The PhD candidate will take 30 hours of coursework beyond the MA. Coursework must include:

• At least 18 hours in English at the 8000-level (English 8001, English 8005, English 8095 and 9090 hours do not count toward the 18-hour requirement). 

Candidates’ coursework and program of study will be designed to prepare them as competent scholars in the designated fields. All PhD candidates are required to take:

• English 8005, Introduction to Graduate Studies, a one-hour course in fall semester of the first year in the program
• English 8010, Theory and Practice of Composition, is required in the first semester for students teaching English 1000
• A course in English linguistics focused on the structure of the language (English 7600 or an equivalent graduate course at another institution), on its history (English 7610, English 7200, or an equivalent graduate course at another institution), or on sociolinguistic aspects of English (English 7620 or an equivalent graduate course at another institution)
• A course in literary criticism (English 8050, 8060, 8070, or an equivalent graduate course at another institution)
• English 8020, The Theory and Practice of Teaching in English (for students who want to teach literature classes)

PhD students in the creative writing program are required to take:

• 9 workshop hours at the 8000 level 
• 6 hours of 8000-level seminars whose content includes in-depth analysis of literary texts. Workshops do not fulfill this requirement. 7000-level courses, or courses outside of the English department may be substituted with the approval of the Director of Creative Writing and the Director of Graduate Studies

A student may elect one English 8095 problems course (a maximum of 3 hours credit), with the prior consent of the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), but the credits will not count towards the 18-hour 8000-level course requirement. Students may also take up to 9 hours of coursework outside English in fields related to their programs of study upon the advice and consent of the advisory committee. In general, students with limited backgrounds in related areas (such as history, philosophy, art history) are encouraged to take coursework in such areas, while students with extensive background in other areas (e.g., one whose undergraduate major or MA is in a field other than English) should choose to concentrate coursework within the department.

PhD students must fulfill a language requirement to ensure that all students have a familiarity with a language other than English. Students, regardless of specialty, gain substantially by making meaningful connections between their own work and a non-English-speaking culture. 

A student may satisfy the language requirement for the PhD in English by one of the following:

1. By taking coursework at MU. The student must pass with a grade of B or better an intensive introduction to a language, the two-semester introductory sequence of courses, or one course at or beyond the second semester level in the language chosen. 
2. By demonstrating to the Director of Graduate Studies that the student has taken courses equivalent to those specified in item #1 at another college or university.
3. By demonstrating proficiency through a language test. Language tests will be administered by the department in November and April. Those wishing to take a test must notify the DGS in the semester prior. Those students who submitted a TOEFL score as part of their application to graduate school will be considered to have passed the language requirement.

Upon entering the program, students should work with the DGS or a faculty advisor to plan how they will fulfill the language requirement. Projects and areas of study will require different levels of language proficiency. Students’ committees may recommend that they pursue language study beyond the level required by the department.

Below is a sample timeline for completing the PhD within five years of funding. Variations to the timeline can be developed in consultation with a student’s advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies.

Students who are unable to keep to the 5-year funded PhD timeline because of extreme circumstances (e.g., disability, medical condition, family emergency) should consider applying for an additional semester of funding (see "Additional Semester of Teaching Policy" form in the box to the right side of this page).

Although the Department of English offers only 5 years of guaranteed funding, the Graduate School allows 5 years after entering the program for students to pass their Comprehensive Exams and 5 additional years for students to defend their dissertations after passing their Comprehensive Exams. 

The Qualifying Exam satisfies a Graduate School requirement. The student and advisor should decide on a proposed Plan of Study (D-2 form) to be discussed and approved at the meeting by the doctoral committee. The doctoral committee is composed of at least three faculty members from the English department and at least one faculty member from a department other than English.

Students may use this meeting to shape their fields of study or their lists for the Comprehensive Exam, but this is not required to pass the exam.

