English

Academic Year: 
2021-22
Department or Program: 
English
Address: 
22 McCosh Hall
Phone: 
609-258-4224
Website: 
Department of English
Program offerings: 
Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Studies
Joshua Kotin
Graduate Program Administrator
Patricia Guglielmi

Overview

The aim of the Princeton graduate program in English is to produce well-trained and field- transforming scholars, insightful and imaginative critics, and effective and creative teachers. The Ph.D. program is rigorous but also supportive. It is certainly possible to complete the degree in five years, though the department and Graduate School now offer multiple funding opportunities for research fellowships in year six, should students need an additional year for dissertation completion and for the academic job market or for pursuing other career opportunities should they choose to do so.

While a high-powered research institution, Princeton also maintains a feeling of intimacy. In keeping with the goals of the University at large, the Department of English seeks to cultivate and sustain an extremely diverse, cosmopolitan, and lively intellectual community. Because this is a residential university with a tradition emphasizing teaching as well as research, the faculty is easily accessible to students and committed to their progress.

The faculty of the Department of English is notable for its world-renowned scholarly reputation, commitment to teaching, and accessibility. The faculty showcases wide-ranging interdisciplinary interests as well as a diverse range of critical approaches within the discipline. In addition to offering seminars in every major historical field of concentration, from medieval to contemporary literatures, we offer a wide range of theoretical specializations in fields such as feminist theory, gender and sexuality studies, psychoanalysis, Marxism, postcolonialism, environmental studies, political and social theory, and cultural studies. Students may also take courses in cognate departments such as comparative literature, classics, philosophy, linguistics, history, and art history.

The University offers programs in creative writing, dance, theater, American studies, gender and sexuality, environmental studies, and visual arts. The faculty in creative writing is one of the most outstanding in the country, and includes Jeffrey Eugenides, Jhumpa Lahiri, Paul Muldoon, Joyce Carol Oates, James Richardson, and Edmund White.

Applying

Application Deadline: 
December 1, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Program Length: 
5 years
Application Fee: 
$75
Application Requirements: 
Statement of Academic Purpose
Resume/Curriculum Vitae
Recommendation Letters
Transcripts
Fall Semester Grades
Required Tests
English Language Tests
GRE : 
General Test optional/not required
Additional Departmental Requirements: 

Sample of critical writing, approximately 25 pages in length, preferably in the student’s proposed field of study. This sample must be a sustained piece of writing, not the total of several smaller works, and can be an excerpt from a larger work.

Ph.D.

Ph.D. Requirements: 
Courses:

The graduate program in English is a five-year program (with multiple opportunities for funding in year six, as necessary) leading to the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). During the first two years, students prepare for the general examination through work in seminars and directed or independent reading.

Each entering student is assigned a faculty adviser who works with the director of graduate studies in planning course selection in the first and second years.

The major work of the first two years should reinforce the student’s general knowledge of English and American literature. During the second year, students also begin intensive work in their special fields of interest, which may include a historical period, a genre, or literary theory and criticism. Students choose their courses at the beginning of each term with the aid of the departmental director of graduate studies. While programs are flexible, students normally enroll in three seminars each term to complete the required 12 courses by the end of the second year.

Our distribution requirements are designed to provide each student with familiarity across a diverse range of historical periods as well a broad spectrum of thematic and/or methodological concerns. The department values both traditional historical fields as well as non-historical ways of conceiving literary criticism, and assumes that the study of literature includes the study of film, visual culture, and media studies. Our distribution requirements reflect an emphasis on traditional and non-traditional ways of conceiving fields.
 
Of the 12 required courses, students must take six courses from the following eight areas, with four courses drawn from 1-5, and two drawn from 6-8:

1.    Medieval
2.    Renaissance
3.    Restoration and 18th Century (British and/or American)
4.    19th Century (British and/or American)
5.    Modern & Contemporary (British and/or American)
6.    Criticism and Theory
7.    Race, Ethnicity, and Postcoloniality
8.    Gender and Sexuality

All distribution requirements must be taken for a letter grade. The six-course distribution requirement comprises 50% of the courses required for the degree, leaving sufficient room for additional intensive coursework in a student's area of specialization.

