Department of English at the University of Virginia

T

he PhD program in English Language, Literature, and Research is designed to permit the full-time student to secure the doctorate in approximately six years; financial support is tied to a series of deadlines which aim at such a schedule.

Course Requirements

Fifteen graded courses (at the 5000, 8000, or 9000 level) are required for the PhD in English. These must include ENCR 8100 (Introduction to Literary Research), ENPG 8800 (Teaching Literature) and, in preparation for writing the dissertation, ENGL 9995 (Dissertation Seminar). In selecting the remaining twelve courses, students should keep in mind the following distribution requirements: two courses in different periods of literature before 1800, and one course in the history of criticism or literary theory. Students who are enrolled in the PhD program, have completed all requirements for the MA, and have passed at least one half of the PhD oral may apply for the MA degree. Doctoral candidates must take at least three seminars (9000 level), not counting the Dissertation Seminar.

Required Audits

In addition to the fifteen graded courses, all doctoral candidates are required to audit two courses during their third year of study, attending faithfully and meeting all requirements apart from the submission of major essays; course instructors must certify satisfactory participation. These audited courses may be offered in fulfillment of distribution and seminar requirements.

Place-holder Courses

Beginning in the second year, students register for 3-12 hours of place-holder courses (ENXX 9910, ENGL 9998, ENGL 9099). The precise course rubric and number of hours varies, but in every case these additional credit hours bring the total per semester up to 12. It is important to register accurately for these hours; please see the chart of MA/PhD enrollment patterns for the correct sequence of place-holder courses.

Incompletes

Students are strongly advised to stay current with their work and to complete all courses within the time allotted. With the written agreement of the instructor, however, students may be given a grade of "Incomplete" in one course each semester. According to GSAS policy, outstanding work must then be completed by the end of the following semester, after which remaining incompletes automatically default to permanent Fs. Agreements between instructors and students regarding incompletes should include a specific due date and be placed on file with the Graduate Office. Students with one or more F's may find their registration blocked by the Graduate School and lose their teaching assignments. One or more Fs may also cause the Graduate School to suspend a student's funding. In no case may a student with incomplete coursework sit for the PhD oral examination.

Foreign Language Requirement

The Department requires that the candidate demonstrate either mastery of one foreign language or proficiency in two.

The candidate may demonstrate mastery

• by achieving passing grades in two semester-long graduate literature courses offered in the foreign language itself (not in translation) and taken at the University of Virginia . Such courses may also be counted toward completion of the course requirements for the PhD in English, if they are approved in advance by the Director of Graduate Studies
  
  or

• by passing a two-hour examination designed to ascertain the student's ability both to read critical and literary texts in the foreign language (with the aid of a dictionary) and to write discursively in that language.

Proficiency is demonstrated by passing a ninety-minute examination in each language, which is designed to ascertain the student's ability to translate prose with the aid of a dictionary.

The full foreign language requirement for the PhD must be completed before the student takes the doctoral oral examination. It is strongly recommended that students make plans early in graduate school for any extra study (including remedial or other course work) that may be necessary to meet this requirement. Eligibility for dissertation fellowships depends on completion of all requirements other than the dissertation.

Additional Requirements for Students of Medieval Literature

Students who wish to specialize in medieval literature must take at least one course in Old English, and pass the Latin exam. They must also satisfy the language requirement for the standard PhD: mastery in one language or proficiency in two. Under the two-language proficiency option, medievalists should offer at least one medieval language (in addition to Old English). (For this purpose, medieval Latin will count as a separate language.) Students should discuss with their advisers which other languages will be most useful and how they can best demonstrate proficiency in them. Candidates in medieval literature should satisfy the language requirements as early as possible.

MA Transfers

Doctoral candidates who hold the MA in English from other universities must take ENCR 8100 and ENGL 9995 at the University of Virginia, but are exempt from ENPG 8800. Upon arriving at UVa, students consult with the Director of Graduate Studies, who will decide how much transfer credit they have earned. Most MA transfers will need to take a total of 8 graded courses at UVa. With few exceptions, they begin the PhD program with second-year standing, including a four-year package of teaching assistantships and fellowships. Students admitted to the PhD program with an MA in English from the University of Virginia may count all applicable courses toward the PhD. Normally they will be required to take six courses in addition to those counted toward the MA.

