Ph.D. Program Requirements

The Degree Requirements for the Ph.D. program include 50 units of coursework, foreign language proficiency, 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
A minimum of 50 units is required, 44 of which must be taken for a letter grade.  A minimum course load is 12 units per quarter. 

2 Core Courses (8 units)

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

 1 Workshop (2 units)

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

10 Graduate-level Seminars (40 units)

• All courses must be taken for a grade.
• Five courses must satisfy the breadth requirement (see below).
• Five courses will be comprised of electives (see below).
• At the discretion of the instructor and with the Graduate Adviser's approval, students may count one undergraduate 100-level course as one of their ten literature 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; 11 courses must be taken for a grade)  
Additionally, students who enter the Ph.D. program without a MA degree may request instructions for completing the optional MA en route to the Ph.D. degree.
 
Breadth Requirement
The breadth requirement 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. At least one of the four National courses must be in the "other" tradition (i.e., a student may not do all four National courses in British literature, or all four in American literature).  Students must also complete one focus course.

The focus may be fulfilled in one of two ways
1) Either a course will be explicitly designated as a focus course
2) Students may arrange with the professor to write a paper with one of the focuses listed below:

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

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

Group III: Focus Courses
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 National (British) requirement, or the Focus (Identity) requirement, but not both. A student could use a course on Dickens and Twain to satisfy the Later National (British) requirement or the Later National (American) requirement, but not both.

Electives Requirement
Complete five 4-unit graduate level courses relevant to the course of study with actual offered seminars inside or outside of the English Department. The University Writing Program 390 pedagogy class is acceptable as one of the electives. Also, note that 299s are ungraded but still count towards overall units.

With the approval of the Graduate Adviser, students may also enroll in a graduate course at another University of California campus through the Inter-campus 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 course waiver for 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 the 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. English 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 (DE)

Students may pursue a DE in any of these interdisciplinary areas: African American and African Studies; Classics and Classical Receptions; Critical Theory; Feminist Theory and Research; Human Rights; Native American Studies; Science and Technology Studies; Studies in Performance and Practice; Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies.
Additional information.

Foreign Language Requirement

The English Ph.D. requires a reading knowledge of one foreign language before graduating from the program. This can be satisfied through coursework or 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.

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.  The examination, conducted orally, is set by three faculty members, each representing one of the fields. Prior to taking the Preliminary Examination, students must have completed the following:

1. Introduction to Graduate Studies (ENL200)
2. Survey of Literary Theory (CRI200A or CRI200C)
3. Four of five Breadth Requirements (5th course may be taken after preliminary exam);
4. Four of five Elective Requirements (5th course may be taken after the preliminary exam);
5. One foreign language at the intermediate level or all course work toward the intensive level except the graduate course with a paper written in the foreign language.

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.

• 20th Century British
• African American Literature 20th Century
• American Antebellum, 1800-1865
• American Indian Literature, 1768-present
• American Literature Early 20th c., 1900-1945
• American Literature, Later 19th-c., 1865-1914
• American Literature, Later 20th c., 1945-present
• Asian American & Pacific Islander Literature
• Colonial: Early American to 1800
• Later Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature (1675-1792)
• Middle English
• Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
• Postcolonial Literature
• Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature (1660-1792)
• Romanticism
• Seventeenth-Century English Literature From 1604-1675
• Sixteenth-Century Literature From 1485-1603
• Victorian

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.

The Qualifying Examination may be taken 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 in the department's Box folder. If the student is doing a designated emphasis (DE), materials from that field should also be incorporated into the Qualifying Exam reading list.

Five faculty members serve on the Qualifying Exam: the three members of the dissertation committee; a department faculty member from outside the student's main field; and one faculty member from outside the department. Students doing a designated emphasis (DE) must include one faculty member affiliated with the DE on both their qualifying and dissertation committee.

Graduate Studies prefers to receive all relevant paperwork 60 days prior to the exam, but there is not a firm deadline. By the end of the second week of the quarter a student intends to take the Qualifying Exam, graduate students should file and submit (1) the “Qualifying Examination Application” form to Graduate Studies, (2) Prospectus sign off sheet (signed by all 3 members of the committee) and (3) the Prospectus and Reading list. If a student is taking the Qualifying Exam early in the quarter, they must remember to submit these documents at last 8 weeks before the exam.

The bibliography of the prospectus will normally overlap substantially with the Qualifying Exam reading list. The exam will focus on the Prospectus and the Qualifying Exam reading list.

Upon successful completion of the examinations, the student is given an "Application for Advancement to Candidacy" form by the examining committee chair. When it is filled out and signed by the DGS and major professor, the student pays the candidacy fee at the cashier’s office and files the form with Graduate Studies.
 

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.  The final draft must be approved by the dissertation committee.  More information.
 

Normative Time and Residence Requirement

The University and the Department of English have established six years (18 quarters) as the normative time for a student to complete the Ph.D.  Students who enter with a MA can normally expect to complete their degree in five years. The University residence requirement for the Ph.D. is two years.
 

Teaching Requirement

Before candidates for the Ph.D. degree may apply for conferral of the degree, they must have completed at least one year of teaching at the college level. The following are special requirements for graduate students who teach:

1. Graduate students are limited by University policy to 18 quarters of contracted teaching employment.

2. In order to be appointed or reappointed, graduate students must be in good academic standing and must be progressing satisfactorily toward the doctorate. Good academic standing includes maintaining a grade point average of at least 3.0 on the 4.0 scale. The Office of Graduate Studies restricts graduate student employment at the University to 75% of full-time.

3. Graduate students are required to take University Writing Program (UWP) 390: “Theory and Practice of University-level Composition Instruction” in preparation for teaching composition (UWP 1); and to take UWP 392: “Teaching Expository Writing” during the quarter they first teach the class.  Students take English 393: “Teaching Literature and Composition” in the spring quarter before teaching English 3 the following Fall.  Students generally teach in the following sequence, though different arrangements are possible (i.e., if students receive fellowships, research positions, and/or teaching assignments in other departments):

Last updated 5/27/2021