Students are encouraged to take the Qualifying Exam by the end of their first year, but may take the exam at the beginning of the second year, if they need more time to compose their doctoral committees.  Regardless of the timing of the exam, all students should discuss a plan for fulfilling degree requirements with their advisors and/or with the Director of Graduate Studies by the end of their first year.

The Qualifying Exam must be a formal meeting, scheduled by the committee chair, with at least three of the four members present. The outside faculty member need not be involved in this meeting, but all four members of the committee must sign the D-1 form. The student is responsible for preparing the forms and bringing them to the meeting.

Selecting an Advisor

The advisor guides students through the qualifying examination, provides crucial advice for a student’s plan of study, helps with topics for the comprehensive examination, and works closely with students as they research and write dissertations or theses. Advisors will help students select internal and external members of examination and thesis/dissertation committees.

Upon entering the English Department, students will be advised by the Director of Graduate Studies. Through individual meetings and in English 8005, the DGS will help students prepare to approach potential advisors. PhD students should research potential advisors in their first semester by taking classes in their fields of interest, talking with experienced graduate students, and consulting with the DGS. Early in the second semester of their study students should meet with potential advisors to determine academic compatibility. Students will need to find an advisor working in their primary area of concentration. This primary area will consist of some combination of historical period, genre, and approach and should be reflected in professional associations and in job listings. Within these areas of primary interest, most students will choose among a small number of potential faculty mentors. In some cases, students will change fields on account of excellent experiences in their first year of graduate study. In choosing an advisor, one should also consider to what extent the faculty member shares methodological interests with the student.

When meeting with a potential advisor, a student should be prepared to discuss both the topic and the methodology that they desire to pursue. A one- or two-page research proposal detailing the broad questions the project will answer and the means by which research questions will be addressed.

For further information, please see the Graduate School's Guidelines for Good Practice in Graduate Education.

Selecting a Program Committee

Students should approach potential faculty committee members by the end of their first year in the program. The committee is registered with the Graduate School with the D-1 form. 

The PhD Committee consists of at least four faculty members (including the chair). Three of the members will be faculty in the English Department; the fourth may either be an additional member of the English Department or a faculty member from a different department.  Members from outside the department are extremely helpful for some dissertation projects, and students should consult with their faculty advisors about the potential benefits of including one, as well about the composition of their committees in general. As a group, members of the PhD Committee should be equipped to support the student in both prospective primary and secondary fields for the comprehensive examination.

Students can fill out a form to change the composition of the committee, to be signed by the new committee member and the Director of Graduate Studies.

Advising Guidelines

Recognizing that the advising relationship is a mutual one, in which both advisors and students must take responsibility for good communication—about expectations, about what is working well, and about what can be improved—the following is a codification of the observable behaviors that define high-quality graduate advising.

Given that advisors are in positions of power, high-quality advisors consider how their words and actions can impact mentees’ progress. We see high-quality graduate advising as defined by:

Supporting Academic and Professional Development

1. Advisors should meet with their advisees at least once each semester to assess progress toward the degree.
2. Advisors should explain the demands of all aspects of the degree program and work with their advisees to form a communication and collaboration plan in order to do the work of the degree program.
3. Advisors should work with their students to establish a timeline for completing the degree program that includes a schedule of meetings and exams, selecting courses and/or committee members, and a plan for coordinating with other committee members. Advisors should also prepare their advisees for oral exams and defenses.

Providing and Asking for Timely and Substantive Feedback

4. Advisors should strive to respond to student emails within one week of receipt, and provide students with feedback on large documents, such as drafts of exam essays and thesis/dissertation chapters, within 3-4 weeks of receiving them.
5. The advisor should contribute to their students’ professional development by observing their teaching, reviewing documents such as syllabi, conference abstracts, grant and fellowship applications, job letters, etc. Students should allow for at least two weeks for the completing of this work.

