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The Program
The program takes between four and seven years to complete, with the majority finishing in five or six years. The first two years are devoted to coursework. The first year is also devoted to preparation for the PhD Qualifying Exam (the “General” exam) at the beginning of the second year. The second and third years are devoted to preparing for the Dissertation Qualifying Exam (the “Field” exam) and writing the Dissertation Prospectus. The fourth, fifth and, where necessary, sixth years are spent in completion of the PhD dissertation. From the third year until the final year (when they are generally supported by Dissertation Completion Fellowships), students also devote time to teaching and to developing teaching skills. Students with previous graduate training, and those able to accelerate, may complete their dissertations in the fourth or fifth years. Students are strongly discouraged from taking more than seven years to complete the program except under the most exceptional circumstances.
The program aims to provide the holder of the PhD with a broad knowledge of English and American literature and language, including critical and cultural theory. Additional important skills include facility with the tools of scholarship—ancient and modern foreign languages, bibliographic procedures, and textual and editorial methods. The program also requires the ability to write well, to do solid and innovative scholarly and critical work in a specialized field or fields, to teach effectively, and to make articulate presentations at conferences, seminars, and symposia.
Residence
Two years of enrollment for full-time study are a minimum requirement, with a total of at least fourteen courses completed with honor grades (no grade lower than B-).
The minimum standard for satisfactory work in the Graduate School is a B average in each academic year.
Courses
- A minimum of fourteen courses must be completed no later than the end of the second year.
- Students typically devote part of their coursework in the first year to preparation for the “General” exam, focusing increasingly on their field in the second year.
- At least ten courses must be at the 200 (graduate) level, and at least six of these ten must be taken within the department. Graduate students in the English department will have priority for admission into 200-level courses.
- The remaining courses may be either at the 200 or the 100 level.
Independent Study and Creative Writing
- One of the 100-level courses may be taken as independent study (English 399) with a professor, but not before the second term of residence. Other independent study courses will be permitted only in exceptional circumstances, and with the concurrence of the professor and the director of graduate studies (DGS).
- Only one creative writing course may be taken for credit and counts as a 100-level course.
Credit For Work Done Elsewhere
No more than four graduate-level courses may be transferred from other graduate programs, at the discretion of the graduate director, after the student has completed at least three 200-level courses with a grade of A or A-.
Transferred courses will not count towards the minimum of ten 200-level courses required but will be understood as 100-level courses.
Incompletes
No more than one Incomplete may be carried forward at any one time by a graduate student in the English department, and it must be made up no later than six weeks after the start of the next term.
In applying for an incomplete, a student must have signed permission from the instructor and the DGS, or run the risk of having the course in question not count towards fulfillment of program requirements.
If a student does not complete work by the deadline, the course will not count towards fulfillment of program requirements, unless there are documented extenuating circumstances.
Language Requirements
- A reading knowledge of two languages is required.
- Normally, Latin, ancient Greek, French, German, Spanish, and Italian are the accepted languages. Other languages may be acceptable if deemed relevant and appropriate to a student’s program of study.
- Students may fulfill the language requirements in the following ways: (1) by passing a two-hour translation exam with a dictionary; (2) by taking a one-term literature course in the chosen language; or (3), in the case of Latin and Greek, by taking two terms of elementary Latin or Greek.
- Any course taken to fulfill the language requirement must be passed with a grade of B- or better. Literature-level language courses count for course credit; elementary language courses do not.
The (Non-Terminal) Master of Arts Degree
In order to apply for the AM degree, students must complete, with a grade of B or better, no fewer than a total of seven courses, including a minimum of four English courses, at least three of which MUST be at the graduate (200-) level, and one additional course which MUST be taken at the graduate level, but may be taken in another department. Students must also fulfill at least one of their departmental language requirements.
General Examination
At the beginning of the second year, each student will take a seventy-five minute oral exam, based on a list of authors and/or titles that the department will make available for each entering class in the summer prior to its arrival. The student must fulfill at least one language requirement by the end of the first year in order to be eligible to take the General Exam.
The examiners will be three regular members of the department (assistant, associate, or full professors), whose names will not be disclosed in advance.
A candidate whose performance in the exam is judged inadequate will be recorded as “not yet passed” and must retake the exam at a time to be determined. If the candidate does not pass on the second attempt, he or she will not be able to continue in the program.
