Graduate Studies

Ph. D. Program | M. A. Program | Application | Financial Aid | Graduate Students | English Graduate Student Organization

Office of Graduate Studies
Richard Barney, Ph.D., Director
Humanities 333
442-4055

We offer a nationally prominent and dynamic alternative to traditional literary history-based models of graduate study in English. The programs are dedicated to the study of writing in the broadest sense that advances diverse approaches to teaching in public education for the twenty-first century. The M.A. and Ph.D. programs center on the changing practices of textual studies in writing, teaching, and criticism as the humanities face the challenge of a post-print, transdisciplinary, multimedia culture. Combining the traditional strengths of philosophically and textually based modes of interpretation and analysis with new theoretical approaches that respond to the rapidly changing material conditions of discourse in contemporary culture, the program draws upon a distinguished faculty in critical theory, creative and electronic writing, rhetoric and composition, and media and cultural studies to provide a graduate education as relevant and timely as it is rigorous and flexible. The M.A. program lasts eighteen months and admits about 25 students per year. For the Ph.D., students complete 72 credits of course work (24 of which can be incorporated from previous graduate study) and take a three-part written and oral examination that focuses on a specific area of study leading to the dissertation. The Ph.D. degree can be completed in four years (fewer for students who enter with an M.A.). The department enrolls a total of about 12 new doctoral students per year, nearly all of whom receive assistantship or fellowship support. Students in the PhD program must complete a foreign language proficiency requirement; foreign language proficiency is strongly recommended, but not required, for students in the MA program.