Language(s):

Students must demonstrate a reading knowledge of two foreign languages as soon as possible after enrollment. The languages normally recommended are French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, but other languages relevant to a student’s program of research may be substituted with the approval of the director of graduate studies. The language requirement must be satisfied before the completion of the general examination.

General Exam:

The general examination, taken in October of the third year, is the main qualifying examination for the Ph.D. The purpose of this examination is to prepare students to present themselves as strong job candidates with wide-ranging knowledge of two or more fields. The examination committee consists of three faculty members, who assist the student in preparing a reading list for the examination. Students elect to be examined either on two major fields, or one major and two minor fields. They also decide, in consultation with their examination committee, which examination format is most appropriate for them: an eight-hour written examination, or a two- hour oral examination.

Qualifying for the M.A.:

Students normally qualify for the Master of Arts (M.A.) degree on the way to the Ph.D. by completing thegeneral examination. Students who leave the Ph.D. program for various reasons may also be awarded the M.A. by satisfactorily completing all required course work, the course distribution requirement, and the language requirement.

Teaching:

All graduate students who have passed the general examination are required to teach in undergraduate courses as part of their preparation. While the minimum department requirement is four hours, moststudents teach more than this. The department offers many opportunities for teaching experience inconjunction with its large and popular undergraduate program. Students may teach in the writingprogram, conduct sections of large lecture courses, or direct precepts in upper-division courses. This teaching is supervised by experienced members of the faculty. Additionally, several collaborative teaching opportunities with department faculty are available each year. Thedepartment and University also offer, on an annual basis, teacher training seminars.

Post-Generals Requirement(s):

The third, fourth, and fifth years are devoted to teaching in undergraduate courses and to the writing of the dissertation. Through numerous funding opportunities, we are able to offer sixth- year students who require it generous support with time off from teaching to complete their dissertation and go on the academic job market or pursue another career trajectory of their choosing. Students are strongly encouraged to continue taking courses in years three through five, both in the English department and in related departments such as comparative literature. After completing the general examination, all students participate in a dissertation seminar led by a faculty member in which they write a dissertation proposal. This dissertation proposal becomes the basis of a one-hour oral examination, after which students continue to work on the dissertation with the guidance of their faculty advisers. Upon successful submission of the dissertation proposal but no later than the beginning of the fourth year, each student chooses three department faculty members who will serve as their dissertation advisors.

Dissertation and FPO:

A final public oral examination is given after each candidate’s dissertation has been read and approved by their dissertation faculty advisors. The examination has two parts. The first consists of a 30-minute lecture on the dissertation to cover the following topics: a justification of the subject treated; an account of possible methods of treating the subject and a justification of the method chosen; an account of any new contributions made; and a consideration of the possibility of future studies of the same kind, including an account of plans for future scholarship and publication. During the second part of the examination, the student answers a series of questions growing out of subjects presented in their lecture and sometimes relating to the teaching of literary material dealt with in the dissertation.

Faculty

Chair

  • Simon E. Gikandi

Associate Chair

  • Sophie G. Gee

Director of Graduate Studies

  • Joshua I. Kotin

Director of Undergraduate Studies

  • Claudia L. Johnson

Professor

  • Eduardo L. Cadava
  • Anne Cheng
  • Andrew Cole
  • Bradin T. Cormack
  • Maria A. DiBattista
  • Jill S. Dolan
  • Jeff Dolven
  • Diana J. Fuss
  • Simon E. Gikandi
  • William A. Gleason
  • Gene Andrew Jarrett
  • Claudia L. Johnson
  • Lee C. Mitchell
  • Rob Nixon
  • Jeff Nunokawa
  • Sarah Rivett
  • Gayle Salamon
  • Esther H. Schor
  • D. Vance Smith
  • Nigel Smith
  • Susan A. Stewart
  • Susan J. Wolfson

