Graduate Program

Overview

Graduate Admissions

Program information:

• PhD program
• MA program
• Selznick program

NRC Rankings

The National Research Council ranks the University of Rochester’s Department of English among the best PhD programs in the country. See the links below for more information:

• NRC Data Table (XLS Download)
• S-range of English programs ordered by the mid-point of the range
• About the Rankings

Our program offers students the scholarly resources and intellectual energy of a major research institution in an environment that permits close personal attention and open exchange. Students in the department interact with a faculty of active scholars and teachers whose publications and professional engagements continue to garner national and international recognition.

Distinguished Faculty

Our faculty's achievement have been widely recognized through a variety of awards, prizes, editorial positions, and other honors. English department faculty hold fellowships from institutions like the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, and the American Council of Learned Societies; the Fulbright, Guggenheim, Mellon, and Rockefeller Foundations; and the Huntington, Newberry, and Folger Libraries.

Current faculty include:

• A MacArthur Foundation fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist
• The assistant director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference
• A founding co-editor of the William Blake Archive
• The general editor of the TEAMS Middle English Texts Series

Areas of Strength

Centrally committed to literary study across the full range of British and American literatures, our department is known for its combination of aesthetic, formal, and historical analysis—blending both close-reading and theoretical approaches.

Each of the core strengths of our program offers a variety of opportunities for involvement by graduate students:

• Poetics
• Literary History
• Editing and Editorial Theory
• Creative Writing
• The Early Fields
• American Literature
• Modernist Studies
• Media Studies
• Film Studies
• Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Questions?

Contact the Director of Graduate Studies, with academic queries.

Contact Carrie Morriss, Graduate Coordinator, with administrative queries:

• (585) 275-9256
• carrie.morriss@rochester.edu

Graduate Student Handbook

Please consult the Department of English Graduate Student Handbook for the most up-to-date requirements of the graduate programs in English, including, but not limited to: field exams, language requirements, teaching pedagogy, and advisor selection.

For rules and regulations concerning graduate-level study at the University of Rochester, see the Graduate Bulletin.