Oral Examination

The candidate should secure a copy of the application form for the oral examination either from this website or from the Graduate Office. This form should be filed initially by May 1 of the second year to indicate the two areas for examination. Then, in consultation with faculty and after a summer's directed reading, the student should compile balanced and comprehensive reading lists consisting of about forty-six works in each of two areas: historical Period and additional research and teaching Field.  The reading lists must be approved by the appropriate faculty members and submitted by October 1, together with the application form, to the Director of Graduate Studies, who assigns two faculty examiners. The Graduate Office will then contact the examiners to arrange a two-hour exam date prior to spring break of the third year. Students are responsible for informing examiners and the Graduate Office of minor emendations in the lists.

Prospectus

PhD Committee:  As soon as possible after passing the orals, students secure three faculty members' agreement to serve on a committee for the dissertation project.  In most cases, this committee will consist of one director and two readers.

Preparation:  As part of the ENGL 9995 Dissertation Seminar, and in consultation with the dissertation committee, the candidate spends Fall of the fourth year preparing 5-7 pages, plus an ample bibliography (of which fifteen entries are annotated).  The candidate is advised to think of the prospectus as belonging to the genre of the grant application, with a proposed outline of chapters and a clear statement of the place the proposed work will fill amidst other studies.

Approval of the Prospectus:  At a meeting of the student with the entire dissertation committee, the prospectus is approved, sent back for revisions, or rejected.  This review should occur in the Fall of the fourth year. A final prospectus should be approved no later than December 1, and submitted to the Graduate Office immediately thereafter in hard copy, together with the prospectus approval form.  At this meeting the responsibilities of the committee members and the candidate should be acknowledged and agreed upon.  For instance, committee members who are not the director may specify that they will read chapters only after one revision, or the members may take turns with a first reading.  Teaching beyond the fourth year and consideration for dissertation fellowships are contingent on timely submission of an approved prospectus.

Thesis Presentation

In the academic year following the approval of the prospectus, the student gives a forty-minute talk based on the dissertation to an audience of faculty and graduate students. A typical presentation begins with a concise outline of the project as a whole, followed by an illustrative excerpt taken from a single chapter. The talk is followed by a question and answer period. Neither an examination nor a defense, this is an occasion for students to share their scholarship in a formal venue, to obtain more varied reaction to it than their committee can provide, and to practice the kind of presentation usually demanded by a job talk. Presenters should prepare for this event well in advance by consulting with committee members and, if they wish, with the Director of Graduate Studies.

Submitting the Dissertation

After passing the oral examination and making the thesis presentation, the student may submit the dissertation for final approval at any time within the period set by the Graduate School (i.e., seven years from the commencement of graduate studies). If the dissertation has not been completed within this time limit, the student may, with the written approval of the Director of Graduate Studies, petition the Dean of the Graduate School for an extension. In form, the dissertation should observe the stipulations of The MLA Style Manual, current edition. Deadlines and procedures for submitting the dissertation, together with a sample title-page, may be found on the Graduate School web site, or on a sheet of guidelines which may be obtained from 438 Cabell Hall. You will also need a Final Defense Form, to be signed by your committee members upon the completion of the defense. Please use the English Department version of this form (rather than the one available on the GSAS web site).

Defense of the Dissertation

The student should leave ample time (no less than three weeks) between submission of the dissertation and the date of the defense. Scheduled by the candidate, the one-hour defense involves the three English department members of the dissertation committee and one “outside” member from another department at the University of Virginia . The director of the dissertation serves as chair. At the defense, students are asked to explain the central arguments and theoretical underpinnings of their project, to identify its contributions to the field, and to answer questions posed by the four committee members. Should the candidate fail either oral or written examination, the Department will reject the dissertation until it has been appropriately revised and the thesis successfully defended at a later date.

Schedule of Progress

Here we describe the standard schedule of progress for doctoral students. Failure to meet the deadlines may result in the suspension of a student's financial support (fellowship and/or teaching). A student in most cases may resume that support after a year if the requirement has been met in the meantime.

• First year. Take three courses in both semesters, in addition to ENCR 801 in the Fall and ENPG 880 in the Spring. Students should concentrate on fulfilling distribution requirements, while also contemplating the eventual choice of an area of specialization. Students who have not yet met the foreign language requirement should make plans for any necessary language study.

