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Department: English

Executive Officers: Professor Siraj Ahmed

The Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016

Email: English@gc.cuny.edu

https://www.gc.cuny.edu/English

FACULTY

Tanya Agathocleous, Siraj Ahmed, Ammiel Alcalay, Barbara Bowen, Glenn Burger, Melissa Castillo Planas, Kandice Chuh, Todd Craig, Cathy Davidson, Ashley Dawson, Lyn Di Iorio Sandin, Mario DiGangi, Marc Dolan, Shelly Eversley, Duncan Faherty, William Fisher, Michael Gillespie, Matthew Gold, Jonathan Gray, Miles Grier, Stephanie Hershinow, Carrie Hintz, Peter Hitchcock, Nico Israel, Kelly Josephs, Richard Kaye, Wayne Koestenbaum, Steven Kruger, Erika Lin, Eric Lott, Mark McBeth, Mary McGlynn, Nancy K. Miller, Feisal Mohamed, Amber Musser, William Orchard, Richard Perez, Tanya Pollard, Robert Reid-Pharr, Caroline Reitz, David Reynolds, Joan Richardson, Michael Sargent, Talia Schaffer, Alexander Schlutz, Karl Steel, Amy Wan, Jessica Yood, Nancy Yousef

THE PROGRAM

In offering seminars and other advanced instruction leading to the Ph.D. degree, the doctoral program in English equips students to work knowledgeably and appreciatively with literary works, understanding traditional liberal arts methodologies, while it also encourages them to develop innovative intellectual approaches to a wide variety of texts. The program’s faculty is made up of distinguished scholars who have contributed significantly to both standard and emerging areas within the field of literature and whose ability to do so is enhanced by The Graduate Center’s location at the center of a great city that is unique for its renowned research institutions, rich cultural life, and splendid diversity. The program’s expansive curriculum, excellent faculty, and ideal location bring many opportunities to teachers- and scholars-in-training.

The program offers courses in traditional areas of doctoral study, including literature of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 17th and 18th centuries, the Romantic and Victorian periods, and the 20th century. In addition, seminars cover American literature from the Colonial period to the present. The curriculum also includes studies in literary genres—in poetry, drama, and the novel, for example—and seminars in the history of literary criticism and of poetics. The program has demonstrated particular strength in specialized topics such as feminist theory and women’s writing, gender studies, African-American literature and poetics, medieval and early modern literature and culture, Victorian literature and culture, textual theory and scholarly editing, gay and lesbian literature and queer theory, composition and rhetoric, 20th-century literature and culture, and postcolonial literature and theory.

Resources for Training and Research

The English doctoral program has various committees or area groups that coordinate colloquia, research activities and opportunities, and sponsor or cosponsor publications. These committees are in the following areas: Medieval, Renaissance, Restoration/Eighteenth-Century, Romanticism, Victorian, African-American, American to 1900, Twentieth-Century, Literary Theory, Bibliography and Text, Composition and Rhetoric, Gender and Sexuality, and Postcolonial. The Victorian Committee sponsors the Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction, Tennyson Research Bulletin, and Victorian Studies Bulletin. The program is a member of the Renaissance Institute of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.; The English Institute, Harvard University; and the Dickens Project at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The intensive Latin/Greek Institute, held each summer at the Graduate Center, provides a unique opportunity for English doctoral students. The program also actively aids students in finding teaching positions during their study and after graduation. An energetic internship program offers students on-the-job training in the teaching of composition and English literature at the various CUNY campuses; selected doctoral students participate in a seminar at a designated college for doctoral course credit while teaching under supervision.

M.Phil.

Upon advancing to candidacy, students may apply for the degree of master of philosophy (M.Phil.).

En-route M.A.

Upon completing 45 credits (including the required course, ENGL 70000) with an average grade of B or better, passing the First Examination, and satisfactorily completing a major research paper, students may apply for an M.A. degree.