phd in english yale

• Skip to Content
• Catalog Home
• Institution Home

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Programs and Policies 2024–2025

• Yale University Publications /
• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences /
• Degree-Granting Departments and Programs /

English Language and Literature

Current edition: graduate archive . click to change..

Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 203.432.2233 http://english.yale.edu M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Chair Jessica Brantley

Director of Graduate Studies Jonathan Kramnick (106a LC, 203.432.2226)

Professors  Jessica Brantley, David Bromwich, Ardis Butterfield, Jill Campbell, Joe Cleary, Erica Edwards, Jacqueline Goldsby, Langdon Hammer, Margaret Homans, Cajetan Iheka, Jonathan Kramnick, Pericles Lewis, Stefanie Markovits, Feisal Mohamed, Stephanie Newell, Catherine Nicholson, John Durham Peters, Marc Robinson, Caleb Smith, Katie Trumpener, Shane Vogel, Michael Warner, Ruth Bernard Yeazell

Associate Professors  Ben Glaser, Juno Richards, Emily Thornbury, R. John Williams, Sunny Xiang

Assistant Professors  Anastasia Eccles, Marcel Elias, Jonathan Howard, Elleza Kelley, Naomi Levine, Joseph Miranda, Ernest Mitchell, Priyasha Mukhopadhyay, Joseph North, Nicole Sheriko, Lloyd Sy

Fields of Study

Fields include English language and literature from Old English to the present, American literature, and Anglophone world literature.

Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree

In order to fulfill the basic requirements for the program, a student must:

• Complete twelve courses—six courses with at least one grade of Honors and a maximum of one grade of Pass by July 15 following the first year; at least twelve courses with grades of Honors in at least four of these courses and not more than one Pass by July 15 following the second year. One of these twelve courses must be The Teaching of English ( ENGL 9090 ). Courses selected must include one course in at least three out of four designated historical periods: medieval, early-modern, eighteenth- and/or nineteenth-century, twentieth- and/or twenty-first-century. Students are also encouraged to take at least one seminar that adds geographic, linguistic, cultural, and/or methodological breadth to their course of study. Two of these courses may be taken in other departments with the approval of the DGS.
• Satisfy the language requirement by the end of the second year. Two languages appropriate to the student’s field of specialization, each to be demonstrated by (a) passing a translation exam administered by a Yale language department, at the conclusion of a GSAS Summer Language for Reading course, or (for languages not tested elsewhere at Yale) by the English department; (b) passing an advanced literature course at Yale (graduate or upper-level undergraduate, with director of graduate studies [DGS] approval); or (c) passing both ENGL 500 and ENGL 501 .
• Pass the oral examination before or as early as possible in the fifth term of residence. The exam consists of questions on four topics, developed by the student in consultation with examiners and subject to approval by the DGS.
• Submit a dissertation prospectus, normally by January 15 of the third year.
• Teach a minimum of two terms, since the English department considers teaching an integral part of graduate education. In practice, most students teach between four and six terms.
• Submit a dissertation.

Upon completion of all predissertation requirements, including the prospectus, students are admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. Admission to candidacy must take place by the end of the third year of study.

Combined Ph.D. Programs

English and african american studies.

The Department of English Language and Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Department of African American Studies, a combined Ph.D. degree in English Language and Literature and African American Studies. For further details, see African American Studies .

English and Early Modern Studies

The Department of English Language and Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Early Modern Studies Program, a combined Ph.D. in English Language and Literature and Early Modern Studies. For further details, see Early Modern Studies .

English and Film and Media Studies

The Department of English Language and Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Film and Media Studies Program, a combined Ph.D. degree in English Language and Literature and Film and Media Studies. For further details, see Film and Media Studies .

English and History of Art

The Department of English Language and Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Department of the History of Art, a combined Ph.D. degree in English Language and Literature and History of Art. The requirements are designed to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of the combined degree program.

Coursework  In years one and two, a student in the combined program will complete sixteen courses: ten seminars in English, including The Teaching of English ( ENGL 9090 ) and one course in at least three out of four designated historical periods (medieval, early modern, eighteenth– and/or nineteenth-century, twentieth– and/or twenty-first century), and six in history of art, including HSAR 500 and one course outside the student’s core area. Up to two cross-listed seminars may count toward the number in both units, reducing the total number of courses to fourteen.

Languages  Two languages pertinent to the student’s field of study, to be determined and by agreement with the advisers and directors of graduate studies. Normally the language requirement will be satisfied by passing a translation exam administered by one of Yale’s language departments. One examination must be passed during the first year of study, the other by the end of the third year.

Qualifying Paper  History of Art requires a qualifying paper in the spring term of the second year. The paper must demonstrate original research, a logical conceptual structure, stylistic lucidity, and the ability to successfully complete a Ph.D. dissertation. The qualifying paper will be evaluated by two professors from History of Art and one professor from English.

Qualifying Examination   Written exam: addressing a question or questions having to do with a broad state-of-the-field or historiographic topic. Three hours, closed book, written by hand or on a non-networked computer. Oral exam: given one week after the written exam, covering four fields, including two in English (question periods of twenty minutes each, covering thirty texts each, representing three distinct fields of literary history) and three in history of art (twenty-five minutes each, fields to be agreed on in advance with advisers and DGS). Exam lists will be developed by the student in consultation with faculty examiners.

Teaching  Two years of teaching—one course per term in years three and four—are required: two in English and two in History of Art.

Prospectus  The dissertation prospectus must be approved by both English and History of Art. The colloquium will take place in the spring term of the third year of study. The committee will include at least one faculty member from each department. As is implied by its title, the colloquium is not an examination, but a meeting during which the student can present ideas to a faculty committee and receive advice from its members. The colloquium should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

First Chapter Reading  Students will participate in a first chapter reading (also known as a first chapter conference) normally within a year of advancing to candidacy (spring term of year four). The dissertation committee, including faculty members from both departments, will discuss the progress of the student’s work in a seminar-style format.

Dissertation Defense  The hour-long defense is a serious intellectual conversation between the student and the committee. Present at the defense will be the student’s advisers, committee, and the directors of graduate studies in both English and History of Art; others may be invited to comment after the committee’s questioning is completed.

English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

The Department of English Language and Literature also offers, in conjunction with the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a combined Ph.D. in English Language and Literature and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. For further details, see Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies .

Master’s Degrees

M.Phil.  Students may declare their intention in the first or second term of the third year to complete an M.Phil. degree instead of the Ph.D. Students must first submit a research proposal and may request a teaching waiver for the term in which they complete the research project, typically in the second term of the third year or the first term of the fourth year. Permission to pursue the M.Phil. en route to the Ph.D., without additional research leave, may be granted by special permission of the DGS and the GSAS Dean's Office.

M.A. (en route to the Ph.D.)  Students enrolled in the Ph.D. program may receive the M.A. upon completion of seven courses with at least one grade of Honors and a maximum of one grade of Pass, and the passing of one foreign language.

Terminal Master’s Degree Program  Students enrolled in the master’s degree program must complete either seven term courses or six term courses and a special project within the English department. (One or two of these courses may be taken in other departments with approval of the DGS.) There must be at least one grade of Honors, and there may not be more than one grade of Pass. Students must also demonstrate proficiency in one foreign language (as described under Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree, above).

ENGL 500a / LING 500a / MDVL 665a, Old English I   Emily Thornbury

The essentials of the language, some prose readings, and close study of several celebrated Old English poems. TTh 1pm-2:15pm

ENGL 537a, The Gawain Poet   Jessica Brantley

The course offers a contextual study of four of the greatest (and most enigmatic) Middle English poems— Pearl, Patience, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . At its center is British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x, the single medieval book that contains them all. In addition to reading the poems closely in their manuscript context, we examine associated artworks, from the twelve illustrations in the Cotton MS that constitute a medieval reading of the poems, to St. Erkenwald, a poem preserved elsewhere that some argue was written by the same author. Finally, we think about the modern reception of the poems through a serious engagement with scholarly debate surrounding them, and also through comparative work with translations. T 9:25am-11:15am

ENGL 551a / EMST 541a, Spenser's Readers   Catherine Nicholson

This course has two complementary, though sometimes divergent, objects of interest: the first is the poetry of Edmund Spenser, particularly his immense allegorical epic-romance, The Faerie Queene; the second is that poem's varied and often vexed reception history, from the late sixteenth century through the present. The Faerie Queene is a poem about interpretation—its pleasures and its discontents—and we often find ourselves reading over the shoulders of readers in the poem. But it is also possible to read the poem through the eyes of other historical readers, adopting their (often alien) expectations, ambitions, and preoccupations as a way of discovering new things in the text and of reflecting on the biases and assumptions of our own critical practices. In this sense, this is a course about readerly methods and the history of reading as well as a course about Spenser, and participants whose primary interests lie outside the English Renaissance are warmly welcomed. M 9:25am-11:15am

ENGL 722a / EMST 572a, Transatlantic Literature, 1688–1818   Jill Campbell

Study of multiple genres in the literatures of Great Britain, North America, and the Caribbean from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, with twenty-first-century creative and critical works providing a range of contemporary responses. Special focus on the role of literature in advancing and contesting concepts of race and gender as features of identity and systems of power, with attention to the circulation of goods, people, ideas, and literary works among regions. Readings from the long eighteenth century to include works by Aphra Behn, Phillis Wheatley, Samson Occam, Olaudah Equiano, Omar Ibn Said, Leonora Sansay, and Maria Edgeworth. Twenty-first-century creative works by Biyi Bandele, Yaa Gyasi, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abel; with critical selections from Édouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter, Dionne Brand, Christina Sharpe, and Habiba Ibrahim. W 10:30am-12:20pm

ENGL 858a / AMST 858a, Edgar Allan Poe and His Critics   Caleb Smith

A seminar on Poe’s work and how people think about it. We read Poe’s gothic tales, detective stories, Romantic poetry, book reviews, essays, satires, and hoaxes. We also take up some of his interlocutors, such as Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Jorge Luis Borges, Colin Dayan, Jacques Lacan, Mat Johnson, Toni Morrison, Emily Ogden, and Walt Whitman. Histories of slavery and empire, science and secularism, crime and punishment, magazine culture and the literary marketplace. Theories of consciousness, aesthetics, affect, power, guilt. Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 889a / AFST 889a / CPLT 889a, Postcolonial Ecologies   Cajetan Iheka

This seminar examines the intersections of postcolonialism and ecocriticism as well as the tensions between these conceptual nodes, with readings drawn from across the global South. Topics of discussion include colonialism, development, resource extraction, globalization, ecological degradation, nonhuman agency, and indigenous cosmologies. The course is concerned with the narrative strategies affording the illumination of environmental ideas. We begin by engaging with the questions of postcolonial and world literature and return to these throughout the semester as we read primary texts, drawn from Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia. We consider African ecologies in their complexity from colonial through post-colonial times. In the unit on the Caribbean, we take up the transformations of the landscape from slavery, through colonialism, and the contemporary era. Turning to Asian spaces, the seminar explores changes brought about by modernity and globalization as well as the effects on both humans and nonhumans. Readings include the writings of Zakes Mda, Aminatta Forna, Helon Habila, Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid, Ishimure Michiko, and Amitav Ghosh. The course prepares students to respond to key issues in postcolonial ecocriticism and the environmental humanities, analyze the work of the major thinkers in the fields, and examine literary texts and other cultural productions from a postcolonial perspective. Course participants have the option of selecting from a variety of final projects. Students can craft an original essay that analyzes primary text from a postcolonial and/or ecocritical perspective. Such work should aim at producing new insight on a theoretical concept and/or the cultural text. They can also produce an undergraduate syllabus for a course at the intersection of postcolonialism and environmentalism or write a review essay discussing three recent monographs focused on postcolonial ecocriticism. T 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 902a, Elizabeth Bishop   Langdon Hammer