Treating Graduate Students as Junior Colleagues

6. Advisors should help the student to find professional employment inside or outside the academy and access other networks/mentors. This will usually involve writing recommendation letters. The student should give the advisor at least one month’s notice of any letters to be written and the advisor should respect the stated deadlines.
7. High-quality mentors provide time, resources, and opportunities fairly and equitably across students they advise. The advisor should avoid any appearance of a quid pro quo relationship with the advisee by refraining from accepting gifts, professional favors, domestic labor, or offers to provide refreshments at exams and meetings.
8. Advisors should be mindful and self-reflective regarding potential subtle barriers for underrepresented advisees (such as race, gender, disability, family responsibilities, mental health and/or personal and financial difficulties) and focus on inclusive ways of achieving the specific tasks and goals associated with degree completing.
9. Advisors recognize there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to supporting students and enabling their success. High quality advisors make an effort to “meet students where they are” in their professional development and to provide appropriate oversight and scaffolding that allows for continued professional development.

After all required coursework has been completed, PhD students must take the comprehensive examination. This exam consists of a written section and a two-and-a-half-hour oral exam.

Reading Lists

The major field list should reflect the student’s area of scholarly specialization and take into account the student’s interests and intellectual, pedagogical, and/or professional fields.

The minor field list should be a more narrowly focused secondary specialization (for instance, a student with a major list in African-American literature might have a minor list in twentieth-century American fiction), a genre or sub-genre (creative nonfiction, the sonnet, etc.), or an area of thematic focus (Transcendentalism, nature poetry, etc.).

The criticism and theory list should enhance students’ understanding of critical conversations surrounding the works on their major and minor list and can also be used to develop a separate area of specialization in theory that is anticipated to be useful for the dissertation.

All three lists together should comprise approximately 100-120 book-length works or the equivalent in scholarly articles or works in other media (as decided in consultation with the committee), with the major list roughly equivalent in size to the combined minor and criticism/theory lists.

Written Exam

The written section of the comprehensive exam is comprised of one essay, intended to prepare students for the dissertation. The essay will prepare creative writing students for the critical introduction and/or the creative dissertation. Although the written exam is submitted to the committee prior to the oral exam, it is expected that students will complete their reading of works on all three lists before turning in the final draft of the written exam. The order of this process is crucial, as this reading may well shape a student’s plans for the dissertation and hence inform the topic and substance of the written exam.

The essay will identify and summarize the critical conversation(s) in which a student’s individual dissertation work will participate. This essay may have, but does not require, an original argument. In consultation with their committee members, students are encouraged to shape their written exam to best serve their research needs. The essay must be 15-20 pages, not counting additional materials such as bibliography, illustrations, or charts (which should be placed in an appendix). While the essay should refer to both primary and secondary sources from students’ lists, students may also use other sources relevant to their projected dissertation.

Students will submit two drafts to their committee members: a first draft and a final written exam. The first draft must be submitted for written or oral feedback on how to proceed with revisions at least four weeks and no more than sixteen weeks before turning in the final written exam. The committee will evaluate each version of the essay for range and depth of coverage, specificity of references to the works discussed, theoretical grasp of the material, effective synthesis of important approaches or debates, and clarity of organization and style. Once the final written exam has been submitted, committee members will use these criteria to vote on whether the student has passed the written portion of the exam. To proceed to the oral exam, students must receive no more than one vote of “fail” or “abstain.”

At least one month prior to the submission of the final written exam, students should communicate with committee members, alerting committee members to the date the final written exam will be submitted. The advisor should consult with committee members to schedule a tentative date and time for the oral portion of the exam. The oral portion of the exam should take place at least two weeks and no more than one month after the final written exam has been submitted. The advisor should inform the Graduate Secretary of the time and place scheduled for the oral examination.

On the agreed upon date, the student should submit the final version of the written exam to the Graduate Secretary, who will distribute the exam to the student’s committee. Exams submitted to the Graduate Secretary that are either under or over the required page length will not be sent to committee members, but will be referred to the Director of Graduate Study. Within two weeks of receiving a copy of the exam, committee members will submit evaluations discussing strengths and weaknesses of the essay to the Graduate Studies Secretary, who will forward them to the student and also place copies in the student's file. If the student does not pass the written exam, the oral examination date will be cancelled and the committee will offer advice on rewriting and resubmitting the essay.