Field Oral Examination
The purpose of the Field Oral Exam is twofold: to examine the student’s preparation in the primary teaching and scholarly field he or she means to claim, and to explore an emerging dissertation topic.
The two-hour examination is taken by February of the third year of graduate study, and is conducted by a three-person examination committee, chosen by the student no later than September of the third year, normally from among the tenured and ladder faculty of the English department.
One faculty member acts as chair of the committee and assists the student in selecting its other members. This committee, or some part of it, will likely continue to serve as the student’s dissertation advisors.
During the exam, the student is asked to demonstrate an adequate knowledge both of the major primary works and selected scholarly works in her or his chosen field and to give a first account of a dissertation project. The exam focuses on a list of primary and scholarly works, drawn up by the student in consultation with the examination committee.
When desired by the candidate and the candidate’s committee, the fields list may be informed by longer lists of works provided by the department, augmented by the student to accommodate her or his particular scholarly interests.
The entire committee meets with the student at least four weeks before the exam to finalize his or her fields list and discuss the exam format.
The exam is graded Pass/Fail.
Dissertation Prospectus
The dissertation prospectus, signed and approved by three advisors (one of whom may be the DGS), is due in the Graduate Office by May 15 of the third year.
The prospectus is neither a draft chapter nor a detailed road-map of the next two years work but a sketch, no longer than seven to ten pages, of the topic upon which the student plans to write, which gives a preliminary account of the argument, structure, and scope of the student’s intended treatment of the topic. The overview will be followed by a bibliography.
The prospectus is written in consultation with the dissertation advisors, who will meet the student at least once in the spring of the third year to discuss the prospectus and to draw up a timetable for the writing of the dissertation.
In planning a timetable, students need to bear in mind that two chapters of the dissertation must exist in draft by half way through their fourth year if they are to be eligible to apply for completion fellowships in their fifth year, and that students generally go on the job market in the fall of their fifth or sixth years, with at least two chapters completed and a third in draft. They should also remember that term-time fellowships and traveling fellowships are available to them in the fourth year, but that these require applications as early as December or January of the third year.
Dissertation Advising
The student should assemble a group of faculty members to supervise the dissertation. Several supervisory arrangements are possible: a student may work with a committee of three faculty members who share nearly equal responsibility for advising, or with a committee consisting of a principal faculty advisor and a second and third reader. If the scope of the project warrants, students should consult the DGS about including a fourth faculty advisor from a department other than English.
The advising mode chosen will be indicated to the department when the prospectus is submitted.
No matter what the structure of advising, three faculty readers are required to certify the completed dissertation.
The Dissertation
After the dissertation prospectus has been approved, candidates work with their dissertation directors or their dissertation committee.
All of the designated advisors must approve the final work.
The PhD dissertation is expected to be an original and substantial work of scholarship or criticism, excellent in form and content. The department accepts dissertations on a great variety of topics involving a broad range of approaches to literature. It sets no specific page limits, preferring to give students and directors as much freedom as possible.
Dissertation Defense
The Dissertation Defense will be a necessary part of receiving the PhD, though it will not be a pass/fail examination.
The form of the defense is as follows:
- each student’s defense will be a separate event
- those present will normally be: the student, three advisors, any interested faculty, any interested graduate students
- the event will start with a fifteen- to twenty-minute presentation by the student and last at most ninety minutes in all
- if a student has left Cambridge and cannot return easily for this purpose, a video-link discussion can be arranged
- arrangements will be overseen by the Graduate Office but conducted by the student (as per the Fields examination)
The meeting for a May degree must take place after advisors have signed off on the dissertation and at least a week before Commencement. In practice, however, the student will need to defend after advisors have signed off and before advisors disperse. That period will normally be between 1-14 May, and most probably in the early days of May.
Students will be required, in order to be recommended for the degree by the department, to submit to the Graduate Office a form specifying the defense date. The form will be available online on the departmental website. Candidates should print out this form and set to work on establishing the defense date well before the degree application and defense forms are due. This form will be signed by the chair of the advisory committee and must be submitted along with the requisite Application for Degree.
Teaching
Students begin teaching in their third year.
Ordinarily they teach discussion sections in courses and in the department’s program of tutorials for undergraduate honors majors.
Preparation for a teaching career is a required part of each student’s training, and teaching fellows benefit from the supervision and guidance of department members.
Teaching fellows are required to take English 350, the Teaching Colloquium, in their first year of teaching and are encouraged to avail themselves of the facilities at the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.