phd modernist literature

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Loyola University Chicago

Department of english, modern literature and culture.

(Image: MSA 7 featuring Ramon Shiva, Chicago MCMXXI Oil on Canvas, 53' x 50', 1924 Collection of Clifford Law Offices, Chicago)

The PhD in Modern Literature and Culture at Loyola University is designed for graduate students who desire to study Modernism, Postmodern, and Contemporary literature.  Loyola University Chicago features faculty working with a variety of literature and poetry including 20th-Century American and British, African-American, and Postcolonial literature. The faculty includes specialists in the fields of Psychoanalytic theory, Feminist theory, Poetry, Drama, and Film Studies.

• Modern Literature and Culture Resources
• Sample Course Offerings

Field-Specific Requirements

• English 400 : Introduction to Graduate Study
• English 402 : Teaching College Composition
• Five courses in modern literature
• Two courses in critical theory
• One course in Medieval or Renaissance literature
• One course in nineteenth-century literature
• English 502 : Independent Study for Doctoral Qualification
• Electives to fulfill the 60-hour requirement

Modern Literature and Culture Faculty

Aqdas aftab, suzanne bost, david e. chinitz, joseph janangelo, harveen mann, madeleine reddon, anushka sen, jayme stayer, feature faculty books, which sin to bear, authenticity & compromise in langston hughes  , by david chinitz‌‌.

Which Sin To Bear? explores Langston Hughes’s efforts to negotiate the problems of identity and ethics he faced as an African American professional writer and intellectual. The book traces his early efforts to fashion himself as an “authentic” black poet of the Harlem Renaissance and his later imagining of a new and more inclusive understanding of authentic blackness. It examines his lasting yet self-critical commitment to progressive politics in the mid-century years. And it shows how, despite deep misgivings, Hughes was forced to engage in ethical compromises to achieve his personal and social goals.

Encarnación: Illness and Body Politics in 

Chicana feminist literature, by suzanne bost.

Encarnación takes a new look at identity, following the contemporary movement away from the fixed categories of identity politics toward a more fluid conception of the intersections between identities and communities. The works of Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Ana Castillo enable us to examine how identities shift and intersect with others through processes of "incarnation." Encarnación accounts, as does no other critical work, for these writers' increasing emphasis on bodies that are sick, disabled, permeable, and, oftentimes, mystical. Concerned equally with the medical-surgical interventions available in our postmodern age and with the ways of understanding bodies in the Native American and Catholic traditions these writers invoke, Encarnación develops a model for identity that expands beyond the boundaries of individual bodies.  Winner of the National Women's Studies Association's Gloria E. Anzaldúa book prize for 2010.

Disciplining Modernism

‌ edited by pamela l. caughie.

This collection tells a story of disciplinary disorder; Disciplining Modernism brings together a group of leading scholars from various disciplines to confront the terminological confusion in the use of modernism and modernity across disciplines, including anthropology, history, the visual arts, literary studies, comparative literature, film studies, Caribbean studies, sociology, and economics. These fourteen essays use artifacts as different as a Catholic pilgrimage shrine, a Caribbean sculpture, a Chinese poet, and the internal combustion engine to explore the uses and the limits of modernism and modernity, ‘undisciplining’ modernist studies in the process.

Becoming T. S. Eliot

The rhetoric of voice and audience in inventions of the march hare, by jayme stayer.

T. S. Eliot's juvenilia show little inclination to question the social, cultural, religious, or domestic values he had inherited. How did a young man who wrote uninspired doggerel about wilting flowers transform himself—in a mere twenty months—into the author of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"? In Becoming T. S. Eliot , Jayme Stayer—praised by Christopher Ricks as a scholar who is "scrupulous in acknowledging the contingencies that will always preclude perfection"—explains this staggering accomplishment by tracing Eliot's artistic and intellectual development. Relying on archival research and original analysis, this is the first book dedicated entirely to Inventions of the March Hare, Eliot's youthful notebook, which was once thought lost but was rediscovered after Eliot's death. Stayer places Eliot's verses in the chronological order of their composition, teasing out the narratives of their making. Focusing on the period from 1909 to 1915, this incisive portrait of Eliot as a budding writer is as much a study of Eliot himself as it is a study of how a writer hones his voice.

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Office: Building 460, Room 216 Mail Code: 94305-2022 Phone: (650) 723-3413 Web Site: mtl.stanford.edu

Courses offered by the Program in Modern Thought and Literature are listed under the subject code MTL on the Stanford ExploreCourses web site .

The program in Modern Thought and Literature admits students for the Ph.D. and a limited number for a coterminal B.A./M.A. Program.

Graduate Programs in Modern Thought and Literature

Modern Thought and Literature (MTL) is an interdisciplinary humanities graduate program advancing the study of critical issues in the modern world. Since 1971, MTL students have helped to redefine the cutting edge of many interdisciplinary fields and to reshape the ways in which disciplinary scholarship is understood and practiced. MTL graduates are leaders in fields such as American studies, ethnic studies, film studies, social and cultural studies, and women's studies, as well as English and comparative literature.

The program trains students to understand the histories and methods of disciplines and to test their assumptions. It considers how disciplines shape knowledge and, most importantly, how interdisciplinary methods reshape objects of study. MTL students produce innovative analyses of diverse texts, forms, and practices, including those of literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, law, and science; film, visual arts, popular culture, and performance; and material culture and technology.

Each student constructs a unique program of study suited to his or her research. Students have focused on such areas as gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity; science, technology, and medicine; media and performance; legal studies; and critical and social theory. The program's affiliated faculty is drawn from fields throughout the humanities and humanistic social sciences, as well as from education and law. As interdisciplinary study is impossible without an understanding of the disciplines under consideration, each student is expected to master the methods of literary analysis and to gain a foundation in a second field or discipline.

Director:  Shane Denson

Director of Graduate Studies:  Mark Algee-Hewitt

Committee in Charge:  Mark Algee-Hewitt (DGS), Michaela Bronstein, Maxe Crandall, Shane Denson (Director), Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Roanne Kantor, Elizabeth Kessler, Marci Kwon, Xiaochang Li, Hideo Mabuchi, Bernadette Meyler, Ana Minian, Dafna Zur

Affiliated Faculty:    Lanier Anderson  (Philosophy) , Russell Berman  (German Studies) , Jennifer Brody  (Theater & Performance Studies),  Michaela Bronstein  (English) , Scott Bukatman  (Art & Art History) , Gordon Chang  (History) , Maxe Crandall ( Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) , Adrian Daub  (German Studies) , Jean-Pierre Dupuy  (French & Italian) , Paulla Ebron  (Anthropology) , Michele Elam  (English) , Amir Eshel  (German Studies, Comparative Literature),  Shelley Fisher Fishkin  (English) , Zephyr Frank  (History) , Duana Fullwiley ( Anthropology),  Thomas Hansen  (Anthropology) , David Hills  (Philosophy),  Héctor Hoyos  (Iberian & Latin American Cultures) ,    Lochlain Jain ( Anthropology ), Tomas Jimenez  (Sociology) , Roanne Kantor  (English) , Elizabeth Kessler  (American Studies) , Matthew Kohrman  (Anthropology) , Marci Kwon  (Art & Art History) , Joshua Landy  (French & Italian, Comparative Literature) , Pavle Levi  (Art & Art History) , Hideo Mabuchi ( Applied Physics) , Mark McGurl  (English) , Alison McQueen  (Political Science) , Jisha Menon  (Theater & Performance Studies) , Ana Minian  (History) , Paula Moya  (English) , Tom Mullaney  (History) , Alex Nemerov ( Art & Art History ), David Palumbo-Liu  (Comparative Literature),  Peggy Phelan  (Theater & Performance Studies) , Robert Proctor  (History) , Vaughn Rasberry  (English) , Robert Reich  (Political Science),  Jessica Riskin  (History),   Aileen Robinson ( Theater and Performance Studies) , José David Saldívar  (Comparative Literature) , Ramón Saldívar  (English, Comparative Literature), Wendy Salkin ( Philosophy),  Londa Schiebinger  (History) , Matthew Smith  (German Studies, Theater and Performance Studies) , Sharika Thiranagama ( Anthropology ), Fred Turner  (Communication) , Ban Wang  (East Asian Languages and Cultures),   Gail Wight  (Art & Art History) ,  Alex Woloch  (English)

Pericles Lewis

Yale university, the modernism lab.

