Requirements
Ph.D. Requirements
Coursework: The basic requirement for the doctoral degree is 72 graduate credits, the bulk of which are made up by taking ten departmental seminars. Candidates must also satisfy a Minor Field requirement, broadly defined as an area of knowledge or intellectual discipline other than English or American literature. The range of possibilities is vast, the only requirement being that the Minor Field be cogent and have some defensible relation to the student's Ph.D. dissertation.
Examination: Candidates for the Ph.D. also take a Ph.D. oral qualifying examination that is basically of their own design. The exam consists of three fields: (a) Author, (b) Historical Period, and (c) Genre or Critical Methodology. The student constructs each examination list with a faculty committee member who specializes in that area, and all three lists are reviewed for approval by the Director of Graduate Studies.
Dissertation: The degree is completed through a book-length work of original scholarship or criticism. The student's dissertation is supervised and then read by three faculty members. Upon the completion of the dissertation, the student then participates in a dissertation defense with her/his committee members.
