Department website: https://english.wvu.edu/
Doctor of Philosophy
- Credit Hours: Students are required to complete a minimum of 72 graduate credit hours in English at the 500 level or above. A student entering the Ph.D. program with an M.A. degree already in hand may request that up to 30 hours of coursework be applied toward the doctoral coursework. The final decision is at the discretion of the program director.
- Grade Point Average: Students must earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.75. Students must also earn a minimum GPA of 2.75 and a minimum grade of B- in all courses applied to the degree.
- Graduation Requirements: Students earn the Ph.D. by satisfactorily completing all of the following:
- required coursework;
- a portfolio of academic work;
- the foreign-language requirement;
- the Examination for Formal Admission to Candidacy; and
- the prospectus, full text, and defense of the doctoral dissertation.
- Benchmarks: For details, go to the English Degree Progress tab.
- Foreign-Language Requirement: Students must demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language in one of the following ways:
- successfully completing (no more than five years prior to matriculation) the fourth semester of a foreign language at the university level, with a minimum grade of B-; or
- passing a graduate translation examination administered by the WVU Department of World Languages.
- International students who have submitted the results of an English language proficiency exam (e.g. TOEFL or IELTS) may request a waiver of the requirement.
- Examination: The Examination for Formal Admission to Candidacy ("Booklist Exam") is administered by the student's Ph.D. committee at the conclusion of regular coursework.
- Dissertation: Passage of the Booklist Exam is followed by the dissertation phase, all portions of which require approval by the student's Ph.D. committee. It consists of:
- a prospectus (approx.10 pp.) for the dissertation, with a provisional bibliography;
- the dissertation itself, designed to be an original contribution to the scholarship in its field; and
- a two-hour oral defense of the completed dissertation. For the student to pass the dissertation defense, no more than one member of the committee may dissent.
Curriculum Requirements
Code | Title | Hours |
---|---|---|
Core Courses | 12 | |
College Composition Pedagogy * | ||
Introduction to Literary Research ** | ||
Recent Literary Criticism ** | ||
Current Directions in Literary Study *** | ||
Seminars | 12 | |
Select from the following: | ||
Seminar in Rhetoric | ||
Seminar in American Studies | ||
Seminar in Renaissance Studies, 1550-1660 | ||
Seminar in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Studies | ||
Seminar in British Romanticism | ||
Seminar in Twentieth-Century British Studies | ||
Current Directions in Literary Study | ||
Electives: | 30 | |
Any ENGL course at the 500 level or above not used for Core or Seminar requirements **** | ||
Teaching Practicum: | 6 | |
Teaching Practicum | ||
Thesis: | 12 | |
Thesis or Dissertation | ||
Total Hours | 72 |
- *
ENGL 609 should be taken in the student's first semester of teaching. At the discretion of the program director, a student who has completed the equivalent of ENGL 609 elsewhere may substitute a different 3-credit ENGL course at the 500 level or above.
- **
At the discretion of the program director, a student who has completed the equivalent of ENGL 680 and/or ENGL 682 elsewhere may substitute different 3-credit ENGL courses at the 500 level or above.
- ***
ENGL 782 is a required core course, but it may be repeated in a subsequent semester toward the seminar requirement.
- ****
Excluding ENGL 790
Major Learning Outcomes
English
Upon completion of the PhD program, graduates will be able to:
- Conceptualize the cultural, linguistic, and literary texts of the English-speaking world as categories of study
- Converse in the critical and professional discourses of literary and cultural study
- Conduct research on literature and culture at the level of professional competency
- Write a substantial (book-length) analysis of a literary or cultural topic
- Teach courses in the study of language and culture at the post-secondary level