An experiment in intensive author-centered reading, this course studies the life, writing, and visual art of Elizabeth Bishop using tools from biography, gender studies, queer theory, object relations psychoanalysis, and phenomenology. We read against chronology and the focus on single poems in conventional close reading. Topics for discussion include the pressures on and possibilities for a woman poet’s career in the mid-twentieth-century United States; the relations between poetry and painting, verse and prose, and private and public writing; the idea of minor literature, and the figure of the minor; Bishop in Brazil and as a hemispheric poet; houses; epistolarity; secularity and religion; the role of objects and the senses in subject formation; the ordinary, perverse, and fantastic; tourism, cosmopolitanism, and the local; the poetics of description. We use archives in the Yale Collection of American Literature at Beinecke Library and in Special Collections, Vassar College Library. In addition to Bishop, readings include, among others, Christopher Bollas, Judith Butler, Lee Edelman, Melanie Klein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Marion Milner, and D.W. Winnicott. Th 9:25am-11:15am

ENGL 906a / AMST 696a / ER&M 696a / HSHM 782a / RLST 630a / WGSS 696a, Michel Foucault I: The Works, The Interlocutors, The Critics   Greta LaFleur

This graduate-level course presents students with the opportunity to develop a thorough, extensive, and deep (though still not exhaustive!) understanding of the oeuvre of Michel Foucault, and his impact on late-twentieth-century criticism and intellectual history in the United States. Non-francophone and/or U.S. American scholars, as Lynne Huffer has argued, have engaged Foucault’s work unevenly and frequently in a piecemeal way, due to a combination of the overemphasis on The History of Sexuality, Vol 1 (to the exclusion of most of his other major works), and the lack of availability of English translations of most of his writings until the early twenty-first century. This course seeks to correct that trend and to re-introduce Foucault’s works to a generation of graduate students who, on the whole, do not have extensive experience with his oeuvre. In this course, we read almost all of Foucault’s published writings that have been translated into English (which is almost all of them, at this point). We read all of the monographs, and all of the Collège de France lectures, in chronological order. This lightens the reading load; we read a book per week, but the lectures are shorter and generally less dense than the monographs. [The benefit of a single author course is that the more time one spends reading Foucault’s work, the easier reading his work becomes.] We read as many of the essays he published in popular and more widely-circulated media as we can. The goal of the course is to give students both breadth and depth in their understanding of Foucault and his works, and to be able to situate his thinking in relation to the intellectual, social, and political histories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Alongside Foucault himself, we read Foucault’s mentors, interlocutors, and inheritors (Heidegger, Marx, Blanchot, Canguilhem, Derrida, Barthes, Althusser, Bersani, Hartman, Angela Davis, etc); his critics (Mbembe, Weheliye, Butler, Said, etc.), and scholarship that situates his thought alongside contemporary social movements, including student, Black liberation, prison abolitionist, and anti-psychiatry movements. Instructor permission required. M 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 915a / CPLT 754a, Western and Postcolonial Marxist Cultural Theory   Joe Cleary

An introduction to classic twentieth-century Western and postcolonial Marxist theorists and texts focusing on historical and intellectual exchange between these critical formations. Reading theoretical works in conjunction with some selected literary texts, the course tracks how key Marxian concepts such as capital and class consciousness, modes of production, praxis and class struggles, reification, commodification, totality, and alienation have been developed across these traditions and considers how these concepts have been used to rethink literary and other cultural forms and their ongoing transformation in a changing world system. Writers discussed may include G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Georg Lukács, Mikhail Bakhtin, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Toril Moi, C.L.R. James, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Paul Gilroy, Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, Fredric Jameson, Perry Anderson, Giovanni Arrighi, Cornel West, and others. The object of the seminar is to provide students with a solid intellectual foundation in these still-developing hermeneutic traditions. W 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 928a / CPLT 933a / FILM 751a, British Cinema   Katie Trumpener

Key films and topics in British cinema. Special attention to the provincial origins of British cinema; overlaps between filmic, literary, and visual modernism; attempts to build on the British literary and dramatic tradition; cinema’s role in the war effort and in redefining national identity; postwar auteur and experimental filmmaking; “heritage” films and alternative approaches to tradition. Accompanying readings in British film theorists, film sociology (including Mass Observation), and cultural studies accounts of film spectatorship and memories. Films by Mitchell and Kenyon, Maurice Elvey, Anthony Asquith, Len Lye, John Grierson, Alfred Hitchcock, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphrey Jennings, Michael Powell, Carol Reed, David Lean, Karel Reisz, Lindsay Anderson, Richard Lester, Peter Watkins, Stanley Kubrick, Laura Mulvey, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Terence Davies, Terry Gilliam, Peter Greenaway, Michael Winterbottom, Patrick Keiller, Steve McQueen. T 1:30pm-3:20pm, M 7pm-10pm

ENGL 935a / AFAM 522a / AMST 721a, The Beautiful Struggle: Blackness, the Archive, and the Speculative   Daphne Brooks

This seminar takes its inspiration from concepts and questions centering theories that engage experimental methodological approaches to navigating the opacities of the archive: presumptively “lost” narratives of black life, obscure(d) histories, compromised voices and testimonials, contested (auto)biographies, anonymous testimonies, textual aporias, fabulist documents, confounding marginalia. The scholarly and aesthetic modes by which a range of critics and poets, novelists, dramatists, and historians have grappled with such material have given birth to new analytic lexicons—from Saidiya Hartman’s “critical fabulation” to José Estaban Muñoz’s “ephemera as evidence” to Tavia Nyong’o’s “Afrofabulation.” Such strategies affirm the centrality of speculative thought and invention as vital and urgent forms of epistemic intervention in the hegemony of the archive and open new lines of inquiry in black studies. Our class explores a variety of texts that showcase these new queries and innovations, and we also actively center our efforts from within the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where a number of sessions are held and where we focus on Beinecke holdings that resonate with units of the course. Various sessions also feature distinguished guest interlocutors via Zoom, who are on hand to discuss the specifics of their research methods and improvisational experimentations in both archival exploration and approaches to their prose and poetic projects. M 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 938a / AFAM 510a, Black Geographic Thought   Elleza Kelley

This seminar focuses on classic and recent scholarship that constitute the interdisciplinary subfield of “black geographies.” Bearing in mind that black studies is not merely the study of black people but, as Alexander Weheliye puts it, “a substantial critique of Western modernity and a sizable archive of social, political, and cultural alternatives,” this seminar explores the critiques and alternatives that black studies brings to bear on the feeling, knowledge, representation, and politics of space and place. While we study scholarship across discipline (by geographers, architectural theorists, historians, etc.), we pay particular attention to how cultural production, like literature and visual art, articulates black geographic and spatial thought and how it might engage with, challenge, and enrich the fields of critical and literary geographies. Along the way, our study of literature is transformed by careful attention to the geographic, architectural, and ecological. We read the work of scholars like Katherine McKittrick, Clyde Woods, and AbdouMaliq Simone alongside creative works by poets, novelists, artists, filmmakers, architects, and more, from Toni Morrison and Dionne Brand to Torkwase Dyson and Mati Diop. M 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 979b / FREN 668b / HSAR 668b, Ekphrasis and Art Criticism   Carol Armstrong

Ekphrasis in its ancient Greek sense refers to the vivid description of an object, animal, person, place, scene, or event undertaken as an exercise in oral rhetoric. In that original context, the practice of ekphrasis was meant to “paint” a picture in the mind of the listener, and thus pointed to both the imagistic capacities of verbal language, and the integral link between the image and the imagination. In the twentieth century, ekphrasis acquired a narrower meaning: poetry addressed to or modeled on works of visual art. While informed by both of those understandings, this seminar considers ekphrasis both more broadly, in terms of genre, and more narrowly, in relation to a partial history of art criticism as a modern form of writing in the anglophone and European worlds, with a focus on the eighteenth through the twentieth century. It treats the different writerly modes now understood to be embraced by the term ekphrasis: not only poetry, but also the prose poem and the novel, as well as the Salon and art review. It also touches on such issues as the Renaissance inversion of the phrase ut pictura poesis; the competition between the arts of word and image; the presence or absence of illustrations; the modern relations between genres and mediums and the question of mediation; and the address of the different arts to the subjectivity of the reader/spectator. In addition to weekly presentations, a short preliminary paper, and a final research paper, students organize and contribute to a workshop on ekphrasis based on their own ekphrastic exercises, undertaken in the Yale Art Gallery. (Some class time is devoted to those exercises.) This seminar is the second of two (the first is HSAR 667 ); our hope is that students from both seminars will collaborate on this final event. W 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 992a, Advanced Pedagogy   Heather Klemann

Training for graduate students teaching introductory expository writing. Students plan a course of their own design on a topic of their own choosing, and they then put theories of writing instruction into practice by teaching a writing seminar. Prerequisite: open only to graduate students teaching ENGL 114 . HTBA

ENGL 993a, Prospectus Workshop   Naomi Levine

A workshop in which students develop, draft, revise, and present their dissertation prospectuses, open to all third-year Ph.D. students in English. HTBA

ENGL 995a / ENGL 9095, Directed Reading   Staff

Designed to help fill gaps in students’ programs when there are corresponding gaps in the department’s offerings. By arrangement with faculty and with the approval of the DGS. HTBA

ENGL 5197b / AMST 697b / ER&M 697b / HSHM 783b, Michel Foucault II: The Works, the Interlocutors, The Critics   Greta LaFleur

Continuing graduate-level course presents students with the opportunity to develop a thorough, extensive, and deep (though still not exhaustive!) understanding of the oeuvre of Michel Foucault, and his impact on late-twentieth-century criticism and intellectual history in the United States. Non-francophone and/or U.S. American scholars, as Lynne Huffer has argued, have engaged Foucault’s work unevenly and frequently in a piecemeal way, due to a combination of the overemphasis on The History of Sexuality, Vol 1 (to the exclusion of most of his other major works), and the lack of availability of English translations of most of his writings until the early twenty-first century. This course seeks to correct that trend and to re-introduce Foucault’s works to a generation of graduate students who, on the whole, do not have extensive experience with his oeuvre. In this course, we read almost all of Foucault’s published writings that have been translated into English (which is almost all of them, at this point). We read all of the monographs, and all of the Collège de France lectures, in chronological order. This lightens the reading load; we read a book per week, but the lectures are shorter and generally less dense than the monographs. [The benefit of a single author course is that the more time one spends reading Foucault’s work, the easier reading his work becomes.] We read as many of the essays he published in popular and more widely-circulated media as we can. The goal of the course is to give students both breadth and depth in their understanding of Foucault and his works, and to be able to situate his thinking in relation to the intellectual, social, and political histories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Alongside Foucault himself, we read Foucault’s mentors, interlocutors, and inheritors (Heidegger, Marx, Blanchot, Canguilhem, Derrida, Barthes, Althusser, Bersani, Hartman, Angela Davis, etc); his critics (Mbembe, Weheliye, Butler, Said, etc.), and scholarship that situates his thought alongside contemporary social movements, including student, Black liberation, prison abolitionist, and anti-psychiatry movements. Previously ENGL 907. M 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 5805b / CPLT 605b, Edward Said as Public Intellectual   Robyn Creswell