University rules require that students are enrolled during the term in which they take their oral exam (to be administered only when MU is officially in session). The oral exam must be completed at least seven months before the defense of the dissertation.  See https://gradstudies.missouri.edu/current-students/doctoral

Oral Exam

The oral section of the comprehensive exam is designed to test a student’s knowledge of the teaching and research fields represented by their reading lists.  Students should be prepared both to answer focused questions about individual works and to speak broadly about the connections among them.  Students should send final copies of their lists to their committee members at least two weeks before the oral exams.

The oral exam will be scheduled for two and half hours and will consist of:

• Two hours of questions, with format and time allotted to committee members arranged beforehand by the chair of the student's committee
• Fifteen minutes during which the committee deliberates about the exam
• Fifteen minutes during which the committee informs the student whether he or she has passed or failed, and discusses the exam with the student. The student may also use this time to schedule follow up meetings with each committee member so that they can discuss the student’s movement toward the prospectus.

Within one week of the oral exam, the chair of the committee is responsible for writing a brief document (up to one page) discussing the exam-- things the student did well on, and things that might be improved upon. The chair must give a copy of this document to the Graduate Secretary, who will forward it to the student and place a copy in the student's file.

In order to pass the student must receive no more than one vote of “fail” or “abstain” on the oral exam. Students who fail the oral examination will be allowed to retake it, but cannot do so sooner than 12 weeks after, or later than the end of the semester following the initial examination. If the student passes the oral examination, all members of the committee must sign the D-3 form. The chair of the committee is responsible for submitting the D-3 form to the English graduate studies office, and the form must be filed with the Graduate School within two weeks after the final completion of the exams. Per Graduate School rules, failure to pass two comprehensive examinations automatically prevents candidacy.

While studying for the Comprehensive Exams and after completing required coursework, students may elect to take English 9090: Dissertation Hours in order to maintain Full Time status (Full Time status according to the Graduate School is 9 hours before a student advances to ABD status). English 9090 may be taken before completion of coursework only with permission of the DGS.

After students complete their Comprehensive Exams, candidacy for the doctoral degree is maintained by enrolling in two credit hours in the fall and spring semesters and one credit in the summer semester up to and including the term in which the dissertation is defended. Failure to enroll continuously in 9090 Research hours (or alternatively, in the 8001 Critical Writing Workshop or Job Market Workshops) until the doctoral degree is awarded terminates candidacy. Guidelines for continuous enrollment can be found on the Graduate School website.

Prospectus

As soon as possible after passing the comprehensive examination, a candidate should explore a dissertation topic under the guidance of the student’s adviser. Candidates must formally present and describe the topic in a prospectus of no more than 15 pages (excluding bibliography). For the student to remain in good standing, the prospectus and a signed Dissertation Prospectus Approval Form (posted to the right on this page) must be submitted to the English graduate studies office within three months of a successful oral defense of the Comprehensive Examination or first two weeks of the semester following.  In the event revisions are requested by the committee, the advisor will keep the signed form until revisions are made and then submit the form to the office. The advisor should schedule the prospectus conference.

The prospectus should contain five elements:

1. The state of current scholarship in the relevant fields
2. The nature of the dissertation’s intervention in current scholarship
3. A description of method
4. A description of the materials—that is, the objects/archives studied and consulted
5. A short bibliography  

In the case of students writing creative dissertations, the prospectus should primarily describe the critical introduction (see “Creative Dissertation” below); ten pages is a good goal here.

The prospectus should be drafted in consultation with the adviser. Once drafted, it will be the subject of the Prospectus Conference, a meeting of the dissertation committee (outside member optional) covering the student’s ideas and research plans, including schedule. If a majority of the student’s committee doesn’t approve the prospectus, suggestions for revision will be made and the student will submit the revised prospectus only to the adviser; for this reason, students should schedule their meeting with enough time to revise and meet the deadline.

