PhD in Literary Studies: courses
Breadth requirements
The first stage of the Program, devoted to breadth, calls for 24 credits of course work beyond the bachelor's degree. At least sixteen of these credits must be earned here in Madison. A student may petition to transfer the remaining five credits towards the breadth requirement from graduate work completed elsewhere. In addition, a full or partial waiver of the breadth requirement may be granted to a student who already holds a graduate degree in English from another institution, whose previous graduate work offers strong predictive evidence of continuing success, and whose graduate training corresponds to the intensity and scope of the first stage of the UW-Madison Graduate Program.
In this first stage, course requirements include:
- English 723, Critical Methods, normally to be taken during the first semester of residence because of its general applicability to all scholarly work in literature.
- A course in Composition Theory (700) or Old English (320). Students with prior permission from the Creative Writing faculty may have a Creative Writing emphasis, which allows them to substitute a graduate Creative Writing course for this requirement on condition of taking a second graduate Creative Writings course as an elective.
- Four graduate-only courses in literatures in English, each course chosen from a different period or field and distributed so that at least two courses from Group A and at least two courses from Group B are taken.
GROUP A:
- British literature before 1500
- British literature 1500-1660
- British leterature 1660-1800
- American literature before 1800
- World literature in English Other than British and American before 1800
Group B:
- British literature 1800-1914
- American literature to 1914
- American literature since 1914
- British literature since 1914
- World Literature in English Other than British and American after 1800
- Literarary and Cultural Theory
- A course that will add to the historical, geographical and/or theorectical breadth of the courses taken for the masters degrees.
- An elective from the range of English Department courses that carry graduate credit, characteristically numbered 700 and above except for certain of the courses where reading is in Old or Middle English. Students with a Creative Writing emphasis must elect a Creative Writing course.
First-stage course work must be completed with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or better for students going on to the Ph.D. Course grades must include at least one A and no more than two Bs.
Terminal MAs must have a GPA of 3.0 or better. The letter grade distributions for students going on to the Ph.D. do not apply to the terminal MAs.
The first stage course requirements are to be completed no later than the beginning of the fifth semester of graduate study. To remain in good standing during the frist year, students must complete a minimum of seven courses, one of which could count toward the Ph.D. minor.
Specialization
In the second stage, all six courses in English and all minor courses are normally elective. Students who completed the frist stage at the University of Wisconsin English Department must take five English courses beyond the M.A. Students with graduate degrees from elsewhere must complete six; these students may be required to satisfy unwaived portions of the breadth course requirement, such as Critical Methods, an Old English or Composition Theory course, or courses in various literary areas. Until the course requirements in English have been completed, a full-time graduate student must take 8-12 credits per semester, with the provision that Teaching Assistants and Project Assistants with 40% or higher appointments may take 6 credits per semester. In the semester in which the English course requirements are being completed, and thereafter, the course load may be reduced. A student who does not find it possible to be full-time must make special arrangements with the Graduate Director to apply the current work to the degree requirements. The Department will strive to be flexible in this regard, in the presence of problems as to health, family, finances, and the like.
The minimum cumulative GPA in this stage is 3.50, and 3.25 in a given semester. To count towards fulfilling second-stage requirements, all courses must be passed with at least a grade of B.
(rev. 5/2007)