This seminar focuses on Edward Said’s reflections on the role and responsibilities of the intellectual, paying particular attention to his writings on Palestine, the politics and culture of the Arab world, and the discourse of expertise. We also examine the reception of Said’s ideas and example among Arab thinkers. Texts include Orientalism, The Question of Palestine, After the Last Sky, Representations of the Intellectual, and numerous essays. Previously ENGL 905. HTBA

ENGL 5865b / CPLT 665b / WGSS 665b, African Feminism and African Women Writers   Helen Yitah

This course looks at how major African women writers such as Ama Ata Aidoo, Mariama Ba, Bessie Head, Nawal El Saadawi, Grace Ogot, and Chimamanda Adichie have represented African feminist concerns and aesthetics in their works. We explore some of their interrogation of sexism and patriarchal social structures, the thematization of gender relations, a rethinking of marginality, and the presentation of alternative frames of reference for (re)defining female subjectivities and identities by reading selected works through the lens of African feminist thought, including Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s stiwanism, Catherine Acholonu’s motherism, Obioma Nnaemeka’s nego-feminism, and Mary Kolawole’s and Chikwenye Ogunyemi’s versions of womanism. W 9:25am-11:15am

ENGL 6137b / AFAM 850b / AFST 937b, African Urban Cultures: Mediations of the City   Stephanie Newell

This course approaches the study of African cities and urbanization through the medium of diverse texts, including fiction, nonfiction, popular culture, film, and the arts, as well as scholarly work on African cities. Through these cultural “texts,” attention is given to everyday conceptualizations of the body and the environment, as well as to theoretical engagements with the African city. We study urban relationships as depicted in literature and popular media in relation to Africa's long history of intercultural encounters, including materials dating back to the 1880s and the 1930s. Previously ENGL 937. HTBA

ENGL 6152b / FILM 652b, Media Theory   John Peters

This course provides an intensive introduction to foundational texts in media theory old and new. (It supplements rather than replicate FILM 601 , Foundations in Film and Media.) This course focuses either on influential articles of the past five decades or notable books of the last decade or so (or both). In either case, the aim is to gain a familiarity with key ideas, figures, traditions, questions, and methods in media theory. Previously ENGL 923. HTBA

ENGL 6157b / AFAM 860b / MHHR 708b, Ecologies of Black Print   Jacqueline Goldsby

A survey of history of the book scholarship germane to African American literature and the ecosystems that have sustained black print cultures over time. Secondary works consider eighteenth- to twenty-first-century black print culture practices, print object production, modes of circulation, consumption, and reception. Students write critical review essays, design research projects, and write fellowship proposals based on archival work at the Beinecke Library, Schomburg Center, and other regional sites (e.g., the Sterling A. Brown papers at Williams College). Previously ENGL 957. T 1:30pm-3:20pm

ENGL 6501b / MDVL 666b, Old English II   Emily Thornbury

Readings in a variety of pre-Conquest vernacular genres, varying regularly, with supplementary reading in current scholarship. Current topic: Old English devotional literature, especially poetry; our readings explore early medieval strategies for cultivating emotion and understanding. Formerly ENGL 502. M 9:25am-11:15am

ENGL 6545b / CPLT 582b / FREN 802b / MDVL 502b, Chaucer and Translation   Ardis Butterfield

An exploration of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1340–1400), brilliant writer and translator. Using modern postcolonial as well as medieval theories of translation, memory, and bilingualism, we investigate how texts in French, Latin, and Italian are transformed, cited, and reinvented in his writings. Some key questions include: What happens to language under the pressure of crosslingual reading practices? What happens to the notion of translation in a multilingual culture? How are ideas of literary history affected by understanding Chaucer’s English in relation to the other more prestigious language worlds in which his poetry was enmeshed? Texts include material in French, Middle English, Latin, and Italian. Proficiency in any one or more of these languages is welcome, but every effort is made to use texts available in modern English translation, so as to include as wide a participation as possible in the course. Formerly ENGL 545. T 9:25am-11:15am

ENGL 6768b / CPLT 597b, The Birth of Aesthetics   Jonathan Kramnick

This is a course on the emergence of aesthetic theory in Enlightenment and Romantic era Europe. We'll examine how a new language of art and nature focused on the experience  of the beholder and track evolving categories of the sublime, beautiful, and picturesque in key texts of philosophy and literature. We'll connect ideas of aesthetic judgment and autonomy to central institutions and ideologies of the modern era, including the public sphere, secularism, the private subject, racial capitalism, and the market. Readings begin with empirical philosophies of perception and early accounts of the aesthetic in Locke, Addison, Hutcheson, Pope, Hume, and Burke and continue through the watershed moment of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Kant, and Schiller. The seminar ends with a consideration of aesthetic theory in the long contemporary period of Adorno, Scarry, Rancière, and Ngai. Previously ENGL 768. HTBA

ENGL 6873b / FILM 973b, Modernity and the Time of Literature   John Williams

This course examines transformations in temporality that occurred in the sciences and arts during the twentieth century. From the arrival of Einsteinian relativity to more contemporary proofs on quantum nonlocality, the question of time in the twentieth century threatened to overturn some of our oldest assumptions about cause and effect, duration, history, presentness, and futurity. These new temporalities were as scientifically and philosophically vexing as they were rife with spiritual and aesthetic possibility—a dynamic reflected in the literary and artistic forms that were central to these transformations. Our reading reflects this deeply cross-cultural and interdisciplinary trajectory, including histories of science and technology (Peter Galison, N. Katherine Hayles, David Kaiser), philosophies of time (Heidegger, Bruno Latour, Bernard Stiegler, McLuhan, Luhmann), critical theories of temporal form (Derrida, Adorno, Jameson, Pamela Lee, Kojin Karatani), a wide array of literary texts (William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Tom McCarthy, and others), as well as important cinematic innovations (Jodorowsky, Godard, Kubrick). What is the “time” of literature? of film? How does art transform or reinforce theories of temporal flow? How do new technologies of composition and circulation alter the temporal effects of a given work? What was the “End of History”? Previously ENGL 973. HTBA

Print Options

Send Page to Printer

Print this page.

Download Page (PDF)

The PDF will include all information unique to this page.

Download 2022-2023 Graduate PDF

It looks like you're trying to zoom in on this page. For best results: use the most recent version of your browser, disable your browser's 'zoom text only' setting, and use your browser's default font size settings.

To zoom in, use [Ctrl] + [+] in Windows, and [Cmd] + [+] on a Mac. To zoom out, use the keyboard shortcut [Ctrl] + [-] in Windows and [Cmd] + [-] on a Mac.

Yale University

Additional Navigation

Graduate & professional study.

Yale offers advanced degrees through its Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and 13 professional schools. Browse the organizations below for information on programs of study, academic requirements, and faculty research.

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

Yale’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences offers programs leading to M.A., M.S., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in 73 departments and programs.

School of Architecture

The Yale School of Architecture’s mandate is for each student to understand architecture as a creative, productive, innovative, and responsible practice.

School of Art

The Yale School of Art has a long and distinguished history of training artists of the highest caliber.

Divinity School

Yale Divinity School educates the scholars, ministers, and spiritual leaders of the future.

David Geffen School of Drama

The David Geffen School of Drama graduates have raised the standards of professional practice around the world in every theatrical discipline, creating bold art that engages the mind and delights the senses.

School of Engineering & Applied Science

The Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science is at the cutting edge of research to develop technologies that address global societal problems.

School of the Environment

The School of the Environment is dedicated to sustaining and restoring the long-term health of the biosphere and the well-being of its people.

Jackson School of Global Affairs

The Jackson School of Global Affairs trains and equips a new generation of leaders to devise thoughtful, evidence-based solutions for challenging global problems.

Yale Law School hones the world’s finest legal minds in an environment that features world-renowned faculty, small classes, and countless opportunities for clinical training and public service.

School of Management

School of Management students, faculty, and alumni are committed to understanding the complex forces transforming global markets and building organizations that contribute lasting value to society.

School of Medicine

Yale School of Medicine graduates go on to become leaders in academic medicine and health care, and innovators in clinical practice, biotechnology, and public policy.

School of Music

The Yale School of Music is an international leader in educating the creative musicians and cultural leaders of tomorrow.

School of Nursing

The Yale School of Nursing community is deeply committed to the idea that access to high quality patient‐centered health care is a social right, not a privilege.

School of Public Health

The School of Public Health supports research and innovative programs that protect and improve the health of people around the globe.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS)

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is composed of the departments and academic programs that provide instruction in Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Centers & Institutes

A number of our centers and institutes offer additional opportunities for graduate and professional study.

You are here

Fellowships and funding.

All doctoral students in English receive six years of fellowship support from Yale. Normally, fellowships provide both tuition and a stipend for the first two years, when coursework is undertaken. In three of the remaining four years, students receive the same amount of aid while teaching or pursuing semester-long Graduate Professional Experiences. Students in the humanities receive University Dissertation Fellowships in their fifth or sixth year of study, which allow for two semesters of full-time dissertation research and writing. Students who elect in Year Three to pursue the MPhil instead of the PhD are entitled to one semester of fellowship funding to complete their MPhil capstone projects, to be taken in their sixth or seventh semester. For additional information, please consult the Yale University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Programs and Policies Bulletin .

Students in the English Ph.D. program typically apply for a Summer Language Institute Fellowship for language study following the first year; there are separate applications for courses taken at Yale and outside Yale. Detailed information and the application for both these fellowships are available from the Yale Student Grants & Fellowships Database .

Students advance to candidacy in their third year when a dissertation prospectus is submitted and approved. For students at the dissertation stage, several fellowship and grant opportunities exist both within the University and outside it to support the pursuit of dissertation research. Within Yale, for example, the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library provides generous fellowships for the support of dissertation research in its wide-ranging and rich collections, and the Lewis Walpole Library offers fellowships for students and other scholars to pursue research in its 18th-century collection. The Graduate School offers information and guidance about applying for research grants from external sources to students pursuing dissertation work. In addition, the Graduate School maintains two general funds of its own that provide support for students in the summers of their dissertation years: John F. Enders Fellowships and Research Grants, and the John Perry Miller Fund.

Refer to the Graduate School website for information on further funding opportunities.

Yale Linguistics

You are here

Graduate studies.

Our PhD program takes a distinctively integrative and interdisciplinary approach in investigating the systems of knowledge that comprise our linguistic competence. Students are exposed to different methodological approaches, while receiving firm grounding in the traditional domains of linguistics.

Our faculty supports our graduate students in their pursuit of academic and non-academic positions. We regularly offer workshops on professional skills and the job market application process. Most of our PhD students graduate in 5 to 8 years, with an average of 6.5 years. As of March 2019, a bout two thirds of our graduates from the last 10 years have jobs in academia (66% of those have long-term appointments, and the remaining 33% have postdocs and temporary positions). Of the remaining one third who do not have a teaching or research academic position, half of the rest have industry jobs related to linguistics (at companies such as Google); others have a variety of jobs, including academic administration and educational outreach.