Associate Professor

  • Zahid R. Chaudhary
  • Sophie G. Gee
  • Joshua I. Kotin
  • Russ Leo
  • Meredith A. Martin
  • Kinohi Nishikawa
  • Tamsen O. Wolff

Assistant Professor

  • Sarah A. Chihaya
  • Monica Huerta
  • Christina León
  • Paul Nadal
  • Robbie J. Richardson
  • Autumn M. Womack

Lecturer with Rank of Professor

  • Rhodri Lewis

Lecturer

  • Sarah M. Anderson
  • Brittany Biesiada
  • Matthew E. Duques
  • Emma Z. Zachurski

Visiting Professor

  • Evelyn Shockley

Visiting Lecturer

  • Fintan O'Toole
For a full list of faculty members and fellows please visit the department or program website.

Courses

Permanent Courses

Courses listed below are graduate-level courses that have been approved by the program’s faculty as well as the Curriculum Subcommittee of the Faculty Committee on the Graduate School as permanent course offerings. Permanent courses may be offered by the department or program on an ongoing basis, depending on curricular needs, scheduling requirements, and student interest. Not listed below are undergraduate courses and one-time-only graduate courses, which may be found for a specific term through the Registrar’s website. Also not listed are graduate-level independent reading and research courses, which may be approved by the Graduate School for individual students.

