English Literature
The Ph.D. program in English literature at Duquesne University will provide you with comprehensive training in advanced literary research and postsecondary teaching of writing and literature. In our small department, you'll work closely with faculty mentors as you prepare to be a teacher-scholar or for a career outside of academia.
While the department supports doctoral students in all fields and periods of literary and cultural studies, you'll find that we have particular strengths in women's and gender studies, poetry and poetics, modernist studies and American literary studies. Other current areas of scholarly and teaching activity you'll explore include narrative studies, environmental literature and ecocriticism, performance studies, 19th-century literary studies, religion and literature, print culture and book history, transatlantic/world literature and digital humanities.
Student Opportunities
As a doctoral student, you're guaranteed four years of funding and the opportunity to teach several different undergraduate courses in writing and literature and train as a writing center consultant. Fifth-year fellowships are also available. If you are new to the classroom, our teacher training includes a semester-long Composition and Pedagogy Reading Group and team-teaching with a mentor. Funding to attend conferences and summer research-travel support is also available.
Faculty and doctoral students have coauthored articles and grants, published together in edited collections and jointly organized community-engaged projects. The English Graduate Organization also organizes its own biennial conference at Duquesne. By the time you complete the program, you will have presented at multiple conferences, and in the past, many of these presentations have been published.