english phd reading list

Graduate Reading List

Graduate – current – reading lists.

19th-Century American Literature

19th-Century American Literature – Hueth (Fall 2021)
Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature, 1848-1914 – Driben (Fall 2021)
Long 19 th Century in American Literature – Herrera (Fall 2021)
American Literature 1820 – 1920 – Swanson (Spring 2021)
19th-Century American Literature, 1825-1900 – Lee (Spring 2019)
19th-Century American Literature, 1848-1914 – Valenzuela (Fall 2018)
U.S. Literature 1820-1880 – Delchamps (Fall 2017)
19th-Century American Literature – Fosbury (Fall 2016)
19th-Century American Literature – Lopez (Fall 2016)
19th-Century American Literature – Febo (Spring 2016)
19th-Century American Literature – Lew (Winter 2016)
American Literature 1780-1880 – Messner (Spring 2015)
19th-Century American Literature – Smith, R. (Fall 2014)
American Literature, 1780-1890 – Beck (Fall 2014)
American Literature, 1782-1896 – Rosson (Fall 2014)
19th-Century American Literature – Sommers (Fall 2014)
19th-Century American Literature – Wingate (Fall 2014)
19th-Century American – Chon (Spring 2014)
19th-Century American – Horvath (Winter 2014)
19th-Century American – Clark (Spring 2013)
19th-Century American – Gallagher (Spring 2013)
19th-Century American – Lang (Spring 2013)
19th-Century American – Charles (Fall 2012)
19th-Century American – Couch (Fall 2012)
American Literature 1800-1890 – Reed (2010)
19th-Century American – Henton (Fall 2009)
19th-Century American – JohnsonA (Spring 2009)
19th-Century American – Moore (Spring 2009)
19th-Century American – Nahm (Spring 2009)
19th-Century American – Escobar (Winter 2009)
19th-Century American – Webster (Winter 2009)
19th-Century American – Gardner (Fall 2008)
19th-Century American – Department

20th Century British & Irish Literature

Anglophone Modernism – Meagher (Spring 2023)
Modernism – Webster (Spring 2022)
20th Century British and Anglophone – Wang (Spring 2021)
20th Century British and Irish Fiction – Ridder (Spring 2021)
20th/21st British and Irish Literature – Tanaka (Spring 2020)
20th/21st British and Irish Literature – Kern (Fall 2017)
British Literature, 1899-Present – Cardon (Fall 2017)
20th-Century British Literature – Benson (Summer 2017)
Post-1945 Anglophone Literature – Lee, J. (Fall 2015)
Early 20th-Century British Literature – Rainwater (Spring 2015)
20th-Century British and Anglophone Literature – Shin (Winter 2015)
20th-Century British / Postcolonial – Zhang (Fall 2014)
20th-Century British and Anglophone Literature – Calder (Summer 2014)
20th-Century British and Anglophone Literature – Jin (Fall 2013)
20th-Century British Literature – Kim (Fall 2013)
20th-Century British and Anglophone Literature – Nance (Fall 2013)
20th-Century British and Anglophone Literature – Miller (Spring 2013)
20th-Century British and Anglophone Literature – Walle (Fall 2012)
20th-Century British and Irish Postcolonial – Mack (Fall 2011)
20th-Century British and Anglophone Literature – Wong (Spring 2011)
20th-Century British – Ardam (Fall 2010)
U.K. 1900-2009 – Schmidt ( Fall 2010)
20th-Century British & Postcolonial – Fickle (Summer 2010)
20th-Century British & Irish – Williford (Summer 2010)
20th-Century British & Anglophone – Chatterjee (Spring 2010)
(Early) 20th-Century British & Irish – Caughey (Spring 2010)
20th-Century British & Irish – Camara (Fall 2009)
20th-Century British, Irish & Anglophone – O’Kelly (Fall 2009)
20th-Century British – Pulizzi (Summer 2009)
20th-Century British & Anglophone – Pizzo (Spring 2009)
20th-Century British & Anglophone – Department

African American Literature

20th Century African American Literature – Prucha (Winter 2022)
Black Womanist Literature – Elliott-Newton (Spring 2022)
20th Century African American Literature – Prucha (Winter 2022)
20th C. Black Literature (1899-1990s) – Pittman (Winter 2021)
African American – Mendoza (Winter 2019)
African American – Sommers (Fall 2014)
African American – Warren (Spring 2012)
African American – Underwood (Winter 2012)
African American – Mack (Fall 2011)
African American – HarrisD (Spring 2009)
African American – Department

American Women’s Literature

American Women – Henton (Fall 2009)
American Women – Department

Asian American Literatre

Asian Diaspora Literature – Cai (Fall 2015)
Asian-American Literature – Toy (Spring 2015)
Asian-American Literature – Tran (Spring 2013)
Asian American Alternative Genres – Fickle (Summer 2010)
Asian American Literature – Department

British Women’s Literature

*Required Critical Text

Robyn Warhol, ed. Feminisms (rev. ed.)

*Kempe, Margery (c. 1373-c. 1438). The Book of Margery Kempe. Ed. S. B. Meech and H. E. Allen. Early English Text Society (autobiography)

*Norwich, Julian of. Revelations of Divine Love

Renaissance and Restoration

*Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave; The Rover (drama)

*Cary, Elizabeth. The Tragedie of Mariam, Faire Queene of Jewry

*Finch, Anne, Countess of Winchilsea. Poems in Rogers anthology

*Lanyer, Aemelia. Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum

*Wroth, Lady Mary. The Countess of Montgomerie’s Urania and sonnets

Eighteenth-Century Women Writers

*Burney, Frances. Evelina or The Wanderer

*Lennox, Charlotte. The Female Quixote

*Manley, Delarivier. The New Atalantis

*Radcliffe, Ann. The Italian

*Scott, Sarah. Millenium Hall or Sir George Ellison

*Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

*Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria and selections from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Nineteenth-Century

*Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice or Emma or Mansfield Park

*Baillie, Joanna. Count Basil or De Montfort

*Barrett Browning, Elizabeth. Aurora Leigh and “The Cry of the Children,” “To George Sand: A Desire,” “To George Sand: A Recognition,” “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,” “Sonnets from the Portuguese,” “Mother and Poet”

*Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre or Villette

*Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights

*Edgeworth, Maria. Belinda or The Absentee

*Eliot, George. Middlemarch

*Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South

*Hemans, Felicia. Siege of Valencia and “Properzia Rossi”; “Casabianca,” “The Homes of England,” “Graves of a Household,” “Evening Prayer, at a Girls’ School,” “Woman and Fame”

*Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave

*Rosetti, Christina. “Goblin Market,” “The Prince’s Progress,” “Song [When I am dead, my dearest],” “In an Artist’s Studio,” “Up-Hill,” “The Convent Threshold,” “Remember,” “Winter Rain,” “My Dream,” “Winter: My Secret,” “A Better Resurrection,” “The Lowest Room,” “A Birthday”

*Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (1818 edition)

Twentieth-Century

*Brittain, Vera. Testament of Youth

*Carter, Angela. Nights at the Circus and “The Bloody Chamber”

*Emecheta, Buchi. Second Class Citizen

*Hall, Radclyffe. Well of Loneliness

*Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook

*Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea

*Winterson, Jeanette. Passion

*Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse; A Room of One’s Own

Recommended Theory and CriticismAbraham, Julie. “History as Explanation: Writing About Lesbian Writing, or ‘Are Girls Necessary?’” in Left Politics and the Literary Profession . Eds. Lennard J. Davis and M. Bella Mirabella (New York: Columbia UP, 1990): 254-83.

Barrett, Michele. Women’s Oppression Today , Ch. 1

Ballaster, Ros. Seductive Fictions: Women’s Amatory Fiction 1684-1740

Barratt, Alexandra. “Introduction,” Women’s Writing in Middle English

de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex (selections)

Bennett, Paula. “Critical Clitoridectomy,” Signs (1992)

Butler, Judith. “Subversive Bodily Acts” in Gender Trouble ; “Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of ‘Postmodernism’” in Feminists Theorize the Political , ed. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott

Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian

Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender , Ch. 5

Christian, Barbara. “The Race for Theory”

Ebert, Teresa. Ludic Feminism and After , Chs. 1 and 2

Felski, Rita. Beyond Feminist Aesthetics (selections)

Ferguson, Margaret, ed. Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe (with Maureen Quillian and Nancy Vickers, eds.)

Fraser, Nancy. “What’s Critical about Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender” in Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory

Gallagher, Catherine. Nobody’s Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace 1670-1820

Gilbert, Sandra, ed. The Madwoman in the Attic (with Susan Gubar, ed.)

Gilligan, Carol. “In a Different Voice: Women’s Conceptions of Self and Morality,” in The Future of Difference Eisenstein and Jardine, eds.

Hall, Catherine, ed. Family Fortunes (with Leonore Davidoff, ed.)

Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”

Hobby, Elaine. Virtue of Necessity: English Women’s Writing 1649-88

Irigaray, Luce. The Sex Which Is Not One

Julia Kristeva. Desire in Language , ch. 5 [the concept of the semiotic]

de Lauretis, Lauretis, ed. Technologies of Gender, Ch. 1

Lewalksi, Barbara Kiefer. Writing Women in Jacobean England

Minh-ha, Trinh. Woman, Native, Other: Writing, Postcoloniality, and Feminism

Mirza, Heidi Safia, ed. Black British Feminism , Introduction

Mellor, Anne, ed. Romanticism and Gender

Mohanty, Chandra. “Under Western Eyes”

Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics

Spivak, Gayatri. “Three Women’s Texts”; “Can the Subaltern Speak” in Wedge 7 (1985)

Weedon, Chris. Feminism and Postructuralist Theory

Wittig, Monique. “One Is Not Born a Woman,” “The Straight Mind”

April, 1998

Celtic Literature

Myles Dillon, ed. Serglige Con Culainn (Dublin, 1953)

———-, ed. Stories from the Acallam (Dublin 1970)

Elizabeth Gray, ed. and trans. Cath Maige Tuired (Naas, 1983)

Kenneth Jackson, ed. and trans. Aislinge Meic Conglinne (Dublin 1990)

Gerard Murphy, ed. and trans. Early Irish Lyrics (Oxford 1956)

Nessa Ní Shéaghdha, ed. and trans. Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (Dublin, 1967)

Cecile O’Rahilly, ed. and trans. Táin Bó Cúalnge from the Book of Leinster (Dublin, 1967)

———-, ed. and trans. Táin Bó Cúailnge: Recension I (Dublin, 1976)

Rudolf Thurneysen, ed. and trans. Scéla Muicce Meic Dathó (Dublin, 1935)

Rachel Bromwich, ed. and trans . Dafydd ap Gwilym: A Selection of Poems (Llandysul, 1982)

———-, ed. and trans. Trioedd Ynys Prydain (Cardiff, 1961)

A. O. H. Jarman, ed. The Gododdin (Llandysul, 1988)

Thomas Parry, ed. Oxford Book of Welsh Verse (Oxford, 1962)

Derick Thomson, ed. Branwen uerch Lyr (Dublin, 1961)

R. L. Thomson, ed. Owein (Dublin, 1968)

———-, ed. Pwyll Pendeuic Dyfet (Dublin, 1957)

Ifor Williams and J. E. C. Williams, eds. Poems of Taliesin (Dublin, 1968)

Secondary Texts

James Carney. Studies in Irish Literature and History (Dublin, 1955)

Robin Flower. The Irish Tradition (Oxford, 1947)

Kathleen Hughes. Early Christian Ireland (Cornell, 1972)

J. F. Kenney. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland I: Ecclesiastical (New York, 1927)

Kim McCone. Pagan Past and Christian Present (Maynooth, 1990)

Rachel Bromwich. Aspects of the Poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym (Cardiff, 1986)

A. O. H. Jarman and others, A Guide to Welsh Literature, I (Swansea, 1976)

Brynley Roberts, ed. Early Welsh Poetry: Studies in the Book of Aneirin (Aberystwyth, 1988)

Ifor Williams. The Beginnings of Welsh Poetry (Cardiff, 1972)

J. E. C. Williams. The Poets of the Welsh Princes (Cardiff, 1978)

January, 1992

Chicana/o Literature

20th Century Chicanx/Latinx Literature – Olivares (Spring 2022)
20 th -Century Latinx Literature – Herrera (Fall 2021)
Chicano/a Literature 1940-2019 – Garcia (Spring 2020)
Chicanx/Latinx Literature – Lopez (Fall 2016)
Chicana/o – Escobar (Winter 09)
Chicana/o – Department

Comparative Ethnic American Literature

Contemporary Multiethnic Literature – Prucha (Winter 2022)
Comp. Ethnic American – Smith, R. (Fall 2014)
Comp. Ethnic American – Nahm (Spring 2009)
Comp. Ethnic American – Department
Drama – M. Smith (Fall 2012)

Early 17th-Century British Literature

17th-C.: Queer Undercurrents, Classical Receptions – Forest (Spring 2023)
17th-Century British Literature – Wu (Spring 2021)
17th-Century Literature – Bonnici (Spring 2017)
17th-Century Literature – Del Balzo (Spring 2015)
Early 17th-Century – Hedlin (Fall 2014)
17th-Century – M. Smith (Fall 2012)
Earlier 17th-Century British Literature – Tung (Winter 2012)
Earlier 17th-Century British Literature – O’Sullivan (Fall 2011)
Earlier 17th-Century British Literature – Gottlieb (Fall 2010)
17th-Century British Literature – Hernandez (Summer 2010)
Early 17th-Century British Literature – Department

Early American Literature

Early U.S. Literature, 1770-1865 – Driben (Fall 2021)
Early American Literature, 1770-1865 – Valenzuela (Fall 2018)
Early American – Fosbury (Fall 2016)
Early American – Sommers (Fall 2014)
Early American – Wingate (Fall 2014)
Early American – Gallagher (Spring 2013)
Early American – Couch (Fall 2012)
Early American – Reed (Fall 2010)
Early American – Henton (Fall 2009)
Early American – JohnsonA (Spring 2009)
Early American – Webster (Winter 2009)
Early American – Gardner (Fall 2008)
Early American – Department

Early 20th-Century American Literature

American Literature 1900-45 – Martinez (Winter 2022)
American Literature 1880 to 1945 / Narratology – Ridder (Spring 2021)
American Literature 1885 to 1945 – Solis (Fall 2020)
American Literature 1900 to 1945 – Meng (Spring 2020)
American Literature 1906 to 1969 – Garcia (Spring 2020)
American Literature 1880 to 1945 – Robins (Winter 2020)
Early 20th-Century U.S. Literature – Mendoza (Winter 2019)
U.S. Literature 1880-1945 – Delchamps (Fall 2017)
20th-Century American Literature 1900-1945 – Lopez (Fall 2016)
Early 20th-Century American Literature – Lew (Winter 2016)
American Literature 1880-1945 – Kincade (Fall 2015)
Early 20th-Century American Literature – Toy (Spring 2015)
American Literature 1880-1945 – Messner (Spring 2015)
American Literature 1850-1945 – Zirulnik (Spring 2015)
American Literature 1850-1945 – Youn (Winter 2015)
American Literature, 1890-1945 – Beck (Fall 2014)
Early 20th-Century American Literature – Horvath (Winter 2014)
American Literature, 1865-1945 – Mehlman (Fall 2013)
Early 20th-Century American (and Whitman and Dickinson) – Nance (Fall 2013)
Early 20th-Century American: 1890-1945 – Newman (Fall 2013)
American Literature, 1865-1945 – Ocher (Fall 2013)
Early 20th-Century American Literature – Gallagher (Spring 2013)
Early 20th-Century American Literature – Miller (Spring 2013)
American Literature, 1865-1945 – Clark (Spring 2013)
American Literature, 1865-1945 – Tran (Spring 2013)
American Literature, 1890-1945 – Lang (Winter 2013)
Early 20th-Century American – Medrano (Fall 2012)
American Literature 1895-1945 – Ravid (Spring 2012)
Early20th-Century American – Underwood (Winter 2012)
American Literature (1st Half of 20th-Century) – Mack (Fall 2011)
American Literature 1865-1945 – Hudson (Winter 2011)
Early 20th-Century American Literature – Mendelman (Winter 2011)
American Literature 1890-1930 – Reed (Fall 2010)
American Literature 1900-1945 – Ardam (Fall 2010)
American Literature 1900-1945 – Schmidt (Fall 2010)
American 1890-1945 – Cassarino (Summer 2010)
Early 20th-Century American – Waldo (Spring 2010)
Early 20th-Century American – Caughey (Spring 2010)
American Literature 1890-1945 – Emery (Winter 2010)
Early 20th-Century American – HarrisD (Spring 2009)
Early 20th-Century American – JohnsonA (Spring 2009)
Early 20th-Century American – Moore (Spring 2009)
Early 20th-Century American – Nahm (Spring 2009)
Early 20th-Century American – Escobar (Winter 2009)
Early 20th-Century American – Department

Electronic Literature

New Media, Aesthetic Theory, and Internet Practice – Acosta (Spring 2020)
New Media – Hudson (Winter 2011)
Electronic Literature – Department

Folklore & Mythology

Folklore and Mythology – Bonnici (Spring 2017)
Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy – Voronca (Spring 2015)
Classical Mythology – Burdorff (Summer 2011)
Folklore and Mythology – Departmet

History of the English Language

History of English Language – Bellairs (Fall 2019)
History of English Language – ER (Fall 2008)
History of English Language – Department