The prospectus must be completed for the student to begin writing, but it is also important because it usually forms the basis of grant applications and dissertation descriptions when the student goes on the job market. It is of long-term use to have a prospectus on file early, even though it is understood that the dissertation may change during research and writing. 

Dissertation

Two types of dissertations are written for our program: the scholarly dissertation and the creative dissertation. 

The scholarly PhD Dissertation is a work of original scholarship in a recognizable field covered by departmental expertise. Most dissertations in English are between 200 and 350 pages and combine an original argument with research into the field you explore. By the end of the process of researching and writing the dissertation, the successful student will be one of a few world experts in the field addressed. Therefore topics should be specific enough to allow students to stake a claim to expertise, while broad enough to speak to the general field in which the dissertation is placed. The dissertation becomes the central document upon which you build your academic reputation. At best, it will be ready to go as a book project. Chapters of your dissertation will likely serve as writing samples on the academic job market and might be revised into publications either before or after you have defended it and received your PhD. The dissertation itself will be read by the student’s adviser and a minimum of three other readers. One member of the committee may be a member of a department other than English. In the process of research and writing, some students work closely with an entire committee; others focus on the responses of their primary adviser to preliminary work.

PhD candidates in Creative Writing generally write a creative PhD dissertation, which may take the form of a collection of poetry, a novel, a novella, a book-length collection of short stories, or a book-length work of creative non-fiction. To exercise this option, the candidate must have taken 9-12 hours of creative writing seminars as part of the PhD coursework. In addition to the creative part of the dissertation, the candidate will compose a Critical Introduction, which is an article-length and rigorous critical essay that substantively engages the candidate’s areas of critical interest.

By the rules of the Graduate School, seven months must elapse between a student's successfully passing the PhD Comprehensive Examination and submitting the PhD dissertation.

Defense

Defense usually occurs within a month of submission to the committee of an acceptable dissertation. Committee members prepare questions in advance and the defense consists of a conversation regarding the scholarship and writing of the dissertation. The defense is customarily a celebratory occasion. But committee members can—and sometimes do—ask challenging questions that undercut specific and general issues in the project. Students have a chance to incorporate suggestions from the defense into the final document submitted to the Graduate School. Therefore, it is useful to schedule the defense some weeks before the final deadline for submission to the Graduate School in the term in which the student wishes to graduate. For the dissertation to be successfully defended, the committee must vote to pass it with no more than one abstaining or dissenting vote. If the dissertation is not passed, the student can revise in accordance with suggestions and resubmit.

The advisor will schedule two and half hours for the defense. It will consist of: two hours of questions and conversation, fifteen minutes during which the committee deliberates about the exam, and fifteen minutes during which the committee discusses the outcome and any revisions to be incorporated into the final copy turned in to the Graduate School.

PhD students may elect to invite people outside of their committees to attend their defenses. The student and advisor should agree on whether the audience can be present for the whole defense or just the opening portion. The audience may not be present for committee deliberations from which the PhD candidate is excluded. Audience members may observe but cannot ask questions, give comments, or reduce the allotted time for committee questioning in any way. Recording or livestreaming the defense is not permitted.

For instructions on filing your dissertation, see: https://gradstudies.missouri.edu/current-students/thesis-dissertation/thesis-dissertation-guidelines/

Dissertations in Progress

Updated 4/19/2024

Heather Asbeck

“Pockets in Print: Reading the Material Circumstances of Women's Lives, 1840-1870”

Director: Nancy West

K. Mikeal Borgard

"Terrorism Literature: An Undefined Genre"

Director: Phong Nguyen

Erick Burdock

"Queern Humor & Resistant Readings in Canonical Gothic Film and Literature"

Director: Elizabeth Chang

Tyler Corbridge

"The Desert Whaling"

Director: Phong Nguyen

Traci Cox

“Missed”

