Small (FSG, 2011); Repeat After Me (The Overlook Press, 2009); and the memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing (WW Norton, 2005). She has received a National Jewish Book Award, a Sydney Taylor Book Award, an American Library Association's Alex Award, and an Academy of American Poets Award, among others. Her poems and essays have appeared in journals including The New Yorker , Vanity Fair , Ploughshares , Agni , and and the anthologies New Voices from the Academy of American Poets , and Wherever I’m At (Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, 2022). DeWoskin is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts and an affiliated faculty member in Jewish and East Asian Studies. Her interests include lyric poetry, sonnets, and translations from Chinese, particularly Tang poems.

Rachel Galvin

I am a scholar, poet, and translator. My research and teaching interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetry and poetics in English, Spanish, and French; comparative literature, U.S. Latinx literature, Hemispheric Studies, war literature, multilingual poetics, the Oulipo, and the theory and practice of translation. I’m currently writing a book on Latinx poetry and hemispheric poetics, and often teach courses related to both. My first book,  News of War: Civilian Poetry 1936-1945 , is an account of how civilian poets confront the problem of writing about war, with a focus on literatures of the Spanish Civil War and World War II and an epilogue on contemporary poetry published in the U.S. about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My newest poetry collection,  Uterotopia ,is forthcoming from Persea Books in Fall 2022. I also translate poetry from French and Spanish. Alongside teaching courses in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature, I teach in the Creative Writing Program   and serve as the faculty lead for Translation Studies. 

Poetry and Poetics | Latinx Literature | Translation | Hemispheric Studies | Comparative Literature | 20 th -C and 21 st -C American Literature | 20 th -C and 21 st -C Latin American Literature | 20 th -C and 21 st -C French Literature | Contemporary Literature | European Modernism | The Avant-Garde | Theories of Diaspora and Decolonization | Literary History | Literature and the Arts | War Literature 

Edgar Garcia

I am a poet and scholar of the hemispheric cultures of the Americas. My most recent book, Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2022), is a collection of 9 essays that show what this foundational creation story of the indigenous Americas (the Popol Vuh) has to teach people about the relation between emergency and emergence. My scholarship and poetry are likewise inquiries into the relation between crisis and creativity or world creation—often experimenting with literary and disciplinary form to bring ideas and feelings to life. My other works include Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography (Fence Books, 2019) and Signs of the Americas: A Poetics of Pictography, Hieroglyphs, and Khipu (University of Chicago Press, 2020). Alongside my books, my work has appeared in such venues as Publications of the Modern Language Association (PMLA), Modern Philology, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American Religion, Portable Gray, Poetry Magazine , and Fence .  

In addition to teaching in the Department of English and the Department of Creative Writing, in 2022 I also am serving as guest editor in chief of Fence , a journal of innovative literary writing. A more detailed description of my past and present work can be found here .

Critical Race Studies, Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Theories of Diaspora and Decolonization, Contemporary Literature, Animal Studies, Literature and the Arts, Translation, Visual Culture and Iconography

Timothy Harrison

I am the author of  Coming To: Consciousness and Natality in Early Modern England  (University of Chicago Press, 2020). My current research focuses on the relationship between Renaissance and early modern literary texts (particularly lyric poetry), the first-person perspective, and the history of concepts across languages and cultures. With Jane Mikkelson, I am currently co-authoring a comparative study on how lyric poetry represents human mindedness in seventeenth-century English and Persian literary traditions. I have taught such graduate courses as: Creations:  The Popol Vuh  and  Paradise Lost ; The Uses of Fiction: Poetry and Philosophy in Early Modernity; and Early Modern Natality.

Poetry and poetics, Renaissance and Early Modern Literature, History of Ideas, Literary History, Literature and Philosophy, Nonfiction Prose

Chicu Reddy

I’m a poet, scholar, and literary editor who studies poetry across a range of forms, historical periods, and regions. My most recent book of poetry,  Underworld Lit , is a long narrative poem cast in the form of lecture notes for an imaginary course in the humanities; at the university I teach a variety of courses in literary studies and creative writing, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary work in the arts and humanities. 

My research interests include modern American poetry, theories of global and transnational literature, and contemporary Asian American writing. In Fall 2015, I delivered the Bagley Wright Lectures in Poetry; these lectures, on poetry as an “affective technology” within a variety of historical periods and cultural traditions, is forthcoming from Wave Books. 