Jewish American Literature

Jewish American Literature – Department

Later 20th/21st Century American Literature

American Literature 1945-post – Martinez (Winter 2022)
20th/21st Century American Literature – Kim (Spring 2022)
American Fiction 1920 – present – Swanson (Spring 2021)
Post 1945 American Literature – Solis (Fall 2020)
Post 1945 American Literature – Whittell (Spring 2020)
Post 1945 American – Meng (Spring 2020)
20/21 American – Tanaka (Spring 2020)
American Fiction 1950 to present – Robins (Winter 2020)
20/21st Century U.S. Literature – Lee (Spring 2019)
Later 20th-Century U.S. Literature – Mendoza (Winter 2019)
North American 20th/21st Century – Kern (Fall 2017)
20th-C. North American: Form, Space & Place, Travel – Macgregor (Spring 2016)
20th-Century American Literatures of Technology – Hegel (Winter 2016)
Post-1945 Anglophone Speculative Fiction (Winter 2016)
American Literature, Post-1945 – Kincade (Fall 2015)
Later 20th Century American Literature – Shin (Winter 2015)
American Literature 1945-Present – Youn (Winter 2015)
Later 20th-Century American Literature – Zhang (Fall 2014)
Post-1945 American Literature – Calder (Summer 2014)
20th-Century American Literature – Chon (Spring 2014)
20th-Century American Fiction – Conley (Fall 2013)
20th-Century American Literature – Donig (Fall 2013)
20th-Century American Literature – Jin (Fall 2013)
American Literature Post-1945 – Mehlman (Fall 2013)
Post-1945 American Literature – Nance (Fall 2013)
Post-1945 American Literature – Newman (Fall 2013)
American Literature 1945-Present – Ocher (Fall 2013)
Post-1945 American Literature – Miller (Spring 2013)
Later 20th-Century American – Tran (Spring 2013)
American 1945-Present – Lang (Winter 2013)
Later 20th-Century American – Medrano (Fall 2012)
American Literature 1945-Present – Ravid (Spring 2012)
Later 20th-Century American – Warren (Spring 2012)
Later 20th-Century American – Underwood (Winter 2012)
American 1945-Present – Hudson (Winter 2011)
Later 20th-Century American – Mendelman (Winter 2011)
American 1945-Present – Ardam (Fall 2010)
American 1946-2009 – Schmidt (Fall 2010)
Post-War American – Fickle (Summer 2010)
American 1945-Present – Cassarino (Summer 2010)
Later 20th-Century American – Waldo (Spring 2010)
American Literary Narrative Since 1945 – Emery (Winter 2010)
Post-1940 American – O’Kelly (Fall 2009)
Post-1940 American – Pulizzi (Summer 2009)
Later 20th-Century American – HarrisD (Spring 2009)
Later 20th-Century American – Department

Lesbian, Bisexual & Gay Literature

20th-C. Anglophone & Queer Lit. – Landau (Spring 2008)
Lesbian, Bisexual & Gay Literature – Department

Literary Theory

Philosophy and Theory – Forest (Spring 2023)
Race, Performance, and (Queer) Feeling – Prucha (Winter 2022)
Radical Speculative Aesthetics: Race, Queerness, and Performance – Martinez (Winter 2022)
Critique and the Project of Reason after Kant – Webster (Spring 2022)
New Media Theory – Olivares (Spring 2022)
Theory: Emobdiment, Affect, Ecology – Kim (Spring 2022)
Interpretation and Embodiment – Bischoff (Spring 2022)
Affect Theory – Hueth (Fall 2021)
Aesthetic Theory – Wang (Spring 2021)
Critical Texts – Happe (Winter 2020).
Theory of History – Jaime (Fall 2019)
Theory: Affect and Embodiment Ishikawa – (Summer 2019)
Transatlantic Realisms” 1880-Present Stanford (Fall 2018)
Disability Studies – Delchamps (Fall 2017)
Queer Theory and Literature, 1913-Present – Cardon (Fall 2017)
Visual Culture and Critical Theory – Lew (Winter 2016)
Theories of Narrative and Media – Kincade (Fall 2015)
Transhistorical Feminist Theories of Embodiment – Cai (Fall 2015)
Queer Theory, Marlowe to Wilde (1590-1890) – Del Balzo (Spring 2015)
Philosophy and Science of Linguistic Style – Messner (Spring 2015)
Queer Theory – Shin (Winter 2015)
Theory: Narrative Realism – Youn (Winter 2015)
Theory: The Idea of Natural History – Calder (Summer 2014)
Theory: Form – Chon (Spring 2014)
Narrative Theory – Horvath (Winter 2014)
Theories of History and Memory – Adler (Fall 2013)
Theories of Representation – Donig (Fall 2013)
Literary Theory – Ravid (Spring 2012)
Embodiment Critical Theory – Mendelman (Winter 2011)
Literary Theory – Gender & Sexuality – Gottlieb (Fall 2010)
Captivity Narratives – Moyer (Fall 2010)
Enlightenment Theory – Hernandez (Summer 2010)
Literary Theory & Aesthetics – Williford (Summer 2010)
The Subject/Subjectivity – Chatterjee (Spring 2010)
Literary Theory – Camara (Fall 2009)
Critical Theory & Visual Culture – O’Kelly (Fall 2009)
Materialist Thought & Literature 1620-1895 – Wang (Spring 2009)
Literary Theory – Department

Literature & Science

Philosophy of Science / Literary History of Consciousness – Cook (Summer 2018)
Ideas of the Natural – Francis (Fall 2017)
Transatlantic Literature and Bioscience – Cai (Fall 2015)
Literature, Science and Technology – Toy (Spring 2015)
Technology and Literature, 1818-Present – Conley (Fall 2013)
Science and Literature – Jin (Fall 2013)
19th-Century Science and Literature – Wilhelm (Spring 2013)
Literature & Technology – Emery (Winter 2010)
Literature & Science – Pulizzi (Summer 2009)
Literature & Science – Department

Middle English Literature

Medieval Literature – Birke (Fall 2023)
Medieval – Moscati (Spring 2023)
Medieval Literature – Torres (Spring 2022)
Medieval Literature – Elliott-Newton (Spring 2022)
Medieval Literature – Bischoff (Spring 2022)
Medieval Literature – Sharrah (Winter 2020)
Travel and Cultural Contact in the Middle Ages – Kello (Fall 2019)
History and Time in the Later Middle Ages – Jaime (Fall 2019)
England and the Late Middle Ages – Bellairs (Fall 2019)
Comparative Medieval Literatures: Geopolitics and the Mongol Empire – Ishikawa (Summer 2019)
Medieval Literature c400-1500: Multilingual, Multicultural England (Ishikawa Summer 2019)
Medieval Literature – King (Winter 2018)
Medieval Literature – Francis (Fall 2017)
Medieval Literature – Wagner (Spring 2016)
Medieval Literature – Shaub (Spring 2015)
Origins of and Influence on English Romance – Hill (Fall 2014)
Medieval Literature – Verini (Spring 2014)
Devotion in Post-Conquest Medieval England – Verini (Spring 2014)
Medieval Literature – Adler (Fall 2013)
Women, Death and the Body in the Middle Ages – Burdorff (Summer 2011)
Middle English – ER (Fall 2008)
Middle English – Torres (Spring 2008)
Middle English – Department

Native American Literature

Native American Literature – Department
Contemporary Autotheory/Autofiction – Forest (Spring 2023)
18th Century British Literature and History of the Novel – Hoegberg (Spring 2021)
The Novel – Stanford (Fall 2018)
The Novel – Benson (Summer 2017)
The British Novel (1678-1925) – Truxaw (Spring 2016)
The English and Anglophone Novel – Macgregor (Spring 2016)
The Novel – Zirulnik (Spring 2015)
The Novel – Mehlman (Fall 2013)
Evolution of the Novel Form – Ocher (Fall 2013)
British Novel: 1688-1903 – Couch (Fall 2012)
The Model Novel (1731-1922) – Caughey (Spring 2010)
The Novel – Moore (Spring 2009)
The Novel – Webster (Winter 2009)
The Novel (Long 18th- & 19th-C.) – Richstad (Spring 2008)
The Novel- Department

Old English Literature

Old English Literature – King (Winter 2018)
Canonical and Emerging Canons of Medieval, Anglo-Saxon & Middle English Literature – Hill (Fall 2014)
Anglo-Saxon Literature – Adler (Fall 2013)
Medieval – Moyer (Fall 2010)
Medieval – ER (Fall 2008)
Old English Literature- Department

Other Genres and Categories

Transatlantic Whiteness – Early Modern to c19 – Birke (Fall 2023)
Late Antique & Classical – Moscati (Spring 2023)
Contemporary Multiethnic Literature – Prucha (Winter 2022)
Race, Performance, and (Queer) Feeling – Prucha (Winter 2022)
20th-Century Speculative Fiction – Hueth (Fall 2021)
SciFi and the Fantastic – Driben (Fall 2021)
Race and Performance Studies – Herrera (Fall 2021)
Architecture, Urbanism, and Narrative – Hoegberg (Spring 2021)
American Environmental Literature – Swanson (Spring 2021)
Film Theory and History – Ridder (Spring 2021)
Literature of Anglophone Christianity – Wu (Spring 2021)
Science Fiction – Pittman (Winter 2021)
Race & Embodiment – Solis (Fall 2020)
Urban Humanities – Whittell (Spring 2020)
Race & Aesthetics – Meng (Spring 2020)
Mobility Literature – Garcia (Spring 2020)
Environmental Narratives – Tanaka (Spring 2020)
Transnational Literature – Sharrah (Winter 2020)
American Environmental Literature – Robins (Winter 2020)
Gender, Sensibility, and Satire in the 18th Century – Lu (Spring 2019)
Urban Humanities – Spies (Spring 2019)
The Romance Tradition in Literature – King (Winter 2018)
History of Reading and Reading Communities – Kern (Fall 2017)
Global Narratives of the Environment – Azubuko-Udah (Fall 2017)
Transportation and Literature – Fosbury (Fall 2016)
Modernism (Translantic, circa 1900-1956) – Vignola (Spring 2016)
Poetry of the Long Nineteenth-Century (Transatlantic Poetry) – Febo (Spring 2016)
Data, Visualization, Algorithms, Non-Linear Narrative – Hegel (Winter 2016)
Transatlantic Modernist Literature and Urban Experience – Lee, J. (Fall 2015)
Race in America to 1900 – Wingate (Fall 2014)
Children’s Literature – Shih (Winter 2014)
Monstrosity – Zhang (Fall 2014)
Poetry: Ecocriticism and Environmentalism – Lee (Spring 2019)
Poetry & Poetics of Desire 1500-Present – Hedlin (Fall 2014)
Poetry – Hedlin (Fall 2014)
Historical Poetics (18th & 19th C. Transatlantic) – Rosson (Fall 2014)
Poetry and Poetics – Harkness (Spring 2013)
Prospective American Poetry since 1912 – O’Sullivan (Fall 2011)
Poetry exclusive of Earlier 17th-c and 20th-c American – O’Sullivan (Fall 2011)
Poetry – Morphew (Summer 2010)
Poetry – Cassarino (Summer 2010)
British Poetry, Stuart through Victorian – Torres (Spring 2008)
Poetry – Department

Postcolonial Studies

The Postcolonial Novel – Meagher (Spring 2023)
20th Century Caribbean/ British Literature – Olivares (Spring 2022)
20th/21st Century Postcolonial Literature – Kim (Spring 2022)
20th-21st C. Postcolonial Literature (1950-present) – Pittman (Winter 2021)
Postcolonial Literature, 1935-Present – Cardon (Fall 2017)
Anglophone African Literature 20th and 21st C – Azubuko-Udah (Fall 2017)
Postcolonial Literatures – Azubuko-Udah (Fall 2017)
Contemporary Postcolonial Studies – Macgregor (Spring 2016)
Contemporary Postcolonial – Dembowitz (Fall 2015)
Postcolonial Studies – Smith, R. (Fall 2014)
Postcolonial Literature, 1950-Present – Conley (Fall 2013)
Post 1945 Anglophone Literature – Donig (Fall 2013)
Pre-Post-Colonial 20th Century – Clark (Spring 2013)
Postcolonial – Medrano (Fall 2012)
Colonial/Postcolonial – Soni (Spring 2012)
Later 20th-Century Pacific Literature – Warren (Spring 2012)
North American Contact Zones – Waldo (Spring 2010)
Modern Transnational Anglophone Fiction – Landau (Spring 2008)
Postcolonial Studies- Department

Renaissance Literature

Queerness and Race in Early Modern Literature – Moscati (Spring 2023)
17th Century Literature – Torres (Spring 2022)
16th Century Literature – Torres (Spring 2022)
Early Modern English Drama – Elliott-Newton (Spring 2022)
Early Modern Literature – Bischoff (Spring 2022)
16th Century British Literature – Wu (Spring 2021)
Early Modern – Acosta (Spring 2020)
16th and 17th Century Literature – Sharrah (Winter 2020)
Tudor-Stuart Drama – Kello (Fall 2019)
Early Modern Epic, Travel, and Empire – Kello (Fall 2019)
Early Modern – Jaime (Fall 2019)
England and the Renaissance – Bellairs (Fall 2019)
Renaissance – Francis (Fall 2017)
16th-Century – Bonnici (Spring 2017)
16th-Century – Wagner (Spring 2016)
17th-Century – Wagner (Spring 2016)
16th-Century – Hedlin (Fall 2014)
16th-Century – Verini (Spring 2014)
17th-Century – Harkness (Spring 2013)
16th-Century – Harkness (Spring 2013)
16th-Century – M. Smith (Fall 2012)
16th-Century – Burdorff (Summer 2011)
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Renaissance – Moyer (Fall 2010)
Renaissance – Morphew (Summer 2010)
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Renaissance- Department

Restoration and 18th-Century Literature

18th-Century Literature – Happe (Winter 2020)
Restoration and 18th-Century Literature – Spies (Spring 2019)
Restoration and 18th-Century British Literature – Thulin (Winter 2019)
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18th-Century British Literature – Dembowitz (Fall 2015)
Restoration & 18th-Century Literature – Shaub (Spring 2015)
18th-Century Literature – Del Balzo (Spring 2015)
Restoration & 18th-Century Literature – Hall (Fall 2014)
Restoration & 18th-Century Literature – Rosson (Fall 2014)
Restoration & 18th-Century Literature – Reeves (Spring 2014)
Adapting Shakespeare: The Restoration & 18th-Century – Reeves (Spring 2014)
Restoration & 18th-Century Literature – Kim (Fall 2013)
18th-Century Literature – Charles (Fall 2012)
Restoration and 18th-Century – Walle (Fall 2012)
Restoration and 18th-Century – Soni (Spring 2012)
Restoration and 18th-Century – Tung (Winter 2012)
18th-Century – Callander (Fall 2011)
18th-Century – Hollander (Fall 2011)
18th-Century – Milsom (Fall 2011)
18th-Century – Nicholson (Fall 2011)
Restoration & 18th-Century – Hernandez (Summer 2010)
18th-Century – Wang (Spring 2009)
Restoration & 18th-Century – Newman (Winter 2009)
Restoration & 18th-Century – Raisanen (Spring 2008)
Restoration & 18th-Century – Richstad (Spring 2008)
Restoration & 18th-Century – Department
Rhetoric – Department (HTML)

Romantic Literature

19th-Century European Precursors to Modernism – Meagher (Spring 2023)
Political Romanticism – Webster (Spring 2022)
British Romanticism – Whittell (Spring 2020)
British Romanticism – Lu (Spring 2019)
Romanticism – Spies (Spring 2019)
Romanticism – Thulin (Winter 2019)
Romanticism – Vignola (Spring 2016)
Romantic Literature – Truxaw (Spring 2016)
19th-Century British Literature – Febo (Spring 2016)
19th-Century British Literature – Lee, J. (Fall 2015)
British Romanticism – Dembowitz (Fall 2015)
19th-Century British Literature – Shaub (Spring 2015)
Romantic Literature – Voronca (Spring 2015)
Romantic Literature – Rainwater (Spring 2015)
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19th-Century British Literature/Romantic & Victorian – Kim (Fall 2013)
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Romantic Literature – Walle (Fall 2012)
Romanticism – Callander (Fall 2011)
Romanticm – Milsom (Fall 2011)
Romanticism – Nicholson (Fall 2011)
Fiction, Serialization, and the Periodical Press ca. 1820-1920 – Wong (Spring 2011)
Romanticism – Morphew (Summer 2010)
Romanticism – Wang (Spring 2009)
Romanticism – Newman (Winter 2009)
Romanticism – Raisanen (Spring 2008)
Romantic Literature – Department

Victorian Literature

Victorian Literature – Birke (Fall 2023)
19th Century British Literature and History of the Novel – Hoegberg (Spring 2021)
19th Century British Literature, Empire, and Race – Wang (Spring 2021)
Late 19th Century Aestheticism and Decadence – Acosta (Spring 2020)
19th Century Prose – Happe (Winter 2020)
Victorian Literature – Lu (Spring 2019)
Victorian Literature – Thulin (Winter 2019)
Victorian Literature – Cook (Summer 2018)
Victorian Literature – Benson (Summer 2017)
Victorian Literature – Vignola (Spring 2016)
Victorian Literature – Truxaw (Spring 2016)
Victorian Literature – Voronca (Spring 2015)
Victorian Literature – Rainwater (Spring 2015)
Victorian Literature – Hall (Fall 2014)
Victorian Literature – Shih (Winter 2014)
Victorian Literature – Wilhelm (Spring 2013)
19th-Century British – Charles (Fall 2012)
Victorian – Soni (Spring 2012)
Victorian – Hollander (Fall 2011)
Victorian – Milsom (Fall 2011)
Victorian – Nicholson (Fall 2011)
Victorian – Wong (Spring 2011)
Victorian – Williford (Summer 2010)
Victorian – Chatterjee (Spring 2010)
Victorian – Camara (Fall 2009)
Victorian – Pizzo (Spring 2009)
Victorian – Newman (Winter 2009)
Victorian – Gardner (Fall 2008)
Victorian – Raisanen (Spring 2008)
Victorian – Richstad (Spring 2008)
Victorian – Department

Visual Culture

Emerging Media and Print Cultures – Valenzuela (Fall 2018)
Cinema and Postwar Fiction – Zirulnik (Spring 2015)
Cultures of Print – Beck (Fall 2014)
Critical Theory & Visual Culture – O’Kelly (Fall 2009)
Visual Culture – Pizzo (Spring 2009)
Visual Culture – Department

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50 Book List

Download: Ph.D. Qualifying "50-Book" Exam Book List

Early modern.