The Modernism Lab, a virtual space dedicated to collaborative research into the roots of literary modernism, was compiled from 2005 to 2012. Through this project, we hoped, by a process of shared investigation, to describe the emergence of modernism out of a background of social, political, and existential ferment. The project covered the period 1914-1926, from the outbreak of the first world war to the full-blown emergence of English modernism. The Lab has supported undergraduate classes on Modern Poetry, the Modern British Novel, Modernist London, and Joyce’s  Ulysses , and a graduate course in English and Comparative Literature, “Moderns, 1914-1926,” as well as a class on modern German literature at the University of Notre Dame. Students in the classes have contributed materials to the website and used it as the platform for their research. The main components of the original website were an innovative research tool, YNote, containing information on the activities of 24 leading modernist writers during this crucial period and a wiki consisting of brief interpretive essays on literary works and movements of the period.

The project as a whole aimed to reconstitute the social and intellectual webs that linked these writers—correspondence, personal acquaintance, reading habits—and their influence on the major works of the period. We were interested, too, in broadening the canon of works studied in the period by paying attention to minor works by major authors, major works by minor authors, and works that may have been influential in their time but that are no longer much read.

Questions of particular importance for our research involved the modernists’ engagement with their literary, intellectual, and historical context. We were particularly interested in Anglo-European literary relations. A typical question of this sort would be, “How did the translations of Dostoevsky by Constance Garnett influence English writing in the period?” Another major concern was the tracing of intellectual trends: “How and when did psychoanalysis make its impact felt in modernist writing?” We paid particular attention to the literary manifestations of a broader historical context, including the modernists’ involvement with political movements such as socialism, feminism, liberalism, nationalism, and imperialism. Another major theme was the attitudes of these writers to formal religion and to alternatives such as atheism, neo-paganism, spiritualism, and the occult. The database traced the empirical information—such as references to Dostoevsky or Freud or Tagore in writers’ correspondence—while the wiki offered interpretive accounts of how these influences played out in the modernists’ formal and thematic concerns.

Visit the Modernism Lab  

Comparative Literature

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Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature is one of the most dynamic and diverse in the country. Its impressive faculty has included such scholars as Harry Levine, Claudio Guillén, and Barbara Johnson. You will study literatures from a wide range of historical periods and cultures while learning to conduct cutting-edge research through an exhilarating scope of methods and approaches.

Your dissertation research is well supported by Harvard’s unparalleled library system, the largest university collection in the world, comprising 70 libraries with combined holdings of over 16 million items.

Recent student dissertations include “Imagined Mothers: The Construction of Italy, Ancient Greece, and Anglo-American Hegemony,” “The Untimely Avant-Garde: Literature, Politics and Transculturation in the Sinosphere (1909-2020),” and “Artificial Humanities: A Literary Perspective on Creating and Enhancing Humans from Pygmalion to Cyborgs.”

In addition to securing faculty positions at academic institutions such as Princeton University, Emory University, and Tufts University, graduates have gone on to careers in contiguous fields including the visual arts, music, anthropology, philosophy, and medicine.  Others have chosen alternative careers in film production, administration, journalism, and law.

 Additional information on the graduate program is available from the Department of Comparative Literature and requirements for the degree are detailed in Policies .

Admissions Requirements

Please review admissions requirements and other information before applying. You can find degree program-specific admissions requirements below and access additional guidance on applying from the Department of Comparative Literature .

Writing Sample

The writing sample is supposed to demonstrate your ability to engage in literary criticism and/or theory. It can be a paper written for a course or a section of a senior thesis or essay. It is usually between 10 and 20 pages. Do not send longer papers with instructions to read an excerpt; you should edit the sample so that it is not more than 20 pages. Writing samples should be in English, although candidates are permitted to submit an additional writing sample written in a different language.

Statement of Purpose

The statement of purpose should give the admissions committee a clear sense of your individual interests and strengths. Applicants are not required to indicate a precise field of specialization, but it is helpful to tell us about your aspirations and how the Department of Comparative Literature might help in attaining these goals. The statement of purpose should be one to four pages in length.

Standardized Tests

GRE General: Not Accepted

Theses & Dissertations

Theses & Dissertations for Comparative Literature

See list of Comparative Literature faculty

APPLICATION DEADLINE

Questions about the program.

Department of English

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Ph.d. in literature.

Our PhD students are involved in a range of interdisciplinary and public initiatives. For example, some affiliate with interdisciplinary  Designated Emphases ; others have received grants to create  podcasts , convene interdisciplinary  working groups , or organize and annual graduate student conferences . Each year one student participates in a year-long exchange program with the  Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies  in Mainz, Germany; some have worked as Graduate Assistants and researchers for research centers such as the  Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program , the experimental media  Modlab , and the university’s  Datalab .

Students graduate with the qualitative and quantitative skills necessary for professional research and teaching in English, as well as extensive pedagogical training and a range of teaching experience that includes writing and composition, as well as designing and teaching Introduction to Literature courses. Our Alumni Directory  includes titles of recent dissertations, as well as information about the diverse careers for which the PhD has helped prepare our graduates. There is an option to complete an MA in literature , but it is not a stand-alone program.

Questions? Contact:

Aaron Barstow Graduate Program Coordinator, Ph.D. Program in Literature [email protected]   (530) 752-2738 Pronouns: he/they

Admissions / Online Application

Degree requirements for the Ph.D. program   (links to more details) include 50 units of coursework with at least 44 units taken for a letter grade, proficiency in one foreign language proficiency before degree conferral, preliminary and qualifying examinations, and a dissertation. In addition, there are also opportunities for students to pursue a Designated Emphasis and gain teaching experience.

Coursework Requirements

2 Core Courses (8 units)

• English 200: Introduction to Graduate Studies (taken as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory)
• One survey course in literary theory (Critical Theory 200A or 200C taken for a grade).

1 Workshop (2 units)

• English 288: Prospectus Workshop (taken as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory); students may petition to complete this course independently with a Prospectus Adviser.

10 Graduate-level Seminars (40 units)

• All courses must be taken for a grade.
• Five courses must satisfy the breadth requirement (see below).
• Five courses will be comprised of electives (see below).
• Students may count one undergraduate 100-level course as one of their ten required courses.
• Aside from ENL 200, no course graded Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory may count as one of the twelve required seminars. Independent and group studies may not be taken for a grade.

13 Total Graduate Courses (50 units; 44 units taken for a grade)  Additionally, students who enter the Ph.D. program without a MA degree can earn one en route to the Ph.D. degree.

The English Ph.D. requires a reading knowledge of one foreign language before completing the degree; it is not an admissions requirement. This could be satisfied through previous or current coursework or an exam. Any of the following demonstrates proficiency:

Completion within the past eight years of 3 semester-length, or 4 quarter-length courses in a foreign language at the undergraduate level. Students must earn a passing grade, but courses may be taken on a Pass/No Pass basis.

Students may take the Placement Test offered by the UC Davis Language Center , testing out of the language at the intermediate level.

A Pass in the language exam offered in the English Department at the beginning of Fall or Spring quarter each year.