PhD students work closely with a faculty adviser to develop their dissertation project, but all faculty in the department provide mentorship to some degree. The Yale GSAS Guide to Advising Processes for Faculty and Students provides good guidelines for mentoring relationships from the student and faculty point of view. 

PhD students in the program are provided financial support for up to 6 years of study, consisting of full tuition, stipend support, and comprehensive health care coverage. The department and university also provide financial support for travel to conferences and workshops. Generous funding for fieldwork and other overseas research is available through Yale’s MacMillan Center .

Interested students can find more information on applying to the program on our website.

Director of Graduate Studies

Any questions about the graduate program can be directed to the DGS, Jim Wood, at jim.wood@yale.edu

Center for Language Study

English language program.

The English Language Program, part of Yale’s commitment to internationalization, supports academic communication and the cultural and professional development of the Yale international community. Offering a program centered on assessment of needs, advising, instruction, and consulting, it draws on the expertise of its instructors and staff, as well as a network of English language resources across Yale.

• English Language Proficiency Pathways
• ​Please join our zoom link
• REGISTER for courses (Fall 2024 registration is now open) Classes begin on Wednesday, September 11, 2024  .  Priority will be given to Yale Graduates in all Schools and departments, but all affiliated with Yale are welcome to apply. 
• Oral Performance Assessment (OPA 2)
• English Language Program Resources
• Other English Language Resources

Yale Summer Academic Language Program

ELP offers a summer academic language program for incoming PhD students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in August. Read more here .

More Information 

For more information about services, please contact the Language Program Director of ELP, James Tierney, at [email protected] or call 203-432-6806.  You may also visit our office in room B35 at the Yale Center for Language Study, 370 Temple Street, New Haven .

Early Modern Studies

You are here, english language and literature.

Doctoral students in English Language and Literature may apply in the second semester of graduate study to the Program in Early Modern Studies, to pursue a combined PhD degree in English and Early Modern Studies. All requirements for the PhD in English apply, with the following adjustments.

Course work  In years one and two, a student in the combined program will complete ten seminars in English, including The Teaching of English (ENGL 990), two courses on early modern texts and/or topics, one course in each of two out of three additional historical periods (medieval, eighteenth- and/or nineteenth- century, twentieth- and/or twenty-first century), and two seminars in Early Modern Studies, including the Workshop in Early Modern Studies (EMST 700/701) and one seminar outside of English. Students will also participate in the Early Modern Studies Colloquium (EMST 800/801).

Qualifying examination Students will follow the usual procedures for oral qualifying exams in English, with the additional requirement that at least two of their four lists must concentrate on early modern texts and topics. 

Prospectus  In addition to enrolling in the English Department Prospectus Workshop (ENGL 993) in fall, third-year students in the combined program will enroll in EMST 900.

Dissertation Committee At least one faculty member affiliated with the Program in Early Modern Studies must be on the committee. The chair of the committee will be in English, but students in the combined program are encouraged to include at least one faculty member from outside of English on their committees. 

Yale University PhD in English Language & Literature

How much does a doctorate in english language & literature from yale cost, yale graduate tuition and fees.

Does Yale Offer an Online PhD in English Language & Literature?

Yale doctorate student diversity for english language & literature, male-to-female ratio.

Women made up around 71.4% of the English language and literature students who took home a doctor’s degree in 2019-2020. This is higher than the nationwide number of 59.9%.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

Of those graduates who received a doctor’s degree in English language and literature at Yale in 2019-2020, 42.9% were racial-ethnic minorities*. This is higher than the nationwide number of 18%.

PhD in English Language & Literature Focus Areas at Yale

Popular Reports

Compare your school options.

Film and Media Studies Program

The graduate program in film and media studies.

Inaugurated in 2002, Yale’s doctoral Program in Film and Media Studies quickly achieved the international stature it enjoys today. Building on a core faculty that had long overseen an impressive undergraduate major, the graduate program attracted incoming faculty who were eager to help shape it. The quality of the students who have applied has been superior, and the large majority of those selected have chosen to study here. Fifty students have completed, or are in the midst of, their degrees. Our alumni hold positions at a range of institutions, including universities with major graduate programs, and several have already seen their revised dissertations published as books by important presses. 

Graduate students have been able to produce such significant research thanks not least to Yale’s unparalleled resources.  Specialized librarians and curators keep our students in mind as they collect and make available the massive amounts of material held by the Sterling Memorial Library, the Haas library in the History of Art, and especially the Beinecke rare book library that houses the archives of hundreds of filmmakers, writers, and artists.  Two of America’s great art museums, The Yale University Art Gallery and the British Art Center (with buildings designed by Louis Kahn), retain a continuing relation with our graduate students.  As for primary material in our field,  the Yale Film Archive is home to a growing collection of 35mm and 16mm film prints, and is a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). The Archive also oversees a large circulating library of DVDs, Blu-rays, and VHS tapes.

A dedicated, expert projectionist oversees hundreds of screenings each year, mainly in two spaces (the auditorium of 250 in our building and a projection room holding 40 on York Street) that are equipped for 35mm, 16mm, and virtually all video formats. 4K and 2K projections are common.

Graduate students absorb and generate the energy and enthusiasm so important to dynamic film scholarship thanks to the bustling intellectual climate at the Humanities Quadrangle, where faculty and students meet continually—almost daily it seems—around screenings, lectures, conferences and workshops, some initiated by the graduate students themselves. 

By design the doctorate in Film and Media Studies at Yale is always undertaken in combination with one of ten other disciplines in the Humanities (African-American Studies, American Studies, Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Literatures, English, French, German, History of Art, Italian, Slavic Languages and Literatures).   It was thought, and has proven true, that upon completing their degrees, students who are prepared for positions in both Film and Media and in another discipline would hold a particular advantage, and not merely because of the wider range of openings available to them in the job market, but because the calculated interdisciplinarity of their research makes them stand out. Thoroughly grounded in Film and Media Studies, they become expert in certain of its issues by offering authoritative perspectives and methods that derive from systematic work with the outstanding faculty and graduate students in another Yale department or program. Our students are welcomed throughout the Humanities on campus as they enliven traditional disciplines with the images, sounds, and ideas they bring from Film and Media Studies.

The faculty and its curriculum represent a full range of topics that have been at the center of Film Studies from its outset: theory, criticism, and history, plus cultural approaches to American, European, Latin American and Japanese national cinemas.  Naturally, as the field and its discipline evolve, so too do we, though always keeping ourselves based in this tradition. Transnational and global approaches bring the national cinemas, and their specialists, into productive contact. Overarching concerns involving technological, aesthetic, social and cultural issues (especially race and gender), have developed to the point that in 2015 the Program added “Media” to its name and mission. FMS, as our Program is now called for short, officially embraces images and sounds from an array of sources and channels, especially as these coexist and intertwine with cinema, something that has occurred throughout its long history.  We study that history as well as the challenge and possibilities of “new media,” which we know to be on the minds of graduate students. This keeps Yale’s Program vigilant as it looks to the past for cues about ways to best approach the future. The faculty recognizes that graduate students must be in the lead of an evolving discipline, and so encourages them to take up the most current developments and debates. The goal of the Program’s pedagogy is to provide its current students with a steady anchor in what the discipline has been, so that they can confidently and creatively participate at the highest level in its discourse and institutions, leading it forward while passing continuing its legacy.

Department of Psychology

You are here, admissions application overview, description of program.

The Psychology Department offers doctoral training in the following areas: Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Neuroscience, and Social/Personality Psychology.

A student in the Psychology doctoral program typically requires five years of study to complete all Ph.D. requirements. An exception is the APA-accredited Clinical Area program which requires an additional sixth year for clinical internship training. Students interested in the Clinical Area should visit the Practicum Training ( https://psychology.yale.edu/graduate/training/practicum-training ) and Clinical Psychology ( https://psychology.yale.edu/research/clinical-psychology ) links for more information.

The Psychology Department does not offer a terminal Master’s degree program in any area (for example, we do not have a Master’s degree program in counseling psychology). However, Psychology Ph.D. graduate students may receive a Master’s degree after completion of their second-year requirements towards their Ph.D.

Our program is structured around the close mentoring of each graduate student by a faculty advisor (or a small group of faculty advisors). In the typical situation, an entering graduate student will join the research lab of their faculty advisor. It is thus recommended that prospective students consult our online faculty pages and lab websites to determine the best fit of their research interests to faculty interests.

The online application provides an opportunity for prospective students to indicate which faculty current members might serve as their advisor or advisors. Prospective students should consider choosing two or more faculty members as potential advisors when completing this section of the application.

The Yale Psychology Department includes many associated faculty members who hold primary appointments in other Yale departments. This makes for a greatly enriched advising environment for our graduate students. However, a student’s primary advisor must be a regular primary faculty member of the Department of Psychology.

Undergraduate Degree

All entering students must have earned a bachelor’s degree or its international equivalent prior to enrolling at the Graduate School. You may apply before receiving your degree, or while your degree is still in progress, so long as the degree will be completed prior to matriculation.

A BA or BS in the field of Psychology is not required to apply to the Psychology graduate program. 

International Undergraduate Degrees

Some countries grant an undergraduate or bachelor’s-equivalent degree in three years. If your three-year degree is equivalent to the U.S. Bachelor of Science or Arts degree, it meets the requirement to apply for a Doctoral degree at Yale University. Please visit Graduate Admissions Office – Guidance for International Students ( https://gsas.yale.edu/admissions/phdmasters-application-process/guidance-international-students )for more information.

GRE scores are not required to apply to the Yale Psychology Graduate Program.

Students have the option, however, to submit GRE scores. If you do opt to submit GRE scores, the GRE institution code for Yale University is 3987. Your scores do not need to be available at the time you submit your application, but please submit them as soon as you possible after submitting your application.

Please refer to the links below for additional information regarding the required tests and documents for admission. https://gsas.yale.edu/programs-of-study/psychology#admission-requirements

The TOEFL or IELTS is required of all applicants whose native language is not English. Applicants who have received or will receive an undergraduate degree from a college or university where English is the primary language of instruction are exempt from the English Language Test requirement and are not required to submit the TOEFL or IELTS. Applicants must have studied in residence at the undergraduate institution for at least three years to qualify.  No exemptions are made based on an advanced degree (e.g. M.A./M.S. or Ph.D.) from any institution.

TOEFL scores are valid for 2 years.  If ETS has the scores, the applicant should have them sent to us before they expire. The review page in the application system will alert you if a TOEFL score is required. 

The Graduate School requires incoming doctoral students who received a score of 25 or below on the TOEFL Speaking section or a 7.5 or below on IELTS Speaking section to participate in a Summer English Language program at Yale in August prior to matriculation. These students are required to demonstrate English proficiency before they are permitted to teach. 

For information about fee waivers, and an application form to apply for a fee waiver, please visit https://gsas.yale.edu/admissions/phdmasters-application-process/application-fees-fee-waivers

Letters of Recommendation

Three letters of recommendation are required for your application to be considered complete. You may submit more than three letters. All letters should be submitted by December 1 st .

Prospective applicants can track submissions of letters of recommendation and scores by accessing the Slate dashboard.  A “Green” check mark will appear next to the information received and verified by the Graduate Admissions Officers at Yale University.