18th-Century

18th-Century British

Colonial - 18th-Century American

19th Century

19th Century American

Romanticism

19th-century british / victorian.

20th-Century

20th- & 21st-Century American

20th- & 21st-Century British & Irish

Contemporary Poetry & Poetics

Postcolonial Studies

Comics & graphic novels.

Cinema & Media Studies

(grouped by century, in alphabetical order of author's last name)

* indicates that selections of the work should be chosen in consultation with committee

Sixth Century List

Gildas, On the Ruin of Britain (Latin, 540s)

Eighth Century List

"Caedmon's Hymn" (Old English, circa mid-7th century) and Books 1, 2, and 4 of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Latin, 731)

Ninth Century List

Asser's Life of King Alfred (Latin, 893) and Alfred's Preface to Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care (Old English, 890s)

Tenth Century List

Battle poetry: The Battle of Brunanburh (Old English, 937) and The Battle of Maldon (Old English, 991)
Beowulf (Old English, MS c. 1000)
Biblical and Visionary: The Dream of the Rood (Old English, MS 950-1000 ), Genesis A (Old English, MS 960-1000 ), Judith (Old English, MS 950-1050 )
Hagiography: Cynewulf’s Elene (Old English, MS 950-1000 ), Aelfric’s Life of Edmund and Life of Eugenia (Old English, c. 990-1002)
The Exeter Book miscellany (Old English, MS 940): selected riddles (Williamson ed. nos. 7, 8, 14, 15, 25, 26, 29, 32, 44, 47, 60) and elegies ( Deor , The Seafarer , The Wanderer , and The Wife's Lament ).

Eleventh Century List

The Tain-Bo-Cuailgne (Irish, MS 1000s, use Kinsella translation).
Wulfstan's Sermon to the English (Old English, 1010-1016, in Treharne, ed. Old and Middle English: An Anthology )
Song of Roland (Old French, circa 1125, use translated Penguin Classics edition)

Twelfth Century List

Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (Latin, 1136).
Gerald of Wales, The Journey through Wales and The Description of Wales (Latin, 1190s). OR Topography of Ireland (Latin, 1188) and Conquest of Ireland (Latin, 1189)
Layamon, The Brut (Middle English, 1150-1200, use Mason ed. of Arthurian Chronicles ) *
Marie de France, Lais (Anglo-Norman, circa 1155-1170, use Shoaf Translation)
The Life of Christina of Markyate (Latin, circa mid- to late-twelfth century, use Penguin Translation)

Thirteenth Century List

Ancrene Wisse (Middle English, circa 1230).
Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria Nova (Latin, circa 1210, in Murphy, ed., Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts )
Egils saga Skallagrímssonar (Old Norse, circa 1240)
Havelok the Dane (Middle English, 1290s), King Horn (Middle English, c. 1225), and Sir Orfeo (Middle English, early 1300s).
Middle English debate poems: The Owl and the Nightingale (c. 1200-1215) and Winner and Waster (circa 1350).

Fourteenth Century List

Geoffrey Chaucer's dream visions: The Book of the Duchess , The Parliament of Fowls , and The House of Fame (Middle English, 1370s-1380s).
Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Middle English, 1380s).
Geoffrey Chaucer, selections from Canterbury Tales (Middle English, 1387-1400): either Fragments 1-4 (General Prologue, Knight, Miller, Reeve, Cook, Man of Law, Wife of Bath, Friar, Summoner, Clerk, Merchant) or Fragments 5-9 (Squire, Franklin, Physician, Pardoner, Shipman, Prioress, Sir Thopas, Melibee, Monk, Nun's Priest, Second Nun, Canon's Yeoman, Manciple, Parson's Prologue, and Chaucer's Retraction) (Middle English, 1390s). Make sure to read all relevant head- and endlinks. Alternatively, read the tales conveniently available in the edition of Kolve and Olson (Norton)--9 of the best-known tales.
"Cleanness and Patience" (Middle English, late-fourteenth century, use The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet , ed Andrew, Waldron, Peterson; trans. Finch)
Richard Rolle, Meditations on the Passion (Middle English, circa 1300-49).
John Gower, selections from the Confessio Amantis : Prologue, Books 1, 2, 7, 8, and the Epilogue (Middle English, 1390s).
Julian of Norwich, the Short Text of Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (Middle English, circa 1393, use Penguin Translation).
William Langland, selections from Piers Plowman (Middle English, circa late-fourtheenth century): either the Visio (Prologue-Passus 7) or the Vita (Passus 8-21) of the B-Text. Students may substitute the Visio (Prologue-Passus 9) or the Vita (Passus 10-22) of the C-Text instead (1370s). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells.
Lollard writings: "Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards," "Confession of Hawisia Moone," "Prologue to the Wycliffite Bible, Chapter Fifteen," "Epistola Santhanae ad Cleros," "A Tretis on Miraclis Pleying," and "Church and State" (various dates, use the Hudson edition).
Selected Middle English lyrics: Luria and Hoffman ed. nos. 6 ("Foweles in the frith"), 77 ("I have a gentil cok"), 80 ("Hogyn cam to bowers dore"), 81 ("We ben chapmen light of fote"), 82 ("In al this warld nis a merier life"), 90 ("May no man slepe in youre halle"), 138 ("Maiden in the mor lay"), 178 (Geoffrey Chaucer, "Lak of Stedfastnesse"), 181 ("I sing of a maiden"), 182 ("Salve Regina"), 190 ("Now goth sonne under wod"), 197 ("A God and yet a man?"), and 198 ("As I lay upon a night") (various dates).
The Mabinogion (Welsh, MS 1375-1425).
The Alliterative Morte Arthure (Middle English, circa 1400). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells.
Pearl (Middle English, circa 1385).
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (Middle English, circa 1375).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English, circa 1385).

Fifteenth Century List

The Castle of Perseverance (Middle English, Middle English, circa 1405-25).
Corpus Christi plays: York Creation and Fall of Lucifer , Chester Noah's Flood , Brome Abraham and Isaac , Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play , Wakefield Herod the Great , N-Town Woman Taken in Adultery , York Crucifixion , and Wakefield Last Judgment (Middle English, circa 1375-1570s).
Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid and "The Taill of the Wolf and the Wedder" (Middle Scots, before 1505).
Thomas Hoccleve, "La Male Regle de T. Hoccleue" (Middle English, 1406) and Series : "Complaint" and "Dialog" (Middle English, 1421-1422). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells. *
Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe (Middle English, circa 1436). You may read this text in the Penguin translation.
John Lydgate, The Complaynt of a Lovers Lyfe and The Temple of Glas (c. 1400-10). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells.
Thomas Malory, selections from Le Morte d'Arthur : Books 1-4, 18-19, and 20-21 of the Caxton edition (1485). Students may substitue Books 1, 7, and 8 of the Winchester MS instead (Middle English, circa 1470).
Morality plays: Everyman (Middle English, circa 1510-25), Mankind (Middle English, 1465-70), and Wisdom (Middle English, 1460-65).
Saints' plays: The Digby Mary Magdalene and the Croxton Play of the Sacrament (Middle English, 1475-1500).
William Thorpe, Testimony (Middle English, 1407, selections found in Hudson, ed. Selections from English Wycliffite Writings )
The Paston Letters (Middle English, 1422-1509, use Norman Davis, Ed : Oxford World Classics)
Christine de Pisan, The Book of the City of Ladies (French, 1405), (in Selected Writings , ed. Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Brownlee)
Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster (1570)
Francis Bacon, Essays (1625)
Aphra Behn, selected poetry (1684): “The Golden Age”; “On a Juniper Tree”; “The Disappointment”; “To Fair Clorinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More than Woman; “The Willing Mistress”; “A Letter to the Brother of the Pen in Tribulation”; “The Dream”; "Song (On Her Loving Two Equally”; “The Counsel”
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave (1688)
Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1643)
Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)
Thomas Carew, poetry: "The Spring"; “A Rapture”; “Mediocrity in Love Rejected”; “To A.L. Persuasions to Love" (various dates)
Elizabeth Cary, Tragedie of Mariam (1613)
Baldassare Castiglione, The Courtier , in translation by Thomas Hoby (1561)
Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World (1666)
Margaret Cavendish, The Convent of Pleasure (1668)
Richard Crashaw, selected poetry: “The Flaming Heart”; “A Hymn Saint Teresa”; “The Tear”; “Christ Crucified”; “The Weeper” (various dates)
Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599)
Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, The Roaring Girl (1611)
John Donne, Holy Sonnets (circa 1615-1631)
John Donne, Songs and Sonnets (circa 1595-1631)
John Donne, Satires and Elegies (circa 1595-1631)
Elizabeth I, Poems and Speeches to Parliament *
John Ford, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633)
John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1563) *
Philip Gosson, The School of Abuse (1579) or Philip Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses (1579)
George Herbert, The Temple (1633)
Robert Herrick, Hesperides (1648)
Thomas Heywood, The Fair Maid of the West 1 and 2 (1631)
Thomas Heywood, Apology for Actors (1612)
Thomas Heywood, Four Prentices of London (1594)
Ben Jonson, Masque of Blackness (1605), Masque of Beauty (1608), Gypsies Metamorphosed (1621)
Ben Jonson, Volpone (1606)
Ben Jonson, Alchemist (1612)
Ben Jonson, Epicoene (1616)
Ben Jonson, selected poetry: “Inviting a Friend to Supper”; “To Penshurst”; “An Ode to Himself”; “On My First Son”; “On My First Daughter”; “To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Pair, Sir Lucius Carey and Sir Henry Morrison”; “To the Reader”; “To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires”; “To Sir Robert Wroth” (c. 1598-1637)
Amelia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum and “To Cooke-ham” (1611)
Ann Lok, “A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner” (1560)
John Lyly, Gallathea (1592)
Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine (1587-8)
Christopher Marlowe, Jew of Malta (1589)
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (1592)
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (1594)
Andrew Marvell, selected poetry: “The Garden”; “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn”; “Upon Appleton House”; “To His Coy Mistress”; “Bermudas”; “The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers”; “The Mower Against the Gardens”; “Damon the Mower”; “The Mower’s Song”; “The Mower against the Glo-worms”; “The Last Instructions to a Painter” (c. 1650-1667)
Philip Massinger, The Renegado (1624)
Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women (1657)
Thomas Middleton, Revenger’s Tragedy (1607)
Thomas Middleton, The Changeling (1622)
John Milton, Areopagitica (1644)
John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)
John Milton, Sonnets (c. 1630-1667)
Michel de Montaigne, selections from Essais (1595), in Florio translation: "The Apology of Raymond Sebond," "Of Experience," "Of Cannibals" (1603)
Thomas More, Utopia (1516)
Thomas Nash, "Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton" (1594)
Katherine Phillips, selected poetry: “Friendship’s Mystery”; “In Defense of Declared Friendship”; “Friendship”; “A Friend”; “A Dialogue of Friendship Multiplied”; “Rosania”; “To Mrs Mary Aubrey”; “Rosania’s Marriage”; “Philoclea’s Parting”; “To My Excellent Lucasia”; “On Rosania’s Apostacy, and Lucasia’s Friendship”; “To the Exellent Anne Owen”; “To the Lady E. Boyle”; “To Celimena”; “Lucasia, Rosania, and Orinda parting at a Fountain”; “Orinda to Lucasia”; “Rosania to Lucasia”; “To Antenor at Parting” (c. 1650-1664)
Hester Pulter, selected poetry: “Upon the Death of my Dear and Lovely Daughter, Jane Pulter”; “Tell Me No More”; “Why Must I Thus Forever Be Confined”; “The Garden, Or the Contention of Flowers”; “Aurora” [1 and 2]; “Universal Dissolution”; “To Astraea”; “Pardon Me, My Dearest Love”; “Of a Young Lady at Oxford”; “A Dialogue between Two Sisters” (c. 1640-1660)
Hester Pulter, The Unfortunate Florinda (circa 1655-1662)
Querelle des femmes texts: Hic Mulier/Haec Vir tracts (1620); Jane Anger, "Her protection for women" (1589); Joseph Swetnam, “The arraignement of lewde, idle, froward and unconstant women" (1615); Rachel Speght, A Mouzell for Melastomus (1617); Swetnam the Woman-Hater Arraigned by Women (1620)
William Shakespeare, Richard II (1595)
William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595
William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice (1598)
William Shakespeare , Twelfth Night (1601)
William Shakespeare, Othello (1604)
William Shakespeare , King Lear (1605)
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1608)
William Shakespeare, Sonnets (1609)
Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (1591)
Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1593)
Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesy (1595)
John Skelton, selected poetry: "Manerly Margery Mylk and Ale," "Phyllyp Sparowe" (c.1505-07), "To mystress Margaret Hussey" (from The Garland of Laurel, 1523), and "The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng" (c. 1517)
John Skelton, Song and Sonnets ("Tottell's Miscellany") (1557)
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , at least 3 books (1590)
Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamium (1595)
Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596)
Henry Vaughan, selected poetry from Silex Scintillans I (1650) and Silex Scintillans II (1685): "Regeneration"; "The Search"; "Vanity of Spirit"; "The Retreate"; "Silence and stealth of dayes"; "The Tempest"; "The World"; "I walked the other daye"; "They are all gone into the world of light"
John Webster, The White Devil (1612)
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi (1623)
Isabella Whitney, Will and Testament (1573)
Mary Wroth, Pamphilia to Amphilantus (1621)
Mary Wroth, Urania, Book One (1621)
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, selected poetry: “The Imperfect Enjoyment”; “The Disabled Debauche”; “A Satire Against Reason and Mankind”; “Artemeza in the Town to Chloe in the Country”; “Fair Chloris in a Pigsty Lay”; “Against Constancy”; “Love and Life”; “A Ramble in Saint James’ Park”; “A Satire on King Charles II” (c. 1665-1678)
Early modern race readings: Race in Early Modern England : A Documentary Companion , ed. Ania Loomba and Jonathan Burton *
Travel narrative selections: Bartolome de las Casas The Spanish Colony (London, William Brome,1583); Walter Raleigh, "Discovery of Guiana" (1596); Thomas Harriot, "Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia"; John Smith, "True Relation of Such Occurrences of Note..."; Nicolas de Nicolay (1517-1583), The Navigations...made into Turkey (London: Thomas Dawson, 1585); Leo Africanus, History of Africa , trans. Pory (1600)
Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, selections from The Spectator (nb: these are VERY short essays): 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 26, 34, 50, 57, 66, 69, 81, 88, 106, 108, 109, 112, 113, 117, 119, 122, 130, 132, 137, 174, 189, 251, 261, 182, 203, 266, 276, 324, 335, 454, 517, 519
Mary Astell, Reflections Upon Marriage (1700) and 1706 “Preface”
Anna Barbauld, Poems (1773)
Jane Barker, The Galesia Trilogy, Part 1 (i.e., “Love Intrigues”; 1719), and “Selected Manuscript Poems." Use Carol Shiner Wilson edition (Oxford).
William Beckford, Vathek (1782-French, 1786-English)
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (1688)
Aphra Behn, The Rover (1677-81)
Aphra Behn, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684-87)
James Boswell, Life of Johnson ( abridged) (1791)
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part I (1678)
Edmund Burke , A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756)
Fanny Burney, Evelina (1778)
Mary, Lady Chudleigh, “The Ladies Defence” (1700), “To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty” (the poem, not the dedication), “On the Death of his Highness the Duke of Glocester”, “To the Ladies”, “The Inquiry”, “On the Death of My Honoured Mother”, Essays in Prose and Verse: “Of Knowledge, To the Ladies”, “Of Friendship”, “Of Solitude”
John Cleland, Fanny Hill (1748)
George Coleman, the Younger, Inkle and Yarico (1787)
William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700)
William Cowper , “ The Task”, “Expostulation,” “Conversation”, “Retirement”, and “The Castaway” (1785)
Ottabah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1757)
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (1722)
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
John Dryden, All For Love (1678)
John Dryden, “Absalom and Achitophel” (1681) “Mac Flecknoe” (1684); “To the Pious Memory of ... Mrs. Anne Killigrew” (1685); “To The Duchess of Ormode,” “Astraea Redux” (1660) “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy”(1688), “A “Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire” (1693); “Preface” to The Fables (1699)
Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789)
Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749)
Sarah Fielding, David Simple (1744)
Anne Finch, selections from Miscellany Poems (1713): “Introduction,” “The Apology,” “On Myself,” “The Bird and the Arras,” “The Spleen,” “To the Nightingale,” ”A Nocturnal Reverie,” and “A Supplication for the Joys of Heaven,” “Adam Pos’d”
John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera (1728)
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1773)
Thomas Gray, “The Bard”, “The Progress of Poesy”. : Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”,”Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat”, “Elegy Written in a County Church Yard,” “Sonnet on the Death of Richard West”
William Collins, “Ode to Fear”, “Ode on the Poetical Character”, “Ode to Evening”, “An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland”
Eliza Haywood, Love in Excess (1719) and Fantomina (1725)
Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759), “Preface” to Shakespeare (1765); “Preface to The Dictionary (1755); selections from the Rambler (1750-52) including 2, 3, 4, 14, 18, 21, 23, 37, 47, 58, 60, 63, 77, 134, 144, 154, 155, 160, 185, 196, 208; Lives of the Most Eminent Poets, Milton, Gray (1779-81)
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote (1752)
George Lillo, The London Merchant (1731)
Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (1774)
Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling (1771)
Dean Mahomet , The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth Century Journey Through India (1793)
Delarivier Manley, The New Atalantis (1709) and The Power of Love (1720)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters (1716-18), “Court poems by a Lady of Quality” (1716), “Eclogues”(1747)
Thomas Otway, Venice Preserved (1682)
Thomas Paine , The Rights of Man (1791) alongside Edmund Burke, Reflection on the Revolution in France (1790)
Alexander Pope (I), “An Essay on Criticism” (1711); “Rape of the Lock”(1714); “Windsor Forest” (1713); “An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” (1735); “Moral Essays” (1731-35)
Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1740-41)
Samuel Richardson, Clarissa (1747-48) (abridged edition acceptable)
John Wilmot Rochester, selected poems: “The Imperfect Enjoyment,” “Of Nothing,” “A Satire Against Reason and Mankind” (1675), “Signior Dildo” alongside Aphra Behn, “Love Armed,” “The Disapointment,” “On Desire,” “On Her Loving Two Equally,” and “to the Fair Clarinda.”
Elizabeth Singer Rowe, Friendship in Death (1728)
Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno (1739) and Song to David (1763)
Thomas Sheridan, The School for Scandal ( 1777)
Sir Hans Sloane , Natural history of Jamaica (1707, 1725)
Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1760-67)
Laurence Sterne, Sentimental Journey (1768)
Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub (1704), Drapier’s Letters (1721), Gulliver’s Travels (1726), “A Modest Proposal” (1729); “An Argument Against the Abolishing of Christianity”, and Selected Poems
James Thomson, The Seasons (1726)
John Vanbrugh, “The Provok’d Wife” (1697)
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764) and The Mysterious Mother (1768)
William Wycherley, The Country Wife ( 1671)