The breadth requirements must be fulfilled by coursework in the Department of English or coursework taught by English Department faculty.  Five courses (of the total 40 units above) will satisfy this requirement. Students must complete two Earlier Period courses, and two Later Period courses, and one Focus course. 

Earlier Period Courses Pre-1800; or Pre-1865 if the course focus is on American literature

Later Period Courses post-1800; or post-1865 if the course focus is on American literature

Focus Course Interdisciplinary, Identity, Genre, Other National, Method, Theory

Faculty and/or the Graduate Advisor may choose to designate a course as fulfilling more than one category, but students may use the course to fulfill only one requirement. For instance, a student could use a course on women in Early Modern literature to satisfy the Earlier Period requirement, or the Focus (Identity) requirement, but not both. A student could use a course on Cold War Drama to satisfy the Later Period requirement or the Focus (Genre) requirement, but not both.

The electives requirement can be fulfilled by actual offered seminars inside or outside the English Department.  Five elective courses will satisfy degree requirements. UWP 390 is acceptable as one of the electives. Also, be aware 299s are ungraded but still count towards overall units. With the approval of the Graduate Adviser, students may also enroll in a graduate class at another University of California campus through the Intercampus Exchange Program .

Students who enter the Ph.D. program with MA coursework from another institution may petition the Graduate Adviser for a Course Waiver up to three of the twelve required seminars; each approved petition will reduce the number of required courses by one. Students may not reduce their coursework to fewer than nine seminars.

Students holding an MA may also petition the Graduate Adviser for course relief for up to five of the breadth requirements; each approved petition allows the student to substitute elective courses. ENL 200 may not be waived or relieved.

For each waiver or relief request, students must submit to the English Graduate Office a Course Waiver or Relief Request form (available in the office) along with the syllabus from the course and the student's seminar paper.

Graduate students may participate in a Designated Emphasis (DE) , a specialization that might include a new method of inquiry or an important field of application which is related to two or more existing Ph.D. programs. The DE is awarded in conjunction with the Ph.D. degree and is signified by a transcript notation; for example, “Ph.D. in Literature with a Designated Emphasis in Native American Studies.”  More information .

In the Spring Quarter of the second year or Fall Quarter of the third year of graduate study, students take a Preliminary Examination in two historical fields and one focus field. Three faculty members conduct the oral examination, each representing one of the fields. Prior to taking the Preliminary Examination, students must have completed the following:

Introduction to Graduate Studies (ENL200)

Survey of Literary Theory (CRI200A or CRI200C)

Four of five Breadth Requirements

Four of five Elective Requirements

Additionally, students select one focus field. A student may devise her/his own focus list in collaboration with two faculty members or, as is more common, choose one from among the following:

Black Studies

Critical Theory

Disability Studies

Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities

Film Studies

Media Technologies

Performance Studies

Postcolonial Theory

Psychoanalysis

Queer Feminisms

Queer Theories

Race and Ethnicity Studies

Science and Literature

Science Fiction

English 299 (Independent Study) is ordinarily used the quarters before the Preliminary Examination to prepare for the oral  examination and is graded Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory. Students may register for ENL 299 under the Graduate Advisor or a faculty member in the field of their exam for the quarter(s) they intend to study.

In the event that the student does not pass the exam, the exam chair will report the decision to the Graduate Adviser, who will work with the committee to decide whether the student should be given a chance to retake the exam (no less than six months later) or whether the student should be dismissed from the program. The Graduate Adviser will report this final decision to the student within 72 hours of the exam’s conclusion.

Any remaining requirements after taking the Preliminary Examination must be completed before scheduling the Qualifying Examination.

Students will select two historical fields from among the following list.   Students who would like to do non-consecutive historical fields need to get prior approval from the Graduate Adviser.  These lists and additional helpful documents can be accessed via our box folder "Preliminary Exam" in the English Graduate Program file.

The Qualifying Examination  happens as early as the spring of the third year and should be taken no later than the spring of the fourth year . The reading list for this exam, which is conducted orally, is constructed by the student in consultation with his or her three-person dissertation committee. When making their lists, students may consult the standard lists for preliminary exams available on the department's Box site. If the student has elected a designated emphasis (DE), materials from that field should also be incorporated into the Qualifying Exam reading list.

Graduate Studies requires the Qualifying Examination Application (GS319) to be submitted at least 30 days prior the the scheduled exam date.

Qualifying Examination Committee  The student, in consultation with their Prospectus Adviser and, if needed, the Graduate Adviser, nominates  four   faculty to serve on the Qualifying Examination Committee: 

• The three proposed Dissertation Committee members 
• One member must be from outside the English graduate program (this may be a member of the Dissertation Committee). 

The QE Committee is responsible for administering the exam. Neither the “Prospectus Adviser” nor the Dissertation Director (in many, though not all, cases these will be same) may be the chair of the QE Committee. Students with a designated emphasis (DE) must include one faculty member affiliated with the DE on both their qualifying and dissertation committee. DE paperwork must be approved before the QE application is submitted. The exam will focus on the Prospectus and the Qualifying Exam reading list. The bibliography of the prospectus will normally overlap substantially with the Qualifying Exam reading list.

The Qualifying Exam Report (GS343) must be submitted withing 72 hours of the exam. Upon successful completion, students receive the Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Plan B (GS321) .

If you are disabled, you are entitled to accommodations for all requirements of the program you’re enrolled in, a process formally handled by the Student Disability Center . We recommend starting the process of coordinating with the SDC early in your graduate school journey, as it can take time for the Center to process information.  We must work with the SDC to implement your accommodations for your exams.  Please indicate your need for accommodations to us as soon as possible, so we can include the Center in our exam scheduling process.  Please notify us by the fourth week of the quarter in which you intend to sit the exam.

The dissertation must be an original work of scholarship and/or interpretation. It may be critical, bibliographical, historical, or biographical in its subject. Students work with a dissertation director and consult with two official readers as well as with other faculty knowledgeable about the project. A dditional details . 

Secondary Menu

• Ph.D. Degree

The Graduate Program in Literature is a doctoral program, which means that all students enrolled prepare for the Ph.D. degree. The program does not grant M.A. degrees along the way. The typical time to completion for the doctoral program is 6 full years.

Requirements for the Ph.D.

• 12 Seminars
• 7 Literature Program courses
• At least 5 courses in a teaching field of your choice
• Foreign language proficiency in two languages
• Preliminary Exam
• Chapter Workshop
• Dissertation Defense
• Teaching Assistantship
• Responsible Conduct of Research Training

Additional Course Guidelines

Undergraduate-level Courses - There are no restrictions on the number of undergraduate courses a student may take outside the Literature Program during their graduate career. The approval of the DGS must be sought in such cases, and in any case Graduate School Regulations do not allow courses below the 500 level to count toward the fulfillment of coursework requirements or to be included in a student's GPA calculation.  In general undergraduate courses tend to be limited to relevant language courses.

Independent Studies - Students can take up to three independent studies over the course of their careers. Students have to complete the “Independent Study Notification Form” every time they take an independent study and it must be signed by the DGS. Supplies of these forms are kept in the DGS Assistant’s office.

Inter-institutional Courses - The Registrar requires students to follow a special procedure when they register for courses at other Triangle universities (UNC, NCCU, NCSU). Forms and information are available at the Registrar's Office. You’ll need approval from Lit’s DGS & the professor of the course.

Typical Degree Timeline

What follows is a very general timeline that graduate students in the Program may use as a rough orientation for their six-year course of study. It is not meant to replace the guidance that you should actively seek , for your own specific circumstances and research field(s), from your mentors and advisors.

During the first year, you will familiarize yourself with the department, the university, and the profession at large. The many colloquia and conferences offered at Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, NC Central and NC State, present great opportunities for you to get to know your peers, professors, national and international scholars.