Interfolio Users

For Faculty recommenders who prefer to use Interfolio, please input the Interfolio-specific email address for that faculty member in lieu of their institutional email address. Please note, there are a few optional questions on the reference form that Interfolio users will not fill out.

If you have trouble with the Slate Application System, or for questions on using previously submitted letters of recommendation, please contact the Office of Admissions directly. 

Letters of Recommendation Process https://gsas.yale.edu/admissions/phdmasters-application-process/admissions-frequently-asked-questions/letter-recommendation-faqs

Per the Graduate Admissions Office, during the application process you must upload your academic record/transcript, which may take the form of an electronic transcript. However, please ensure no additional authentication is required to view the transcript, as this will cause problems with your upload.

Following admission and acceptance of an offer of admission, you may request that your institution send your official electronic transcript to: graduateschool.transcripts@yale.edu

(Please Note: Transcripts sent to this address from applicants who have not accepted an offer of admission will be discarded.)

For additional information, please visit https://gsas.yale.edu/admissions/phdmasters-application-process/admissions-frequently-asked-questions/transcript-faqs or contact the Graduate Admissions Office directly.

All academic records uploaded to your application must be in English or accompanied by a translation to English.  For additional information, please visit:

https://gsas.yale.edu/admissions/phdmasters-application-process/admissions-frequently-asked-questions

Writing Sample

A personal statement is required. In addition, we encourage applicants to include a writing sample of their research or scholarly work. This may include an undergraduate research or review paper, or work conducted after graduation from your undergraduate institution.

For additional information about the Psychology Department graduate program requirements, please see detailed information here .  For all other questions please email the Psychology Department registrar .

For additional questions regarding the application, tests, and admission process, please visit or contact the Yale Graduate School Admissions:

Department of Psychology: Applying for Admission

Graduate School, Office of Admissions

• History, Facts & Figures
• YSM Dean & Deputy Deans
• YSM Administration
• Department Chairs
• YSM Executive Group
• YSM Board of Permanent Officers
• FAC Documents
• Current FAC Members
• Appointments & Promotions Committees
• Ad Hoc Committees and Working Groups
• Chair Searches
• Leadership Searches
• Organization Charts
• Faculty Demographic Data
• Professionalism Reporting Data
• 2022 Diversity Engagement Survey
• State of the School Archive
• Faculty Climate Survey: YSM Results
• Strategic Planning
• Mission Statement & Process
• Beyond Sterling Hall
• COVID-19 Series Workshops
• Previous Workshops
• Departments & Centers
• Find People
• Biomedical Data Science
• Health Equity
• Inflammation
• Neuroscience
• Global Health
• Diabetes and Metabolism
• Policies & Procedures
• Media Relations
• A to Z YSM Lab Websites
• A-Z Faculty List
• A-Z Staff List
• A to Z Abbreviations
• Terms, Privacy & Notices
• Dept. Diversity Vice Chairs & Champions
• Dean’s Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Affairs Website
• Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion Website
• Office for Women in Medicine and Science
• Committee on the Status of Women in Medicine Website
• Director of Scientist Diversity and Inclusion
• Diversity Supplements
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Recruitment
• By Department & Program
• News & Events
• Executive Committee
• Aperture: Women in Medicine
• Self-Reflection
• Portraits of Strength
• Mindful: Mental Health Through Art
• Event Photo Galleries
• Additional Support
• MD-PhD Program
• PA Online Program
• Joint MD Programs
• Advanced Health Sciences Research
• Clinical Informatics & Data Science
• Clinical Investigation
• Medical Education
• Visiting Student Programs
• Special Programs & Student Opportunities
• Residency & Fellowship Programs
• Center for Med Ed
• Organizational Chart
• Leadership & Staff
• Committee Procedural Info (Login Required)
• Faculty Affairs Department Teams
• Recent Appointments & Promotions
• Academic Clinician Track
• Clinician Educator-Scholar Track
• Clinican-Scientist Track
• Investigator Track
• Traditional Track
• Research Ranks
• Instructor/Lecturer
• Social Work Ranks
• Voluntary Ranks
• Adjunct Ranks
• Other Appt Types
• Appointments
• Reappointments
• Transfer of Track
• Term Extensions
• Timeline for A&P Processes
• Interfolio Faculty Search
• Interfolio A&P Processes
• Yale CV Part 1 (CV1)
• Yale CV Part 2 (CV2)
• Samples of Scholarship
• Teaching Evaluations
• Letters of Evaluation
• Dept A&P Narrative
• A&P Voting
• Faculty Affairs Staff Pages
• OAPD Faculty Workshops
• Leadership & Development Seminars
• List of Faculty Mentors
• Incoming Faculty Orientation
• Faculty Onboarding
• Past YSM Award Recipients
• Past PA Award Recipients
• Past YM Award Recipients
• International Award Recipients
• Nominations Calendar
• OAPD Newsletter
• Fostering a Shared Vision of Professionalism
• Academic Integrity
• Addressing Professionalism Concerns
• Consultation Support for Chairs & Section Chiefs
• Policies & Codes of Conduct
• First Fridays
• Faculty Facing Caregiving Need
• Fund for Physician-Scientist Mentorship
• Grant Library
• Grant Writing Course
• Mock Study Section
• Research Paper Writing
• Establishing a Thriving Research Program
• Funding Opportunities
• Join Our Voluntary Faculty
• Child Mental Health: Fostering Wellness in Children
• Faculty Resources
• Research by Keyword
• Research by Department
• Research by Global Location
• Translational Research
• Research Cores & Services
• Program for the Promotion of Interdisciplinary Team Science (POINTS)
• CEnR Steering Committee
• Experiential Learning Subcommittee
• Goals & Objectives
• Faculty & Staff
• Issues List
• Print Magazine PDFs
• Print Newsletter PDFs
• YSM Events Newsletter
• Social Media
• Patient Care

INFORMATION FOR

• Residents & Fellows
• Researchers

Treating Obesity with Gut Microbiota

A q&a with li wen, li wen, md, phd.

Li Wen, MD, PhD , professor of medicine (endocrinology) at Yale School of Medicine, is interested in how innate immunity changes in gut composition influence health. Through her research using preclinical models, she discovered that gut microbiota plays an important role in type 1 diabetes. Recently, she found that the loss of a specific innate immunity receptor in B cells leads to changes in gut bacteria that are linked to the development of obesity.

More than two in five U.S. adults have obesity, which puts them at increased risk for other serious diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wen notes that some of the health issues associated with obesity include type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and certain cancers. Obesity is linked with increased medical costs and lower quality of life.

In a Q&A, Wen discusses how gut bacteria become “good” or “bad,” the connection between gut composition and obesity, and the use of gut microbiota to address this growing health challenge.

What is gut microbiota?

Microorganisms live in our guts. Most of these microorganisms are bacteria, but there are also viruses and fungi. So gut microbiota includes bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

How does gut microbiota become “good” or “bad”?

Our guts are a complex ecosystem with trillions of bacteria, and these bacteria have both symbiotic and competitive relationships. Some depend on each other. For example, one type of bacteria might produce something necessary for another’s survival. Other types of bacteria kill each other to grow.

The system is usually relatively balanced. However, many factors can affect this balance, including a person’s lifestyle, diet, medication, and immune system.

How can gut bacteria influence the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes?

Harmful bacteria have a common feature: they stick to epithelial cells that line the gut wall and loosen the way these cells stick to each other. When this happens, many things that are meant to be contained in the gut leak into the bloodstream, including lipopolysaccharides, a major type of endotoxin that can cause inflammation. Inflammation in the body can cause changes in metabolism and gut microbiota, leading to obesity and type 2 diabetes. Individuals with obesity or type 2 diabetes often have elevated levels of this endotoxin in their bloodstream.

Changes in gut composition affect the immune system. The intestine is protected by many different types of immune cells including B lymphocytes. B lymphocytes express the innate immune receptor TLR9, and TLR9 recognize bacterial DNA. In a recent study, when we removed TLR9 in B cells in preclinical models, we observed altered gut bacteria that worsened obesity. Interestingly, we found that gut bacteria alone could transfer obesity from one preclinical model to another. Our study adds a new piece of evidence about the importance of the immune system in the regulation of gut bacteria and metabolism.

How can we use gut microbiota to prevent or treat obesity?

The most common way to prevent obesity through gut bacteria is to add more fiber, probiotics, and prebiotics to the diet through food or supplements to increase good bacteria.

Research shows that exercise can also positively change gut microbiota.

Studies are ongoing on treating obesity with fecal microbiota transplantation, in which bacteria from a healthy stool are used to restore microbiota balance in patients with gut dysbiosis.

There isn’t one silver bullet that will correct or cure this complex issue. Gut microbiota is one approach, among others, such as dietary interventions, exercise, pharmacotherapy, and bariatric surgery. The best way to manage obesity is to use complementary strategies.

Y ale School of Medicine’s Section of Endocrinology and Metabolism works to improve the health of individuals with endocrine and metabolic diseases by advancing scientific knowledge, applying new information to patient care, and training the next generation of physicians and scientists to become leaders in the field. To learn more, visit Endocrinology & Metabolism .

• Internal Medicine
• Endocrinology

Featured in this article

• Li Wen, MD, PhD Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology); Director of Core Laboratory of Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI)

• Four Graduate School alumni awarded 2024 Wilbur Cross Medals
• The Graduate School Dean's Office
• News & Announcements

2024 Yale Graduate School Wilbur Cross Medalists (L to R): James Scott (’67 PhD, Political Science), Anne Ferguson-Smith (’86 PhD, Biology), John Guillory (’79 PhD, English Language and Literature), and Kai Li (’86 PhD, Computer Science) 

Four alumni of the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) will be honored with Wilbur Cross Medals in recognition of their exceptional scholarship, teaching, and public service. The awards are the highest honor the school bestows on alumni.

One of the medals, to longtime Yale professor James Scott (’67 PhD, Political Science), is being awarded posthumously. Scott, a pioneering social scientist who founded and was director of Yale’s Program in Agrarian Studies, died on July 19 but had learned before his death that he was being honored.

The other medal recipients are Anne Ferguson-Smith (’86 PhD, Biology) a renowned geneticist and the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge; John Guillory (’79 PhD, English Language and Literature) a scholar of Renaissance literature and the Julius Silver Professor of English Emeritus at New York University; and Kai Li (’86 PhD, Computer Science) a groundbreaking computer scientist and the Paul M. Wythes ’55, P’86 and Marcia R. Wythes P’86 Professor at Princeton University.

Ferguson-Smith, Guillory, and Li will return to Yale for a series of campus events and to deliver public lectures. Nancy Lee Peluso, a professor in the University of California-Berkeley’s Graduate School in Society & Environment, and Ian Shapiro (’83 PhD, Political Science; ’87 JD), Sterling Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs at Yale, will deliver a lecture in honor of James Scott, whose life and contributions also will be celebrated at a gathering on October 7, 11 am-2:30 pm at the Yale Farm, 345 Edwards St. All are welcome; register at https://tinyurl.com/gatheringforjimscott .

The Wilbur Cross Medals celebrate the legacy of service and achievements of Wilbur Lucius Cross (1889 PhD, English Literature), who served as dean of the Graduate School from 1916 to 1930 and was Connecticut’s governor from 1930 to 1939. Awarded annually by the GSAS Alumni Association, the medals are presented for exceptional scholarship, public service, teaching, or academic administration. 

