The Ph.D. Program in English Language and Literature

The Programs

The department enrolls about twelve students each year, including a small number of students pursuing the joint M.F.A./Ph.D. program. Our small size allows us to offer a generous financial support package. At the same time, we have a large and diverse graduate faculty with competence in a wide range of literary, theoretical, and cultural fields. Students choose a Special Committee of three faculty members, from whom they receive a great deal of individual attention. Working with this committee, students design their own courses of study within the very broad framework laid down by the department. The program is extremely flexible in regard to such matters as course selection, the design of examinations, and the election of minor subjects of concentration outside the department. English Ph.D. students pursuing interdisciplinary research may include on their Special Committees faculty members from related fields such as Comparative Literature, Romance Studies, German Studies, History, Classics, Women’s Studies, Linguistics, Theatre and Performing Arts, Government, Philosophy, and Film and Video Studies.

The Ph.D. Program

The Ph.D. candidate is normally expected to complete six or seven one-semester courses for credit in the first year of residence and a total of six or seven more in the second and third years. The program of any doctoral candidate’s formal and informal study, whatever his or her particular interests, should be comprehensive enough to ensure familiarity with:

• the authors and works that have been the most influential in determining the course of English, American, and related literatures;
• the theory and criticism of literature; the relations between literature and other disciplines; and
• concerns and tools of literary and cultural history such as textual criticism, study of genre, source, and influence, as well as wider issues of cultural production and historical and social contexts that bear on literature.

Areas in which students may have major or minor concentrations include African American Literature; American Literature to 1865; American Literature after 1865; American Studies (a joint program with the field of History); Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures; Cultural Studies; Dramatic Literature; English Poetry; the English Renaissance to 1660; Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay Literary Studies; Literary Criticism and Theory; the Nineteenth Century; Old and Middle English; Prose Fiction; the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century; the Twentieth Century; Women's Literature; Creative Writing (the major concentration for all M.F.A. candidates).

By the time a doctoral candidate enters the fourth semester of graduate study, the Special Committee must decide whether she or he is qualified to proceed toward the Ph.D. Students are required to pass their Advancement to Candidacy Examination before their fourth year of study, prior to the dissertation.

M.F.A./Ph.D. Joint-Degree Program

Each year one or two students may be admitted to both the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing and the doctoral program in English Language and Literature. This joint program offers a fuller integration of literature courses and writing workshops. In their first four semesters in residence, joint candidates are expected to complete four Writing Workshop courses and four or five Ph.D. seminars for credit, all of which apply to the Ph.D. course requirement of twelve courses, six for a letter grade. At the end of their fourth semester, candidates submit an M.F.A. thesis, and receive the M.F.A. degree. They then proceed to complete the remaining course requirements for the Ph.D. and write a final dissertation. Cornell offers only the scholarly Ph.D., not the Ph.D. with creative dissertation.

The Special Committee

Every graduate student selects a Special Committee of faculty advisors who will be responsible for providing the student with a great deal of individual attention. The Committee is comprised of at least three Cornell faculty members: a chair, and typically 2 minor members usually from the English department but very often representing an interdisciplinary field. The University system of Special Committees allows students to design their own courses of study within a broad framework laid down by the department, and it encourages a close working relationship between professors and students, promoting freedom and flexibility in the pursuit of the graduate degree. The Special Committee for each student guides and supervises all student’s academic work and assesses progress in a series of meetings with the students.

Teaching

Teaching is considered an integral part of training for the profession. The Field requires a carefully supervised teaching experience of at least one year for every doctoral candidate as part of the training for the degree. The Department of English, in conjunction with the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, offers excellent training for beginning teachers and varied and interesting teaching within the university-wide First-Year Writing Program. Graduate students are assigned to writing courses under such general rubrics as “Portraits of the Self,” “American Literature and Culture,” “The Mystery in the Story,” “Shakespeare,” and “Cultural Studies,” among others. Serving as a Teaching Assistant for a lecture course taught by a member of the Department of English faculty is another way graduate students participate in the teaching of undergraduates.

Language Requirements for the Ph.D. Program

Each student and Special Committee will decide what work in foreign language is most appropriate for a student’s graduate program and scholarly interests. Some students’ doctoral programs require extensive knowledge of a single foreign language and literature; others require reading ability in two or more foreign languages. A student may be asked to demonstrate competence in foreign languages by presenting the undergraduate record, taking additional courses in foreign languages and literature, or translating and discussing documents related to the student’s work in English and American literature. Students are also normally expected to provide evidence of having studied the English language through courses in Old English, the history of the English language, grammatical analysis, or the application of linguistic study to metrics or to literary criticism. Several departments at Cornell offer pertinent courses in such subjects as descriptive linguistics, psycholinguistics, and the philosophy of language.

Funding

Ph.D. and Joint M.F.A./Ph.D. degree candidates are offered five-years of funding combining:

• a first-year non-teaching fellowship with a full tuition fellowship
• two years of Teaching Assistantships with full tuition fellowships
• a fourth-year non-teaching fellowship for the dissertation writing year, with a full tuition fellowship
• a fifth-year Teaching Assistantship with full tuition fellowship
• summer support for four years
• All of the above fellowships include a stipend and Student Health Insurance.

Students also have competed successfully for Jacob K. Javits Fellowships, Ford Fellowships, Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Fellowships, Clare Hall Fellowships, Women's Studies Dissertation Fellowships, Shin Yong-Jin Graduate Fellowships, fellowships in recognition of excellence in teaching, and grants from the Graduate School to help with the cost of travel to scholarly conferences and research collections.

Admission and Application

Application Information

All applications and fees must be submitted on-line. Data may be saved and edited until the application is submitted, at which time no changes may be made. The deadline is December 15. Pre-admission visits and appointments are not offered at this time. However, successful applicants will be invited to visit and given the opportunity to attend seminars and meet individually with faculty and current graduate students.

• Application Deadline:
• December 15 (fall term admission only)
• Degrees Offered:
• Ph.D. in English Language and Literature
• Joint M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Ph.D. in English Language and Literature
• Ph.D. Requirements Summary (detailed summary for applicants)
  • Application and fee
  • Statement of Purpose
  • Three letters of recommendation
  • Transcripts - one official copy
  • TOEFL (if non-native speaker of English)
  • GRE General Test
  • GRE Subject Test in English Language and Literature
  • Critical Writing sample
• Joint M.F.A./ Ph.D Requirements Summary (detailed summary for applicants)
  • Application and fee
  • Statement of Purpose
  • Three letters of recommendation
  • Transcripts (one official copy)
  • TOEFL (if non-native speaker of English)
  • GRE General Test
  • GRE Subject Test in English Language and Literature
  • Critical Writing Sample
  • Creative Writing sample
• Joint applicants are reviewed by both the M.F.A. and the Ph.D. committees, and subsequently may be admitted to either program or both.

Department Admissions Mailing Address

• Graduate Applications
  Department of English
  250 Goldwin Smith Hall
  Cornell University
  Ithaca, NY 14853-3201