During the second year, you can start presenting your work at conferences in your field(s). You should by now identify your main advisor(s), and begin TAing so as to familiarize yourself with teaching duties. You may also begin to plan for a Certificate in College Teaching.

During the third year, you will complete your preliminary exams and start to work towards your dissertation. Make sure to complete, by the end of this academic year, all the required coursework, including any language requirement related to your specific field. To be competitive in a specific field, you may well need more than one language besides English: please consult with your advisors about this matter.

During the fourth year, your focus will be to complete, if not an entire first draft, at least a good part of your dissertation. This is also a good moment to make your work known in the profession by publishing a part of your dissertation and by presenting some of the other parts at professional conferences. Finally, you should attend the dissertation formatting training sessions offered by the Graduate School (either during the fall or the spring): this is very important, to avoid any last-minute surprises that could jeopardize your entire time-plan for the PhD.

If possible, you should try to finish your dissertation during your fifth year at Duke. You should also keep a presence at professional conferences, and you may also want to consider the possibility of public humanities publications. Finally, this is the year to start applying for jobs.

You should be ready to defend by the end of this year.

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Recent PhD Dissertations

Of Unsound Mind: Madness and Mental Health in Asian American Literature

Carrie Geng

Cultural Capitals: Postwar Yiddish between Warsaw and Buenos Aires

Rachelle Grossman

Counter-Republics of Letters: Politics, Publishing, and the Global Novel

Elisa Sotgiu

‘Through the Looking Glass’: The Narrative Performance of Anarkali Aisha Dad

Indeterminate “Greekness”: A Diasporic and Transnational Poetics Ilana Freedman

Imagined Mothers: The Construction of Italy, Ancient Greece, and Anglo-American Hegemony Francesca Bellei

The Untimely Avant-Garde: Literature, Politics, and Transculturation in the Sinosphere (1909-2020) Fangdai Chen

Recovering the Language of Lament: Modernism, Catastrophe, and Exile Sarah Corrigan

Beyond Diaspora:The Off Home in Jewish Literature from Latin America and Israel Lana Jaffe Neufeld

Artificial Humanities: A Literary Perspective on Creating and Enhancing Humans from Pygmalion to Cyborgs Nina Begus

Music and Exile in Twentieth-Century German, Italian, and Polish Literature Cecily Cai

We Speak Violence: How Narrative Denies the Everyday Rachael Duarte Riascos

Anticlimax: The Multilingual Novel at the Turn of the 21st Century Matylda Figlerowicz

Forgetting to Remember: An Approach to Proust’s Recherche Lara Roizen

The Event of Literature:An Interval in a World of Violence Petra Taylor

The English Baroque:The Logic of Excess in Early Modern Literature Hudson Vincent

Porte Planète; Ville Canale –parisian knobs /visually/ turned to \textual\ currents Emma Zofia Zachurski

‘…not a poet but a poem’: A Lacanian study of the subject of the poem Marina Connelly The Tune That Can No Longer Be Recognized: Late Medieval Chinese Poetry and Its Affective Others Jasmine Hu The Invention of the Art Film: Authorship and French Cultural Policy Joseph Pomp Apocalypticism in the Arabic Novel William Tamplin The Sound of Prose: Rhythm, Translation, Orality Thomas Wisniewski

The New Austerity in Syrian Poetry Daniel Behar

Mourning the Living: Africa and the Elegy on Screen Molly Klaisner

Art Beyond the Norms: Art of the Insane, Art Brut, and the Avant-Garde from Prinzhorn to Dubuffet (1922-1949) Raphael Koenig

Words, Images and the Self: Iconoclasm in Late Medieval English Literature Yun Ni

Europe and the Cultural Politics of Mediterranean Migrations Argyro Nicolaou

Voice of Power, Voice of Terror: Lyric, Violence, and the Greek Revolution Simos Zenios

Every Step a New Movement: Anarchism in the Stalin-Era Literature of the Absurd and its Post-Soviet Adaptations Ania Aizman

Kino-Eye, Kino-Bayonet: Avant-Garde Documentary in Japan, France, and the USSR Julia Alekseyeva

Ambient Meaning: Mood, Vibe, System Peli Grietzer

Year of the Titan: Percy Bysshe Shelley and Ancient Poetry Benjamin Sudarsky

Metropolitan Morning: Loss, Affect, and Metaphysics in Buenos Aires, 1920-1940 Juan Torbidoni

Sophisticated Players: Adults Writing as Children in the Stalin Era and Beyond Luisa Zaitseva

Collecting as Cultural Technique: Materialistic Interventions into History in 20th Century China Guangchen Chen

Pathways of Transculturation: Chinese Cultural Encounters with Russia and Japan (1880-1930) Xiaolu Ma

Beyond the Formal Law: Making Cases in Roman Controversiae and Tang Literary Judgments Tony Qian

Alternative Diplomacies: Writing in Early Twentieth-Century Shanghai, Istanbul, and Beyond? Alice Xiang

The Literary Territorialization of Manchuria: Rethinking National and Transnational Literature in East Asia from the Frontier Miya Qiong Xie World Literature and the Chinese Compass, 1942-2012 Yanping Zhang

Anatomy of ‘Decadence’ Henry Bowles

Medicine As Storytelling: Emplotment Strategies in Doctor-Patient Encounters and Beyond (1870-1830) Elena Fratto

Platonic Footnotes: Figures of Asymmetry in Ancient Greek Thought Katie Deutsch

Children’s Literature Grows Up Christina Phillips Mattson

Humor as Epiphanic Awareness and Attempted Self-Transcendence Curtis Shonkwiler

Ethnicity, Ethnogenesis and Ancestry in the Early Iron Age Aegean as Background to and through the Lens of the Iliad Guy Smoot

The Modern Stage of Capitalism: The Drama of Markets and Money (1870-1930) Alisa Sniderman

Repenting Roguery: Penance in the Spanish Picaresque Novel and the Arabic and Hebrew Maqāma Emmanuel Ramírez Nieves

The “Poetics of Diagram” John Kim

Dreaming Empire: European Writers in the Fascist Era Robert Kohen

The Poetics of Love in Prosimetra across the Medieval Mediterranean Isabelle Levy

Renaissance Error: Digression from Ariosto to Milton Luke Taylor

The New Voyager: Theory and Practice of South Asian Literary Modernisms Rita Banerjee

Be an Outlaw, Be a Hero: Cinematic Figures of Urban Banditry and Transgression in Brazil, France, and the Maghreb Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

Bāgh-e Bi-Bargi: Aspects of Time and Presence in the Poetry of Mehdi Akhavān Sāles Marie Huber

Freund-schaft: Capturing Aura in an Unframed Literary Exchange Clara Masnatta

Class, Gender and Indigeneity as Counter-discourses in the African Novel: Achebe, Ngugi, Emecheta, Sow Fall and Ali Fatin Abbas

The Empire of Chance: War, Literature, and the Epistemic Order of Modernity Anders Engberg-Pedersen

Poetics of the unfinished: illuminating Paul Celan’s “Eingedunkelt” Thomas Connolly

Towards a Media History of Writing in Ancient Italy Stephanie Frampton Character Before the Novel: Representing Moral Identity in the Age of Shakespeare Jamey Graham

Transforming Trauma: Memory and Slavery in Black Atlantic Literature since 1830 Raquel Kennon

Renaissance Romance: Rewarding the Boundaries of Fiction Christine S. Lee

Psychomotor Aesthetics: Conceptions of Gesture and Affect in Russian and American Modernity, 1910s-1920s Ana Olenina

Melancholy, Ambivalence, Exhaustion: Responses to National Trauma in the Literature and Film of France and China Erin Schlumpf

The Poetics of Human-Computer Interaction Dennis Tenen

Novelizing the Muslim Wars of Conquest: The Christian Pioneers of the Arabic Historical Novel Luke Leafgren

Secret Lives of the City: Reimagining the Urban Margins in 20th-Century Literature and Theory, from Surrealism to Iain Sinclair Jennifer Hui Bon Hoa

Archaic Greek Memory and Its Role in Homer Anita Nikkanen

Deception Narratives and the (Dis)Pleasure of Being Cheated: The Cases of Gogol, Nabokov, Mamet, and Flannery O’Connor Svetlana Rukhelman

Aesthetic Constructs and the Work of Play in 20th Century Latin American and Russian Literature Natalya Sukhonos

Stone, Steel, Glass: Constructions of Time in European Modernity Christina Svendsen

See here for a full list of dissertations since 1904 .

Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.

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English Literature PhD

Awards: PhD

Study modes: Full-time, Part-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: English Literature

Discovery Day

Join us online on 18th April to learn more about postgraduate study at Edinburgh

View sessions and register

Research profile

Doctorate-level study is an opportunity to expand upon your interests and expertise in a community that really values research; and to make an original, positive contribution to learning in literature and related fields.

As the oldest department of English Literature in the UK, based in one of the largest and most diverse Schools in the University of Edinburgh, we are the ideal place for PhD study.

Our interdisciplinary environment brings together specialists in all periods and genres of literature and literary analysis.

Research excellence

Based on our performance in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF), over 90 per cent of our research and impact is classed as world-leading and internationally excellent by Research Professional. 69 per cent is graded at the world-leading level – the highest of REF’s four categories.

In Times Higher Education's REF analysis, English at Edinburgh is ranked fifth in the UK (out of more than 90 institutions) for:

• the overall quality of our publications and other outputs
• the impact of our research on people’s lives
• our supportive research environment

Given the breadth and depth of our expertise, we are able to support students wishing to develop research projects in any field of Anglophone literary studies. These include American studies, literary and critical theory, the history of the book, gender and sexuality studies, and global Anglophone literatures - where our specialisms include Pacific, African, South Asian, and African-American writing.

We have particular strengths in each of the main periods of English and Scottish Literature:

• Renaissance/early modern
• Enlightenment
• 21st century
• Contemporary

Emergent research themes in the department include the digital humanities, the economic humanities, the environmental humanities and literature and medicine.

• Explore our range of research centres, networks and projects in English and Scottish Literature

Working with colleagues elsewhere in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, and across the wider University, we are able to support PhD theses crossing boundaries between disciplines and/or languages.

• Be inspired by the range of PhD research in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Over the course of your PhD, you’ll be expected to complete an original body of work under the expert guidance of your supervisors leading to a dissertation of usually between 80,000 and 100,000 words.

You will be awarded your doctorate if your thesis is judged to be of an appropriate standard, and your research makes a definite contribution to knowledge.

• Read our pre-application guidance on writing a PhD research proposal

Go beyond the books

Beyond the Books is a podcast from the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at research and the people who make it happen.

Listen to a mix of PhD, early career and established researchers talk about their journey to and through academia and about their current and recent research.

• Browse Beyond the Books episodes and hear our research community talk about their work

Training and support

Between the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC), the Careers Service, and the Institute for Academic Development (IAD), you’ll find a range of programmes and resources to help you develop your postgraduate skills.

You will also have access to the University’s fantastic libraries, collections and worldwide strategic partnerships.

Part of a community

As part of our research community, you will be immersed in a world of knowledge exchange, with lots of opportunities to share ideas, learning and creative work.

Activities range from talks by visiting speakers and work-in-progress seminars, to reading groups, conferences, workshops, performances, online journals and forums, many of which are led by PhD candidates.

Highlights include student reading for the James Tait Black Prizes, Britain's oldest literary awards which typically involve reading submissions across fiction and biography and advising the judges on the shortlists.

• Read an interview with 2022 James Tait Black reader, Céleste Callen

Our graduates tell us that they value the friendliness of the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC), the connections they make here and the in-depth guidance they receive from our staff, who are published experts in their field.

A UNESCO World City of Literature, Edinburgh is a remarkable place to study, write, publish, discuss and perform prose, poetry and drama.

Take a PhD with us and you will be based in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) in the historic centre of this world-leading festival city.

You will have access to the University’s many literary treasures. These include the libraries of:

• William Drummond
• Lewis Grassic Gibbon
• Hugh MacDiarmid
• Norman MacCaig

The Centre for Research Collections holds the W.H. Auden collection; the Corson Collection of works by and about Sir Walter Scott; and the Ramage collection of poetry pamphlets.

It also holds a truly exceptional collection of early Shakespeare quartos and other early modern printed plays put together by the 19th century Shakespearean James Halliwell-Phillipps, the correspondence of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (the focus of one of the major editorial projects in Victorian studies of the last half-century), and the extensive Laing collection of medieval and early modern manuscripts, as well as letters and papers by - and relating to - authors including:

• Christopher Isherwood
• Rudyard Kipling
• John Middleton Murry
• Walter de la Mare
• George Mackay Brown
• Compton Mackenzie

Many of the University's Special Collections are digitised and available online from our excellent Resource Centre, Computing Labs, and dedicated PhD study space in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC).

Look inside the PhD study space in LLC

In the city

Our buildings are close to the National Library of Scotland (where collections include the Bute Collection of early modern English drama and the John Murray Archive), Edinburgh Central Library, Scottish Poetry Library, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Writers’ Museum and a fantastic range of publishing houses, bookshops, and theatres.

We have strong links with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which annually welcomes around 1,000 authors to our literary city.

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK masters, or its international equivalent, with a mark of at least 65% in your English literature dissertation of at least 10,000 words.

If your masters programme did not include a dissertation or included a dissertation that was unmarked or less than 10,000 words, you will be expected to produce an exceptional research proposal and personal statement to show your ability to undertake research at the level required by this programme.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 62 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

Fees and costs

Scholarships and funding, featured funding.

There are a number of scholarship schemes available to eligible candidates on this PhD programme, including awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Please be advised that many scholarships have more than one application stage, and early deadlines.

• Find out more about scholarships in literatures, languages and cultures

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• Phone: +44 (0)131 650 4086
• Contact: [email protected]
• School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• 50 George Square
• Central Campus
• Programme: English Literature
• School: Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• College: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Select your programme and preferred start date to begin your application.

PhD English Literature - 3 Years (Full-time)

Phd english literature - 6 years (part-time), application deadlines.

Due to high demand, the school operates a number of selection deadlines. We will make a small number of offers to the most outstanding candidates on an ongoing basis, but hold the majority of applications until the next published selection deadline when we will offer a proportion of the places available to applicants selected through a competitive process.

Deadlines for applicants applying to study in 2024/25:

• How to apply

You must submit two references with your application.

The online application process involves the completion of a web form and the submission of supporting documents.

For a PhD programme, you should include:

• a sample of written work of about 3,000 words (this can be a previous piece of work from an undergraduate or masters degree)
• a research proposal - a detailed description of what you hope to achieve and how
• Pre-application guidance

Before you formally apply for this PhD, you should look at the pre-application information and guidance on the programme website.

This will help you decide if this programme is right for you, and help us gain a clearer picture of what you hope to achieve.

The guidance will also give you practical advice for writing your research proposal – one of the most important parts of your application.

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

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• Winter 2020

ENGL 213 A: Modern and Postmodern Literature

Syllabus description:.

