Graduate
The Graduate Program in English and American Literature
The graduate program of the Department of English at Washington University is innovative, personable, and well-funded. The department has an internationally esteemed faculty of creative and critical writers, and, as a participant in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (2001-2005), exemplifies an integrated community of writers, scholars, and students. The department has regular faculty and student colloquia, active dissertation and major field workshops, and an extensive lecture series in creative and critical fields that has brought figures such as Thomas Laqueur, Salman Rushdie, Louise Glück, Michael Hardt, Jorie Graham, Bruno Latour, and Helen Vendler to campus. We believe that intellectual community is fostered by concrete working relationships between professors and students and offer fully collaborative co-teaching opportunities with experienced faculty at advanced levels.
The department emphasizes interdisciplinary opportunities. As a student, you will be able to:
- Gain graduate certificates in Women and Gender Studies, American Cultural Studies, Translation Studies, Learning Sciences, and College Writing.
- Pursue a joint degree with Comparative Literature.
- Take part in fully funded interdisciplinary Mellon summer seminars (recent topics have included globalization and material culture).
- Participate in joint faculty/ student groups in Early Modern Studies, Irish Studies, Medieval, Eighteenth Century, and Twentieth Century.
- Take advantage of exceptionally strong faculty ties to other departments, programs, and fields, including history, Women and Gender Studies, philosophy, African and African-American Studies, American Culture Studies, and Comparative Literature.
In recent years, our graduate students have found tenure track positions at universities such as Rutgers, San Francisco State U., University of Canterbury in New Zealand, University of North Carolina, and University of Florida. We believe we are successful in placement because of the high level of support we offer in the first three semesters (which do not require any teaching), because of training we offer to our graduate instructors throughout their course of study, and because, with a favorable teaching load for ourselves as well as for our graduate students, we are able as mentors to work closely, individually, and actively with these beginning teachers and scholars.
We would be pleased to have you visit Washington University and St. Louis. Ours is a beautiful campus next to the largest urban park in the United States in a city that features several major art museums, an internationally recognized symphony orchestra, and any number of good restaurants and bars that are affordable for graduate students. Accommodation here is excellent, varied, and relatively inexpensive.
Please feel free to contact the Director of Graduate Studies and/or the academic co-ordinator; both may be reached at (314) 935-5120.