PhD English

The Doctor of Philosophy in English with emphases on writing, teaching, and criticism is a professional degree designed primarily for those planning on or already engaged in careers as teachers and writers in four-year colleges and universities. Focusing attention less on bodies of knowledge than on the making of knowledge and on the questions that arise out of the movement between theory and practice, this program prepares individuals for positions in which particularly strong credentials in rhetoric, poetics, pedagogy, and theory are desirable. Flexible enough to be adaptable to the individual student's needs and interests, the Ph.D. program nevertheless requires that all students develop competence in the history of English studies, the teaching of writing and literature, and the interrelations among rhetoric, writing of various kinds, and literary scholarship.