ENGL 213 A: MODERN AND POSTMODERN LITERATURE

T/Th 11:30-1:20, SMI 305

Dr. Brad Gerhardt

[email protected]

B-435 Padelford Hall

Office Hours: T/Th 10:30-11:30

DESCRIPTION:

            What it means to be ‘modern,’ and how to represent the anxieties and opportunities inherent in that consciousness, will be some of our main questions to explore through this survey of 20th century literature. As such, this course will focus primarily on formal innovations in prose and poetry during the modernist and postmodernist era, in order to fully appreciate the revolutionary modes of representation and reading practices required in this tumultuous era. We will acknowledge the social, political, economic, and technological changes that inform many of the formal innovations, but our primary focus will be on developing skills of close reading and comparative analysis, in order to understand these sometimes bewildering literary texts.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

-Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (Dover, ISBN: 978-048629879) 

-William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (Vintage, ISBN: 978-0679732259) 

-Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (Norton, ISBN: 978-0393352566) 

-Lyn Hejinian, My Life and My Life in the Nineties (Wesleyan Poetry, ISBN: 978-0819573513)

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (Vintage, ISBN: 978-0375701290)

-Course Packet, available at Rams Copy Center (4144 University Way NE)

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Students understand the investments, contexts, and effects of the kind of close/critical reading skills or approaches under study/use.
• Students are able to contextualize and analyze the materials or topics covered, historically, politically, culturally.
• Students improve their writing skills generally, and with regard to writing about literature.

ASSESSMENTS

Reading Response Blog

            Because this class moves so quickly through many of our readings, and to facilitate shorter, analytical responses, I am requiring you to create a blog (on Blogger, through your UW G Suite), to which you will post weekly responses. These responses can be as personal or distant as you wish, but they must engage with the text(s) assigned that week and make thoughtful analytical interventions. You will also be required to post a thoughtful reply to one other classmate’s blogpost each week; the posts will be due each Sunday night by midnight, and the response/reply by Monday at midnight .

Group Presentation

            For the third unit, on postmodern poetry, I will split the class into groups of 3-4. Each group will come up with an analytical discussion question related to a single phrase from My Life , and then present their answers/thoughts to this question in a 10-minute presentation to the class. How that presentation is staged is up to each group, but all should be relevant, analytical, and involve all members equally.

ASSIGNMENTS

            Graded assignments are intended to implement learning outcomes, and practice a variety of skills; however, both assignments and assessments will require you to develop and maintain habits of close reading . They will be evaluated on the originality of thought, clarity of articulation, and depth of analysis. Please note that I expect printed copies of all written work .

Creative Reading Response (1-2 pages, word count will vary)

            This is your chance to “write back” against some of the more confusing and esoteric poets we’ll encounter in our first week. The intent is to respond directly to one specific poem from Stein, Eliot, Loy, or Williams; this could take a number of forms, but should be primarily textual. You could ‘rewrite’ the poem, or take the theme/content in a very different direction, or transpose it to a different medium, such as a short story, a script, etc. Whatever form your response takes, it should also be accompanied by a 1-paragraph description/defense of your response, outlining specifically why you chose to respond as you did , as well as how the process of rewriting/translating the text has changed your perspective on it .

Close Reading (600-1000 words, generally 2-3 pages double-spaced)

            An effective argument gains its authority through careful consideration of its evidence. Your task in this assignment is to interrogate a specific passage from one of our prose texts and draw an analytical conclusion from it. This assignment is all about your thinking, not about the form; you will not have an introductory paragraph culminating in a thesis; rather, you will begin with analysis—asking questions of the text rather than imposing a viewpoint on it—and your own argument will arise from your examination of the components of the text you have selected, rather than simply reciting what you think it “should” be saying.

Thematic Analysis (1100-1600 words, generally 4-5 pages double-spaced)

            Having practiced the skill of close reading, you will add to your credibility and finesse as a writer through a sound and intentional structure or form. In this assignment you will practice a thematic analysis of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying , utilizing organizational skills we will discuss in class, and in response to a specific prompt.

Comparative Analysis (final draft 1800-2400 words, generally 6-8 pages double-spaced)

            Our final assignment will be a comparative analysis of Wide Sargasso Sea and another text of your choice. An effective comparative analysis identifies a fundamental concern or tension that two texts share and expands on that through careful and close reading of both texts. This may be the most valuable and difficult skill you take away from this course. A successful comparison will be a critical synthesis of your materials, placing them in a dialogue with each other rather than subordinating their differences, and expanding beyond a list of similarities and differences into a nuanced study of the relation between the two on the issue of your choice.

            To facilitate this process, you will write this paper in a two-draft process; after finishing Wide Sargasso Sea and our first set of short stories, I’ll ask you to write a 2-3 page rough draft articulating a comparative claim and carrying it out through specific analysis. Once you receive my feedback, you’ll have the choice to either revise your original idea and flesh it out more fully, or to tackle a different textual comparison for the final paper.

COURSE POLICIES

Attendance and Participation :

            As an English course, being prepared for each day’s discussion and participating in it is simply a given. This does not mean that I expect you to ‘master’ the daily readings; I view reading as a process of negotiation with texts, and I do not have much patience for the kind of pretentious and alienating jargon or simpering social hierarchies I too often encountered in graduate literature courses. I believe that all of us learn best when we speak from our own experiences, respond as embodied, particular readers, and acknowledge and discuss cultural norms that are ingrained in or critiqued by texts, rather than assuming there is a ready consensus on them. I think students are usually the best judges of their own effort at participation, so I will pass out a participation rubric which you will fill out and return, and which I will evaluate against my own observations as I assign this grade.

Zero Tolerance Policy

            Literature, by its nature, should invite a wide range of reactions, opinions, and interpretations; I hope to encourage this by providing an intellectually challenging but respectful environment; I ask you to do the same. There will be no tolerance for words, speech, behavior, actions, or clothing/possessions that insult, diminish, demean, or belittle any individual or group of persons based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual preference, ability, economic class, national origin, language, or age. Academic freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of discourse DO NOT protect racism or other acts of harassment and hate. Violations of this Zero Tolerance Policy may result in removal from the classroom and actions governed by the student code of conduct will be taken.

Technology Policy

            Unless you have a very specific reason for needing them, I request that you not use computers or electronics in class. I ask that you purchase physical copies of our texts, and our discussions will refer extensively to those physical objects, so bring to class with you the text you were assigned to read and be ready to engage with it. Please mark up your readings and take notes with pencil/pen and paper.

            I will accept any of the written assignments late with a penalty of one grade level for each day (24 hour period) after the due date (for a paper that would receive a 4.0 had it been on time on Monday, any time after class up through Tuesday, it will receive a 3.0, Wednesday a 2.0, etc.). I will not accept reading responses late.

Plagiarism:

            Plagiarism or any other form of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in any way in my class; your work should be entirely your own, and cite any outside sources you have used (though none of the assignments ask you to do this). Definitions of what constitutes plagiarism and the consequences at the UW can be found at:  http://depts.washington.edu/pswrite/plag.html

UNIVERSITY RESOURCES

Writing Centers

            The Odegaard Writing and Research Center (OWRC) offers free, one-on-one help with all aspects of writing at any stage in the writing process. It is best to make an appointment in advance: https://depts.washington.edu/owrc/signup.php

            The CLUE Writing Center in Mary Gates Hall is open Sunday to Thursday from 7pm to midnight. The graduate tutors can help you with your claims, organization, and grammar.

Religious Accommodations

            Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at  Religious Accommodations Policy . Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the  Religious Accommodations Request form .

Access and Accommodations:

Your experience in this course is important to me. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course. If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), you are welcome to contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or  [email protected]  or  disability.uw.edu.  DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions.

            I will return assignments as quickly as possible with my written comments and grade, which is my primary form of communication, though I’ll also post grades to Canvas.

