Ph.D. in English
The Ph.D. degree offers the opportunity for advanced and concentrated research to students who hold an M.A./M.F.A. degree in English or a related field, from KU or elsewhere. With faculty guidance, students admitted to the Ph.D. program may tailor their coursework to their goals and interests.
Research specialties
PhD students work closely with a faculty mentor and committee throughout their time at KU. Our faculty represents an impressive range of subdisciplines within the field, which allows students to draw from a breadth of expertise.
Our literary studies faculty have special strengths in ecocriticism and posthuman studies, U.S. ethnic literature, nineteenth-century U.S. literature, science and technology studies, and Victorian literature.
Our rhetoric and composition faculty have special strengths in genre and language theory, public and professional discourses, multimodality and digital rhetorics, translingualism, writing pedagogy, and global writing research.
Our creative writing faculty have special strengths in the novel, environmental writing, drama, mixed-genre work, and short story collections.
The faculty at KU have won national awards that recognize excellence in research, including grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the Newberry Library, among others. Other faculty awards include such distinctions as the Osborn Award, Shelley Memorial Award, Gertrude Stein Award, the Kenyon Review Prize, the Kentucky Center Gold Medallion, and the Pushcart Prize.