Director: Anand Prahlad

Blake Estep

"'Continually Reimagined and Contested': A Narrative Theory Approach to Four Reconstruction Novels"

Director: John Evelev

Chelsea Fabian

“Identities Unbound: Queer Liminality, Futurity, and Other-World Speculative Fiction”

Director: Becca Hayes

Anna McAnnally

"Unserious Adaptation: Connections between 19th and 21st Century Literary Culture in Adaptations of Little Women"

Director: Alexandra Socarides

Thanh Nguyen

"The English and Vietnamese of Vietnamese Immigrants in the US"

Director: Michael Marlo

Jesutofunmi Omowumi

“The African Diasporic Novels of Geo-Poethics: Decolonizing Black

Anthropocenes in the Contemporary Climate Change Crisis”

Director: Christopher Okonkwo

McKenzie Peck

"A History and Examination on Robert Thornton and His Manuscripts"

Director: Emma Lipton

Maurine Pfuhl

"Heavily Perfumed Women"

Director: Julija Ŝukys

Shelby Preston

"Performing Disidentifications in Chivalric Romance at the Anglo Scottish Border"

Director: Emma Lipton

Yoonjae Shin

“Gothic Jurisprudence: Genre, Gender, and the Rule of Law”

Director: Noah Heringman

Brittany Wilson

"This is How the World Ends": Environmental Necropolitics and BIPOC Futurist Visions for Climate Justice in the U.S."

Director: Sheri-Marie Harrison

Allison Wiltshire

"Breakable Binaries: Twins in African and African American Literature, Film, Artwork, and Culture"

Co-Directors: Christopher Okonkwo and Sheri-Marie Harrison

Recent Dissertations

(2023-2026)

Micaela Bombard (PhD 2023) "Grievances & Appeals" poetry collection and "Poetry as Accommodation: Reconciling Pain, Language & Theory in Disability Studies" critical introduction.

Bailey Boyd (PhD 2023) "Fathoming"

Hailey Cox (PhD 2024) "The Opposite of Gone"

Cass Donish (PhD 2024) "Your Dazzling Death"

Samantha Edmonds (PhD 2024) "A World to Hold Us All"

Lindsay Fowler (PhD 2023) "Bury the Key: A Book of Houses"

Ariel Fried (PhD 2024) "Being and Belonging in Victorian Fiction, Science, and Medicine: Subjectivity and Affective Relations Constructing Victorian Time and Space (1847-1897)"

AnneElise Hatjakes (PhD 2024) "The Suicide Table"

Heather-Heckman-McKenna (PhD 2023) "Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Subversive Female Body"

Jolie Mandelbum (PhD 2023) "The Monstrous Ordinary: The Erasure of the Women of Weird Tales and the Implications for Monster Theory"

Erin Regneri (PhD 2023) "We Must Look a Long Time Before We Can See: The Art and Science of Thoreau's Early Work"

(2019-2022)

Ashley Anderson (PhD 2022) “Sifting the Feminine Bones: Essays”

Megan Abrahamson (PhD 2020) “Medieval Romance, Fanfiction, and the Erotics of Shame”

Gregory Allendorf (PhD 2019) “Bottle Fly”

Jordi Alonso (PhD 2021) "An Island of Nymphs:" Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Victoria Women's Classical Education"

London Brickley (PhD 2019) “Science Frictions: Science, Folklore, and ‘The Future’”

Elise Broaddus (PhD 2020) "`the back-and-forth form': Epistolary Mediation in Late Medieval English Literature"

Gwendolyn Edward (PhD 2021) "Refrain"

Carley Gomez (PhD 2021) "The First Inch of a Saguaro"

Elijah Guerra (PhD 2022) “Spatial Politics in Genre in the 21st Century Arabic Novel in English”

Jacob Hall (PhD 2022) “The Conditions”

Kate Harlin (PhD 2020) “'One Foot on the Other Side': Suicideality in Contemporary African Diaspora Fiction”

Aaron Harms (PhD 2021) "Selling You On Flexibility: Toward a Flexible Framework for Reflexive Administration of Writing Centers"