Colonial to Eighteenth Century American

The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History , ed. David Hall, second edition, 1990
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (c. 1630-50; 1856)
Anne Bradstreet, Several Poems (1678)
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico , ed. Miguel Leon-Portillo, expanded and updated edition, 1992 (c. 16th century)
Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland ; or The Transformation. An American Tale (1798)
Christopher Columbus, The Four Voyages, ed. J.M. Cohen, 1969 ( c. late 15th and early 16th century)
Constitution of the United States (1787)
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (1782)
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca (1542)
Bernal Diaz del Castillo, True History of the Conquest of New Spain (c.1568-85; 1632)
John Danforth, "A Brief Recognition of New Englands Errand into the Wilderness" (1670)
Declaration of Independence (1776)
Jonathan Edwards, selected writings: "The Spider Letter" (1723); "Personal Narrative" (c. 1739); "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741), "Freedom of the Will" (1754)
Hannah Foster, The Coquette ; or The History of Eliza Wharton; A Novel; Founded on Fact (1797)
Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (c. 1771-1790; 1868)
Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncomon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man (1760)
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787)
John Marrant, A Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a Black (1785)
Cotton Mather, intro. to Magnalia Christi Americana (1702)
Tom Paine, Common Sense (1776)
Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682)
Susana Rowson, Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth (1791)
Susana Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, or A Struggle for Freedom (1794)
Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects and Religious and Moral (1773)
Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (1643)
John Winthrop, "A Modell of Christian Charity" (1630)

19th-Century American

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868-69)
William Apess, "The Experiences of Five Christian Indians; or An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man" (1833); and "Eulogy on King Philip" (1836)
Black Hawk, Life of Black Hawk (1833)
William Wells Brown, Clotel , or The President's Daughter (1853)
Abraham Cahan, Yekl , A Tale of the New York Ghetto (1896)
Charles Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition (1901)
Charles Chesnutt, Conjure Woman (1899)
Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)
James Fenimore Cooper, Pioneers (1823)
Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
Martin Delany, Blake , or The Huts of America (1859-62)
Emily Dickinson, selected poetry: "Papa above!" (61); "One dignity delays for all" (98); "Faith is a fine invention" (185); "I taste a liquor never brewed" (214); "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" (216); "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!" (249); "`Hope' is a thing with feathers--" (254); "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" (280); "The Soul selects her own Society--" (303); "There came a Day at Summer's full" (322); "A Bird came down the Walk--" (328); "After great pain, a formal feeling comes--" (341); "Much Madness is divinest sense--" (435); "This is my letter to the World" (441); "This was a Poet--it is That" (448); "I died for Beauty--but was scarce" (449); "It was not Death, for I stood up" (510); "I started Early--Took my Dog--" (520); "Mine--by the Right of White Election" (528); "Publication--is the Auction" (709); "Because I could not stop for Death" (712); "My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun" (754); "It is an honorable Thought" (946); "The Bible is an antique Volume--" (1545); "Apparently with no surprise" (1624)
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900; the text derived from the first edition, NOT the so-called "restored" Pennsylvania Edition)
Paul Laurence Dunbar, Lyrics of a Lowly Life (1896)
Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks (1932)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, selected writings: "Nature" (1836), "The American Scholar" (1837), "The Divinity School Address" (1838), "Experience" (1844), "The Poet" (1844)
Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writings, ed. Joyce W. Warren (Rutgers UP)
Mary Wilkins Freeman, A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891)
Margaret Fuller, Woman in the 19th Century (1845)
Frances Harper, Iola Leroy , or Shadows Uplifted (1892)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)
William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890)
Washington Irving, The Sketch Book (1820)
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
Henry James, The Ambassadors (1903)
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
Sarah Orne Jewett, Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)
Emma Lazarus, selected poetry: “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport”, “The New Colossus”, “1492”, “The Crowing of the Red Cock”, “In Exile”, “The New Year”, “Venus of the Louvre” (1867-1876)
Abraham Lincoln, selected speeches: "House Divided" (1858), "Address at Cooper Institute" (1860), "First Inaugural Address" (1861), "Emancipation Proclamation" (1863), "Gettysburg Address" (1863), "Second Inaugural Address" (1865)
George Lippard, The Quaker City , or the Monks of Monk Hall (1843-44)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855)
Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851)
Herman Melville, selected writings: “The Encantadas”, “Shiloh”, “The Swamp Angel”, “The Martyr”, and “The House-Top.”
Frank Norris, McTeague (1899)
Edgar Allan Poe, selections from Fall of the House of Usher and Other Works: “The Raven”, “Ulalume”, “Annabel Lee”, “The Philosophy of Composition”, “The Imp of the Perverse”, “The Man of the Crowd”, “The Purloined Letter”, “The Gold-Bug”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1831-1849)
Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, The Squatter and the Don (1885)
Jane Johnstone Schoolcraft, Poems (Robert Dale Parker, ed. The sound the stars make rushing through the sky: The writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft ) (circa 1840)
Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie (1827)
E. D. E. N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand (1859)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854) and "Resistance to Civil Government [Civil Disobedience]" (1849)
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
David Walker, David Walker's Appeal, In Four Articles, Together With a Preamble, To The Coloured Citizens Of The World, But in Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those of The United States of America (1829)
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass , selected poems (1891 edition): "Song of Myself," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "When I Heard at the Close of the Day," "A March in the Ranks Hard Prest," and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
Harriet Wilson, Our Nig (1856)
Anon., The Woman of Colour (1808)
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814)
Jane Austen, Emma (1816)
Jane Austen, Persuasion (1818)
Robert Bage, Hermsprong; or, Man as He Is Not (1796)
Joanna Baillie, A series of Plays...on the Passions (1798-1812)
John Bell, ed . The British Album (1790)
Anna Barbauld, Epistle to William Wilberforce (1793)
Anna Barbauld, An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1792), Sins of the Fathers, Sins of the Nation (1795), and Eighteen Hundred and Eleven (1812)
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789; 1794), Book of Thel (1789), Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)
William Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), America (1793), Europe (1794), Book of Urizen (1794)
William Blake, Milton (1804)
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Edmund Burke, "Speech on Mr. Fox's East India Bill," and "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity" (1800)
Robert Burns, selected poetry: “To a Mouse”, “To a Louse”, “The Holy Fair”, “To a Mountain-Daisy”, ”John Barleycorn, A Ballad”, “Epistle to J.L***k, an Old Scottish Bard”, “Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet”, “Holy Willie’s Prayer”, “Address to the Unco Guid”, “Address to the Deil”, “Songs: ‘It was upon a Lammas night’, “Green Grow the Rushes”, “John Anderson, My Jo,” “Ae Fond Kiss”, “A Red, Red Rose”, “Afton Water”, “Ye Banks and Braes”, “Open the Door To Me, Oh” (1785)
Hannah Cowley, The Runaway (1776), The Belle's Stratagem (1781), A Bold Stroke for a Husband (1783), and A Day in Turkey (1791)
George Gordon Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818)
George Gordon Byron , The Giaour (1813) and The Corsair (1814)
George Gordon Byron, Don Juan (1819-1824)
George Gordon Byron, Manfred (1817), Cain (1821), and Sardanapalus (1821)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Fears in Solitude, with France , an Ode and Frost at Midnight (1798), Remorse (1813), Christabel , Kubla Khan , and the Pains of Sleep (1816)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sybilline Leaves (1817)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817)
Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants (1789)
Thomas DeQuincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1822 or 1856)
Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (1800) and Ennui (1809)
Maria Edgeworth, Belinda (1801)
Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavaus Vassa, the African (1789)
Susan Ferrier, Marriage (1818)
William Godwin, Political Justice (1793)
William Godwin, Caleb Williams (1794)
William Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age (1825)
Felicia Hemans, Records of Women (1828)
Elizabeth Inchbald, A Mogul Tale (1784), Such Things Are (1788 ), Everyone Has His Fault (1793), and Lovers' Vows (1798)
Elizabeth Inchbald, A Simple Story (1791)
Francis Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review , Volume 1 (1802) and William Gifford, Quarterly Review, Volume 1 (1809)
John Keats , Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems (1820)
Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia (1821)
Matthew Lewis, The Monk (1796) and The Castle Spectre (1797)
John Malthus, An Essay on Population (1798)
Hannah More , Strictures on Female Education (1798)
Amelia Opie, Adeline Mowbray: The Mother and Daughter (1804)
Sydney Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl (1806)
Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1792)
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
Ann Radcliffe, The Italian (1797)
Mary Robinson, Poems (1791) and Memoirs (1801)
Mary Robinson, Walsingham (1798)
Mary Robinson, Lyrical Tales (1800)
Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) and Marmion (1808)
Walter Scott, Waverley (1814)
Walter Scott, A Tale of Old Mortality (1816)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein ( 1818)
Mary Shelley, Valperga (1823)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Cenci (1819) alongside Charles Robert Maturin, Bertram (1816)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound and other Poems (1820)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais (1821), "The Triumph of Life" (1824) and "A Defence of Poetry" (1821)
Charlotte Smith, Elegiac Sonnets (1784)
Charlotte Smith, Desmond (1792)
Charlotte Smith, The Emigrants (1793), Beachy Head and other Poems (1807)
Robert Southey, Poems (1799)
Robert Southey, Thalabathe Destroyer (1801)
The Anti-Jacobin, or, Weekly Examiner (1797-8)
Helen Maria Williams, Poems (1786) and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary: A Fiction (1787) and Maria; Or the Wrongs of Woman (1798)
William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800)
William Wordsworth, The Prelude ( 1799-1805; pub. 1850)

(in alphabetical order according to author's last name)

Matthew Arnold, selected essays and poems: “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” "Memorial Verses" (1850), "To Marguerite -- Continued" (1852); "The Buried Life" (1852); "Empedocles on Etna" (1852); "The Scholar-Gypsy" (1853); Preface to Poems (1853); "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse" (1855); "Dover Beach" (1867); "On the Study of Poetry" (1880)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret (1862)
Charlotte Bronte, Villette (1853)
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847)
Elizabeth Barrrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1857)
Robert Browning, selected poems: "Porphyria's Lover" (1842), "My Last Duchess" (1842). "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" (1845), "Love Among the Ruins" (1855), "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (1855), "Fra Lippo Lippi" (1855), "The Last Ride Together" (1855), "Andrea del Sarto" (1855), "Two in the Campagna" (1855). "A Grammarian's Funeral" (1855), "Cleon" (1855), "Caliban Upon Setebos" (1864)
Thomas Carlyle, "On History" (1830) and On Heroes and Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841)
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (1872)
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White (1859-1860)
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868)
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859)
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (1848)
Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1852)
George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)
George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871-72)
Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, T he German Ideology: Preface and Part One (1845-6)
Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848)
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1854–55)
W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, Patience , or Bunthorne's Bride (1881)
W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, Ruddigore, or the Witch's Curse (1887)
George Gissing, New Grub Street (1891)
Sarah Grand, The Heavenly Twins (1893) and "The New Aspect of the Woman Question" (1894)
H. Rider Haggard, She (1885)
H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines (1886)
Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1895)
Gerard Manly Hopkins, "The Wreck of the Deutschland", "God's Grandeur", "The Windhover", "Pied Beauty", "Spring and Fall", "[Carrion Comfort]". "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day" (all pub. posth. 1918)
Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (1897)
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901)
Karl Marx, from Capital Volume I (1867, English edition 1887): Chapter One: “The Commodity,” Chapter Six: “The Sale and Purchase of Labour Power,” Chapter Ten: “The Working Day,” and Chapter Twenty-Six: “The Secret of Primitive Accumulation”
Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1861-62; use Penguin ed.) *
J. S. Mill, "What is Poetry?" (1833); On Liberty (1859); The Subjection of Women (1869)
William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890)
Walter Pater, Studies in the History of The Renaissance (1873)
Arthur Wing Pinero, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1894)
Arthur Wing Pinero, Trelawny of the "Wells" (1899)
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince (1831)
Christina Rossetti, "Goblin Market" (1862); "Song ('When I am Dead, My Dearest')" (1862), "Up-Hill" (1862), "Winter: My Secret" (1862), "Sleeping at Last" (1896), Speaking Likeness (1874)
John Ruskin, from Modern Painters II (1846): "The Imaginative Faculty" from The Stones of Venice II (1853): "The Nature of Gothic"; from Modern Painters III (1856): "Of the Pathetic Fallacy"; “The Work of Iron” (1858) and “The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century” (1884)
Mary Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857)
Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm (1883)
George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren's Profession (1898); selections from dramatic criticism
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)
Algernon Charles Swinburne, selected poems: "Faustine" (1862); Choruses from Atalanta in Calydon (1865): "When the hounds of spring" and "Before the beginning of years"; "Laus Veneris" (1866); "The Triumph of Time" (1866); "Itylus" (1866); "Hymn to Proserpine" (1866); "Ave atque Vale" (1868); "Hertha" (1871); "To Walt Whitman in America" (1871)
Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam (1850), Idylls of the King (1859-74)
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847-48)
Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her? (1864-5)
Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now (1874-75)
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan (1892)
Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance (1893)
Oscar Wilde, Salome (1893)
Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (1895)
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Ellen Wood, East Lynne (1860-1)

20th- & 21st- Century American

ASAM indicates that the work is part of the Asian American literary tradition

AFAM indicates that the work is part of the African American literary tradition

LATX indicates that the work is part of the Latinx literary tradition

INDG indicates that the work is part of the indigenous American literary tradition

Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School (1984)
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1951)
Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands (1987), LATX
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953), AFAM
Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), The Dutchman (1964), AFAM
Paul Beatty, The Sellout (2015), AFAM
Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart (1946), ASAM
William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959)
Octavia Butler, Kindred (1979), AFAM
Willa Cather, My Antonia (1918)
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee (1982), ASAM
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000)
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street , LATX
Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers (1966)
Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren (1975)
Don De Lillo, White Noise (1985)
Don De Lillo, Underworld (1997)
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), LATX
John Dos Passos, The Big Money (1936)
W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), AFAM
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)
Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (1991)
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952), AFAM
Louise Erdrich, Tracks (1988), INDG
William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses (1942)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001)
Jonathan Franzen, Freedom (2010)
William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003)
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1924)
Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)
Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be? (2010)
Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt (1952)
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), AFAM
William James, selected lectures and essays: “The Stream of Thought”, “Association”, “The Perception of Time” (all 1890) “A World of Pure Experience” (1904), and “What Pragmatism Means” (1907).
James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), AFAM
Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)
Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody (1959; 1972)
Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962)
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (1976), ASAM
Tony Kushner, Angels in America (1992)
Nella Larsen, Passing (1929), AFAM
Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928), AFAM
Chang-Rae Lee, Native Speaker (1995), ASAM
Ben Lerner, 10:04 (2014)
Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking About This (2021)
Audre Lorde, Zami (1982), AFAM
Emily St-John Mandel, Station Eleven (2014)
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)
Claude McKay, Home to Harlem (1928); Banjo (1929), AFAM
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949)
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934; 1961 in US)
Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945)
N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968), INDG
Cherrie Moraga, Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca paso por sus labios (1983; 2000), LATX
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987), AFAM
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts (2015)
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (1990)
Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955)
John Okada, No-No Boy (1979), ASAM
Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956)
Ann Petry, The Street (1946), AFAM
Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1995)
Richard Powers, The Overstory (2019)
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (1972), AFAM
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2005)
Phillip Roth, The Human Stain (1995)
George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)
Leslie Marmom Silko, Ceremony (1977), INDG
Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton), Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912), ASAM
Art Spiegelman, Maus and Maus II (1986-91)
Gertrude Stein, Three Lives (1909)
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971)
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)
Jean Toomer, Cane (1923), AFAM
Helena Maria Viramontes, The Moths and Other Stories (1995), LATX
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (1996)
James Welch, Fools Crow (1986), INDG
Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust (1939)
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905)
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist (1999)
Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad (2016)
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
August Wilson, Piano Lesson (1990), AFAM
Richard Wright, Native Son (1940), AFAM
Tomás Rivera, And the Earth Did Not Devour Him / …y no se le tragó la tierra (1971), LATX
Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel (2011), ASAM

