Graduate Program
Emily S. Davis
Associate Professor
Office: 316 Memorial Hall
Our ENGLISH GRADUATE PROGRAM
The Graduate Program in English offers a fully funded five-year Doctor of Philosophy degree program. Students typically earn their Master of Arts degree at the end of their second year of the program.
The English Ph.D. degree at the University of Delaware is designed to immerse students into specialized work in a significant area of British, American, and Anglophone literary and cultural studies and/or theory. Students receive strong teacher preparation and will learn, among other things, the protocols of scholarly research and publishing. Graduate training in our program foregrounds the importance of preparing graduate students for a variety of career paths within and beyond the academy.
Our graduate students work closely with accomplished and prominent scholars in their fields. Faculty provide academic and professional mentorship throughout each student's tenure in the program, on the job market, and beyond. Students collaborate with faculty on public and digital humanities projects like ThingStor and even help design graduate seminars. Students are always working with their colleagues in English, but also across the humanities at UD – partnering with students and faculty in fields such as History and Art History to coordinate symposiums and facilitate working groups. Our graduate students also find many opportunities to research and work with institutions unique to the Delaware area, including the Winterthur Museum & Library, Hagley Museum and Library, and the Delaware Art Museum.
Please visit the UD Catalog to review the English Ph.D. degree requirements
Academic Support for graduate students is available on the UD Graduate College website.
Students are admitted into the graduate program for the fall semester only. For students applying for full-funding (stipend, tuition remission) as well as admission to the English PhD graduate program, all application materials should be submitted by January 1.
The following items must be uploaded to your online application:
- Resume or CV
- Statement of Objectives and Interests. Please be sure your personal statement answers the following questions (1–5 pages):
- What are your intellectual objectives and how will your proposed plan of graduate study relate to them?
- Within English studies, are there areas of special interest to you? Please explain.
- How will the resources at the University of Delaware (faculty and otherwise) help you to achieve your objectives and pursue you areas of interest?
- [Note: because special scholarships may be available for members of historically underrepresented groups in the humanities, including African and Asian-American students, first-generation college students, students with disabilities, and former members of the military, we encourage applicants who may be eligible for these awards to signal their eligibility in their statement.]
- Unofficial Transcripts from All College/Universities Attended
- TOEFL/IELTS Requirements Please read the linked instructions carefully and notes that applicants must score 100 or higher on the TOEFL, 10.5 or higher on the TOEFL Essentials, or 7.5 or higher on the IELTS to be considered as a Teaching Assistant (all of our offers are made for teaching assistants). A waiver of the TOEFL exam is only allowed when:
- A bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree has been or will be earned from a college or university accredited by a regional accrediting association in the United States.
- A bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree has been or will be earned from a university recognized by the ministry of education in a country where English is the primary language. Countries approved by the ministry of education are: Anguilla, Antigua, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cameroon, Canada (except Quebec),Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Ghana, Guyana, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Montserrat, New Zealand, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks and Caicos, The United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe
- Three Letters of Recommendation. Be sure letters of recommendation are submitted by your faculty advisors prior to the January 1 deadline. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
- Critical Writing Sample (10–20 pages)
Notes:
- Applicants must have earned a BA or MA degree before matriculation in Fall
- Please note we are a straight-to-PhD program that does not accept applications for a terminal MA degree. Our PhD students have the opportunity to earn the MA degree on their way to the PhD.
- The application fee is $75. View information regarding fees and possible fee waivers
- Students must accept the offer of admission no later than April 15
- All incoming students are subject to a criminal background check as per UD policy 4-111
We are proud to offer competitive funding packages that include 9-month living stipends, full-tuition scholarships, and subsidized health insurance coverage for up to 5 years.
Your funding package will be detailed in your admissions offer letter. Renewal of funding packages each year is dependent on satisfactory progress toward the degree. Read the University's funding policies.
Most students are admitted on Teaching Assistantship contracts, but will have the opportunity to apply for Graduate Assistantships, Research Assistantships, and Fellowships throughout their tenure in the program. In the first-year, teaching assistants shadow an experienced professor in teaching ENGL110 and a literature course. After the first-year of shadowing and training, teaching assistants become the instructor-of-record for English courses (2 sections per year).
Competitive semester and full-year fellowship opportunities are available from both the English department and the Graduate College. Students on fellowship are expected to devote their full-time attention to their research and are not expected to teach or perform graduate assistantship duties.
Students may apply for Summer Research Fellowships and Summer Research Assistantships, as well as various hourly-paid internships. Students may also have the opportunity to teach courses in Summer or Winter terms for additional funding.