Emilee Howland-Davis (PhD 2019) “Magical Safe Spaces: The Role of Literature in Medieval and Early Modern Magic”

Vedran Husic (PhD 2020) “Book of Apparitions”

Sean Ironman (PhD 2020) “As Many Roast Bones As You Need”

Kate Kelley (PhD 2019) “Policing the Boundaries of Whiteness: Monsters Made in the USA”

Travis Knapp (PhD 2021) "Anti-Calvinist? Ceremonial Conformity and Laudian Writing, Reconsidered (c. 1590-1640)"

Neriman Kuyucu (PhD 2020) “Transnational Spaces, Transitional Places: Muslimness in Contemporary Literary Imaginations”

Peter Lang (PhD 2022) “Between the body and language: Subjectivity and the literary arts”

Lawrence Loiseau (PhD 2019) “A Lacanian Reply to Marx: The Necessity of Topology in the Formation of the Social”

Timothy Love (PhD 2021) "Black Skin Matters: The Significance of Color in Early Modern England"

Jennifer McCauley (PhD 2020) “When Trying to Return Home: Stories”

Teresa Mildbrodt (PhD 2019) “Sharp Things, or the Silver Lines are Not Scars”

William Moore (PhD 2019) “Brain Catalogue”

Angela Netro (PhD 2022) "The Wise Avenue"

Rebecca Pelky (PhD 2020) “Through a Red Place”

Katie Rhodes (PhD 2022) “Rites of Leaving”

Brian Rodriguez (PhD 2021) "Beautiful Phantoms: British Literature, Political Economy, and Biopolitics from 1780-1855"

Donald Quist (PhD 2021) “The Freedoms of B. Kumasi”

Bradley Smith (PhD 2018) “Canon”

Joseph D. Smith (PhD 2019) “Worried Notes: Poems”

Nicole Songstad (PhD 2021) "Social Networks of Friendship in the Writings of Early Medieval English Women"

Steven Watts (PhD 2020) “Occupy, Blockade, Circulate: Narrating Community in 21st Century Crisis Fiction”

Kacy Walz (PhD 2022) “The Graduate Student Novel: A New Subgenre in University Fiction”

Jake Young (PhD 2020) “All I Wanted” (creative); “On Poetry: The Emergence and Function of Meaning” (critical)

(2014-2018)

Jessie Adolph (PhD 2018) “Dee-Jay Drop that ‘Deadbeat’: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Fatherhood Narratives”

Khem Aryal (PhD 2015) “Rewriting the Creative: Toward a Happenings Theory of Creative Compositions” (critical); “The Last Monarchist:Stories from Nepal” (creative)

Dorothy Atuhura (PhD 2018) “Documenting ‘Harm’: Mediated Representations of Gendered Bodylore from Sub-Saharan Africa”

Constance Bailey (PhD 2015) “It Takes a Village: Twentieth Century Black Women’s Fiction and the Spiritual Apprenticeship Narrative”

Allison Balaskovits (PhD 2015) “Magic for Unlucky Girls:Stories”

Anne Barngrover (PhD 2016) “Brazen Creature”

Toby Beeny (PhD 2018) “Ecclesiastical Advice Literature in Anglo-Saxon England”

Colin Beineke (PhD 2018) “Assembling Comics: The House Style and Legacy of RAW Books and Graphics”

Deanna Benjamin (PhD 2018) “The Education of a Gambler’s Daughter”

Julie Christenson (PhD 2018) “Interpretive Cultures and Anglo-Saxon Texts”

Corinna Cook (PhD 2018) “Leavetakings”

Andrew Darr (PhD 2018) “Masculinity in Early Modern English Revenge Drama and City Comedy”

Joanna Eleftheriou (PhD 2015) “This Way Back: Essays from Cyprus”

Lauren Fath (PhD 2015) “My Hands, Remembering”

Marissa Fugate (PhD 2016) “Midnight’s Children: The Adolescent Body in the Age of Nations”

