About the Program
Carleton's PhD program recognizes the shaping power of cultural context for understanding the production of literature. It accommodates the rich inquiry opened up by book history, an interdisciplinary movement which investigates the book as a sociological object embedded in material practices, technological apparatuses, and everyday narratives. Studying social conditions across the spectrum of manuscript, print, and digital cultures enables us to understand how each historical moment constructs author, text, and reader differently. Carleton's PhD encourages students to explore issues of literary production, circulation, and reception, and to consider the ways in which readers and writers modify their consumption of texts according to various social circumstances.
And yet, as the title of the PhD program is meant to suggest, literature not only is produced by culture, but also produces culture. Traditional scholarship regarded literature as interacting with the world in a narrowly mimetic fashion. With the advent of critical theory, the discipline of English studies now acknowledges literature's involvement in producing and reproducing ideology. We cannot divorce the question of literature's material conditions from its contribution to politics and the social imaginary--the ways in which a culture constructs subjectivity through gender, race, and class. Carleton's PhD encourages students to interrogate literature's complicity in and resistance to power relations, whether on a national, colonial, or global level.
Academic Regulations
- See the General Regulations section of this Calendar.
- Academic standing - Doctoral students must normally obtain a grade of B- or better in each course counted toward the fulfilment of the degree requirements.
Admission Requirements
- Applicants will normally hold a master's degree in English (or equivalent) with at least an A- average (10 G.P.A.)
- Applicants judged to be deficient in preparation may be asked to complete course work in addition to the Ph.D. program requirements.
Program Requirements
Students admitted to the Ph.D. program are required to complete a total of 10.0 credits.
- 1.0 credit in ENGL 6000 Doctoral Seminar
- 0.5 credit in ENGL 6001 Proseminar
- 2.0 credits of approved courses
- 1.0 credit in ENGL 6900 comprehensive
- 1.0 credit in ENGL 6901 research project
- 4.5 credits in ENGL 6909 dissertation
ENGL 6000 and ENGL 6001 are required courses. Optional English coures will be selected from a list approved annually by the department. Students may take up to 1.0 credit of approved courses offered in other departments. Students may also choose directed reading courses with the core faculty of the program.
Comprehensive Examination and Research Project
- Students are required to complete one comprehensive examination and one doctoral research essay. Each has a 1.0 credit value. The comprehensive examination (ENGL 6900) will focus on relevant theoretical and methodological issues and will take the form of a written examination set and marked by members of core faculty. This will normally take place at the beginning of the second year of full-time doctoral study. The doctoral research project (ENGL 6901) will focus on the general historical period or conceptual issues of the candidate's research and will comprise a written research project of publishable length followed by an oral examination. This will normally be completed before the end of the second year of full-time studies.
Language Requirements
- Candidates must demonstrate reading ability in a language other than English, normally by successfully completing a translation examination during the second year of full-time enrolment in the program.
Thesis
- All students are required to submit a thesis proposal before proceeding to the writing of the thesis. The proposal must be approved by the graduate supervisor and the thesis committee. This will normally take place early in the third year of doctoral study. All students are required to complete a thesis (4.5 credits) in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree offered by the program. The thesis must be defended at an oral examination.
This program is designed to be completed in four years of full-time study. Students admitted to part-time study will normally complete all requirements within eight years of registration.