• Second year. Take three courses in both semesters (and register each semester for place-holder course ENXX 9910). Students should complete the distribution requirements and should also take more than one 900-level seminar, with an eye to the three-seminar requirement. PhD students in this year normally assist in writing courses and in one of the large undergraduate lecture courses (survey or Shakespeare). As the third course during the semester of teaching in the ENGL or ENRN lecture course, students have the option of registering for ENPG 8850:  three credits in "Pedagogy," the requirements consisting of the meetings of the teaching staff and class preparation.  By the end of the fourth semester, students should complete the language requirement and identify two areas for their oral exam.

• Third year. Fall : Audit one course (and register for twelve hours of place-holder course ENGL 997). Teach one section of the Department's basic composition course, submit approved oral exam lists by October 1, and schedule the oral for late Fall or early Spring. Spring: Audit one course (and register for twelve hours of ENGL 9998). Teach one course. If the oral exam is still pending, take it before spring break. Students who do not take the examination before the end of this academic year will risk losing fellowship and teaching support for the next. Students who fail one or both sections of the exam will not have their support suspended, but must be re-examined in the failed area during the Fall of the fourth year.  During the third year, students form a dissertation committee (director and two readers), with a view to having an approved 5-7 page prospectus with annotated bibliography by December of the next academic year. After spring break begin attending ENGL 998, the Dissertation Seminar, which straddles Spring and Fall semesters of the calendar year.

• Fourth year. Fall: Enroll formally in ENGL 9995 (the already begun Dissertation Seminar). (Register for ENXX 9910 along with six credit hours of ENGL 9998). At the end of the Dissertation Seminar, students submit a prospectus, which must be approved by their dissertation committee no later than December 1. Students may teach two courses in the Fall semester to free the spring for work on the dissertation.  For bookkeeping reasons, students must teach at least one course in the fall of the fourth year.  Spring: Register for twelve hours of place-holder course ENGL 9999. Free from teaching, or teaching only one course, students should continue work on the dissertation and consider going on the academic job market come fall. Early spring is the time to apply for dissertation fellowships funded by UVa or other agencies.

• Fifth year. Register each semester for twelve hours of ENGL 9999.  Students may teach two courses in one semester (either fall or spring) to free the other for work on the dissertation or, as before, teach one course per semester.  Within approximately one year of having an approved prospectus, students give a formal talk based on the dissertation for an audience of students and faculty. Successful job applicants should make every effort to complete the dissertation and defend it.  For a May graduation, the dissertation must be defended and submitted to the Graduate School in final form by May 1.

• Sixth year and following. Students who are making satisfactory progress on the dissertation are generally offered teaching assignments (but no fellowship support) in the sixth year; depending on availability, students may be awarded teaching assignments in the seventh year.  Each year, the Dean of Arts and Sciences and the English Department fund the Shannon Fellowship: a one-year teaching lectureship awarded to a newly minted Virginia PhD in English with faculty status and benefits.

Job Placement

Academic Placement: In the spring before the academic year in which they expect to finish their dissertations, doctoral candidates who plan to pursue academic careers should begin preparing to enter the job market. The departmental Placement Director works with job candidates to assemble their dossiers, compose their letters of application, and prepare a representative sample of their writing for prospective employers. Such preliminary work should be completed by the end of September, when the Modern Language Association's Job Information List appears. Later in the year, the Placement Director helps candidates to prepare for interviews, which are normally conducted at the MLA convention in December. (The Department offers grants of $150 to defray the expenses of job candidates who have secured MLA interviews.)

Non-academic placement: Few academics can remember a time when every recipient of the PhD could expect to find a job in a college or university. The increasing economic stress under which higher education now labors means that some degree recipients may ultimately work outside the academy--for example, in publishing, in secondary education, in public service, in the information industry, and indeed in all fields where the ability to gather and analyze information and present the results in clearly written form is highly valued. A number of PhD candidates now make work in such fields their first choice. For those who do, the Modern Language Association can assist with various resources, including job counseling at the annual convention. University Career Services is also available to help University of Virginia graduate students with non-academic placement.

Leave of Absence

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences does not recognize leave of absence for a student.  If a student needs time away from the program, the student is encouraged to register as a non-resident in order to preserve continuous eligibility for the resumption of studies.  Students should discuss the need for time away from the program with the Director of Graduate Studies before making a decision, as they may forfeit the fellowship and teaching support that have been earmarked for them during the originally offered term of doctoral study.