Short profiles of this year’s honorees follow, as well as the titles, times and locations of their lectures, which are free and open to the public.

Anne Ferguson-Smith is a developmental geneticist, genome biologist, and epigeneticist who is a world expert on mammalian development and genetic imprinting. She leads a research group of experimental and computational scientists whose work focuses on the epigenetic control of genome function, particularly the implications of epigenetic inheritance for health and disease. She also investigates how genetic and environmental factors influence development and health within and across generations. 

At the University of Cambridge, Ferguson-Smith has served as pro-vice-chancellor for research and international partnerships and as head of the Department of Genetics. She has been president of the UK Genetics Society since 2021, and in the same year was named executive chair of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Her biomedical contributions have been recognized with election as a fellow of the Royal Society, from which she received the Buchanan Medal in 2021. In 2023 she was named Commander of the British Empire.

Ferguson-Smith’s lecture, “Epigenetic Inheritance - Models and Mechanisms,” will take place on October 7 at 4 pm in the O.C. Marsh Lecture Hall of the Yale Science Building, 260 Whitney Ave.

John Guillory has focused his work on Renaissance literature, the history of literary study, the history of rhetoric, and the early history of media studies, especially the work of I.A. Richards, Marshall McLuhan, and Walter Ong. He is the author of Poetic Authority: Spenser, Milton, and Literary History , Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation , and the upcoming On Close Reading , which will be published next year by the University of Chicago Press, among other works. In addition, he has written numerous essays exploring issues of literary study and criticism, general education, and rhetoric, as well as such literary figures as Milton, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bacon, and others. He is currently at work on a book entitled Freedom of Thought: Philosophy and Literature in the English Renaissance .

Guillory’s honors include the René Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association, the Francis Andrew March Award of the Association of Departments of English for Distinguished Service to the Profession of English Studies, and the Golden Dozen Teaching Award at New York University.

Guillory will speak on the topic “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know: On the Concept of Social Capital” on October 7 at 3:30 pm in Room L02 of the Humanities Quadrangle, 320 York St.

Kai Li has made significant contributions in several areas of computer systems. 

His dissertation pioneered a shared virtual memory system that allowed users to store shared data across a network of computers without physically shared memory. He also led the development of a user-level communication mechanism for such environments, a key idea that became the foundation to the industry standard Infiniband that is now deployed in most hyperscale data centers.

Li also led the development of data deduplication and cofounded Data Domain Inc., which revolutionized storage systems for efficient backup and disaster recovery. He was the co-principal investigator of ImageNet, which propelled deep learning to the forefront of machine learning and sparked what many call the “deep learning revolution.”

Li, who grew up in Chanchun, China, was one of the first group of students to come to the US from China for PhD studies after the Cultural Revolution. He is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Li will lecture on “The Transformative Power of Education: From Factory Floors in China to Academic and Entrepreneurial Success in the U.S." on October 7 at 3:30 pm in Rosenfeld Hall, 109 Grove Street.

James Scott was Sterling Professor Emeritus of Political Science and professor emeritus of anthropology at Yale, and held an appointment in environmental studies. He was a member of the faculty from 1976 until his retirement in 2021. Scott’s scholarship spanned multiple disciplines and subjects, focusing on such topics as peasant resistance, top-down state social planning, anarchism, state violence, and Southeast Asia studies. His 10 books include The Moral Economy of the Peasant , Seeing Like a State , The Art of Not Being Governed , Two Cheers for Anarchism , Against the Grain , and Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance . His final book, In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life it Brings , will be published by Yale University Press in 2025.

Scott conducted fieldwork in Malaysia, Burma, Africa, and elsewhere. Toward the end of his life, he was especially interested in the revolution in Burma. He was founder of the Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship. The interdisciplinary Program in Agrarian Studies, which he founded at Yale in 1991, has been emulated by institutions around the world.

“James C. Scott: In a Field of His Own,” is the title of the lecture that will be delivered by Peluso and Shapiro on October 7 at 4 pm in the auditorium of Henry R. Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave.

Peluso teaches in the Department of Environmental Studies, Policy and Management at Berkeley and is an affiliate professor in the school’s geography and anthropology departments. She has conducted research in Java and Kalimantan, Indonesia, for over 40 years. She co-edited the books The Social Lives of Land , New Frontiers of Land Control , Taking Southeast Asia to Market: Commodities, People and Nature in a Neoliberal Age , Violent Environments , and Borneo in Transition: People, Forests, Conservation, and Development . Her first book, Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance , will be updated in Indonesian in 2025. Peluso is vice president of the Association of Asian Scholars and will serve as the organization’s president in 2025-2026.

Shapiro has written widely on democracy, justice, and the methods of social inquiry. His most recent books are Politics Against Domination , Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself (with Frances Rosenbluth), The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It (with Michael Graetz), and Uncommon Sense . His current research concerns the relations between democracy and the distribution of income, wealth, and risk. He served as the Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies 2004-2019.

Written by Susan González

Search form

Toorawa named blanshard professor in yale’s faculty of arts and sciences.

Shawkat M. Toorawa, a world-renowned scholar and translator of extraordinary breadth — who explores classical, medieval, and modern Arabic literature, the literary dimensions of the Qur’an, medieval Baghdad, the legendary Waqwaq tree and islands, Indian Ocean studies, modern poetry, and contemporary Anglophone Muslim women’s writing — has been appointed the Brand Blanshard Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Professor of Comparative Literature.

Toorawa is a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in the departments of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative Literature. He also has affiliations with the programs in Humanities and Medieval Studies, and the Department of Religious Studies.

His co-authored book “Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition” (University of California Press, 2001) is a study of a millennium of Arabic autobiographical writing and a powerful critique of foundational European scholarship. In “Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Arabic Writerly Culture” (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005) Toorawa re-evaluates the literary history and landscape of ninth-century Baghdad. “A Time Between Ashes and Roses: Poems” (Syracuse University Press, 2004) is the first critical edition and complete translation of a collection by leading modern Arab poet, Adonis.  “Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad” (NYU Press, 2015), an edition and collaborative translation of a thirteenth-century biographical collection by the historian Ibn al-Sa‘i, sheds light on the lives of thirty-seven remarkable women. Edited collections include “The Western Indian Ocean: Essays on Islands and Islanders” (HTT, 2012), “The City That Never Sleeps: Poems of New York” (SUNY Press, 2014), “Arabic Humanities, Islamic Thought” (Brill, 2017), “Arabic Belles Lettres” (Lockwood, 2019), and a forthcoming volume on the literary dimensions of the Qur’an (Edinburgh University Press). His most recent book, “The Devotional Qu’ran: Beloved Surahs and Verses” (Yale University Press, 2024), is the first curated English translation of Qur’anic surahs and passages central to Muslim devotion.

Toorawa is a director of the School of Abbasid Studies, a series editor of “Resources in Arabic and Islamic Studies,” and serves on the editorial or advisory boards of several journals, including the Journal of Abbasid Studies, the Journal of Arabic Literature, the Journal of Qur’anic Studies, Middle Eastern Literatures, and Quaderni di Studi Arabi. Since 2010, he has been an executive editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, an initiative to edit and translate significant works of the premodern Arabic literary heritage.

Toorawa has been the recipient of numerous academic honors, including the Distinguished Senior Translation Fellowship from the Library of Arabic Literature, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at Independent Research Institutions, the Senior Long-term Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Rockefeller African Humanities Institute Junior Fellowship. In 2023–24, he was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.

Toorawa, who joined the Yale faculty in 2016, has served as chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, of the Yale-NUS College Advisory Committee, and of the Yale College Committee on Majors, and as a member of the Executive Committee for the Whitney Humanities Center, the Executive Committee for the Humanities Program, the Language Study Committee, the Review Committee for the Faculty, the Advisory Committees of several Yale College Certificates, and other bodies.

A dedicated teacher, Toorawa has also served as supervisor, reader, and examiner for numerous PhD students, and has brought to Yale his popular “Dr. T. Project” which meets weekly under the aegis of the Whitney Humanities Center, introducing students to diverse topics of literary, musical, and general cultural interest.

Toorawa went to the English School of Paris, the United World College of South East Asia, and earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

Arts & Humanities

Campus & Community

Voluntary carbon market 2.0, let’s talk

PODCAST: Sharing sacred spaces and ‘radical’ hospitality

The link between climate change and extreme weather

Health & Veritas PODCAST: Building an integrated health system

• Show More Articles

• People Directory
• Safety at UD

Graduate Program

• English 110 First-Year Writing
• Current Student Resources
• Awards and Honors
• Caesura Student Magazine
• Random Acts of Poetry
• Sigma Tau Delta
• English Minors
• Funding Opportunities
• Working Groups
• Research Programs
• Make a Gift

​Tim Spaulding

Office : 105 Memorial Hall

Get more information >

Our english graduate program.

The Graduate Program in English offers a fully funded five-year Doctor of Philosophy degree program. Students typically earn their Master of Arts degree at the end of their second year of the program.

The English Ph.D. degree at the University of Delaware is designed to immerse students into specialized work in a significant area of British, American, and Anglophone literary and cultural studies and/or theory. Students receive strong teacher preparation and will learn, among other things, the protocols of scholarly research and publishing. Graduate training in our program foregrounds the importance of preparing graduate students for a variety of career paths within and beyond the academy. 

​Our graduate students work closely with accomplished and prominent scholars in their fields. Faculty provide academic and professional mentorship throughout each student's tenure in the program, on the job market, and beyond. Students collaborate with faculty on public and digital humanities projects like  ThingStor  and even  help design graduate seminars . Students are always working with their colleagues in English, but also across the humanities at UD – partnering with students and faculty in fields such as History and Art History to coordinate symposiums and facilitate  working groups . Our graduate students also find many opportunities to research and work with institutions unique to the Delaware area, including the  Winterthur Museum & Library ,  Hagley M​useum and Library , and the  Delaware Art Museum .

Interdisciplinary 4+1 Programs

• English/Public Administration 4+1 (BA/MPA)
• English/Teaching English as a Second Language 4+1 (BA/MA)
• English/Urban Affairs and Public Policy 4+1 (BA/MA)

Graduate Program Policy

2023-2024 ​English Ph.D. Program Policy document​

Please visit the  UD ​Catalog​​​  to review the English Ph.D. degree requirements​

Academic Support for graduate students is available on the UD Graduate College website .

How to apply?

Students are admitted into the graduate program for the fall semester only. For students applying for full-funding (stipend, tuition remission) as well as admission to the English PhD graduate program, all application materials should be submitted by January 1.

