PhD Program
We are primarily a Ph.D. program and accept applications for the Ph.D. degree. The basic requirement for the degree is 72 graduate credits and ten departmental seminars. Candidates must also satisfy an eight-credit Minor Field requirement, broadly defined as an area of knowledge or intellectual discipline other than English or American literature. The range of possibilities is vast, the only requirement being that the Minor Field be cogent and have some defensible relation to the student's Ph.D. dissertation. Normally, that requirement is met by the student's completing two graduate seminars outside of the department or within one of its special programs: Poetry and Poetics, Creative Writing, Literature and Philosophy, Literature and Psychology, Literature and Society, or Folklore, Mythology, and Film Studies.
Candidates for the Ph.D. also take a Ph.D. oral qualifying examination that is basically of their own design. The exam consists of three fields: (a) Author, (b) Historical Period, and (c) Genre or Critical Methodology. The student's dissertation is read by three faculty members and an outside reader of his or her choice. We have designed the program so that is can be completed within five years.
Doctoral Requirements
A student making normal progress can complete this 72-credit program in five years, and we have based our funding on that estimate.
Coursework: Coursework consists of a minimum of ten seminars chosen in any order from within the departmental listings.
Examinations: The Ph.D. qualifying examination is an oral exam consisting of three fields, typically a critical methodology, an historical period, and a genre or author, although other categories are possible. Each period or genre list must encompass a minimum of twenty book-length works, while in most cases the author list will encompass an entire canon. The student constructs each examination list with a faculty committee member who specializes in that area, and all three lists are reviewed for approval by the director of graduate studies.
Dissertation: The degree is completed through a book-length work of original scholarship or criticism. This dissertation is read by three faculty members.