In addition to teaching in the Department of English and the Program in Creative Writing, I also serve as Series Editor for the Phoenix Poets book series at the  University of Chicago Press . 

Poetry and Poetics, Creative Writing, Contemporary Literary Publishing, Asian American/Pacific Studies, Global Anglophone, Translation Studies

Jennifer Scappettone

Jennifer Scappettone works at the confluence of the literary, scholarly, visual and performing arts, with particular research and teaching interests in poetry and poetics, translation and multilingualism, geography (both urban and natural), environmental humanities, documentary, and the relationship between writing, the present moment, and social change, across several departments. These interests come to bear in scholarly monographs like Killing the Moonlight: Modernism in Venice (Columbia University Press, 2014) and the forthcoming Poetry After Barbarism: Fascism, the Xenoglossic Word, and the Invention of a Motherless Tongue; Locomotrix , a collection of translations and scholarly glosses devoted to the work of the poet-refugee from Fascist Italy Amelia Rosselli (University of Chicago Press, 2012); and The Republic of Exit 43 : Outtakes & Scores from an Archaeology & Pop-Up Opera of the Corporate Dump (Atelos, 2016), a transgenre scoring of the attempt to piece together environmental injustices surrounding a Superfund-listed landfill. Scappettone has worked solo and in collaboration with musicians, architects, code and movement artists on performances crafted in response to sites ranging from Trajan’s aqueduct on the Janiculum Hill to Fresh Kills Landfill. Her work has been recognized by fellowships and other honors by the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Stanford Center for the Humanities, the Bogliasco Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the American Academy in Rome, among others, and is currently on display at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in New York City.

Performance, translation, multilingualism, translingualism, urbanism, environmental justice, Romance languages, geography, environmental humanities, ecopoetics, documentary, social change, poetry and politics, geopoetics, installation, interarts

Special Collections and Archives

The Library builds and preserves research collections that support the present and future needs of its faculty, students, and staff. Thirty-eight percent of the Library’s collections are in languages other than English, supporting faculty research with a global impact and making the Library a mecca for international scholars.

The Hanna Holborn Gray   Special Collections Research Center  is home to the Library’s rare books, manuscripts, and the University of Chicago Archives. Highlights include:

• A comprehensive collection of print editions of Homer’s works
• Editorial files of  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse
• Walt Whitman's original manuscript of "the Bible as Poetry"
• The Goodspeed New Testament Manuscript Collection
• The Ludwig Rosenberger Library of Judaica
• The Chicago Jazz Archive

The Library digitizes its own collections in order to provide greater access, preserve at-risk materials, and enable new forms of digital scholarship. One hundred subject-based collections, 44 archival collections, and 150 early manuscripts have been made accessible online, with items ranging from 4th century Egyptian manuscripts to early editions of the  Maroon  student newspaper to maps of Chicago before and after the Great Chicago Fire. Many more individual titles are available via our Library catalog and through our participation in the international digital preservation repository, HathiTrust.

Concrete Poetry, Concrete Book: Artists' Books in German-Speaking Space after 1945

Poetic Associations: The Nineteenth-Century English Poetry Collection of Dr. Gerald N. Wachs  

Whitman, Walt, "The Bible as Poetry." Manuscript, 1883  

Modern Poetry

The Berlin Collection

Helen and Ruth Regenstein Collection of Rare Books  

St. Albans Collection of Music  

Censorship and Information Control  

Field, Eugene. Correspondence, 1884-1895  

Sample Courses

Creations: the Popol Vuh and Paradise Lost

Shakespearean Dramaturgies: Text/Medium/Performance and the Magic of the Theatre

The Print Revolution and New Readers: Women, Workers, Children

Romantic Poetry

Ecopoetics: Literature and Ecology

Prosody and Poetic Form: An Introduction to Comparative Metrics

Modernist Poetry: Yeats, Eliot, Pound

Modernist Poetry

Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance: Issues and Methods

Old English Riddles

William Blake: Poet, Painter, Prophet

Anthropological Poetics

The Means of Production: Contemporary Poetry and Literary Publishing

Migrant Poetics

Coursework Overview

Teaching Opportunities

Departmental Resources

Affiliated Journals

Critical Inquiry  has published the best critical thought in the arts and humanities since 1974, presenting articles by eminent critics, scholars, and artists on a wide variety of issues central to contemporary criticism and culture. Cofounded by faculty members of the Department of English, including Sheldon Sacks and Wayne Booth, the journal currently has English faculty member W. J. T. Mitchell as its editor and English faculty members Bill Brown, Frances Ferguson, Elizabeth Helsinger and Patrick Jagoda as its coeditors. Many English graduate students have worked on the Critical Inquiry staff over the years as well.