Lianuska Guiterrez (PhD 2015) “And the Wood Doll Arose and Told, I’m a Real”

Ryan Habermeyer (PhD 2017) “Babbler: A Novel”

Rachel Hanson (PhD 2016) “Dislocations”

Stephen Haynie (PhD 2018) “Escalations: Stories”

Brianne Jaquette (PhD 2015) “The Locomotive and the Tree: Industrial Pittsburgh’s Late Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture”

Sarah Johnson (PhD 2017) “Mr. Boswell Peels an Orange”

Jennifer Julian (PhD 2017) “I’m Here, I’m listening: Short Stories”

Ruth Knezevich (PhD 2015) “Narrative as Archive: Ethno-Historical Paratexts in British Literature, 1760-1830”

Patrick Lane (PhD 2016) “Medieval Death Trip”

Miranda Mattingly (PhD 2016) “A Circuit of Haunting Pictures: Theorizing the Space of Readership in ‘Condition of England’ Literature and the Periodical Press, 1845-1889”

Elizabeth McConaghy (PhD 2015) “Migrations”

LaTanya McQueen (PhD 2017) “When the Evening Comes” (fiction); “And It Begins Like This” (nonfiction)

Juliette Paul (PhD 2015) “Transatlantic Geographies of Faith in the Long Eighteenth Century”

Kavita Pillai (PhD 2018) “The Refashioning of Fundamentalist Nostalgia in the Age of Globalization: Charting the Rise of the Right Wing via Textual Trends”

Nick Potter (PhD 2018) “Big Gorgeous Jazz Machine”

Nick Robinson (PhD 2016) “Our Family Walks”

Eric Russell (PhD 2016) “Nature, Materiality, and Human Agency in the Literature of the Great Lakes, 1790-1853”

Travis Scholl (PhD 2018) “Of the Burning”

Eric O. Scott (PhD 2018) “The Pagan’s Progress, or, The Invention of Pilgrimage”

Carli Sinclair (PhD 2018) “‘This Land is My Land’: Authority and Landscape in American Women’s Nonfiction, 1843-1903”

Magi Smith (PhD 2016) “The Drama of Dissent: Pamphleterring Culture and Performative Protestantism:1650-1795”

Gregory Specter (PhD 2014) “Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Circulation of Texts”

Jennifer Spitulnik (PhD 2015) “No People Like #ShowPeople: Broadway Performers”

Christopher Strelluf (PhD 2015) “We Have Such a Normal, Non-Accented Voice’: A Sociophoentic Study of English in Kansas City

Raymond Summerville (PhD 2016) “The Fetishization of Firearms in African‐American Folklore and Culture”

Chun Ye (PhD 2016) “HAO”

Jihun Yoo (PhD 2015) “The Frontier Myth and The Frontier Thesis Contemporary Genre Fiction”

Admissions Criteria:

We admit students with only a BA into our PhD program only if their academic records are extremely strong, if they demonstrate in their applications the necessary maturity for a PhD program, and if they already had a good idea of the area in which they want to research and specialize.

Funding and teaching load:

These students are paid the PhD stipend for each of 6 years; they teach 2 courses each semester.

6-year timeline:

The timeline is essentially the same for students entering our PhD program with a BA as it is for students entering with an MA, except that an extra year of coursework is needed in year 2 to allow students to complete the 72 graduate credit hours required by the Graduate School for students entering a PhD program with a BA.

Degree Requirements:

The degree requirements are the same for students entering the PhD with a BA as they are currently for those entering with an MA except that 72 graduate credit hours are required. Forty-eight of these credit hours will consist of coursework, with at least 27 hours of coursework being completed at the 8000-level. 

MA Information:

Students who enter the PhD program with a BA will not get an MA degree along the way. However, if a student chooses not to complete the PhD degree, they can get an MA degree by either writing an MA thesis or completing the comprehensive exam for the PhD degree (which can also function as an MA exam).