* indicates that a different work by the same author may be substituted

Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954)
Monica Ali, Brick Lane (2003) *
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1986)
Pat Barkeer, The Silence of the Girls (2018) *
Samuel Beckett, Molloy (1951)
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1952)
Anna Burns, Milkman (2018)
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979)
Caryl Churchill, Top Girls (1984)
Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915)
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924)
Radcliffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928)
Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty (2004) *
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)
Kazuo Ishiguro, Remains of the Day (1989)
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1915)
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
Hari Kunzru, Gods Without Men (2011) *
D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1918)
John Le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974)
Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook (1966)
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (2009)
Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach (2007) *
George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River (1993) *
Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party (1957)
Zia Hyder Rahman, In the Light of What We Know (2014) *
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
Sally Rooney, Normal People
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (1989)
Samuel Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956)
Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire (2017)
George Bernard Shaw, Man & Superman (1903)
Ali Smith, How to be Both (2014)
Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000)
John Synge, Playboy of the Western World (1907)
Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall (1929)
Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1989)
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929)
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1922)

Contemporary Poetry & Poetics

(in chronological order of original publication date)

W. B. Yeats, Selected Poems (2015, originally published 1889 - 1939)
T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962 (1965) *
Ezra Pound, Personae (1909)
Amy Lowell, Selected Poems, American Poets Project (2004, originally written 1910-1925)
Claude McKay, Selected Poems of Claude McKay (1953, written 1912-1948)
Robert Frost, North of Boston (1914)
Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (1914)
Ezra Pound, Pisan Cantos (1915-1962)
Mina Loy, Songs to Johannes (1917), see https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/loy/poem_loy_Songs_to_Joannes.html#loy_joannes_notes_intro )
Lola Ridge, "The Ghetto" in The Ghetto and Other Poems (1918)
Charles Reznikoff, The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (1918-1975) (2015)*
Louis Zukofsky, Selected Poems, American Poets Project (2006, originally published 1922-1978)
Jean Toomer, Cane (1923)
William Carlos Williams, Spring and All (1923)
Langston Hughes, Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994, originally published 1926-1964)
Laura Riding, The Laura (Riding) Jackson Reader (2005, originally written 1926-1976) *
James Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones (1927)
Kenneth Fearing, Selected Poems, American Poets Project (2004, originally published 1928-1943)
Lorine Niedecker, Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works (2002, originally published 1928-1952) *
Hart Crane, The Bridge (1930)
Charles Reznikoff, Testimony (1934)
Muriel Rukeyser, Theory of Flight (1935)
Muriel Rukeyser, Selected Poems, American Poets Project (2004, originally published 1935-1976)
Jackson Mac Low, Representative Works, 1938-1955 (1986) *
Muriel Rukeyser, U.S. 1 (1938)
Frank O'Hara, Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara (1995, poems originally published in 1940s) *
Wallace Stevens, “Ideas of Order at Key West” (1936), "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” (1950), and "The Noble Rider and the Sounds of Words" (1942)
H.D., Trilogy (1944-1946)
Charles Olson, Collected Poems of Charles Olson (1987, originally published 1949-1969)*
Langston Hughes, Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Jackson Mac Low, Doings: assorted performance pieces 1955/2002 (2005)
Allen Ginsberg, Howl and other Poems (1956)
William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams (1939-1962) (1986) *
William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1946-1948)
Hugh MacDiarmid, Selected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid (1954)
Hugh MacDiarmid, Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1956)
Frank O'Hara, "Personism: A Manifesto" in The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara (1959)
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters (1960)
Bob Kaufman, "Jail Poems" in Beatitude Anthology (1960)
Robert Creeley, For Love (1962)
Frank O'Hara, Lunch Poems (1964)
Lucille Clifton, The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (1965-2010) (2015)*
Jack Spicer, Language in My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer (2008, originally published 1965)
Melvin Tolson, Harlem Gallery (1965)
John Ashbery, Rivers and Mountains (1966)
Basil Bunting, Briggflatts (1966)
Adrienne Rich, On Lies in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978 (1979)
Adrienne Rich, Secrets and Silence in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence : Selected Prose, 1966-1978 (1979)
Robert Creeley, Words (1967)
George Oppen, Of Being Numerous (1968)
Gwendolyn Brooks, Riot (1969)
Robert Creeley, Pieces (1969)
Robert Hayden, Words in the Mourning Time (1970)
Jackson Mac Low, Stanzas for Iris Lezak (1971)
John Ashbery, Three Poems ( 1972)
Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck (1973)
John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975)
Robert Hayden, Angle of Ascent (1975)
John Ashbery, Double Dream of Spring (1976)
Lyn Hejinian, My Life (1980)
James Schuyler, The Morning of the Poem (1980)
Carolyn Forché, The Country Between Us (1981)
Sterling Brown, The Collected Poems of Sterling Brown (1983) *
Elizabeth Alexander, The Venus Hottentot (1825) (1990)
John Ashbery, Flow Chart (1991)
Susan Howe, My Emily Dickinson (1985)
Barbara Guest, Defensive Rapture (1993)
Yusef Komunyakaa, Neon Vernacular (1993)
Eavan Boland, In a Time of Violence (1995)
Barbara Guest, Fair Realism (1995)
Lynda Hull, The Only World (1995)
Sascha Feinstein, Misterioso (2000)
Harryette Mullen, Sleeping with the Dictionary (2002)
Tyehimba Jess, Leadbelly (2004)
Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box (2006)
M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! (2008)
Julie Carr, 100 Notes on Violence (2010)
Nikki Finney, Head Off & Split: Poems (2011)
Tim Seibles, Fast Animal (2012)
Evie Shockley, The New Black (2012)
Tracy K. Smith, Life on Mars (2012)
Jordan Abel, The Place of Scraps (2013)
Caroline Bergvall, Drift (2014)
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive: After the End of the World (2018)
Divya Victor, Curb (2021)
Ezra Pound, “A Retrospect” in Literary Essays of Ezra Pound (1918)
Gertrude Stein, "Composition as Explanation" (1926)
Louis Zukofsky, "An Objective" in Prepositions+: The Collected Critical Essays (2000, originally published in 1931)
Charles Olson, "Projective Verse" in The Collected Poems of Charles Olson (1987, originally published in 1950)
Robert Creeley, "Was that a Real Poem or Did You Just Make It Up?" in Collected Essays , A Quick Graph (1974)

Literary Works (in chronological order of publication date, with region noted)

Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901), India
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902), Africa
Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World (1916), South Asia
E M Forster, A Passage to India (1924), South Asia
Patricia Galvão, Industrial Park (1933), Latin America
Raja Rao, Kanthapura (1938), South Asia
José María Arguedas, Yawar Fiesta (1941), Latin America
Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World (1949), Latin America
George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin (1950), Caribbean
Samuel Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956), Caribbean
Rosario Castellanos, The Nine Guardians: A Novel (1957), Latin America
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1959), Africa
Ousmane Sembène, God’s Bits of Wood (1962), Africa
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Caribbean
V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas (1967), South Asia / Caribbean
Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Africa
Aimé Césaire, A Tempest (1969), Caribbean
Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North (1969), Africa
Bessie Head, A Question of Power (1974), Africa
Wole Soyinka , Death and the King's Horseman (1975), Africa
Raj Anand, Coolie (1976), India
Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, The Island (1976), Africa
Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy (1977), Africa
Ngūgī wa Thiong’o, Petals of Blood (1977), Africa
Domitila Barrios de Chúngara with Moema Viezzer, Let Me Speak! Testimony of Domitila, a Woman of the Bolivian Mines (1978), Latin America
Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (1979), Africa
J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), Africa
Mariama Bâ, So Long a Letter (1981), Africa
Brian Friel, Translations (1981), Ireland
Nadine Gordimer , July's People (1981), Africa
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981), South Asia
Keri Hulme, The Bone People (1983), New Zealand
Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero (1983), North Africa
Ken Saro Wiwa, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English (1985), Africa
Michelle Cliff, No Telephone to Heaven (1987), Caribbean
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (1988), Africa
Amitav Ghosh, Shadow Lines (1988), South Asia
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988), Caribbean
Bapsi Sidhwa, Cracking India (1988), South Asia
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Storyteller (1989), Latin America
Claribel Alegría and Darwin Flakoll, The Death of Somoza (1990), Latin America
Derek Walcott, Omeros (1990), Caribbean
Ben Okri, The Famished Road (1991), Africa
Hanif Kureishi, My Son the Fanatic (1994), South Asia
Shyam Selvadurai, Funny Boy (1994), South Asia
Mahasweta Devi, Imaginary Maps: Three Stories (1995), South Asia
Zakes Mda, Ways of Dying (1995), Africa
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1998), South Asia
J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1999) [Africa]
Edwidge Danticat, The Farming of Bones (1999), Caribbean
Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2001), South Asia
Teju Cole, Every Day Is for the Thief (2007), Africa
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger: A Novel (2008), South Asia
Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies (2008), South Asia
Urmila Pawar, The Weave of my Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs (2009), South Asia
Yashpal, This is Not that Dawn (2010), South Asia
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (2014), Africa
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names (2014), Africa
Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing (2016), Africa
Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King (2019), Africa

Readings/Theory (grouped by region, in chronological order according to original publication date)

South Asia / Middle East

M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (1909)
B. R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste (1936)
Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (1946)
Edward Said, Orientalism (1979)
Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands (2002)
Ranajit Guha, “On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India” in Subaltern Studies I: Writings on South Asian History and Society (1982)
Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (1986)
Binyavanga Wainaina, “How to Write about Africa” in How to Write about Africa (2022, originally published in 2005)
Sharmila Rege, Writing Caste, Writing Gender (2006)

Latin America

José Carlos Mariátegui , Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (1928)
Che Guevara, Socialism and Man in Cuba (1965)
Roberto Schwarz, Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture (1992)
Latin American Subaltern Studies Group, "Founding Statement" in Boundary2 20.3 (Autumn 1993)
Neil Larsen, Reading North by South (1995)
C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1938)
Aimé Césaire, A Discourse on Colonialism (1950)
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (1959)
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
Édouard Glissant, Caribbean Discourse (1981)
Léopold Sédar Senghor, "Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century" in Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader (1994, originally published in French in 1966)
Ngūgī wa Thiong’o, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986)
Roberto Fernández Retamar, Caliban and Other Essays (1989)

Multi-Regional

Amilcar Cabral, The Weapon of Theory (1966)
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983)
Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literature (1992)
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (1993)
Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence (1998)
E. San Juan Jr., Beyond Postcolonial Theory (1998)
Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011)
Mary Louise Pratt, Planetary Longings (2022)

(in chronological order of publication date)

Rodolphe Töpffer, The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck ( 1837)
Rudolph Dirks, The Katzenjammer Kids (1897-1913)
Winsor McCay, Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905-1914)
George Herriman, Krazy Kat (1914-1944) *
Early superhero comics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) (1938-1945) *
Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts strip (1950-2000) *
R. Crumb, Collected Works (1967- ) *
Mad Magazine (Al Feldstein, ed., 1952-1985) *
Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen series (1973-1987)
Osamu Tezuka, Black Jack series (1973-1983)
Harvey Pekar, American Splendor (1976-2008)
Will Eisner, A Contract with God (1978)
Art Spiegelman, MAUS , Vols I and II (1980-1992)
Frank Miller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986)
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, Watchmen (1986-1987)
Lynda Barry, The Good Times are Killing Me (1988)
Lynda Barry, One Hundred Demons (2002)
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (1989-1996)
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993)
Daniel Clowes, Ghost World (1995)
Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis (2000)
Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000)
Joe Sacco, Palestine (2001)
Joe Sacco, Footnotes in Gaza (2009)
Phoebe Gloeckner, The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures (2002)
Craig Thompson, Blankets: An Illustrated Novel (2003)
Charles Burns, Black Hole (2005)
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006)
Shaun Tan, The Arrival (2006)
David B., Epileptic (2006)
Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese (2006)
Ulli Lust, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life (2008)
Gabrielle Bell, The Voyeurs (2012)
John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell, March Vols I, II, and III (2013-2017)
Adrian Tomine, Killing and Dying (2015)
Ben Passmore, Your Black Friend and Other Strangers (2016)
Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing is Monsters (2017)
John Jennings & Stacey Robinson, Tony Medina, I am Alfonso Jones (2017)
Victoria Lomasko, Other Russias (2017)
Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir (2017)
John Jennings & Damian Duffy, Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (2018)
Nick Drnaso, Sabrina (2018)

Cinema and Media Studies

Films (in chronological order of release date)

Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory (1895) and Arrival of a Train at a Station (1895)
George Méliès, A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery (1903)
D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Oscar Micheaux, Within Our Gates (1920)
Robert J. Flaherty, Nanook of the North (1922)
Sergei Eisenstein, The Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Buster Keaton, The General (1926)
F. W. Murnau, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Dziga Vertov, Man with the Movie Camera (1929)
Fritz Lang, M (1931)
Frank Capra, It Happened One Night (1934)
Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936)
Jean Renoir, The Grand Illusion (1937)
Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (1941)
Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied, Meshes of the Afternoo n (1943)
Laurence Olivier, Henry V (1944)
Roberto Rossellini, Rome, Open City (1945)
Howard Hawks, The Big Sleep (1946)
Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon (1950)
Stanley Donen, Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Satyajit Ray, Pather Panchali (1955)
John Ford, The Searchers (1956)
Alain Resnais, Hiroshima mon Amour (1959)
Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo (1958)
Ritwick Ghatak, Meghe Dakha Tara (1960)
Jean-Luc Godard, Contempt (1963)
Federico Fellini, 8 1/2 (1963)
Albert Maysles and David Maysles, Gimme Shelter (1970)
Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather (1972)
Djibril Diop Mambéty, Touki Bouki (1973)
M. S. Sathyu, Garm Hava (1973)
Shyam Benegal, Ankur (1974)
Ousmane Sembène, Xala (1975)
Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver (1976)
R. W. Fassbinder, The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978)
Aparna Sen, 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981)
María Luisa Bemberg, Camila (1984)
Agnès Varda, Vagabond (1985)
Stephen Frears, My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
David Lynch, Blue Velvet (1986)
John Woo, A Better Tomorrow (1986)
John Lasseter, Luxo Jr. (1986)
Claire Denis, Chocolat (1988)
Mira Nair, Salaam Bombay! (1988)
Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing (1989)
Julie Dash, Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Zhang Yimou, Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Nargess (1992)
Djibril Diop Mambéty, Hyènes (1992)
Jane Campion, The Piano (1993)
Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction (1994)
Deepa Mehta, Elements trilogy (1996-2005)
Abbas Kiarostami, Taste of Cherry (1997)
Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke (1997)
Lucrecia Martel, The Swamp (2001)
Abderrahmane Sissako, Bamako (2006)
Jia Zhangke, Platform (2000)
Jia Zhangke, Still Life (2006)
Florian Thalhofer, Planet Galata: A Bridge in Istanbul (2010)
Hito Steyerl, In Free Fall (2010)
Harun Farocki, Parallel I-IV (2012-14)
Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave (2013)
Kelly Reichardt, Certain Women (2016)
Nonny de la Peña, Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story (2017)

Readings/Theory (in chronological order of original publication date)

Hugo Münsterberg, "Why We Go to the Movies" in Cosmopolitan 60.1 (Dec 1915)
Béla Balázs, "The Close-Up" in Béla Balázs: Early Film Theory: Visible Man and the Spirit of Film (2010, originally published in French in 1924)
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (1968, originally published in German in 1935)
Sergei Eisenstein, "Dickens, Griffith, and Film Today" in Film Form: Essays in Film Theory (1949, originally published in Russian in 1944)
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" in Dialect of the Enlightenment (1989, originally published in German in 1944)
Alexandre Astruc, "The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo" in Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology (2014, originally published in French in 1948)
André Bazin, "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema" in What is Cinema ? Essays Selected and Translated by Hugh Gray (2004, originally published in French in early 1950s)
Siegfried Kracauer, "The Establishment of Physical Existence" in Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1965, originally published in German in 1960)
Maya Deren, "Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality" in Daedalus 89.1 (Winter 1960)
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) *
Jean-Louis Baudry, "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus" in Film Quarterly 28.2 (Winter 1974-1975, originally published in French in 1970)
Laura Mulvey, " Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema " in Screen 16.3 (Autumn 1975)
Richard Dyer, "Entertainment and Utopia" in Only Entertainment (1977)
Richard Dyer, "Stars as Types" and "Stars as Images" in Stars (1979)
Giles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image (1986, originally published in French in 1983) *
Rick Altman, "A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre" in Cinema Journal 23.2 (Spring 1984)
David Bordwell, "Art-Cinema Narration" in Narration in the Fiction Film (1985)
Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde" in Wide Angle 8.3-4 (1986)
Bill Nichols, "Documentary Modes of Representation" in Representing Reality (1991)
Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America (1992) *
Robert Stam and Ella Shohat, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (1994) *
Manthia Diawara, "Black American Cinema: the New Realism" in Cinemas of the Black Diaspora: Diversity, Dependence, and Oppositionality (1995)
Henry Jenkins, "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Further Reflections" in New Media: Theories of Practices of Digitexuality (2003)
Peter Wollen, "The Auteur Theory: Michael Curtiz, and Casablanca" in Authorship and Film (2003)
Mary Ann Doane, "Information, Crisis, and Catastrophe" in New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader (2005)
Linda Hutcheon, Theory of Adaptation (2006) *
John Thornton Caldwell, Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television (2008) *
John Durham Peters, The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media (2015) *
Patricia White, Women's Cinema, World Cinema: Projecting Contemporary Feminisms (2015) *
Lev Manovich, "What is Digital Cinema?" in Post-Cimena: Theorizing 21st-Century Film (2016)
Karl Schoonover and Rosalind Galt, Queer Cinema in the World (2016) *

Secondary Menu

Best Practices Exams & Reading Lists

This guide was prepared by GEA Representatives Rachel Gevlin and Chris Huebner in collaboration with fellow graduate students with the intention of demystifying the process of assembling a committee and preparing for exams.