Modern Philology ,  formed in 1903, is one of the oldest journals of modern literary scholarship. This journal is unusual in that it is not dedicated to one field in literature (a chronological period) or to the literature of one country or language. But despite its wide range and reach (or perhaps because of this)  Modern Philology  has always been edited by professors in the Department of English; currently, Ellen Mackey, Josephine McDonagh, and Tim Campbell serve as co-editors. The journal publishes all sorts of high-quality literary studies, from the most "traditional" (source studies, etc.) to the most "advanced" (theoretically motivated essays, etc.).

Chicago Review  is a literary magazine founded in 1946 and based at the University of Chicago. It is a premier venue for innovative poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism. Recent and forthcoming issues focus on the Black Arts Movement in Chicago, Jaime de Angulo, the Infrarealistas, Helen Adam, and Ed Roberson. The magazine is run by graduate students from across the disciplines, including many from the Department of English.

Recent Issues

The Chicago Review Spring 2022

UChicago Centers Abroad

Graduate students are also free to work on projects at one of UChicago's centers abroad. The overseas centers expand opportunities for collaboration with universities, research institutes, and cultural organizations as well as provide research support for faculty and students. 

Yuen Campus in Hong Kong

Center in Beijing

Center in Delhi

Center in Paris

Our students regularly work on projects sponsored by the following centers:

The Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT)  The shared query that drives the center is: How do we theorize the present? 3CT supports work that interrogates systems of power and value, that proposes methods and frameworks for making sense of recent events and ongoing transformations, and that demands that theory be relevant to the world we live in. In doing so, we foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars, students, and practitioners who produce new forms of theory that help to illuminate both what is and what could be. Founded in 2004 by seven faculty members from the Divisions of the Social Sciences and the Humanities, our collective has grown to include eighteen fellows, enabling imaginative collaborations across the disciplines. Our intellectual activities include ongoing projects, lectures, teach-ins, book salons, conferences, publications, and teaching.

Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry   The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is a forum at the University of Chicago for experimental collaborations between artists and scholars. The Center seeks to intervene in existing structures that keep scholarship and the arts separate from each other, and to help reimagine new relationships between them. At the Center’s heart are its year-long collaborative fellowships involving at least two people, one from inside and outside the university community, who eventually co-teach a course open to undergraduate and graduate students. The experimental nature of the Gray Center’s work has yielded a wide variety of forms through which past, current, and prospective fellows share their work with diverse constituencies on campus, throughout Chicago and the US, and globally; these include the monthly public conversation series Sidebar and (virtually) FarBar; the experimental music/performance initiative Gray Sound; various conferences and symposia; and our biannual journal Portable Gray, published by University of Chicago Press and distributed to over 30 countries on 4 continents. The hallmark of the Gray Center is the creation of a zone of commitment that allows scholars and artists to take risks not otherwise possible given their professional profiles. The Gray Center, in short, is a place for serious play and genuine exploration.

Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society   The Neubauer Collegium cultivates communities of inquiry at the University of Chicago. Our faculty-led research projects bring together scholars and practitioners whose collaboration is required to address complex human challenges. Our Visiting Fellows program brings the best minds from around the world for collaboration, animating the intellectual and creative environment on campus. Our gallery presents art exhibitions in the context of academic research, and our public events invite broad engagement with the scholarly inquiries we support. The aim of these activities is to deepen knowledge about the world and our place in it.

The Franke Institute for the Humanities   The Franke Institute for the Humanities is both an idea and a place. Conceptually, it represents the highest research and teaching ambitions of the University of Chicago, sponsoring creative and innovative work in established academic disciplines in the arts and humanities and encouraging new projects that cross traditional disciplinary and departmental lines. Materially, its physical space—a suite of offices and public rooms in the Regenstein Library—provides facilities where scholars and artists can do their work, and where that work can be tested and disseminated through discussions, debates, symposia, and public conferences.

Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture  From its inception, CSRPC faculty affiliates, students, and staff have been committed to establishing a new type of research institute devoted to the study of race and ethnicity, one that seeks to expand the study of race beyond the black/white paradigm while exploring social and identity cleavages within racialized communities. Scholars affiliated with the Center have also endeavored to make race and ethnicity central topics of intellectual investigation at the University of Chicago by fostering interdisciplinary research, teaching, and public debate. Fundamentally, the Center is committed to contributing intellectually challenging and innovative scholarship that can help people transform their thinking and their lives. Towards those goals, the Center provides funding and other types of support for projects initiated by faculty affiliates, graduate students, undergraduates, artists-in-residence and visiting fellows.  After extensive renovations in 2013, our building now features seminar rooms to host classes and workshops, space for our events and community activities and other resources.

The Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture   The Scherer Center helps coordinate the University’s rich and diverse scholarly interest in the study of American culture by sponsoring courses, seminars, and lunch-time discussions of new work; by bringing distinguished visitors to campus for lectures, symposia, and conferences; and by developing forums for meaningful interactions among scholars of different disciplines and the public.

Nicholson Center for British Studies  In 2003, the Robert Nicholson Center for British Studies was formed in order to bring together the university’s strength in things British. To further this mission of interdisciplinary study, the center funds short- and long-term graduate research in the British Isles or Ireland, sponsors lectures in British Studies, hosts graduate-run conferences and other projects on topics of broad interest, and co-sponsors a variety of campus events involving British Studies.

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Department of English

Annual report, sample mcqs for students.

List of Selected Candidates for Ph.D. in English April 2024 Interview Notice of Ph.D. in English April 2024 Applications for admissions to Ph.D. in English April 2024 Third Merit List of M.A. (English Studies) 2023-24 Second Merit List of M.A. (English Studies) 2023-24 Revised Notification of Online Admission for M. A. (English Studies) – 2023-24 First Merit List of M.A. (English Studies) 2023-24 Provisional Merit List of M. A. English Studies 2023-24 Notification of Online Admission for M. A. English Studies – 2023-24 Admission Notice of MA in English Studies 2023-24 List of Selected Candidates for Ph.D. in English Nov. 2022 Online Applications for admission to Ph.D. in English Oct 2022-23 Second Selection List for Ph.D. in English 2022 List of Selected Candidates for Ph.D. in English 2022 Notice of Ph.D. Interviews September – 2022 Online Applications for admission to Ph.D. in English 2022-23 Second Selection List of MA Hons and MA Hons with Research in English 2022-23 Selection List of MA Hons and MA Hons with Research in English 2022-23 Selection List of MA Hons and MA Hons with Research in English 2022-23 Rescheduled notice of Faculty/Subject change test 2022-23 Online Applications for admission to M. A. Honours in English and M. A. Honours with Research in English 2022-23 List of Selected Candidates of MA Hons. and Hons. with Research in English 2021-22 Online Applications for admission to M. A. Honours in English and M. A. Honours with Research in English 2021-22 Selection List for Ph.D. in English July 2021 Notice of Ph.D. Interviews and List of Eligible Candidates 2021 Revised Notification for Ph.D. admissions (Online Applications for admission to Ph. D. in English 2021) Online Applications for admission to Ph. D. in English 2021 Ph.D. Aptitude Test (Subject Change Test) 2021 Online Australian Writers-Lecture series: Second Lecture Second Lecture of the Australian Writers-Lecture series Online Australian Writers-Lecture series and Chevening Fellowships online programme Third Merit List of MA Hons in English 2020-21 Second Merit List of MA Hons and Hons with Research in English 2020-21 Selection List of MA Hons and Hons with Research in English 2020-21 Notice of Online Admission of M. A. Honours and M. A. Honours with Research in English Part – I for 2020-21 Final Time table Department of English Organizing a one day “National Webinar on Cultural Studies”, on 28 August, 2020

Introduction

The Department of English was established in 1962 and is one of the oldest language departments in the University of Mumbai.

Since, its inception the Department has played an important role in establishing relevant specializations such as English Language Teaching, American Literature, Gender Studies, Politics Ideology and English Studies.

The Department has now set forth to project itself as a Centre of Excellence and introduced two specialized Honours programmes in addition to its regular M.A. Programme. The M.Phil. programme has also been re-vamped to include courses such as writing for the media, creative writing and translation studies.

The Department has a Library-cum-Media Centre, an Audio-Visual Room and a Seminar room.