The following items must be uploaded to your online application: 

• Resume or CV
• What are your intellectual objectives and how will your proposed plan of graduate study relate to them?
• Within English studies, are there areas of special interest to you? Please explain.
• How will the resources at the University of Delaware (faculty and otherwise) help you to achieve your objectives and pursue you areas of interest?
• [Note: because special scholarships may be available for members of historically underrepresented groups in the humanities, including African and Asian-American students, first-generation college students, students with disabilities, and former members of the military, we encourage applicants who may be eligible for these awards to signal their eligibility in their statement.]
• Unofficial Transcripts from All College/Universities Attended​
• A bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree has been or will be earned from a college or university accredited by a regional accrediting association in the United States.
• A bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree has been or will be earned from a university recognized by the ministry of education in a country where English is the primary language. Countries approved by the ministry of education are:  Anguilla, Antigua, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cameroon, Canada (except Quebec),Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Ghana, Guyana, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Montserrat, New Zealand, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks and Caicos, The United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe
• Three Letters of Recommendation. Be sure letters of recommendation are submitted by your faculty advisors prior to the January 1 deadline. Incomplete applications will not be considered. 
• Critical Writing Sample (10–20 pages)
• Applicants must have earned a BA or MA degree before matriculation in Fall 
• Please note we are a straight-to-PhD program that does not accept applications for a terminal MA degree. Our PhD students have the opportunity to earn the MA degree on their way to the PhD. 
• The application fee is $75.  View information regarding fees and possible fee waivers​
• Students must accept the offer of admission no later than  April 15
• All incoming students are subject to a criminal background check as per  UD policy 4-111

All applications received by  January 1  are considered for full-funding. Applications received after January 1 and before January 31 will not be considered for funding.

We are proud to offer competitive funding packages that include 9-month living stipends, full-tuition scholarships, and subsidized health insurance coverage for up to 5 years.​

Your funding package will be detailed in your admissions offer letter. Renewal of funding packages each year is dependent on satisfactory progress toward the degree. Read the  University's funding policies .

Most students are admitted on Teaching Assistantship contracts, but will have the opportunity to apply for Graduate Assistantships, Research Assistantships, and Fellowships throughout their tenure in the program. In the first-year, teaching assistants shadow an experienced professor in teaching ENGL110 and a literature course. After the first-year of shadowing and training, teaching assista​nts become the instructor-of-record for English courses (2​ sections per year).

Competitive semester and full-year fellowship opportunities are available from both the English department and the Graduate College. Students on fellowship are expected to devote their full-time attention to their research and are not expected to teach or perform graduate assistantship duties.

Students may apply for Summer Research Fellowships and Summer Research Assistantships, as well as various hourly-paid internships. Students may also have the opportunity to teach courses in Summer or Winter terms for additional funding.

Our department offers generous funding for research and conference travel, as well as funding for professional development opportunities. Students apply for this funding throughout each year and are mentored in finding external funding opportunities as well.

For a detailed list of the various funding opportunities available to our graduate students, visit our  Funding Opportunities page.

One of the unique strengths that each of our graduate students enjoys on the job market is the depth and diversity of their teaching portfolios. Rather than serving as a grader or an assistant to a professor's class, the courses that our graduate students teach are emphatically their own: they design the syllabi, choose the reading lists, set the calendar, create the assignments, and do the grading.

We also guarantee each graduate student the opportunity to teach at least one literature class related to the student's area of specialization. 

The English Department has a  professional development and teacher training program for all graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs). The goal of this scaffolded program is to provide graduate students with the knowledge, skills, experience, and supportive mentoring environment to best prepare them to become teachers of writing and literature at the post-secondary level. 

Teacher Training Timeline

​​First-Year Teacher Preparation

Fall:  Prior to Fall of the first-year, students participate in an orientation with the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning to prepare for the upcoming year. During the Fall semester, new students serve as apprentices to an experienced professor in the teaching of ENGL110: Seminar in Composition. Apprentices work closely with their faculty mentor and cohort to observe, teach, co-teach, lead groups, assess student writing, develop lesson plans  and more.

Spring:  In the Spring semester of the first-year, students are placed as apprentices for a literature or other advanced undergraduate English course with an experienced professor. Throughout their apprenticeship, students help develop syllabi, lecture, lead class discussions, assess student work and more. Apprentices learn strategies for teaching in their research fields and are supported through regular mentorship by the instructor-of-record. Students are also enrolled in ENGL688: Composition Theory and the Teaching of Writing. This course provides formal training in pedagogy and practical experience in developing teaching materials. In ENGL688, students develop their syllabus, assignments and teaching philosophies in preparation for teaching their own courses in the following year.​

Second-Year and Beyond

The standard teaching load is two courses per year (1 section in fall, 1 section in spring). Graduate students teach ENGL110: Seminar in Composition and are guaranteed at least one opportunity to teach a course in their field while in the program. This course is typically ENGL280: Approaches to Literature for Non-Majors. The course allows students to develop a custom syllabus on a topic of their choosing. Students may also teach special topics-based Honors sections of ENGL110, as well as advanced writing courses such as ENGL 301 (Advanced Writing), ENGL 312 (Business Writing), and ENGL 410 (Technical Writing).​ Opportunities to teach various English courses (for additional compensation) during Winter and Summer terms are also available.

Graduate students also have ample opportunity to expand their teaching qualifications through formal training programs in online-teaching and teaching multilingual learners. Students who complete these training programs are eligible to teach sections specifically for multilingual students, as well as online sections.

Outstanding Teacher Award

Each year, the English Department awards one graduate student the Outstanding Teacher Award in recognition of exceptional and innovative teaching. Award applications are reviewed by a faculty committee. The award offers a $500 prize. 

Professional Development

We proudly support graduate students in their pursuit of academic and non-academic careers.

We take an active role in helping our graduate students compete for good jobs in academia. We regularly offer job placement workshops every summer that help prepare graduate students for every step of the academic job search. These workshops combine group meetings with one-on-one advising sessions and mock interviews in order to make sure that our students are prepared to compete for jobs. Several English faculty members participate by helping with workshops and mock interviews.​

Students interested in careers outside the academy also benefit from our internship and graduate assistantship   opportunities in areas such as publishing, museums, and special collections. Given that many academic job interviews also ask candidates to speak to how they'd forge connections to local institutions, these opportunities serve a dual purpose   of preparing students for careers inside and outside the academy. We also sponsor workshops specifically for PhD students in the humanities preparing for non-teaching careers.

One way we support our graduate students' professional development is through conference and research travel funding. Each year, our students present their research across the world at top academic conferences hosted by organizations such as the Modern Language Association, Association of Adaptation Studies, Literature/Film Association, Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies, Conference on College Composition and Communication, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, American Comparative Literature Association, and more. Students travel to archives such as   the British Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Texas A&M Science Fiction Collection.

The graduate program also supports our PhD students in participating in professional development seminars throughout the country. Some examples of seminars/institutes our students have attended include:  Dickens Universe ,  Futures of American Studies Institute ,  HILT  (digital humanities),  Rare Books School ,  and The School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell.

But we know successful professional development isn't just about funding. That is why our program offers innovative and interdisciplinary seminars, workshops, working groups, field trips, speaker series and development opportunities for Ph.D. students every step of the way. Moreover, our faculty are committed to supportive mentorship and building a diverse, intellectually curious community of scholars.

English Research Clusters

Our program houses Research Clusters in the Environmental Humanities, Black Cultural Studies and Print and Material Culture Studies. Students are encouraged to pursue research in one of these fields as a complement either to their work in a particular national literature, period, or thematic concern; or leading to innovative approaches that engage with textual analysis, the digital humanities, and/or the public face of the humanities.

Print and Material Culture Studies

Print and Material Culture examines cultures past and present through the physical objects and physical texts they produce. How do objects and texts, from newspapers and posters to photographs, maps and computer screens, shape our interactions with the physical world? How do these physical texts and objects prompt us to view identities in complex ways? This mode of study encourages students to intervene in the ongoing and interdisciplinary conversation on the ways physical texts and objects compel us to engage, interpret, and understand our world. 

Our students engaging with Print and Material Culture Studies benefit from a variety of on-campus and community resources including: Center for Material Culture Studies ,  Delaware Public Humanities Institute (DEL​PHI) , Winterthur Museum & Library, and the Hagley Museum & Library. Graduate students participate in working groups, major research projects, and symposiums such as: Media Old and New Working Group, ThingStor: A Material Culture Database, Methods in Material Culture Graduate Student Group, and the Emerging Scholars Graduate Symposium. 

Black Cultural Studies

At UD, this research cluster encompasses the study of Black culture with an emphasis on African American and African diasporic literature. Students study literary, historical, visual, and musical texts as entwined with cultural and political movements, aesthetic experimentation, historical memory, critical theory, and public humanities. Our program encourages a truly interdisciplinary and transnational lens for studying the cultural history of race, slavery, colonialism, modernity, and post-colonialism. 

Our students with a research focus in Black Cultural studies often work closely with distinguished faculty not only in the English Department, but in History, Art History, and Africana Studies as well. Students also benefit from a variety of on-campus resources through the Morris Library, Special Collections, and UD Museums. UD is also conveniently located near a multitude of museums and libraries in Washington DC and Philadelphia. 

Prospective students interested in this research field are encouraged to apply for the  African American Public Humanities Initiative Schol​arship (AAPHI)  by checking the appropriate box in the SLATE application and declaring interest in the personal statement. 

Environmental Humanities

This mode of study encourages students to intervene in the ongoing and interdisciplinary conversation on the ways that texts affect our engagement with the natural world. ​Many of the most basic environmental questions are humanist. How have human relationships to the non-human world changed over time? Why do we have environmental problems? What are their causes? Which groups are most vulnerable to environmental issues and why do these injustices persist? What shapes our ideas about relationships between humans and their environments? How does narrative shape our ideas about the "human" and interrogate its global impacts? 

Writing Studies

​Writing Studies entails the study of writing in academic and public spaces, emphasizing the intersections of theory, pedagogy, and literate practice. This field of study includes composition theory, rhetorical theory, literacy studies, narrative analysis, storytelling, writing centers, writing program administration, technical and professional writing, research methodologies, and rhetoric of health and medicine. It also encompasses a wide array of special topics courses on public discourse, genre theory, race and writing, disability studies, and writing and emerging technologies.​

African American Public Humanities Initiative (AAPHI)

Are you interested in obtaining a PhD in the Humanities with an emphasis on African American/Africana Studies? Are you looking for graduate training that emphasizes public scholarship, community outreach, collections-based research, and digital humanities? The African American Public Humanities Initiative (AAPHI) provides financial and mentorship support for PhD students in Hist​ory, English, and Art History. 

Prospective PhD English students interested in being considered for the African American Public Humanities Initiative scholarship should indicate their interest by checking the AAPHI interest box in their application and indicating their interest in their personal statement. 

Read more about AAPHI and our current English AAPHI scholars

Link to a recording of Recording of University of Delaware - English PhD Graduate Program Virtual Open House: https://capture.udel.edu/media/1_8jgflia1/

Virtual Open House Video Recording

In this video recording, you will listen to Tim Spaulding, Interim Director of Graduate Studies, various faculty members, and students talk about aspects of the English Ph.D. program at the University of Delaware.

Supporting tomorrow's leaders, scholars and innovators

The University of Delaware holistically supports its graduate students, beginning with their health and wellbeing . Benefits include a subsidized health plan and physical and behavioral health services. UD fosters a culture of academic excellence , with committed faculty and staff and access to state-of-the-art research facilities and technology. UD prioritizes professional development with job training, internships and industry partnerships. Graduates further enhance their professional growth and visibility with opportunities to work on interdisciplinary research teams, present their work at conferences and publish in academic journals. Visit the links below to learn how UD is supporting society’s future leaders, scholars, and innovators.

Academic Support >

Professional development >, student life >, college of arts & sciences.