AAS 522 Publishing Articles in Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (also
COM 522
/
ENG 504
/
GSS 503
) In this interdisciplinary class, students of race and gender read deeply and broadly in academic journals as a way of learning the debates in their fields and placing their scholarship in relationship to them. Students report each week on the trends in the last five years of any journal of their choice, writing up the articles' arguments and debates, while also revising a paper in relationship to those debates and preparing it for publication. This course enables students to leap forward in their scholarly writing through a better understanding of their fields and the significance of their work to them.
AAS 555 Toni Morrison: Texts and Contexts (also
ENG 536
) This course provides a critical overview of the writings of Toni Morrison. Close reading, cultural analysis, intertextuality, social theory and the African American literary tradition are emphasized.
ART 561 Painting and Literature in Nineteenth-Century France and England (also
ENG 549
/
FRE 561
) Course explores the dynamic interplay between painting, poetry, and fiction in 19th-century France and England. The focus is twofold: painters and paintings as protagonists in novels and short stories, and paintings inspired by literature. Themes include problems of narrative, translation, and illustration; changing theories of the relative strengths of painting and literature as artistic media; realism and the importance of descriptive detail; the representation of the artist as a social (or anti-social) actor; the representation of women as artists and models; and the artist's studio as a literary trope.
COM 513 Topics in Literature and Philosophy (also
ENG 513
/
FRE 531
/
GSS 513
) Chance and contingency were long thought to lie outside the realm of knowledge. Then there arose new means for measuring probabilities of the most varied kinds. This seminar will explore the conditions and occurrence of that shift, as well as its consequences, as they are reflected in a few literary and philosophical works.
COM 530 Comparative Poetics of Passing: Race, Ethnicity, Sexuality (also
ENG 520
/
GSS 530
) The expansion of race theory from the Americas into the global scene invites a cross-cultural approach to the fluidity of identity. This seminar investigates fiction and film from the African American, Jewish American, LGBTQ, and Israeli-Palestinian contexts to broadly explore how society constructs and deconstructs race, ethnicity, and gender. It focuses on representations of passing and reverse passing as well as doubled/split identities for a wide-ranging, comparative discussion of the political and the psychological dynamics of identity and selfhood.
COM 535 Contemporary Critical Theories (also
ENG 518
/
FRE 539
) Criticism as an applied art and as an autonomous discipline. Exploration of its place in intellectual history and a theoretical analysis of its basic assumptions. [Topics vary each year.]
COM 537 Imaginary Worlds: Early Modern Science Fiction (also
ENG 537
/
HOS 537
) Science fiction (SF) writing may seem a definitively modern phenomenon, but it has a rich and varied history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this course, we examine early modern SF not only a vehicle for popularizing the new philosophy of the "scientific revolution," but as a space for the interrogation of competing beliefs about the relationships between humankind and the cosmos, knowledge and belief, or public and private living. Through early modern SF, we explore the self-consciously literary and poetic ways in which early modern natural philosophers worked through their ideas. No "two cultures" here.
COM 542 Women and Liberation: Feminist Poetics and Politics in the Americas (1960s to the present) (also
GSS 542
/
SPO 556
/
ENG 542
) This course aims to explore different forms that the question of liberation has taken in writings by women philosophers and poets whose work helped to create cultural and political movements in the U.S. and Latin America. Starting in the 1960s, the course touches upon different philosophical concepts and poetic figures that have shaped the language of women's struggles (intersectionality, black and third world feminism, subalternity and feminist epistemologies, capitalist accumulation and "witch"-hunting, (re)transmission of knowledge).
COM 547 The Renaissance (also
ENG 530
) A study of selected major genres and modes of Renaissance literature, such as pastoral, satire, romance, picaresque, confession, lyric, epic, comedy, and tragedy. Attention is given to important cultural, social, and intellectual currents affecting their development, such as Christian Humanism, Reformation and Counter Reformation, mysticism, neo-Platonism, and skepticism. Representative works from various national literatures are chosen for close analysis.
COM 553 The Eighteenth Century in Europe (also
ENG 546
/
GSS 553
) A consideration of the primary topoi and defining oppositions of Enlightenment thought. Texts and specific focus vary from year to year.
COM 565 Studies in Forms of Poetry (also
ENG 544
/
FRE 565
/
GER 565
) This seminar explores the intricate relations of poetry to history and memory in the troubled 20th century. Individual poets are closely studied for their intrinsic interest but also for their (known and still to be discovered) connections with each other. The poets are Eugenio Montale, René Char, Paul Celan, and Anne Carson, but other writers will also be called on from time to time. Questions of war and resistance are important, and above all the course attends to what one might think of as the fate of language under pressure.
COM 572 Introduction to Critical Theory (also
ENG 580
/
FRE 555
/
GER 572
) Through a comparative focus on the concepts of dialectics and difference, we read some of the formative theoretical, critical and philosophical works which continue to ground interdisciplinary critical theory today. Focal works by Lukacs, Freud, Heidegger, Adorno, Derrida, de Man, Arendt, and Benjamin are included among the texts we read.
ENG 511 Special Studies in Medieval Literature Selected problems and topics in the literature of the Middle Ages are studied.
ENG 512 Chaucer I: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales An introduction to the works of Chaucer in the light of late medieval literary techniques. A study of Chaucer's use of traditional form.