Special Activities of the Department

1. An English Language Teaching Cell has been instituted in the Department since 1995, aimed at initiating extra-curricular English courses to upgrade levels of English in the University and outside.

2. An Academic Links Programme has been initiated between this Department and (a) The Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg, Germany (b) Queen Mary College, University of London, U.K. (c) The Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K. (d) University of the Fraser Valley, B.C. Canada in the field of Post Colonial Literatures in English, Contemporary Literary Theories and Diaspora Studies.

These links involve faculty and/or student exchange, as well as joint research projects and research guidance.

3. The Writer-in-Residence Programme: This programme has been sponsored by the British Council, Mumbai from the academic year 2005-06 onwards and will enable British Writers to spend two months at the Department, where they will give lectures and conduct workshops in Creative Writing.

4. Short-Term Self-Financing Courses: (a) Voice Culture and Verbal Communication (b) American Culture and Accent Training (c) Business English Skills.

5. Memorial Lecture – G.C. Bannerjee Memorial Lecture

ADMISSION FOR M.PHIL COURSE IN ENGLISH 2008-09

1. M.A. in English Revised. 2. M.A. Honours in English Studies. 3. M. A. Honours in English and Cultural Studies. 4. M. Phil in English. 5. Ph. D. in English 6. Certificate Course in Business English Skills.

ADMISSION AND ELIGIBILITY  : For M.A. Course.

(A) For Graduate of Mumbai University / Other Universities: Those who have obtained the B. A. degree in the Mumbai University or a Corresponding degree of any other University recognized as equivalent thereto, are eligible for admission to the M.A. course in English in the Department of English on Payment of prescribed fees, provided always that the question of granting admission will be at the discretion of the faculty of the Department.

(i) As a rule, admission to the M.A. with English shall be confined only to those students who have passed the B.A(Special) in English and have obtained at least 50% of marks (55% in the case of graduate from other Indians Universities)in the six papers in English.

(ii) Students who have offered at least three papers in English Literature carrying 300marks are also eligible for admission to the M.A. part-I course in English. However, preference will be given to students with six papers.

(iii) Students who have passed the B.A. degree examination without the minimum required number of papers in English, or any other under-graduate degree such as the B.Com. or B.Sc. will be considered as faculty change students will have to appear for an ENTRANCE TEST conducted by this Department.

ADMISSION AND ELIGIBILITY : For M.Phil / Ph.D.

Eligibility criteria for admission to the M.Phil. course will be as per the guidelines issued by the University of Mumbai for admission to M.Phil./ Ph. D. Courses and University rules regarding Reserved Category Candidates. In addition to the above criteria there will also be a personal interview for the selection of students to the course.

FEE STRUCTURE: M.A (Part -I) : Rs.2,496/- Yearly M.A (Part-II) : Rs.1,621/ Yearly M.Phil : Rs.2,696/- Yearly Ph. D. : Rs.2,641/- Yearly Certificate Course in Business English Skill : Rs.6000/- Per course. (The Tuition fees for foreign students for M.A./ M.Phil & Ph.D. Courses is five times the fees chargeable to Indian students.)

SCHOLARSHIP: 1) Government of India 2) Merit Scholarship 3) Minority Student’s Scholarship International Students : Three [(i) M.A.: 2 students, (ii) Ph.D.: 1 student]

Administrative Staff

• Mrs. Deepa Dasharath Sawant – Head Clerk
• Mr. Bhagwat Shivaji Bhosale :Junior. Typist Clerk
• Mrs. Sangeeta Anant Sontate : Junior Typist Clerk
• Mr. Vinod mahadev Mahadik : Peon
• Mrs. Bharati C. Kadam : Peon

Temporary Administrative Staff

• Ms. Rupali Dinanath Palyekar – Temp. Junior Typist Clerk
• Mr. Yogesh Kanu Mane : Temp. Peon
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The Ph.D. in English at Ashoka University is designed for students who are passionate about literature as well as the wider world. The curriculum exposes students to diverse modes of analysing texts that collapse the traditional disciplinary silos of historical period and language. Students are asked to formulate questions that are firmly grounded in academic rigour while pushing the boundaries of current scholarship. Teaching and research are seen as mutually constitutive, and students receive extensive training in pedagogic practice, underscoring the dialogic nature of all learning and writing. As they progress in the programme, students are encouraged to experiment with their teaching in the classroom. The Ph.D. in English thus aims to produce colleagues whose work is academically rigorous, but who are also not afraid to inject intellectual adventurousness into their theory and practice.