Initial Questions to Ask Advisor and Committee Members

What do you believe the reading year is for? Am I reading to gain comprehension of the field, to prepare for writing my first chapter, or to “explore” areas?
How often should we meet? How often should I meet with other committee members? When do I need to start thinking concretely about a dissertation topic?
What method/theory do you admire? What writers /critics do you like as a model? (This is a question that you could ask your advisor as well as a general question to consider yourself)

Constructing Lists

How should I build my lists? Should I start big and cut? Should I start small and add?
Is each list the domain of one advisor? Should my committee members collaborate to construct lists?
What should the balance of prose/poetry/visual media be (for applicable projects)?
How general/canonical should my lists be? How specific should they be to my own interests or to the specific “niche” of my project?
How closely should my minor lists relate to each other? How closely should my minor lists relate to my major list?
Should secondary texts be on primary lists (and vice versa)? If so, what should the ratio be?
Should minor lists have sections?
Do you have general formatting preferences for my lists? (Citations, numbering, ordering chronologically/alphabetically, etc.)

How to Handle Reading

How should I prioritize which texts to start reading? What are the 20 most important?
How closely should I be reading each text?
How should I read? For argument? For factual or historical background?
As I read through my lists, should I produce any writing?

Preparing for Exams

What is the procedure for oral exams? What should I prepare? Who starts? Will there be times when I will be asked to leave the room? Is it acceptable to take notes or record audio during the exam?
Who will draft the questions, and will I have any input in what they are?
How much ‘quizzing’ on small details (dates, character names, etc.) from the texts will there be? Am I likely to be asked questions about texts that aren’t on my lists?
What types of questions should I expect? i.e. Will I be asked to give a survey of a period? Will each question entail making an argument? Will I be expected to respond to specific critics?
How many questions will there be? Different advisors have different expectations, but the general outline (from the handbook) is the following: “The major exam is typically scheduled first. The format is usually to answer 2 or 3 questions from a choice of between 4 to 6 questions. For the minor exam, the format is usually to answer 1 or 2 on each minor field (2-4 in total) from between 4 and 6 questions.”
In my oral exam, should I have an answer prepared for every question that was asked on the written exams, or only for those that I answered in writing?
What kind of feedback can I expect after my exams are completed?
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PhD Reading Lists

See Graduate Handbook .

English Ph.D.

The Ph.D. program in English at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest and best doctoral programs of its kind. Ranked in the top 20 English Graduate Programs by U.S. News & World Report , our program offers students intensive research mentoring and pedagogical training in the vibrant setting that is Austin, Texas. In addition, all admitted English PhD students receive six years of full funding .

Drawing on the resources of two units, the Department of English and the Department of Rhetoric and Writing, our program has at its center a dynamic and dedicated faculty of over 60 .

While the Ph.D. program is housed in and administered by the Department of English , the Department of Rhetoric and Writing is a crucial partner in helping to educate our shared students. The make-up of each cohort of students mirrors our unusual interdepartmental collaboration: each year we accept 10-12 students in literature and 4 in rhetoric and digital literacies.

One of the distinguishing features of our program is its collegiality and sense of shared purpose. Students and faculty work collaboratively on a number of departmental and university-wide committees, participate actively in reading and writing groups, and treat one another with respect.

Our program is engaged not only in meeting the challenges of a complex, rapidly changing academic discipline but also in helping to shape it. Our graduate courses examine relationships between writing and other cultural practices and explore the social, historical, rhetorical, and technological processes by which literature and other discourses are constituted. While we take seriously our responsibility to help train the next generation of the professoriate—that is, to cultivate scholarship, effective teaching, and collegiality—we also encourage our students to think of their training and their futures in the broadest terms possible.

Requirements

Foreign Language Requirement
Tab Option 4
Tab Option 5

All students, regardless of whether they enter with a BA or MA, are required to complete 39 hours of formal graduate coursework taken for a grade before the end of their third year. These 39 hours must include:

E384K Disciplinary Inquiries, which is taken in the first semester. It may not include other courses under the E384 course number.
At least one 3-hour seminar on pre-1800 material
At least one 3-hour seminar on post-1800 material
At least 3 hours, but no more than 9 hours, taken out of department. Out-of-department courses include: undergraduate English courses taken for graduate credit, creative writing workshops or Literature for Writers courses with the New Writers Project, and supervised study conference courses arranged with individual faculty members.

These curricular requirements ensure that students encounter a wide range of courses, faculty, and texts during their time at UT, extending well beyond their specialized area of interest. Students choose coursework in consultation with the Associate Graduate Advisor, who may allow substitutions for English courses in cases where alternate coursework is needed to supplement departmental offerings. This alternate coursework could take the form of the out-of-department courses listed above. Such substitutions may be warranted in cases where a student is pursuing a portfolio in an interdisciplinary unit such as CWGS, MALS, or AADS; where the English department offers few courses in the student’s area of interest; or where the student needs to pursue a foreign language for research purposes. We encourage students to investigate portfolio options early in their career so they can integrate those courses as soon as possible. Some portfolios require 12 hours of coursework; in those cases, the Associate Graduate Advisor will grant an exception to the 9-hour limit on out-of-department courses.

Students who hold the position of AI are also required to take RHE398T, which is usually taken during the fall semester of their third year, or when a graduate student teaches RHE306 for the first time. RHE398T does not count toward the required 39 hours of formal graduate coursework.

Beginning in their third year of the program, students have the option of enrolling in additional seminars inside or outside the department, choosing whether to take these courses for a grade or for Credit/No Credit. They can also enroll in E384L Scholarly Publication (usually taken in or after the third year) and E384M Professional Outcomes (usually taken in or after the fourth year). Students take these two courses for Credit/No Credit. The graduate program encourages students to continue enrolling in optional courses throughout their years as a PhD student, while they are reading for exams and planning and writing a dissertation.

In the spring of year three, students must pass the Third-Year Examination , which tests their knowledge of and engagement with chosen fields of specialization. Students will be examined on either a fixed reading list or a reading list developed by three faculty members in collaboration with the student. The list will contain 60-80 primary and/or secondary texts. The Third-Year Examination consists of a written and an oral component. The written component consists of: 1) a 1000- to 2000-word intellectual rationale for the list; 2) an annotated version of the list (at least 1/3 of the texts with an annotation of 100 words or more each); and 3) two syllabi based on the list—the first for a survey course, the second for an upper-division seminar. Students will then sit for a two-hour oral examination during which the committee will ask questions about both the written materials and the students’ comprehension of the reading list.

The Prospectus Examination grants students an opportunity to receive formal feedback from three faculty members on their proposed dissertation project. Students work closely with faculty to write and revise a 15- to 20-page prospectus. Once the faculty members are ready to sign off on the document, an oral Prospectus Examination is scheduled. Students are encouraged to pass the Prospectus Examination by the end of the fall semester of their fourth year in the program.

Doctoral Candidacy is achieved when students have successfully completed the Third-Year and Prospectus Examinations; fulfilled the foreign language requirement (see below); and identified a dissertation committee of at least four faculty members, one of whom needs to be from another graduate program or institution. All students must spend at least two long semesters, or one long semester and one summer, in candidacy before earning their degree.

The last milestone for the Ph.D. is the Final Oral Defense , otherwise known as the dissertation defense. In general, faculty will not schedule a defense until the dissertation is completed and ready for critical engagement.

Students working toward a Ph.D. in English at UT Austin are expected to pursue courses of language study relevant to their individual professional trajectories, as determined in consultation between students themselves; their faculty mentors; and graduate program advisor(s).

Student progress toward appropriate levels of competence will be assessed by means of a four-part Foreign Language Audit according to the following schedule:

Fall semester of the first year: Foreign Language Interview with the associate graduate advisor to review prior training, assess current levels of expertise, and, if necessary, begin developing an appropriate language study agenda.

Spring semester of the second year: as part of the Second-Year Reflection, students complete a first Language Study Check-in with the graduate advisor(s) and their faculty sponsor, to ensure that appropriate progress has been made toward execution of the agenda with alteration or addition in light of subfield expectations and project directions.

Spring semester of the third year (in most cases): as part of the Third-Year Exam, students will complete a second Language Study Check-in, this time with their exam committee, to determine whether satisfactory progress has been achieved on their language study agenda, again with alteration or addition in light of subfield expectations and project directions.

Fourth year (in most cases): as part of the Prospectus Exam, students will finalize their Foreign Language Audit. This will involve discussion with the exam committee, along with presentation of all necessary evidence to demonstrate that the language study agenda has been fulfilled. If, in the judgment of the committee, requisite levels of language competence have not been achieved, student and committee will agree upon a binding plan for fulfillment, during which period the student shall remain on probationary status with regard to the Foreign Language Requirement. Successful fulfillment of the Foreign Language Audit must be achieved before the student advances to Ph.D. candidacy.

Notes: Some students will enter the program with sufficient foreign language skills for their course of study (e.g. either compelling evidence of literate knowledge of a language other than English, such as a high school degree from a school in a non-English speaking country, or four or more semesters at the college level of a language other than English with a grade of B or better in the last semester, or its equivalent). These students will not need to complete the final three steps of the FLA.

Program Administration

Associate Chair & Graduate Adviser: Gretchen Murphy

Associate Graduate Adviser (Literature): Julie Minich

Associate Graduate Adviser (Rhetoric): Scott Graham

Graduate Studies Chair: Tanya Clement

Graduate Program Administrator: Patricia Schaub

Administration
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Minor in English
Minor in Creative Writing
Major in Literary Journalism
Minor in Literary Journalism
Composition
Ph.D. Program in English
MFA Programs in Creative Writing
Masters of English Program
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English Majors' Association

Graduate Reading List and Headnotes

Reading lists.

19C & 20C Industrial and Environmental Fiction
OREILLY_Reading List C 20th ce Anglo-Amer Drama
Science Fiction
New Media Studies
Rhetorical Ecologies
Affect Theory and Embodiment
Global Capitalist Development list
OREILLY Reading List B Narrative Theory Mod
Phenomenology

Time Period

19&20C American Fiction list
20th 21st C American Novel
American Fiction 1865-1995
OREILLY_Reading LIST A Anglo-Amer Mod Novel
Post-1945 American Literature
OREILLY List C Head Notes_20th ce Anglo-Amer Drama
Rhetorical Ecology
Global Capitalist Development Headnote & List
OREILLY _ List B Head Notes Theory Narrative Mod Novel
OREILLY - List A Head Notes_Modernist Novel Narrative Theory
19&20C American Fiction
20th 21st C American Novels
OREILLY - List A Head Notes_Anglo-Amer Modernist Novel

1. Can I send this out to anyone?

Yes, This is supposed to be a resource for any PhD Student to use, and so long as they do not destroy or delete any of the materials that have been freely shared by the generosity of other graduate students, they are welcome to this resource

2. Can I add my material to this drive?

YES PLEASE. This is intended to be a living document that can be passed down to our colleagues and future incoming PhD students who need some examples of how different people have organized their lists and what material they are looking at.

Drive Link - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xjlTV1yEJf6SWpQ7Q2OxR1ai8gj-M0td?usp=sharing

3. Is this an official department list?

No. This is a grad student led list that is available for graduate students. The majority of the lists were created by individual graduate students and shared by them. How they have constructed each list was up to the graduate students themselves and are here to serve as an example. It is by no means an official How To list.

HOW TO USE

Reading list .

Please clearly title your file and anonymize your file name into your list title. If there are already pre-existing lists with the same name, please add a number at the end. Ex: for me it was 20th 21st C American Lit, Science Fiction, and Affect Theory. Please identify where each of your ABC list belongs and place them in each corresponding folder of Time Period, Genre, Theory, or Misc Ex: mine (seen above) went into Time Period, Genre, and Theory respectively.

Please title your headnotes files the same name you have titled your Reading List file so it will correlate easily. Please identify where each of your headnotes went in the Reading List folder and place them accordingly.

Contact English

435 Humanities Instructional Building Irvine, CA 92697

See the humanities in action

Area Exam Reading Lists and Past Exams

Area Examinations in Literature
Reading List	Past Exams

Area Examinations in Language
Reading List	Past Exam

List of standing committees

The English Department is devastated to announce the death over the New Year of our colleague Glyn Salton-Cox. To his family, loved ones, and friends here, in his native Britain, and throughout the world, we offer our deepest and most heartfelt condolences. Glyn was a brilliant scholar, a very popular teacher, and the kindest of colleagues.

2023.02

Reading List 15: 21st Century Literature in Formation

Bishnupriya Ghosh, Melody Jue, Rita Raley, Tess Shewry

Notes to Examinees

“Or” = student choice, i.e. choose one of the graphic novels, one of the Hamid novels, etc.
Please submit a copy of the list with your selections highlighted at least one month in advance of the exam.
The compilation of resources at the end of this document is for reference only. Some of this material may help you think about “21st century” as both a literary-historical field and professional community. Book titles, TOCs, and conference programs will all give you some indication of the range of research questions, concepts, paradigms, and methods for scholars working in the contemporary period.
The exam committee will be reviewing this list every two years to update the “recent” works category and propose slight revisions as needed.

Reading List

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah (2013)
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger (2008)
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003)
Paul Beatty, The Sellout (2015)
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006); Charles Burns, Black Hole (2005); Nick Drnaso, Sabrina (2018); Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers (2004); or Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000)
Octavia Butler, Fledgling (2005); Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019); or N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (2015)
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) or The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)
Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) AND Exhalation: Stories (2019); Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie (2016); or Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties (2017)
J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello (2003)
Teju Cole, Open City (2012)
Rachel Cusk, Outline (2014) (read the trilogy if possible)
Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (2000); Jonathan Safran Foer, Tree of Codes (2010); or Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper (2005)
Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (2011)
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) or The Circle (2013)
Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (2001) or The Round House (2012)
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001) or Freedom (2010)
Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (2004)
Abdulrazah Gurnah, By the Sea (2001)
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) or Exit West (2017)
Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be? (2010) or Tao Lin, Taipei (2013)
Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty (2004) or Ian McEwan, Atonement (2002)
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)
Edward P. Jones, The Known World (2003)
Hari Kunzru, The Impressionist (2002), Transmission (2004), or Red Pill (2020)
Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers (2013)
Ben Lerner, 10:04 (2014) or The Topeka School (2019)
Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)
Tom McCarthy, Remainder (2005) or Joseph O’Neill, Netherland (2008)
Zakes Mda, Heart of Redness (2000); Zoë Wicomb, David’s Story (2000); or Achmat Dangor, Bitter Fruit (2001)
Becky Manawatu, Auē (2019); Deborah Miranda, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir (2012); Tommy Orange, There There (2018); or Alexis Wright, The Swan Book (2013)
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (2004)
Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer (2015)
Jenny Offill, Weather (2020); Richard Powers, The Overstory (2018); or Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones (2011)
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (2013)
M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! (2011)
Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (2009) or Bleeding Edge (2013)
Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014)
Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (2004)
Salman Rushdie, Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown (2005), or Quichotte (2019)
George Saunders, Tenth of December (2013) or Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)
Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story (2010)
Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000) or NW (2012)
Colson Whitehead, Zone One (2011), The Underground Railroad (2016), or The Nickel Boys (2019)
Recent works (choose one): Deepa Anappara, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (2020); Anuk Arudpragasam, A Passage North (2021); Tash Aw, We, the Survivors (2019); Anna Burns, Milkman (2018); Susan Choi, Trust Exercise (2019); Danielle Evans, The Office of Historical Corrections (2020); Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Sabrina & Corina (2020); Damon Galgut, The Promise (2021); Lisa Halliday, Asymmetry (2018); Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This (2021); Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive (2019); Ling Ma, Severance (2019); Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House (2019); Otessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018); Lauren Oyler, Fake Accounts (2021); Sally Rooney, Normal People (2018); Brandon Taylor, Real Life (2020); Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019); Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (2020)
Short story collections (choose one): Daniel Alarcón, The King Is Always Above the People (2017); Colin Barrett, Young Skins (2015); Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women (2015); Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker (2004); Lauren Groff, Florida (2018); Charles Johnson, Nighthawks (2018); Phil Klay, Redeployment (2014); Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth (2008); Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2005); Colum McCann, Thirteen Ways of Looking (2015); Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) or Runaway (2004); Lynne Tillman, American Genius, A Comedy (2006); David Foster Wallace, Oblivion (2004)
Poetry and experimental writing (choose two): Tusiata Avia, Fale Aitu/ Spirit House (2016); Christian Bök, The Xenotext (2015); Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (2001) OR Nox (2010); Forrest Gander, Be With (2019) AND Twice Alive (2021); Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night (2014); Kenneth Goldsmith, The Weather (2005); Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise (2019); Terrance Hayes, Lighthead (2010) OR American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (2018); Cathy Park Hong, Dance Dance Revolution (2007); Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter (2017); Fred Moten, The Feel Trio (2014); Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts (2015); Craig Santos Perez, Habitat Threshold (2020); Solmaz Sharif, Look (2016); Kate Zambreno, Heroines (2012)
Contemporary Literature
ASAP/Journal
C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-century Writings
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction

Book series

Columbia UP (“Literature Now”)
Cambridge Studies in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Culture
Stanford UP (“Post45”)
U of Iowa P (“The New American Canon”)
Routledge (Studies in Contemporary Literature)
Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction
Duke UP (“New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century”)
Palgrave (“American Literature Readings in the 21st Century”)
University of South Carolina (“Understanding Contemporary American Literature”)
Bloomsbury (“New Horizons in Contemporary Writing”; “Studies in Contemporary North American Fiction”)

Scholarly organizations

ASAP (Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present)
MLA forums in American, English, Anglophone, and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies are now “20th and 21st Century”

Anthologies, encyclopedias, and field articulations

American Literature in Transition, 2000-2010 (Cambridge UP)

Graduate Overview
Fellowships and Awards
PhD Emphases and Certificates
Requirements
Qualifying Exams
Section 1. English Faculty
Section 2. Graduate Study in English at UCSB
Section 3. The MA/PhD Program
Section 4. The Ph.D. Program
Section 5. Independent Studies, Colloquia, Special Courses
Section 6. Coursework in Other Departments
Section 7. Foreign Language Requirement
Section 8. The First Qualifying Exam
Section 9. The Second Qualifying Exam
Section 10. Advancement to Candidacy
Section 11. The Dissertation
Section 12. Registration
Section 13. Leaves of Absence
Section 14. Deadlines
Section 15. The Job Search and Job Placement Committee
Section 16. Financial Support
Section 17. Administration of the Graduate Program
Section 18. Departmental Staff
Section 19. Reading Lists for the First Qualifying Exam
Funding & Support
Job Placement

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MA/PhD Degree Requirements: Examinations

After completing their coursework, students enter a period of directed reading, at the end of which they take their PhD General Examinations. The PhD exams consist of written and oral components, to be completed within a four-week period. This page includes information about:

Purpose of the Exams

Exam committee, directed reading, written exam.

The qualifying exam has two, closely inter-related aims:

To demonstrate broad reading in a field or interlocking fields of study, and an understanding of defining issues and debates within that (those) field(s); and
To explore and develop a research focus, situate its core question(s), and articulate its stakes, which will carry through to prospectus and the dissertation.

A “field” in this context means a recognized area of expertise. A ready measure of existing and emerging fields can be found in academic job postings (the Modern Language Association job list, in particular), and (to a secondary degree) in the categories that organize academic publishing, or forums/divisions in national professional associations (e.g. MLA, ASA, CCCC, RSA, TESOL or AAAL). Thus a field is not simply a topic; it pertains to recognized areas of study within professional academic contexts.

Some examples: African American and African Diasporic literature, Environmental Humanities, New Media Studies, Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, Premodern English Studies, Victorian Studies, Queer Studies, Literacy Studies, Rhetoric and Composition Studies, Technical and Professional Communication are all fields. If you read through the MLA job list, you will find actual positions advertised for specialists in these (and many other) areas.

It’s important to note that while every student must identify at least one field, most students will seek to demonstrate broad knowledge in two (or possibly even three) interrelated fields. For example, Medieval Studies and Gender Studies; Contemporary U.S. literature, Science Fiction Studies, and Queer Studies; Early Modern Literature and Textual Studies; Literacy Studies and Composition Studies; Second Language Writing and Genre Studies; Second Language Acquisition and World Englishes.

The PhD Examination Committee consists of at least four members: a chair, two regular members, and a Graduate School Representative (GSR). The committee advises students on remaining coursework, supervises and approves the PhD exam reading lists, directs and mentors students on reading for PhD exams, evaluates the written exams, and administers the oral exam.

The chair and at least one of the regular members of the PhD exam committee must be from the Department of English. The student should consult with their committee before adding a faculty member from outside the Department of English as a co-chair or regular member.

Note that students must secure the agreement of faculty, including the GSR, to serve on their PhD exam committee. Faculty reserve the right not to serve on a PhD exam committee.

After securing the agreement of all committee members, students present the names of committee members to the English Graduate Advising Office so that the committee may be officially constituted in MyGrad Program.

For details regarding the UW Graduate School’s policies on doctoral supervisory committees, including the role of the GSR, see the UW Graduate School website: UW Graduate School Policy 4.2: Supervisory Committee for Graduate Students .

Upon completion of coursework, students enter a period of directed reading. During this period, students enroll in up to 10 credits per quarter of English 597 in order to maintain full-time enrollment. All students enrolled in English 597 should connect regularly with their chair (at a minimum, twice a quarter) to vet ideas, discuss concerns, and report on progress. At least one of these quarterly check-ins should take the form of an in-person meeting (or video conference). In general, the advisor should be apprised of the student’s progress and the student should feel able to connect with their adviser as questions and challenges regarding exam preparation arise. The rights and obligations of students and mentors are outlined in The Graduate Student/Faculty Rights and Responsibilities document . Students should review the document with their Chair and committee members and discuss mutual expectations for their working relationship during the first quarter of enrollment in 597.

Reading Lists

Under the guidance of their chair, and with the support of the other regular committee members, students construct three reading lists for their general exams. Because different lists will compile materials of vastly differing length and density, it can be challenging to norm the size of the lists. In general, each list should include somewhere between 40 and 50 items.

Each list shall be accompanied by a brief (250 word) description. A list is always only a sampling of work in the field, and so the description should answer the following questions: What were some of the central considerations that guided the selection of materials? What is this list meant to represent?

Sample reading lists are available from the English Graduate Advising Office .

A. Reading Lists for Language and Rhetoric Students

Field List I: The first list should constitute a primary field, such as Composition Studies, Applied Linguistics, History of English, Rhetorical Studies, or Literacy Studies. This area should be recognized by relevant professional organizations such as CCCC, RSA, TESOL and AAAL.
Field List II: The second list is flexible and might include the following possibilities: a second field constituting a distinct specialization from the primary field; a sub-area within or adjacent to the primary field of specialization; or an approach, theory, or method.
The Research Topic list: The function of this list is to assemble a set of materials that correspond to the student’s provisional (anticipated) dissertation focus.

NB: Simply put, the function of the research topic list is to position the student so that, at the point of completion of the exams, they will be well positioned to undertake a dissertation on that topic: they will be immersed in the topic, in command of relevant contexts, and able to pinpoint further avenues of reading/research needed to support the dissertation. The research list is not the same thing as the dissertation bibliography (though there will typically be more or less substantial overlap); however, after reading and engaging the research list, the student should have the resources and preparation to construct a dissertation topic and to develop the dissertation bibliography for the prospectus and beyond.

B. Reading Lists for Literature and Culture Students

The first two lists are defined as “field” lists. While no list can be (nor should it even aspire to be) comprehensive, these lists enable breadth and depth of reading in defined areas. Having read and engaged these lists, students should feel grounded in their primary fields. Ideally, students should be able to include materials already encountered through coursework; at the same time, the function of this list is to expand their scope of knowledge and to “backfill” gaps.

The Primary Cultural Field(s) list: This list identifies the student’s primary literary or cultural focus. The focus might be singular (e.g., 18 th C British literature, Asian American and Asian Transpacific literature) or the list might bring together a smaller range of work from two allied fields (e.g. Contemporary U.S. and Latinx literature; British and American Modernism). The Literature/Cultural Field list should be predominantly composed of primary sources, supplemented as needed by secondary sources that represent defining scholarly approaches to the field.
The Primary Critical Field(s) list: This list might focus on a primary critical approach (e.g., Queer Studies, Environmental Humanities, or Critical Race Studies) or it might bring together a smaller range of work from two or three allied fields (e.g., Feminism and New Media Studies; Critical Race and Postcolonial Studies).
The Research Topic list: The function of this list is to assemble a set of materials that correspond to the student’s provisional (anticipated) dissertation focus. While the relation of this list to the primary field lists should be apparent, this list need not be conceived as (merely) a subset of the primary fields that represents one’s particular area of concentration (e.g., the fields are Victorian literature and Gender studies, and the research focus is the sensation novel). In one sense, to be sure, this list will be more narrowly focused than the primary field list (as it hones in on a specific research topic), but in another sense, it might also be broader: for example, if the research focus is on a particular genre or topos, the research list might be organized genealogically and thus involve materials outside the purview of the primary fields (e.g., the sensation novel list might include precursors and successors to the genre, such as 18 th C Gothic and 20 th C Horror, as well as readings in genre theory).

Reading List Approval Meeting

The lists (with short descriptions) should be assembled and finalized by the time the student has completed 10 credit hours of English 597 . With the chair and regular committee members’ consent, the student schedules an in-person meeting to discuss the lists, the format of the written and oral exams, and a tentative schedule for the exams. At this meeting, the committee formally approves the reading lists by signing the Reading List Approval Form , which the student submits to the English Graduate Advising Office along with a copy of the approved lists.

Components of the Written Exam

The written exam consists of two components: (1) syllabi and rationales, and (2) the research statement.

1. Syllabi and Rationales

This portion of the written exam is meant to demonstrate the student’s broad command of and qualifications to teach in their areas of expertise.

The student will design two syllabi: one for a general course in a primary field (an introduction or overview); the other for a topics course. The precise way in which the syllabi will reflect the student’s fields is flexible: Students might choose to design an introductory syllabus related to one field and a topics course related to another field – or they might develop syllabi which cut across two fields. The two syllabi should, however, be distinct in their focus and the materials on which they draw. Each syllabus should include a course description, and a complete list of materials, organized into a schedule of reading. Each syllabus should also make clear the level at which the course would be offered (lower division/general education; upper division/course in the major; graduate course) and (particularly if it is a course designed for an institution unlike UW) the kind of institution at which it might be offered (e.g, liberal arts college; community college; an institution outside the U.S.). In addition, each syllabus should be accompanied by a brief (3-5 page) rationale, which explains the design choices: What does the class foreground and why? What is the principle of selection of the materials? (This might entail an explanation, not only of what the designer sought to include, but what they opted to exclude. ) How does the framing and selection of materials reflect (or develop or interrogate) established or emerging issues and debates in the field? Students might also signal which one or two threads from their teaching philosophy inform the course design (e.g., commitments to antiracist and equity-oriented praxes, accessible and inclusive learning environments, community-engaged approaches, digital humanities, etc.). Finally, if they wish, students may incorporate other elements of a conventional syllabus (e.g., writing assignments), but this is not a requirement for the exam syllabus and should only be included if it elucidates course aims and pedagogy.

In place of one or both syllabi, students may substitute equivalent ways of representing a field to audiences and publics beyond the classroom context (e.g., a website or exhibit).

2. The Research Statement (20-30 pages, double-spaced)

The aim of the research statement is threefold:

What questions does the student aim to explore?
What are the stakes (historically, methodologically and/or critically) in this line of research?
How does it relate to relevant research directions and debates in the student’s field(s)?
How does it intervene in those debates and what might it contribute?
On what theories and (or) methods will it draw and why? What are their affordances and limitations?
What materials (genres, media, archives, data, etc) will the research engage? For students on the literature and culture track, the research statement should offer a demonstration of this engagement, via a close-reading of one or two touchstone texts.

Students may choose to adopt the structure of presentation implied by these questions (that is, to respond to the questions in the order given), or they may follow an outline of their own devising. In any case, however, all research statements should provide answers to the questions posed above.

Timeline and Submission

Although a student may work on the written exam over an extended period of time, the final draft of the syllabi and research statement should be submitted to the Graduate Advising Office by the end of Week 5 in the quarter that the exam is due. At the same time, the student must provide the names of their committee members and their general availability for the oral exam to the English Graduate Advising staff.

While students are encouraged to seek their Chair’s feedback on draft components of the written exam, they may share no more than two drafts of the syllabi and research statement prior to formal submission of the written exam.

Upon receiving the final draft of the syllabi and research statement, the English Graduate Advising staff forwards the documents to the student’s committee members for their official review and comment. At the same time, the English Graduate Advising staff will contact the committee to schedule a date and time for the oral exam about four weeks later.

Committee members have two weeks to read the written exam and provide comments to the committee chair and Graduate Advising Office. The exam will be assessed in relation to the criteria for syllabi and research statements outlined above, using the department's written exam rubric . [NB: If a committee member does not respond within 15 days of receiving the written exam, then their vote is null.] After receiving every committee member’s comments, the chair then shares these comments with the student. In the event of disagreement among the readers, the chair must call a meeting of the full committee to discuss the strengths and limitations of the written exam. If at the conclusion of the meeting, the majority of the committee members vote to fail the exam, it will be recorded as a failing exam.

A student may retake a failed written examination only once, and may not proceed to oral general examination until a failed written examination has been retaken and passed. The student will have at least one week to review the comments and prepare for the oral exam.

After passing the written exam, a student must pass an oral exam. The oral exam will be assessed using the department's oral exam rubric . A passing result on the written exam indicates that the student has demonstrated their preparation to teach and conduct dissertation research in their fields. The oral exam further measures a student’s ability to respond cogently and knowledgeably to questions about the written exam and the contents of the reading lists. Thus questions on the oral exam will engage the contents of the written exam (the syllabi, rationales, and research statement), but may also touch more broadly on materials, approaches, or debates represented on the student’s lists. In general, the discussion of the research statement in the oral will develop into a discussion of next steps: what has the student learned through writing the research statement and how has it honed their thinking on the focus and the framing of the dissertation?

Because the oral exam asks students to think on their feet and to present themselves as a qualified scholar and a teacher, most students will experience it as a high-stress situation. Before the oral exam, students should have the opportunity to discuss with their chairs what to expect in the oral, as well as basic strategies for navigating the oral exam format. Committees should bear in mind that students may experience nervousness and anxiety, and should make every effort to conduct the exam in a generous and humane fashion. Students should be aware that the Graduate School Representative (GSR) is there precisely to represent their interests and make sure that the exam has been conducted fairly.

The oral exam is scheduled for a two-hour block and it is conducted by the doctoral supervisory committee. The chair, at least two regular members, and the GSR must attend the exam.

The oral exam satisfies the Graduate School's requirement for a General Examination, at which point the student attains candidate status. A passing result on the oral exam signals the committee’s confidence that the student is prepared to teach in their exam fields, and to proceed to dissertation research. The Graduate School's policies regarding the General Examination and admission to candidacy for the doctoral degree are detailed in UW Graduate School Policy 1.1.4 .

How It Is Conducted

The English Graduate Advising Office provides the warrant.
The committee chair officiates
The student should bring a copy of their written exam to the oral; they should also bring pen and paper, for the purposes of note-taking. They may, if they wish, bring a few written notes to facilitate their opening comments (see below). However, at no point in the exam should the student read from a prepared text.
At the beginning of the examination, the student is asked to step out of the room while the committee discusses logistics, how to conduct the exam and their approach to questioning. When the student is re-admitted to the room, they are generally given the opening 5-10 minutes of the exam to briefly address some of the committee’s responses to the written portions.
Students may be asked for clarification or amplification of issues raised in the written exams, questions about other works on the reading lists, or questions about dissertation and further research plans.
At the conclusion of the exam, the student is asked to step out of the room while the committee discusses the student’s performance. Upon arrival at a decision, the committee chair invites the student back into the room to inform the student of the committee’s decision.
The committee chair marks the decision and secures signatures from all committee members on the general examination warrant.
The signed warrant must be returned immediately to the English Graduate Advising Office for conveyance of the examination results to the UW Graduate School through MyGrad Program.

Accommodations

Students with a documented disability that may bear on their preparation for the written exam or their performance on the oral exam are encouraged to reach out to the Director of Graduate Studies and to their committee chair early in the process (ideally, by the time of the Reading List meeting), to discuss how their DRS accommodations might fit with this exam format.

The student is recommended for continuance in the PhD program, and encouraged to proceed with the doctoral dissertation.
Re-examine after a further period of study. The oral general examination may be retaken once. A second failure results in termination from the program.
Fail . The candidate is not recommended for further work towards the doctoral degree. The effect of this recommendation is termination of the student’s enrollment in the doctoral program at the conclusion of the current quarter.
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Ph.D. Program

The Stanford English department has a long tradition of training the next generation of scholars to become leaders in academia and related fields. Our Ph.D. program encourages the production of ambitious, groundbreaking dissertation work across the diverse field interests of our prestigious faculty.

Fusing deep attention to literary history with newer approaches to media, technology, and performance, our department carefully mentors students in both scholarship and pedagogy through close interaction with faculty. Our location on the edge of the Pacific and at the heart of Silicon Valley encourages expansive, entrepreneurial thinking about the interpenetration of arts and sciences.