Total: 600 pts                                                                                      Grading Scale:

Assessments (30%)                                                                             4.0 – 98%+

            Presentations - 50 pts                                                              3.8 – 94-95%

            Reading Response Blog - 140 pts                                           3.5 – 90%

                        *10 pts for each post, 4 for each response                  3.0 – 85%

                                                                                                            2.5 – 80%

Assignments (50%)                                                                             2.0 – 75%

            Creative Response - 35 pts                                                     1.5 – 70%

            Close Reading - 50 pts                                                            1.0 – 65%

            Thematic Analysis - 75 pts                                                     0.7 – 60%

            Comparative Analysis - 150 (50 first draft, 100 final)

Participation (20%) - 100 pts, split into two 50-pt parts

NOTE: Readings/viewings should be completed BEFORE class on the date indicated.

7 January - Course Introduction; Gertrude Stein, “Portrait of Pablo Picasso” and Virginia

            Woolf, “Monday or Tuesday” (handed out and read IN CLASS)

Unit One: Modernist Poetry

9 January - Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons [1914]

14 January - T.S. Eliot, Prufrock and other Observations [1917], Mina Loy, Songs to

            Joannes [1917], William Carlos Williams, excerpts from Spring and All [1923]

            (Course Packet, CP)

Unit Two: Modernist Prose

16 January - Virginia Woolf, Ch. 1-2 from Jacob’s Room [1922]; James Joyce, excerpt

            from Ulysses , “Calypso” [1922] (CP)

            Creative Response paper due

21 January - Katherine Mansfield, “Life of Ma Parker” [1921], Jean Toomer, “Blood-

            Burning Moon” [1923], Ernest Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”

            [1933] (CP)

23 January - William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying [1930], through Darl (ends p. 52)

Close Reading paper due

28 January - ALD cont’d, through Samson (ends p. 119)     

30 January - ALD cont’d, through Whitfield (ends p. 179)

4 February - ALD cont’d, through the end

Drama at the crossroads

            6 February - Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape [1958]

            Thematic Analysis paper due

Unit Three: Postmodern Poetry

11 February - Allen Ginsberg, “Howl” and other poems [1956], Anne Sexton, from All

            My Pretty Ones [1962], Sylvia Plath, from Ariel [1963] (CP)

13 February - Lyn Hejinian, My Life [1987], through “ It was only a coincidence ” (pg. 39)

18 February - Group Presentations on My Life

Unit Four: Postmodern Prose

20 February - Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea [1966], Part One

25 February - Wide Sargasso Sea , Part Two, to pg. 141

27 February - Wide Sargasso Sea , finish Part Two and Part Three

3 March - Toni Morrison, “Recitatif” [1983] Salman Rushdie, “Chekov and Zulu” [1994]

            (CP)

5 March - Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red [1998], through XXV. Tunnel

            First draft of Comparative Analysis paper due

10 March - Autobiography of Red , to the end

12 March - Louise Erdrich, “The Shawl” [2001]; Kazuo Ishiguro, “A Village After Dark”

            [2001], (CP)

18 March - Final draft of Comparative Analysis due in my office by 5 PM

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• HISTORICAL SCOPE
• OUR HISTORY

Historical Scope

The Modernist Journals Project digitizes English-language literary magazines from the 1890s to the 1920s. We also offer essays and other supporting materials from the period.

We end at 1922 for two reasons: first, that year has until recently been the public domain cutoff in the United States; second, most scholars consider modernism to be fully fledged in 1922 with the publication of Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room , James Joyce’s Ulysses , and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land . We believe the materials in the MJP will show how essential magazines were to the rise and maturation of modernism.

The New Age , a socialist weekly from London that did much to publish new ideas in art, literature, and politics.

Our History

The MJP began in 1995 at Brown University, with funding from the University and small local grants, as a website of digital editions of periodicals connected to the rise of modernism in the English-speaking world.

Our first major project began in 1996: a digital edition of The New Age , a British weekly magazine edited by A. R. Orage, from 1907 to 1922. In the course of preparing this edition, the MJP generated various supporting materials, including essays on contributors to the magazine, historical introductions to each six-month volume, and biographical sketches of over a thousand artists mentioned in the magazine, along with images of their work. Our edition of The New Age was completed, with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, in 2004.

The University of Tulsa joined the MJP in 2003. In 2005, using copies in Tulsa’s McFarlin Library, we were able to add Dana , an Irish magazine of 1904-1905 best known for first publishing James Joyce. In that same year, the MJP redesigned its technological infrastructure from scratch, both to accommodate growth and to bring its materials and methods into conformance with the best practices of the digital library community. At the same time, in response to requests from members of the Modernist Studies Association, the MJP added a digital edition of the well-known Vorticist magazine, Blast , based on copies in the McFarlin Library. The MJP’s website was also redesigned from the ground up, adding a data-driven, standards-compliant interface to the MJP’s resources.

With the help of another NEH grant during the 2008-2009 academic year, the MJP added a run of Poetry Magazine , from 1912 through 1922, and The English Review for the period when Ford Madox Hueffer (Ford) edited it, from 1908 to 1910. In the following year, the MJP completed a digital edition of Scribner’s Magazine , from 1910 through 1922. A third NEH grant, during the 2010-2011 academic year, allowed the MJP to produce editions of The Crisis , The Freewoman , The New Freewoman , The Egoist , The Little Review , and Others . During the 2011-12 academic year, the MJP also added an edition of The Dome (first series: 1897-1898) as well as a set of pages devoted to the Imagist Anthologies (1914-1917). That year also saw the launch of the MJP Lab, an area of research and teaching modules plus data downloads to support computational analysis of the periodicals. A fourth NEH grant from 2014-2016 allowed the MJP to add the muckraking years of McClure’s Magazine (1902-1911), a run of The Smart Set (1913-1922), The Masses , Camera Work , and The Seven Arts .

In 2016, the MJP began to migrate from its scratch-built infrastructure into the new Brown Digital Repository. The BDR offers new possibilities for computational analysis and use of our data through an Application Programming Interface (API). In 2019, we completed a brand new website with enhanced magazine viewing options. We are currently preparing a new round of digitized periodicals.

The Modernist Journals Project is the brain child of Robert Scholes, who directed the MJP at Brown from 1995 to 2012, when he retired from active involvement with the project. Bob was a senior scholar of modernism, whose work is widely known. He was President of the Modern Language Association in 2004.

Beginning in 2003, Bob was joined by Sean Latham as co-director the MJP at Tulsa. A former Project Manager of the MJP at Brown, Sean is Editor of the James Joyce Quarterly at Tulsa, a Professor of English there, and the author of books and articles on modernist literature and humanities computing. He hosted the meeting of the Modernist Studies Association (MSA) at Tulsa in October 2006 and was President of the MSA in 2008-2009. In 2014, Sean became Director of the Oklahoma Center for Humanities at Tulsa, and stepped down from active involvement in the MJP; he is currently a senior advisor to the project.

Susan joined the project in 2012 to help oversee the MJP's latest NEH grant. She is a Professor of American Studies at Brown as well as Director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. She is the author of Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting and Popular Ideologies: Mass Culture at Mid-Century , and co-editor of Major Problems in American Popular Culture . She is currently interested in the relationship between the public arts and the public humanities.

Jeff was the project's associate director from 2011 before replacing Sean as the Tulsa director in 2014. He is an Associate Professor of English with a special focus on Modernism and the Digital Humanities. His first book, James Joyce, Science, and Modernist Print Culture: The Einstein of English Fiction , was published by Routledge in 2015. He is currently completing a digital humanities and book project on church architecture and memory in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu .

Cliff holds a PhD from Yale University in modern literature and an MS in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. He has published work on modernism and humanities computing, including Modernism in the Magazines , which he co-wrote with Bob Scholes. Cliff is currently the Coordinator of Library Digital Initiatives at Princeton University, where he directs the Blue Mountain Project and is and a consultant for the Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton.

Mark worked as project manager at Brown from 2008 to 2014, when he became a Senior Editor at the project. Mark holds a PhD from Brown in English literature, has published on modernism, rhetoric, and writing pedagogy, and has taught at Harvard University as well as the Universities of Freiburg and Stuttgart in Germany.