Our department offers generous funding for research and conference travel, as well as funding for professional development opportunities. Students apply for this funding throughout each year and are mentored in finding external funding opportunities as well.
For a detailed list of the various funding opportunities available to our graduate students, visit our Funding Opportunities page.
One of the unique strengths that each of our graduate students enjoys on the job market is the depth and diversity of their teaching portfolios. Rather than serving as a grader or an assistant to a professor's class, the courses that our graduate students teach are emphatically their own: they design the syllabi, choose the reading lists, set the calendar, create the assignments, and do the grading.
We also guarantee each graduate student the opportunity to teach at least one literature class related to the student's area of specialization.
The English Department has a professional development and teacher training program for all graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs). The goal of this scaffolded program is to provide graduate students with the knowledge, skills, experience, and supportive mentoring environment to best prepare them to become teachers of writing and literature at the post-secondary level.
Teacher Training Timeline
First-Year Teacher Preparation
Fall: Prior to Fall of the first-year, students participate in an orientation with the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning to prepare for the upcoming year. During the Fall semester, new students serve as apprentices to an experienced professor in the teaching of ENGL110: Seminar in Composition. Apprentices work closely with their faculty mentor and cohort to observe, teach, co-teach, lead groups, assess student writing, develop lesson plans and more.
Spring: In the Spring semester of the first-year, students are placed as apprentices for a literature or other advanced undergraduate English course with an experienced professor. Throughout their apprenticeship, students help develop syllabi, lecture, lead class discussions, assess student work and more. Apprentices learn strategies for teaching in their research fields and are supported through regular mentorship by the instructor-of-record. Students are also enrolled in ENGL688: Composition Theory and the Teaching of Writing. This course provides formal training in pedagogy and practical experience in developing teaching materials. In ENGL688, students develop their syllabus, assignments and teaching philosophies in preparation for teaching their own courses in the following year.
Second-Year and Beyond
The standard teaching load is two courses per year (1 section in fall, 1 section in spring). Graduate students teach ENGL110: Seminar in Composition and are guaranteed at least one opportunity to teach a course in their field while in the program. This course is typically ENGL280: Approaches to Literature for Non-Majors. The course allows students to develop a custom syllabus on a topic of their choosing. Students may also teach special topics-based Honors sections of ENGL110, as well as advanced writing courses such as ENGL 301 (Advanced Writing), ENGL 312 (Business Writing), and ENGL 410 (Technical Writing). Opportunities to teach various English courses (for additional compensation) during Winter and Summer terms are also available.
Graduate students also have ample opportunity to expand their teaching qualifications through formal training programs in online-teaching and teaching multilingual learners. Students who complete these training programs are eligible to teach sections specifically for multilingual students, as well as online sections.
Outstanding Teacher Award
Each year, the English Department awards one graduate student the Outstanding Teacher Award in recognition of exceptional and innovative teaching. Award applications are reviewed by a faculty committee. The award offers a $500 prize.
We proudly support graduate students in their pursuit of academic and non-academic careers.
We take an active role in helping our graduate students compete for good jobs in academia. We regularly offer job placement workshops every summer that help prepare graduate students for every step of the academic job search. These workshops combine group meetings with one-on-one advising sessions and mock interviews in order to make sure that our students are prepared to compete for jobs. Several English faculty members participate by helping with workshops and mock interviews.
Students interested in careers outside the academy also benefit from our internship and graduate assistantship opportunities in areas such as publishing, museums, and special collections. Given that many academic job interviews also ask candidates to speak to how they'd forge connections to local institutions, these opportunities serve a dual purpose of preparing students for careers inside and outside the academy. We also sponsor workshops specifically for PhD students in the humanities preparing for non-teaching careers.
One way we support our graduate students' professional development is through conference and research travel funding. Each year, our students present their research across the world at top academic conferences hosted by organizations such as the Modern Language Association, Association of Adaptation Studies, Literature/Film Association, Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies, Conference on College Composition and Communication, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, American Comparative Literature Association, and more. Students travel to archives such as the British Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Texas A&M Science Fiction Collection.
The graduate program also supports our PhD students in participating in professional development seminars throughout the country. Some examples of seminars/institutes our students have attended include: Dickens Universe, Futures of American Studies Institute, HILT (digital humanities), Rare Books School, and The School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell.
But we know successful professional development isn't just about funding. That is why our program offers innovative and interdisciplinary seminars, workshops, working groups, field trips, speaker series and development opportunities for Ph.D. students every step of the way. Moreover, our faculty are committed to supportive mentorship and building a diverse, intellectually curious community of scholars.