ENG 514 Middle English Religious Literature A study of the chief genres of medieval religious literature in the later Middle Ages, with special emphasis given to the poetic formulation of popular Christian doctrine in such works as Piers Plowman and the religious poems of the "Gawain" manuscript.
ENG 522 The Renaissance in England A study of major topics current in the field of English early modern and renaissance studies.
ENG 523 Renaissance Drama (also
COM 519
) A study of development, form, and content in Tudor and Stuart drama.
ENG 532 Early 17th Century (also
COM 591
/
TRA 532
) An examination of some major writers of the period.
ENG 543 The 18th Century A study of the principal writers, with attention given to the social, political, and philosophical backgrounds. Some consideration is given to the chief problems of 18th-century scholarship and to the history of ideas.
ENG 545 Special Studies in the 18th Century A study of major 18th-century writers, genres, and critical issues.
ENG 550 The Romantic Period A study of the major Romantic poets, with some attention given to prose.
ENG 551 Special Problems in Romanticism Selected topics in Romantic studies. Topics include Romanticism and gender, Romantic historicism, Wordsworth and Keats, Romantic drama, among others.
ENG 553 Special Studies in the Nineteenth Century Selected topics and problems in Romantic and Victorian literature.
ENG 555 American Literary Traditions (also
GSS 555
/
LAS 505
) A study of selected major American writers in the context of intellectual, religious, and cultural traditions.
ENG 556 African-American Literature (also
AAS 556
) A survey of African-American narrative and critical traditions in the context of social and cultural change. Attention is also given to the changing status of black literature in the curriculum of American colleges and universities.
ENG 558 American Poetry A study of 20th-century American poetry.
ENG 559 Studies in the American Novel This course examines a range of American texts written over half a century in order to clarify connections between their informing philosophies, narrative strategies, and historical moments.
ENG 563 Poetics A survey of issues in poetic production and reception from antiquity to the present.
ENG 565 The Victorian Novel (also
GSS 565
) A study of 19th-century English fiction, emphasizing social contexts, narrative forms, and critical theory.
ENG 566 Studies in the English Novel Selected 20th-century English novelists, considered in terms of critical theory, technique, and form.
ENG 567 Special Studies in Modernism Selected topics and problems in modern literature, culture, and criticism.
ENG 568 Criticism and Theory (also
AAS 568
/
COM 589
/
FRE 568
/
MOD 568
) A study in the major texts in criticism and theory. Authors include Plato, Aristotle, Sidney, Shelley, Derrida, and Foucault, among others. Topics include mimesis, structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and new historicism.
ENG 571 Literary and Cultural Theory A study of the role of culture in literary practice and theory. Topics include postmodernism, post-colonialism, feminism, performance theory, queer theory, and popular cultures, among others.
ENG 572 Introduction to Critical Theory (also
COM 590
/
HUM 572
) The ethical, historical, and political dimensions of Jacques Derrida's thought and writings.
ENG 573 Problems in Literary Study An examination of selected issues or texts that offer radical challenges to the profession of literary study today. Intended for students in all periods of specialization.
ENG 574 Literature and Society Selected topics in the relation of literature to social, political, or historical issues.
ENG 581 Seminar in Pedagogy Course will analyze and apply readings on pedagogical theory and method, and discuss particular problems and successes in precepts, methods of leading discussions; obligations and protocols of grading, preparing syllabi and lectures, and writing letters of recommendation. Course members will visit each other's classes and prepare critiques, contribute weekly to a course blog, and prepare a statement of teaching philosophy and teaching portfolio. Required of all graduate students in English teaching as AI's for the first time. Normally taken in Spring Term of third year.
ENG 582 Graduate Writing Seminar While dissertation seminars invite students to map the territory and the stakes of their thesis, and article workshops tailor writing for specific journals, this seminar focuses on the craft of writing. Our premise is that craft and argument are mutually constitutive and our method is deliberative slow motion, tracking words, sentences, paragraphs with care. Each week we read and critique 2-3 paragraphs of each student's prose, on the understanding that they are revised the following week, when we take up the next 2-3 paragraphs. By the end of the term, each student should have a polished article, chapter or talk.
ENV 596 Topics in Environmental Studies (also
AMS 596
/
ENG 517
/
MOD 596
) This topics course offers seminars with a focus on climate change and/or biodiversity. Seminars under this topic examine environmental and societal issues associated with two of the key defining challenges of our time: climate change and/or biodiversity loss. The course uses a multi-disciplinary combination of perspectives and approaches grounded in the Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences.
GER 521 Topics in German Intellectual History (also
COM 509
/
ENG 516
) The course examines in their entirety mostly short texts that advance solutions to the intellectual problems preoccupying major German religious thinkers, writers, and philosophers, viz. justification, selfhood, theodicy, play, contingency, asceticism, estrangement, malaise, authenticity.
HUM 595 Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities (also
ENG 594
/
CLA 595
/
HLS 595
) In the IHUM tradition, this course is team-taught, often by faculty from two different departments. Courses that fall under this topic are widely cross-listed and intended to attract students from many departments and programs. These topics are the most interdisciplinary of the IHUM offerings, aiming to bring together combinations of art, philosophy, literature, history in theory and practice, criticism, and methods from the qualitative social sciences.