The English Department at Ashoka University has strengths in literary theory, Indian literatures (including Dalit and Sufi literatures), Translation Studies, global medieval and early modern literature, Indian Shakespeares, Precolonial literature of European-Indian encounter, Queer Theory, Digital Humanities, Performance Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Modernism, Film Studies, and Ecocriticism.

Students thinking of applying to the Ph.D. programme in English at Ashoka are advised to first visit the university website and acquaint themselves with faculty specializations before devising a possible topic of research. The programme will only accept students whose specific research interest makes a clear fit with the scholarship of one or more members of the faculty.

All our PhD students are fully funded for a period of five years. In addition, we also offer funds for books and travel, including for international conferences.

Requirements

Requirements to Apply

Students with an MA or MPhil in English (with 55% or higher). We will also consider applicants from non-English backgrounds so long as they can demonstrate expertise in the field of English literature.

To apply to the Ph.D. in English, applicants need to complete an online application form and to provide the following:

Statement of Purpose (700 words)

Research essay on student’s area of interest (3500 words): We are looking for a critical writing sample and not a research proposal or programmatic abstract of your dissertation. The writing sample can be an academic essay or a chapter of an undergraduate or graduate (MA or MPhil) thesis that best represents your academic interests.

Two academic letters of recommendation

Applications to the PhD programme are based on the online application followed by

a) a written examination of the longlisted candidates and

b) an interview of candidates shortlisted after the written examination.

Requirements for the Ph.D. in English

As part of the programme, students sign up for a maximum of 12 credits–3 4000L English courses of 4 credits each–during each semester. Among the total of 12 required courses, students can opt for a maximum of two Independent Study Modules (ISM) on topics of their devising, and with professors of their choosing (provided the professors are willing). The maximum number of courses that students can take in other departments is three across the first two years.

Alongside these courses, the Ph.D. students also have to fulfil a teaching requirement for 6 semesters.

Timeline for applications: 2023-24 Applications Open: 20 January, 2024 Applications Close: 21 February, 2024 Online Written Exam for longlisted candidates: 17 March, 2024 Shortlist and Interviews: End April Decisions: Early May

The first two years will consist of coursework. Each PhD student must take three courses – of four credits each – per semester. This will allow students to study a wide range of theories and texts as they move towards formulating their dissertation topic.

Monsoon Semester

Mandatory Courses – Introduction to Literary Theory

Elective Courses – Two elective courses, at the 4000 level; classes at any other level will require special permission from the professor

Spring Semester

Mandatory Courses – Research Methods and Ethics

Elective Courses – One elective course at the 4000-level; classes at any other level will require special permission from the professor

Teaching Requirement –  Pedagogy Seminar: TA for one undergraduate class

End of Summer 1 / Beginning of Year 2: Written Qualifying Exam based on a mandatory list of tests. The list for this exam will involve literature stretching from 800 CE to the present. You will be provided with a list of 100 texts from among which you should pick 25, with the stipulation that at least half the texts should date from before 1800.

Elective Courses – Three elective courses, including, preferably, a seminar in Advanced Theory

Teaching Requirement – A Pedagogy Workshop and GA for the ASP Proseminar

Teaching Requirement – GA for the ASP Proseminar

Second week of the fifth semester in Year 3: Oral Qualifying Exam

PhD students must select at least 7 of their 9 elective courses from the department’s 4000-level graduate seminars. With the permission of the DGS, students can take two of their electives in the form of an ISM, an upper-level UG course, or a course in another department.

The maximum number of courses you can take in other departments is three across two years. The PhD Director can provide for exceptions to this rule under compelling circumstances.

End of third year: Defend a 10-12 page dissertation prospectus which will allow students to advance to the dissertation-writing stage of the PhD program. This prospectus will include a rationale for, and an outline of, the stakes of the proposed dissertation.

Years 4 and 5:-

The fourth and fifth years will be spent in researching and writing the thesis.

Teaching Requirement – Teach one Critical Thinking Seminar in one semester of your fourth or fifth year

End of fifth year: Dissertation submission and defense.

Download the Ph.D. Handbook

Applications for the Ph.D. Programme in English are now open

Applicants must apply through the online admissions portal., study at ashoka.

Programme Interested In Undergraduate Programme Young India Fellowship YSP PhD MA - Economics MA English MSC Biology

Year of Admission 2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26

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