Job Placement Record
Lee Conderacci, 2024, English Instructor, Loyola Blakefield High School, Towson, MD
Brandi Locke, 2024, Postdoctoral researcher, Penn State Mellon Just Transformations for the Center for Black digital Research at Pennsylvania State University
Monet Timmons, 2024, Public Humanities Fellow, SNCC & Grassroots Organizing Discussion Series, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University
Melissa Benbow, 2024, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Park Service-Mellon Humanities
English Research Clusters
Our program houses Research Clusters in the Environmental Humanities, Black Cultural Studies and Print and Material Culture Studies. Students are encouraged to pursue research in one of these fields as a complement either to their work in a particular national literature, period, or thematic concern; or leading to innovative approaches that engage with textual analysis, the digital humanities, and/or the public face of the humanities.
Print and Material Culture examines cultures past and present through the physical objects and physical texts they produce. How do objects and texts, from newspapers and posters to photographs, maps and computer screens, shape our interactions with the physical world? How do these physical texts and objects prompt us to view identities in complex ways? This mode of study encourages students to intervene in the ongoing and interdisciplinary conversation on the ways physical texts and objects compel us to engage, interpret, and understand our world.
Our students engaging with Print and Material Culture Studies benefit from a variety of on-campus and community resources including: Center for Material Culture Studies, Delaware Public Humanities Institute (DELPHI), Winterthur Museum & Library, and the Hagley Museum & Library. Graduate students participate in working groups, major research projects, and symposiums such as: Media Old and New Working Group, ThingStor: A Material Culture Database, Methods in Material Culture Graduate Student Group, and the Emerging Scholars Graduate Symposium.
At UD, this research cluster encompasses the study of Black culture with an emphasis on African American and African diasporic literature. Students study literary, historical, visual, and musical texts as entwined with cultural and political movements, aesthetic experimentation, historical memory, critical theory, and public humanities. Our program encourages a truly interdisciplinary and transnational lens for studying the cultural history of race, slavery, colonialism, modernity, and post-colonialism.
Our students with a research focus in Black Cultural studies often work closely with distinguished faculty not only in the English Department, but in History, Art History, and Africana Studies as well. Students also benefit from a variety of on-campus resources through the Morris Library, Special Collections, and UD Museums. UD is also conveniently located near a multitude of museums and libraries in Washington DC and Philadelphia.
Prospective students interested in this research field are encouraged to apply for the African American Public Humanities Initiative Scholarship (AAPHI) by checking the appropriate box in the SLATE application and declaring interest in the personal statement.
This mode of study encourages students to intervene in the ongoing and interdisciplinary conversation on the ways that texts affect our engagement with the natural world. Many of the most basic environmental questions are humanist. How have human relationships to the non-human world changed over time? Why do we have environmental problems? What are their causes? Which groups are most vulnerable to environmental issues and why do these injustices persist? What shapes our ideas about relationships between humans and their environments? How does narrative shape our ideas about the "human" and interrogate its global impacts?
Writing Studies entails the study of writing in academic and public spaces, emphasizing the intersections of theory, pedagogy, and literate practice. This field of study includes composition theory, rhetorical theory, literacy studies, narrative analysis, storytelling, writing centers, writing program administration, technical and professional writing, research methodologies, and rhetoric of health and medicine. It also encompasses a wide array of special topics courses on public discourse, genre theory, race and writing, disability studies, and writing and emerging technologies.
African American Public Humanities Initiative (AAPHI)
Are you interested in obtaining a PhD in the Humanities with an emphasis on African American/Africana Studies? Are you looking for graduate training that emphasizes public scholarship, community outreach, collections-based research, and digital humanities? The African American Public Humanities Initiative (AAPHI) provides financial and mentorship support for PhD students in History, English, and Art History.
Prospective PhD English students interested in being considered for the African American Public Humanities Initiative scholarship should indicate their interest by checking the AAPHI interest box in their application and indicating their interest in their personal statement.
Link to a recording of Recording of University of Delaware - English PhD Graduate Program Virtual Open House: https://capture.udel.edu/media/1_8jgflia1/
Virtual Open House Video Recording
In this video recording, you will listen to Tim Spaulding, Interim Director of Graduate Studies, various faculty members, and students talk about aspects of the English Ph.D. program at the University of Delaware.
The University of Delaware holistically supports its graduate students, beginning with their health and wellbeing. Benefits include a subsidized health plan and physical and behavioral health services. UD fosters a culture of academic excellence, with committed faculty and staff and access to state-of-the-art research facilities and technology. UD prioritizes professional development with job training, internships and industry partnerships. Graduates further enhance their professional growth and visibility with opportunities to work on interdisciplinary research teams, present their work at conferences and publish in academic journals. Visit the links below to learn how UD is supporting society’s future leaders, scholars, and innovators.