Program Overview

The English Department seeks to teach and promote an understanding of both the significance and the history of British and American literature (broadly defined) and to foster an appreciation of the richness and variety of texts in the language. It offers rigorous training in interpretive thinking and precise expression. Our English graduate program features the study of what imaginative language, rhetoric, and narrative art has done, can do, and will do in life, and it focuses on the roles creative writing and representations play in almost every aspect of modern experience. Completing the Ph.D. program prepares a student for full participation as a scholar and literary critic in the profession.

Financial Support

We offer an identical five-year funding package to all admitted students with competitive funding available for a sixth year. Funding covers applicable tuition costs, Stanford Cardinal Care health insurance, and living expenses in the form of direct stipend, teaching assistantships or pre-doctoral research assistantships. The department, in conjunction with the School of Humanities and Sciences, is also committed to supporting students' involvement in professional activities and funds many of the expenses for research travel, summer language study, and participation in academic conferences. Student housing is not included in the funding package.

In addition to our standard doctoral funding package, the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education (VPGE) provides competitive funding to support individual doctoral students, student groups, and department-based projects. VPGE funding opportunities promote innovation, diversity, and excellence in graduate education. Explore their doctoral fellowship and other student funding opportunities.

The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program cultivates and supports a highly-engaged, multidisciplinary and multicultural community of graduate students from across Stanford University, and delivers a diverse collection of educational experiences, preparing graduates to address complex challenges facing the world. Knight-Hennessy Scholars participate in an experiential leadership development program known as the King Global Leadership Program and receive funding for up to three years of graduate study at Stanford. Two applications must be submitted separately; one to Knight-Hennessy and one to the Stanford English graduate degree program by its deadline. Please refer to the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program page to learn more and apply.

Teaching Requirements

One pedagogical seminar and four quarters of supervised teaching. Typically a student will teach three times as a teaching assistant in a literature course. For the fourth course, students will have the option of applying to design and teach a Writing Intensive Seminar in English (WISE) for undergraduate English majors or teaching a fourth quarter as a T.A..

1st year: One quarter as T.A. (leading 1-2 discussion sections of undergraduate literature)
2nd year: One quarter as T.A. (leading 1-2 discussion sections of undergraduate literature)
3rd/4th/5th years: Two quarters of teaching, including the possibility of TA'ing or teaching a WISE course.

Language requirements

All candidates for the Ph.D. degree must demonstrate a reading knowledge of two foreign languages. One language requirement must be completed during the first year of study. The second language must be completed before the oral examination in the third year.

Candidates in the earlier periods must offer Latin and one of the following languages: French, German, Greek, Italian or Spanish. Candidates in the later period (that is, after the Renaissance) must demonstrate a reading knowledge of two languages for which Stanford’s Language Center regularly offers a reading course, administers a competency exam, or facilitates the administration of an American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Reading Proficiency Test (ACTFL RPT). In all cases, the choice of languages offered must be relevant to the student’s field of study and must have the approval of the candidate's adviser. Any substitution of a language other than one for which Stanford offers a competency exam must also be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies.

Other requirements

All candidates for the Ph.D. must satisfactorily complete the following:

135 units, at least 70 of which (normally 14 courses) must be graded course work
Qualifying examination, based on a reading guide of approximately 70-90 works, to be taken orally at the end of the summer after the first year of graduate work.
University oral examination covering the field of concentration taken no later than the winter quarter of the third year of study.
Submission of the dissertation prospectus
First chapter review with the dissertation advisor and the members of the dissertation reading committee.
Dissertation, which should be an original work of literary criticism demonstrating the student's ability to participate fully as a scholar and literary critic in the profession.
Closing colloquium designed to look forward toward the next steps; identify the major accomplishments of the dissertation and the major questions/issues/problems that remain; consider possibilities for revision, book or article publication, etc.

PhD Program

The English Department will begin reviewing completed MA applications on January 1, 2024 and will continue to accept them until the March 15, 2024 deadline

BU PhD Program Profile metrics

Requirements for the PhD

In the PhD Program, students move toward specialization in a particular area of study. The requirements include:

Sixteen graduate-level courses, including a required eight courses taken in the first year.
A successful review by the Graduate Committee upon completion of the first year.
Demonstration of a reading knowledge of one foreign language at an advanced level or two foreign languages at an intermediate level – including one language completed as part of the first year.
Completion of a Qualifying Oral Examination
Submission and approval of a Dissertation Prospectus
Completion and defense of a Ph.D. dissertation

Please note that successful completion of requirements in the first year earns each Ph.D. student an M.A. degree as a matter of course.

Satisfactory Academic Progress for PhD Students

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of English guarantee five full years (12 months each) of financial support for PhD students who maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress . This support will be in the form of Teaching Fellowships or Graduate Fellowships. All requirements for the doctorate, including dissertation, must be completed within seven years (exceptions require a petition to GRS). A leave of absence of up to two semesters is permitted for appropriate cause.

Given these time constraints, students should work closely with their advisers and dissertation readers to devise an efficient schedule for meeting all benchmarks. Faculty and students share responsibility for adhering closely to this schedule.

The following achievements are required to maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress:

Students must maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher, have no more than 2 failing grades (lower than B- or an incomplete grade older than 12 months), and pass qualifying exams and other milestones on the following recommended schedule:

Year 1: Eight graduate courses – for the M.A. degree / first foreign language requirement.

Year 2: Continue course work and study toward the completion of the language requirement.

Year 3: Complete course work and language requirements. In the fall of the third year, students take the pro-seminar (EN794 A1), in which they develop their Qualifying Oral Examination rationale and reading list, and form an oral exam committee.

Year 4: Fall: Students should take the Qualifying Exam early in the Fall semester.

Spring: Prospectus submitted and dissertation writing begins.

Years 5+ : Dissertation.

Additional departmental details regarding all stages of the degree can be found in the graduate handbook

For GRS college policies and general information please see the Graduate Bulletin

Robert Chodat, Director of Graduate Studies

Ph.D. in Literature

Students in our Ph.D. program gain advanced knowledge of literature from the British Middle Ages and colonial America to global/postcolonial and U.S. contemporary, as well as knowledge of literary theory, literary analysis, and interdisciplinary methods. The course of study balances coverage of national literary traditions with innovative methods and topics such as literature and science; literature and environment; translation; gender and sexuality studies; and critical race studies.

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

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

Questions? Contact:

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

Ph.D. Program Requirements

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

Coursework Requirements

3 Core Courses (8 units) • English 200: Introduction to Graduate Studies (taken as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory) • One survey course in literary theory (Critical Theory 200A or 200C taken for a grade) 1 Workshop (2 units) English 288: Prospectus Workshop (taken as Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory); students may petition to complete this course independently with a Prospectus Adviser.

10 Graduate-level Seminars (40 units) • All courses must be taken for a grade • Five courses must satisfy the breadth requirement (see below) • Five courses will be comprised of electives (see below) • Students may count one undergraduate 100-level course as one of their ten required courses • Aside from ENL 200, no course graded Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory may count as one of the twelve required seminars • Independent and group studies may not be taken for a grade

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

Foreign Language Requirement

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

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

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

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

Breadth Requirement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Introduction to Graduate Studies (ENL200) • Survey of Literary Theory (CRI200A or CRI200C) • Four of five Breadth Requirements • Four of five Elective Requirements

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

• Black Studies • Critical Theory • Disability Studies • Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities • Feminisms • Film Studies • Marxism • Media Technologies • Performance Studies • Poetics • Postcolonial Theory • Psychoanalysis • Queer Feminisms • Queer Theories • Race and Ethnicity Studies • Science and Literature • Science Fiction

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

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

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

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

Qualifying Examination

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

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

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

- The three proposed Dissertation Committee members

- One member must be from outside the English graduate program (this may be a member of the Dissertation Committee).

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

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

Exam Accommodations
If you are disabled, you are entitled to accommodations for all requirements of the program you’re enrolled in, a process formally handled by the Student Disability Center . We recommend starting the process of coordinating with the SDC early in your graduate school journey, as it can take time for the Center to process information. We must work with the SDC to implement your accommodations for your exams. Please indicate your need for accommodations to us as soon as possible, so we can include the Center in our exam scheduling process. Please notify us by the fourth week of the quarter in which you intend to sit the exam.
Dissertation
The dissertation must be an original work of scholarship and/or interpretation. It may be critical, bibliographical, historical, or biographical in its subject. Students work with a dissertation director and consult with two official readers as well as with other faculty knowledgeable about the project. Additional details

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Course closed:

English is no longer accepting new applications.

Cambridge is an outstanding place to work on Anglophone literature. Students and scholars benefit from world-class libraries, and from each other. The PhD cohort is diverse and large in number. No particular area or approach is preferred. Faculty members who act as supervisors and advisors for doctoral theses work on a great variety of topics and in varied ways. Proposals of all kinds are therefore welcome: on little-known as well as canonical authors; from innovative and interdisciplinary as well as from more traditional thematic, theoretical, cultural and literary-historical perspectives. Regular postgraduate training sessions offer guidance at every stage of the process - from first-year assessment to learning to teach to applying for jobs. In addition to the formal training, there are excellent opportunities for the sorts of enriching conversations and collaborations that emerge informally, between fellow PhDs, MPhils and Faculty members. Some of these take place under the auspices of the student-run Graduate Research Forum. Regular Research Seminars focus on particular periods and fields (for instance, Medieval, Nineteenth Century, Postcolonial and Related Literatures); these combine internal and invited speakers, and encourage discussions and relationships between the entire research community. The Faculty also puts on occasional conferences on all manner of topics; like the research seminars, many of the most successful and exciting ones are conceived of and run by PhD students.

The Postgraduate Virtual Open Day usually takes place at the end of October. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions to admissions staff and academics, explore the Colleges virtually, and to find out more about courses, the application process and funding opportunities. Visit the Postgraduate Open Day page for more details.

See further the Postgraduate Admissions Events pages for other events relating to Postgraduate study, including study fairs, visits and international events.

Key Information

3-4 years full-time, 4-7 years part-time, study mode : research, doctor of philosophy, faculty of english, course - related enquiries, application - related enquiries, course on department website, dates and deadlines:, michaelmas 2024 (closed).

Some courses can close early. See the Deadlines page for guidance on when to apply.

Lent 2025 (Closed)

Easter 2025 (closed), funding deadlines.

These deadlines apply to applications for courses starting in Michaelmas 2024, Lent 2025 and Easter 2025.

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A English Phd Student's Reading List

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Recommended reading list for the PhD
(PDF) Reading List for Ph.D. Comprehensive Examination
Ph.D_Guide_List
Free Printable Reading List
This PhD exam reading list has three parts: I Core readings
A English Phd Student's Reading List

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Graduate
Graduate Reading List. 19th-Century American Literature. 19th-Century American Literature - Hueth (Fall 2021) Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature, 1848-1914 - Driben (Fall 2021) Long 19 th Century in American Literature - Herrera (Fall 2021) American Literature 1820 - 1920 - Swanson (Spring 2021)
50 Book List
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer (1773) Thomas Gray, "The Bard", "The Progress of Poesy". : Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College","Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat", "Elegy Written in a County Church Yard," "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West".
PhD Exam Reading Lists
PhD Exam Reading Lists. American Literature from 1620 to 1865. American Literature from 1865 to 1965. British Modernism. Contemporary Literature. English Romanticism. Ethnography. Fiction. Folklore.
Best Practices Exams & Reading Lists
Different advisors have different expectations, but the general outline (from the handbook) is the following: "The major exam is typically scheduled first. The format is usually to answer 2 or 3 questions from a choice of between 4 to 6 questions. For the minor exam, the format is usually to answer 1 or 2 on each minor field (2-4 in total ...
PhD Reading Lists
Teachers of English Graduate Certificate Graduate Students English Composition Program ... PhD Reading Lists. See Graduate Handbook. University of Cincinnati College of Arts & Sciences (Dean's Office) 155 B Arts & Sciences Hall Cincinnati, OH 45221 UC Tools. Canopy & Canvas ...
English Ph.D.
In addition, all admitted English PhD students receive six years of full funding. Drawing on the resources of two units, ... Students will be examined on either a fixed reading list or a reading list developed by three faculty members in collaboration with the student. The list will contain 60-80 primary and/or secondary texts.
PDF Guidelines for Ph.D. Written-Exam Reading Lists
reading list; and 4) your ability to write coherent, detailed, and persuasive essays under pressure. Sample Reading Lists and Exam Questions The questions used with the Ph.D. written exam vary as widely as do the reading lists developed by students who take the exam. If you are a graduate student in our department, you can access
PDF English Ph.D. Examination Reading List
This Reading List in English Renaissance Literature is meant to provide students a greater role in shaping their own exams and preparing their own lists of material. Students who wish to take the exam should contact examiners 6-8 weeks in advance of the exam date in order to discuss the material to be covered in the examination.
Reading Lists, Portfolios, and Prospectuses
Graduate Student Advising. Reading Lists, Portfolios, and Prospectuses. Guidelines for Ph.D. Written-Exam Reading Lists. This document offers Ph.D. students guidance on compiling a reading list for the first (written) candidacy exam. Ph.D. students should have their reading lists approved by their Advisory Committees by the middle of the fall ...
Ph.D. Program Overview
One (1) section of Literary Texts, Critical Methods (ENGL W3011), or other reading in one semester; OR Dissertation Fellowship; In year 6, the department expects continued progress on the dissertation, which should be substantially completed by the end of year 6. Participation in a national conference Submission of an essay for publication
Graduate Reading List and Headnotes
Headnotes. Please title your headnotes files the same name you have titled your Reading List file so it will correlate easily. Please identify where each of your headnotes went in the Reading List folder and place them accordingly. Reading Lists Genre 19C & 20C Industrial and Environmental Fiction OREILLY_Reading List C 20th ce Anglo-Amer Drama ...
Area Exam Reading Lists and Past Exams
HH building. Tel 519 888-4567 x46803. Fax 519 746-5788. Contact Arts. Support Arts. Visit Arts. Work for Arts. Web site feedback. Area Examinations in Literature Reading List Past Exams.
Reading List 15: 21st Century Literature in Formation
J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello (2003) Teju Cole, Open City (2012) Rachel Cusk, Outline (2014) (read the trilogy if possible) Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (2000); Jonathan Safran Foer, Tree of Codes (2010); or Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper (2005) Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
PDF Doctoral Reading List English Romanticism
Doctoral Reading List English Romanticism. Primary Sources: Blake: "There Is No Natural Religion"; Songs of Innocence and Experience; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; The Book of Thel; America: A Prophecy; Visions of the Daughters of Albion; The Four Zoas, Jerusalem. Robert Burns: "To a Mouse"; "Holy Willie's Prayer"; "The ...
MA/PhD Degree Requirements: Examinations
The committee advises students on remaining coursework, supervises and approves the PhD exam reading lists, directs and mentors students on reading for PhD exams, evaluates the written exams, and administers the oral exam. The chair and at least one of the regular members of the PhD exam committee must be from the Department of English.
Ph.D. Program
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PDF WESTERN UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH PhD QUALIFYING EXAMINATION
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH . PhD QUALIFYING EXAMINATION READING LIST . English 9921 (SF) TEXTUAL STUDIES. In order to develop a wide-ranging competency to teach and research in the field of Textual Studies, candidates will prepare a reading list according to the instructions and requirements below. 1. Instructions . i. Secondary Field Exam
PhD Program
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of English guarantee five full years (12 months each) of financial support for PhD students who maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress. This support will be in the form of Teaching Fellowships or Graduate Fellowships. All requirements for the doctorate, including dissertation, must be ...
Ph.D. in Literature
13 Total Graduate Courses (50 units; 44 units taken for a grade) Additionally, students who enter the Ph.D. program without a MA degree can earn one en route to the Ph.D. degree. Foreign Language Requirement; The English Ph.D. requires a reading knowledge of one foreign language before completing the degree; it is not an admissions requirement ...
PhD in English
PhD in English. English is no longer accepting new applications. Cambridge is an outstanding place to work on Anglophone literature. Students and scholars benefit from world-class libraries, and from each other. The PhD cohort is diverse and large in number. No particular area or approach is preferred. Faculty members who act as supervisors and ...
PDF Reading List Victorian Literature (1832-1900) Instructions
Instructions Reading List Victorian Literature (1832-1900) This PhD exam reading list has three parts: I II III. Core readings Genre readings Scholarly readings. Each student is required to read and know all selections included in Part I. In addition, each student is required to designate a genre specialization—poetry or fiction—and ...
PDF Ph.D. EXAM READING LISTS
The Phenomenology of Reading (N) Émile Benveniste (1902-1976) "On Subjectivity in Language." In his Problems in General Linguistics. Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971. pp. 223-230. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) The Negro and the Racial Mountain (N) F. O. Matthiessen (1902-1950)
A English Phd Student's Reading List
A English Phd Student's Reading List show list info. The reading list for the qualifying examinations for my PhD, featuring British novels of the 20th century with a focus on LGBT literature 405 users · 1,400 views made by SF24601. avg. score: 9 of 85 (11%) ...
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18th-Century British

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PhD Reading Lists

English Ph.D.

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Reading List 15: 21st Century Literature in Formation

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MA/PhD Degree Requirements: Examinations

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Reading Lists

A. Reading Lists for Language and Rhetoric Students

B. Reading Lists for Literature and Culture Students

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1. Syllabi and Rationales

2. The Research Statement (20-30 pages, double-spaced)

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Satisfactory Academic Progress for PhD Students

The following achievements are required to maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress:

Ph.D. in Literature

Study at Cambridge

PhD in English

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