• Prospective Students
• Current Students
• News & Events
• Research & Innovation
• Alumni & Friends
• College Operations

• Mission, Facts and Figures
• Deans, Chairs and Staff
• Leadership Council
• Dean in the News
• Get Involved
• DEIB Mission
• Message from DEIB Associate Dean
• News and Media
• Reading Lists
• The Yale and Slavery Research Project
• Photo Gallery
• Winslow Medal
• Coat of Arms & Mace
• $50 Million Challenge
• For Pandemic Prevention and Global Health
• For Understanding the Health Impacts of Climate Change
• For Health Equity and Justice
• For Powering Health Solutions through Data Science
• For Future Leaders
• For Faculty Leaders
• For Transformational Efforts
• Data, Leadership, and Collaboration at the School of Public Health
• An abiding love for Yale turns into a lasting gift – in 15 minutes
• Endowed Professorship Created at Critical Time for Yale School of Public Health
• Brotherly encouragement spurs gift to support students
• Prestipino creates opportunities for YSPH students, now and later
• Alumna gives back to the school that “opened doors” in male-dominated field
• For Public Health, a Broad Mission and a Way to Amplify Impact
• Couple Endows Scholarship to Put Dreams in Reach for YSPH Students
• A Match Made at YSPH
• A HAPPY Meeting of Public Health and the Arts
• Generous Gift Bolsters Diversity & Inclusion
• Alumni Donations Aid Record Number of YSPH Students
• YSPH’s Rapid Response Fund Needs Donations – Rapidly
• Podiatric Medicine and Orthopedics as Public Health Prevention
• Investing in Future Public Health Leaders
• Support for Veterans and Midcareer Students
• Donor Eases Burden for Policy Students
• A Personal Inspiration for Support of Cancer Research
• Reducing the Burden of Student Debt
• Learning About Global Health Through Global Travel
• A Meeting in Dubai, and a Donation to the School
• Rapid Response Fund
• Planned Giving
• Testimonials
• Assistant/Associate Professor - Chronic Disease Epidemiology
• Assistant/Associate Professor - Environmental Toxicology
• Associate Research Scientist - Health Policy and Management
• Postdoctoral Associate - Computational Biology
• LGBTQ Mental Health Postdoctoral Clinical Research Associate in NYC
• Postdoctoral Associate - Health Policy and Management
• Postdoctoral Associate - Data Science and Data Equity
• Postdoctoral Associate - CMIPS
• Postdoctoral Associate - Environmental Health Sciences
• Postdoctoral Associate - Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Postdoctoral Associate - Malaria Genomics and Vaccinology
• Postdoctoral Associate - McDougal Lab
• Postgraduate Associate - Data, Modeling, and Decision Analysis
• Postdoctoral Associate - Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases
• For the Media
• Issues List
• PDF Issues for Download
• Editorial Style Guide
• Social Media
• Shared Humanity Podcast
• Health & Veritas Podcast
• Maps and Directions
• Accreditation
• Faculty Directory by Name
• Career Achievement Awards
• Annual Research Awards
• Teaching Spotlights

Biostatistics

Chronic disease epidemiology, climate change and health concentration, environmental health sciences, epidemiology of microbial diseases.

• Global Health
• Health Policy and Management
• Implementation Science Track
• Maternal and Child Health Promotion Track

Public Health Modeling Concentration

• Social & Behavioral Sciences
• U.S. Health Justice Concentration
• Why Public Health at Yale
• Events and Contact
• What Does it Take to be a Successful YSPH Student?
• How to Apply and FAQs
• Orientation Schedule
• Traveling to Yale
• Meet Students and Alumni
• Past Spotlights
• Student-run Organizations
• MS and PhD Student Leaders
• Staff Spotlights
• Life in New Haven
• Libraries at Yale
• The MPH Internship Experience
• Practicum Course Offerings
• Summer Funding and Fellowships
• Downs Fellowship Committee
• Stolwijk Fellowship
• Climate Change and Health
• Career Management Center
• What You Can Do with a Yale MPH
• MPH Career Outcomes
• MS Career Outcomes
• PhD Career Outcomes
• Employer Recruiting
• Tuition and Expenses
• External Funding and Scholarships
• External Fellowships for PhD Candidates
• Alumni Spotlights
• Bulldog Perks
• Stay Involved
• Update Your Info
• Board of Directors
• Emerging Majority Affairs Committee
• Award Nomination Form
• Board Nomination Form
• Alumni Engagement Program
• Transcript and Verification Requests
• Applied Practice and Student Research
• Competencies and Career Paths
• Applied Practice and Internships
• Student Research
• Seminar and Events
• Competencies and Career paths
• Why the YSPH Executive MPH
• Message from the Program Director
• EMPH Tracks
• Eligibility & FAQs
• The Faculty
• Approved Electives
• Physicians Associates Program
• Joint Degrees with International Partners
• MS in Biostatistics Standard Pathway
• MS Implementation and Prevention Science Methods Pathway
• MS Data Sciences Pathway
• Internships and Student Research
• Competencies
• Degree Requirements - Quantitative Specialization
• Degree Requirements - Clinical Specialization
• Degree Requirements- PhD Biostatistics Standard Pathway
• Degree Requirements- PhD Biostatistics Implementation and Prevention Science Methods Pathway
• Meet PhD Students in Biostatistics
• Meet PhD Students in CDE
• Degree Requirements and Timeline
• Meet PhD Students in EHS
• Meet PhD Students in EMD
• Meet PhD Students in HPM
• Degree Requirements - PhD in Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Degree Requirements - PhD SBS Program Maternal and Child Health Promotion
• Meet PhD Students in SBS
• Differences between MPH and MS degrees
• Academic Calendar
• Translational Alcohol Research Program
• Molecular Virology/Epidemiology Training Program (MoVE-Kaz)
• For Public Health Practitioners and Workforce Development
• Course Description
• Instructors
• Registration
• Coursera Offerings
• Non-degree Students
• International Initiatives & Partnerships
• NIH-funded Summer Research Experience in Environmental Health (SREEH)
• Summer International Program in Environmental Health Sciences (SIPEHS)
• 2023 Student Awards
• 2022 Student Awards
• Leaders in Public Health
• The Role of Data in Public Health Equity & Innovation Conference
• YSPH Dean's Lectures
• National Public Health Week (NPHW)
• APHA Annual Meeting & Expo
• Innovating for the Public Good
• Practice- and community-based research and initiatives
• Practice and community-based research and initiatives
• Activist in Residence Program
• The Data & The Solutions
• Publications
• Health Care Systems and Policy
• Heart Disease and Stroke
• Panels, Seminars and Workshops (Recordings)
• Rapid Response Fund Projects
• SalivaDirect™
• Emerging Infections Program - COVID-NET
• Public Health Modeling Unit Projects
• HIV-AIDS-TB
• The Lancet 2023 Series on Breastfeeding
• 'Omics
• News in Biostatistics
• Biostatistics Overview
• Seminars and Events
• Seminar Recordings
• Statistical Genetics/Genomics, Spatial Statistics and Modeling
• Causal Inference, Observational Studies and Implementation Science Methodology
• Health Informatics, Data Science and Reproducibility
• Clinical Trials and Outcomes
• Machine Learning and High Dimensional Data Analysis
• News in CDE
• Nutrition, Diabetes, Obesity
• Maternal and Child Health
• Outcomes Research
• Health Disparities
• Women's Health
• News in EHS
• EHS Seminar Recordings
• Climate change and energy impacts on health
• Developmental origins of health and disease
• Environmental justice and health disparities
• Enviromental related health outcomes
• Green chemistry solutions
• Novel approaches to assess environmental exposures and early markers of effect
• 1,4 Dioxane
• Reproducibility
• Tissue Imaging Mass Spectrometry
• Alcohol and Cancer
• Olive Oil and Health
• Lightning Talks
• News in EMD
• Antimicrobial Resistance
• Applied Public Health and Implementation Science
• Emerging Infections and Climate Change
• Global Health/Tropical Diseases
• HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections
• Marginalized Population Health & Equity
• Pathogen Genomics, Diagnostics, and Molecular Epidemiology
• Vector-borne and Zoonotic Diseases
• Disease Areas
• EMD Research Day
• News in HPM
• Health Systems Reform
• Quality, Efficiency and Equity of Healthcare
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health
• Modeling: Policy, Operations and Disease
• Pharmaceuticals, Vaccines and Medical Devices
• Health and Wellbeing
• News in SBS
• Aging Health
• Community Engagement
• Health Equity
• Mental Health
• Reproductive Health
• Sexuality and Health
• Nutrition, Exercise
• Stigma Prevention
• For Students
• Community Partners
• For Public Health Practitioners
• Reports and Publications
• Fellows Stipend Application
• Agency Application
• Past Fellows
• PHFP in the News
• Frequently Asked Questions
• International Activity
• Research Publications
• Grant Listings
• Modeling Analyses
• 3 Essential Questions Series

INFORMATION FOR

• Prospective Students
• Incoming Students
• myYSPH Members

Master of Public Health (MPH) Degree

How is the mph curriculum structured.

• 20 course units (two years)
• The MPH core curriculum
• The 2-part Professional Skills Seminar
• Departmental courses
• Electives and/or concentrations and tracks
• The applied practice experience
• Master's thesis or capstone course

What does the MPH Core Curriculum consist of?

The core curriculum for the MPH program consists of 5 courses and two Professional Skills Seminars. Our foundational classes in biostatistics, epidemiology, social and structural determinants of health inequities, and health policy and health care systems ground students with the breadth of skill sets and perspectives essential to careers in public health. "Major Health Threats" is an interdisciplinary course that uses a combination of lectures, case studies, and vignette approaches. Students learn to actively apply concepts, hone data interpretation skills, and frame research and health solution projects.

• EPH 505a - Biostatistics in Public Health (not required for BIS)
• EPH 507a - Social Justice and Health Equity
• EPH 508a - Foundations of Epidemiology and Public Health
• EPH 510a - Health Policy and Health Care Systems
• EPH 513b - Major Health Threats: Ethics and Practice -----------
• EPH 100a - Professional Skills Seminar
• EPH 101b - Professional Skills Seminar

Departments and Programs

Health care management program, health policy, social and behavioral sciences, concentrations and tracks.

The following concentrations and tracks are available for students to customize their elective courses in the MPH program. They are 3-5 courses each and are added once students have begun the MPH program. Concentrations offer the opportunity for students to direct their applied practice experiences, whereas tracks are exclusively course based.

Global Health Concentration

Here at YSPH, we believe that Global Health is Public Health. This means that it is not just a one department of study but rather an important theme that is woven throughout the program. Students in any department may also participate in the Global Health Concentration . YSPH GHC faculty is on the front lines of global health responses.

Maternal Child Health Promotion Track

The Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Promotion track is a cutting-edge promotion-education program that takes a multidisciplinary approach to implementing evidence-based practices to improve outcomes. The MCH Promotion Track faculty trains students on the importance and application of implementation science to maternal-child health promotion.

YSPH Public Health Modeling (PHM) faculty is on the cutting edge of developing and assessing public health through mathematical modeling. Students in any department may also pursue the modeling concentration .

U.S. Health and Justice Concentration

Vast, persistent, and avoidable health inequalities by race, geography, class, gender identity, and sexual orientation are well documented. YSPH USHJ faculty realize that addressing these inequalities is both a critical challenge and a critical objective for public health researchers and practitioners. This U.S. Health and Justice (USHJ) Concentration is for students who want to not only research and understand health inequities but to be agents of change for a new generation.

Mailing List