Contributors

Though the MJP has been administered by the staff, the material that appears on the MJP website would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of many other people from both Brown and Tulsa. Carlos Acosta-Ponce, Renée Allen (former project manager at Brown), Tara Aveilhe (project manager at Tulsa: 2012-14), James Bachman, Alex Barchet, Lydia Kelow Bennett, Srdan Beronja, Richard Black (former project manager at Tulsa), Allie Blair, Peter Boyer, Harrison Brockwell, Colleen Brogan, Sarah Brown, Charlotte Buecheler, David Chandler, Kenny Coane, Hannah Covington, Jeff Covington, Beth Csomay, Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, Abel Debritto (a Fulbright fellow from Spain and assistant project manager at Brown from 2012 to 2014), Drew Dickerson, Siera Dissmore, Kent Emerson (project manager at Tulsa: 2014-15), Derek Ettensohn, Laura Fisher, Lindsey Gilbert, Ashley Greene, Stewart Habig, Robert Hilliker, Eunice Hong, Christian Howard, Matt Huculak, Joanna Iacono, Rachel Isaacs, Christina Johantgen, Omer Ali Kazmi, Matt Kochis (project manager at Tulsa: 2010-12), Adam Kopp, Chris La Casse, Wendy Lee, Jeff Longacre, Annie Macdonald, Erika Manouselis, Kerry McAuliffe, Susan McNeil (MCM Department Manager at Brown), Rebecca McClure, Tiffany Mendoza, David Noriega, Annie Paige, Daphné Rentfrow (former project manager at Brown), Susan Solomon, Robert Sullivan (former project manager at Brown), Jonathan Tinnin, Colleen Tripp (research associate and MJP proctor at Brown: 2013-14), Matt Vaughn, Alex Verdolini, Jacqueline Wernimont, and Robert Yeates.

INTERNATIONAL BOARD OF ADVISORS

Associate Dean of Arts and Humanities and Professor of English at the University of Delaware, author of Modernism and Cultural Conflict, 1880-1922 and other works on modernism

Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK, author of Bohemia in London: The Social Scene of Early Modernism and other works on modernism

Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University, author of High and Low Moderns: British Literature and Culture 1889-1939 and other works on modernism

Associate Professor of English at Davidson College, author of The Little Magazine OTHERS and the Renovation of American Poetry and other works on little magazines and modernism

Associate Professor of English and Foreign Languages at the University of West Florida, author of Recovering Modernism: Pulps, Paperbacks, and the Prejudice of Form and All Man!: Hemingway, 1950s Men’s Magazines, and the Masculine Persona

TULSA ADVISORY BOARD

Professor of Political Science and Dean of Arts and Sciences

Head of Special Collections, McFarlin Library

Dean of McFarlin Library

BROWN ADVISORY BOARD

Deputy University Librarian

Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship

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MA Modern and Contemporary Literature / Overview

Year of entry: 2024

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We normally expect students to have a First or Upper Second class honours degree or its overseas equivalent in a humanities-based subject area.

Full entry requirements

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Course overview.

• Study post-1900 literature in all its geographical, formal and thematic complexity and diversity.
• Explore a variety of critical and theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary writing.
• Study at a Top 15 UK University for English and Creative Writing (Complete University Guide 2022).
• Become part of a community of active researchers working in the fields of contemporary writing, creative writing, modernism studies and postcolonial studies.
• Discover the literary heritage and cultural assets of Manchester, a UNESCO City of Literature.

Find out what it's like to study at Manchester by visiting us on one of our open days .

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2024, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MA (full-time) UK students (per annum): £12,500 International, including EU, students (per annum): £27,500
• MA (part-time) UK students (per annum): £6,250 International, including EU, students (per annum): £13,750

Further information for EU students can be found on our dedicated EU page.

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

Scholarships/sponsorships

Each year the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures offer a number of School awards and Subject-specific bursaries (the values of which are usually set at Home/EU fees level), open to both Home/EU and international students. The deadline for these is early February each year. Details of all funding opportunities, including deadlines, eligibility and how to apply, can be found on the School's funding page  where you can also find details of the Government Postgraduate Loan Scheme.

See also the University's postgraduate funding database  to see if you are eligible for any other funding opportunities.

For University of Manchester graduates, the Manchester Alumni Bursary offers a £3,000 reduction in tuition fees to University of Manchester alumni who achieved a First within the last three years and are progressing to a postgraduate taught master's course.

The Manchester Master's Bursary is a University-wide scheme that offers 100 bursaries worth £3,000 in funding for students from underrepresented groups.

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Courses in related subject areas

Use the links below to view lists of courses in related subject areas.

• English Literature, American Studies and Creative Writing

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The University of Manchester is regulated by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS aims to help students succeed in Higher Education by ensuring they receive excellent information and guidance, get high quality education that prepares them for the future and by protecting their interests. More information can be found at the OfS website .

You can find regulations and policies relating to student life at The University of Manchester, including our Degree Regulations and Complaints Procedure, on our regulations website .

Department of Comparative Literature

You are here, recent dissertations in comparative literature.

Dissertations in Comparative Literature have taken on vast number of topics and ranged across various languages, literatures, historical periods and theoretical perspectives. The department seeks to help each student craft a unique project and find the resources across the university to support and enrich her chosen field of study. The excellence of student dissertations has been recognized by several prizes, both within Yale and by the American Comparative Literature Association.

2012 – Present

Core Courses

MTL’s core courses are listed below.

• 334A: Concepts of Modernity 1
• 334B: Concepts of Modernity 2
• 334C: Intro to Interdisciplinary Studies

Individual Program of Study

Beyond the core courses, each MTL Ph.D. candidate puts together an individual program of study including eight courses offered by literature departments and eight courses by other departments in the student’s fields of interest .

To identify appropriate courses, please visit the corresponding department’s website or look at the  Stanford Bulletin .

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MA Research Colloquium

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The English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) warmly welcomes you to attend this year’s MA research colloquium, set to take place on Friday, April 19 in ARTS 230 . Please see the attached poster below agenda for more details on the panels and presentations.

You are welcome to join us for some coffee and snacks from 9:30 until the start of the first panel at 10:00. Lunch will be provided, with vegan options, from 12:45-13:45 in ARTS 350 .

Cross-Cultural Re-Imaginings in Literature and Theatre (10:00 - 11:30)

• Jennifer Hua: “A Comparative Analysis of Male Theatrical Cross-Dressing in Early Modern England and Tokugawa Japan”
• Julia Bifulco: “The Influence of Ovid on Christina Rossetti's ’Goblin Market’"
• Brittany Buscio: “The (Mis)use of Dante Alighieri in Promoting and Countering Italian Colonial Violence”
• Hannah Link: “Resurrecting Revolution: Performing the Radical Past in the 20th Century”

Reading the Contemporary World: Bodies, Affect, and Reception (11:30 - 12:30)

• Georgi de Rham: “Moving Waters: Atmosphere, Affect, and Agency in Contemporary North American Poetry”
• Jasper Sattentau: “Consecrating Adichie and Bulawayo: The Mechanisms of Literary Prestige”
• Yuhne Cui: "Intimate Wounds: Embodied Trauma in Contemporary Black Fictions"

Marginal Identities: Countering Literary (Mis)Representations (14:00 - 15:30)

• Sam Fisch: “Patient-Doctor Encounters in Doctor Novels from 1900-1950”
• Aamna Rashid: “‘Deformito-Mania’ and the Colonial Other: Questions of
• Colonial Debility in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone and VictorianmExhibitions”
• Cal Smith: “Defamiliarizing the Self-On-Page in Julie Doucet’s Dirty Plotte”
• Violette Drouin: “Place and the Formation of Acadian Literature and Culture”
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