Doctor of Philosophy in English - Literary Studies

The Ph.D. degree programs prepare students to write, to teach on the college and university levels, and to conduct scholarly research. At the end of their Ph.D. coursework, students will have acquired a productive general knowledge of the various fields of literary study in English and will have developed a concentrated preparation in their areas of specialization.

In the Literary Studies concentration, the doctoral examination will be in the area in which the student plans to write the dissertation. The examination consists of three parts: a two and a half hour identification section written take-home, closed-book; a seventy-two hour take-home, open-book written; and a ninety-minute oral. As described in the list of required courses below, in order to take the examination, the student must have completed 12 credit hours (4 courses) in or strongly related to that area, and met the foreign language/research skills requirement. The exam itself will be based on a reading list composed of no fewer than forty texts, devised by the student in consultation with the faculty advisor who will be the primary reader of the exam. The examination reading list must be composed, and approved by the faculty advisor, at least one semester prior to the semester in which the student will take the exam. The examination questions must be approved by the Director and Associate Director of Graduate Studies.