The PhD requires a total of 60 semester hours of coursework, a qualifying written and oral examination, and a dissertation. According to Graduate School regulations, work on the Ph.D. must be completed eight years from the time you have begun coursework applicable to the degree; if you entered with an MA, you will have six years from the time of beginning course work for the PhD.

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 Degree Requirements

A. Program Requirements:

• English 400: Introduction to Graduate Study.
• English 402: Teaching College Composition
• English 502: Independent Study for Doctoral Qualification
• Two courses in critical theory or textual studies; at least one of these two courses must be in critical theory

 

B. Field-Specific Requirements: 

Doctoral students in English who have completed the MA degree will enter one of the following three specialized fields and must meet the course requirements defined for that specialization. Students will be free to change their field at any time, provided that they are able to fulfill the course requirements for the new field.

Medieval and Renaissance Literature

• At least six courses in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (numbered 440–459).
• At least one course in Nineteenth-Century Studies (ENGL 460-478 and 490-493).
• At least one course in Modern Literature and Culture (480–489 and 494–499).
• Seven electives to fulfill the 60-hour requirement.

Nineteenth-Century Studies

• At least six courses in Nineteenth-Century Literature (numbered 470–479, 490–493).
• At least one courses in Medieval or Renaissance Literature (440–459).
• At least one course in Modern Literature and Culture (480–489 and 494–499).
• Sevenelectives to fulfill the 60-hour requirement.

Modern Literature and Culture

• At least six courses in Modern Literature and Culture (numbered 480–489 and 494-499).
• At least one course in Medieval or Renaissance Literature (440–459).
• At least one course in Nineteenth-Century Literature (470–479, 490–493).
• Seven electives to fulfill the 60-hour requirement.

Note that several of these requirements will be partly or wholly fulfilled by all students as a part of their MA study.

If a student has been required to take certain undergraduate courses as a condition of admission, those courses have priority over all other program requirements. No more than two undergraduate courses may count toward the PhD. Undergraduate courses cannot satisfy the specific distribution requirements outlined above: they will be counted as electives.

 

C. Research Tool:

Ph.D.-level research in literary studies presupposes skills (or 'research tools') not taught in ordinary graduate-level coursework in a Department of English. In view of the multilingual character of humanist study, scholars of literature must often read text in a language other than their principal one. For these reasons, as fulfilment of the discipline's research tool, Ph.D. students in the Department of English are required to demonstrate reading proficiency in a language other than English. Under special circumstances priority may be given to another research tool: for instance, a computer language, statistical analysis, or protocols for research with human subjects.

 

D. Responsible Conduct in Research and Scholarship:

The Graduate School requires all Ph.D. students to attend one of its workshops on Responsible Conduct in Research and Scholarship (RCRS) prior to completing the dissertation or thesis. Ph.D. students are encouraged to wait until their third or fourth year to fulfill this requirement. Workshops are offered throughout the year. 

 

E. The PhD Qualifying Examination:

The PhD examination includes a written and an oral component. The written exam consists of three three-hour papers covering fields chosen by the student in consultation with his or her examining committee and the director of graduate programs. With the approval of their examiners, students must define three fields of the following kinds:

• An area of critical theory
• An author
• The literature of an historical period and/or genre, which may be additionally be focused on a particular subgroup

Students may include up to three fields of the last type, but only one field of any other type. Examples of fields of the fourth type might include:

• 17th-century British poetry
• Early modern women’s writing
• Postcolonial drama
• African-American literature, 1914–1959
• Contemporary working-class fiction of the US
• Modernist poetry
• Women's autobiography

Any or all of the exam fields may be related to the student's dissertation topic; however, some breadth across fields is expected. And although the selection of texts within each field will be influenced to some extent by the student's particular interests and approach, he or she will also be expected to demonstrate a general mastery of the field.

Field descriptions and reading lists are worked out by the student in consultation with his or her examining committee and must be approved by the examiners and by the Director of Graduate Programs well before the written examination is scheduled. (Exams are given in November, February, and April each year.) The Director of Graduate Programs will provide you with a packet of materials detailing all exam-related procedures. Reading lists are due several months before the exam date, and field statements are due one month prior to the exam. Students cannot schedule their exam times until the field statements have been submitted. The written examination is followed by a two-hour oral examination that is based on, but not limited to, the written portion. 

 

F. Dissertation and Defense:

You become a Ph.D. candidate when you complete all course requirements (including English 502), fulfill the Foreign Language requirement, pass the Ph.D. Examination, establish a dissertation committee, and have your dissertation proposal approved (ideally within 6 months of completing the comprehensive exams).

The selection of dissertation topic, director, and committee (two additional faculty readers) is made in consultation with the Graduate Program Director. Once these decisions have been made, you must obtain a copy of the Graduate School’s forms regarding the dissertation (available on line), and then prepare a proposal for the approval of your committee. After your proposal and committee are approved, you are a PhD candidate (sometimes referred to as ABD short for All But Dissertation). Your progress now will be monitored by your dissertation director, who will report on your work to the GPD. (Note: You do not need to have the proposal approved by the entire committee to complete 502.)

When your dissertation is completed, you will give a Final Public Presentation and Defense of your project, followed by a question-and-answer session led by your dissertation committee. Reader’s copies are due to the committee one month prior to the defense, with a reader’s ballot for each member (available at this link). Once these ballots are submitted, the Graduate Programs secretary will announce the defense publicly. At the defense, students need to present the chair of the committee with the Graduate School ballot for approval of the dissertation (available at this link).

Students should check the Graduate School calendar for deadlines on format check and submission of the dissertation (now done electronically) for a December or May degree. See the ETD/Proquest link for electronic submission. Also see the Loyola's formatting website.