English Hero

English

With a distinguished faculty of scholars and writers, a dynamic cohort of graduate students, and an abundance of cultural resources in New York City, the Ph.D. Program in English provides students with a stimulating environment in which their intellectual interests can thrive.
Learn more about the program
English Hero

With a distinguished faculty of scholars and writers, a dynamic cohort of graduate students, and an abundance of cultural resources in New York City, the Ph.D. Program in English provides students with a stimulating environment in which their intellectual interests can thrive.

Learn more about the program

Degree Offered

Ph.D. in English

Full-time

Admissions Deadlines

January 1 for fall enrollment
(No spring enrollment)

Upcoming Event

Alchemy and Plague in Ben Johnson

Friday, September 29, 2023

4:00 pm

A Wide-Ranging Curriculum

We offer many seminars in both established and emerging fields—everything from medieval literature to digital humanities. Particular strengths of our wide-ranging curriculum include feminist, gender, and sexuality studies; critical theory; poetics and aesthetics; critical race studies; popular culture; life writing; and Composition and Rhetoric.

Our large faculty features prominent scholars, creative writers, biographers, cultural critics, digital humanists, and memoirists.

We encourage our students to follow individualized and interdisciplinary courses of study. Many students take courses in other doctoral programs at the Graduate Center or complete one of the Graduate Center's Certificate Programs. Through the Interuniversity Doctoral Consortium, students can register for courses at such institutions as Columbia University, Princeton University, New York University, and Rutgers University.

A Vibrant Scholarly Community

To promote intellectual vitality and conviviality, the English Program sponsors weekly Friday Forums, which bring internationally recognized scholars, writers, and publishers to discuss a wide variety of literary and cultural topics. The English Student Association also organizes a yearly conference—the 2019 topic is "Black Lives."

Through mentoring, programming, and curricular offerings, the Ph.D. Program in English is committed to fostering a culturally diverse environment informed by CUNY’s historic mission to educate “the whole people,” not just “the privileged few,” and by the Graduate Center’s mission to “enhance access to doctoral education for traditionally underrepresented groups.”

As voting members of various Program committees, students actively participate in decisions about admissions, curriculum, faculty appointments, and other policy matters.

A Commitment to Support

Our students receive expert training as scholars, teachers, and writers.

Throughout the year, we offer professional development workshops to assist students in presenting conference papers, applying for fellowships, publishing their work, and finding academic employment. In recent years our students have accepted teaching positions at Adelphi University; Georgia Institute of Technology; Pennsylvania State University; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Chicago; University of North Carolina; University of Oklahoma; and Washington and Lee University, as well as at several CUNY colleges.

Through support provided by five-year Graduate Center Fellowships, students design and teach their own courses at one of the CUNY colleges. They also enroll in a semester-long Teaching Practicum. Students also participate in a robust interdisciplinary composition and rhetoric studies community.

Although we do not offer courses in Creative Writing, many of our faculty and students are published novelists, poets, essayists, and creative non-fiction writers. Students can participate in the Graduate Center Poetics Group or in Lost and Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative.

Admissions

Learn more about admissions to the Ph.D. program in English, including application tips.

Admissions and Aid
a diverse group of people sit at a long table in front of a projector screen with an asian woman at a podium, speaking to a classroom

Cultivating Diversity

We are a program committed to the just and equal access to education for all people. Our curriculum and ethos is driven by understanding of the necessity of deep diversity of people and ideas to intellectual vitality.

From Our Faculty

We take seriously CUNY’s commitment to the education of the “whole people” and accordingly strive to make our program a space for people and work reflective of and engaging with the deeply heterogeneous and worldly nature of the many publics constituting New York City.

— Kandice Chuh

Kandice Chuh

Upcoming Events

Friday, September 29, 2023

Alchemy and Plague in Ben Johnson

Please join us for this Friday Forum talk on Alchemy and Plague in Ben Johnson with Prof. Tanya Pollard and Onur Ayaz.

4:00 pm

4406: English Student Lounge

Featured Initiatives

Recent News

Sep 15, 2023

Recognizing Leaders of Hispanic Scholarship

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we recognize our scholars who are leaders and pushing the boundaries of knowledge.

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Contact Us

Visit us in Room 4409 or in the English Lounge, Room 4406.

Siraj Ahmed

Executive Officer and Professor, English

Mario DiGangi

Deputy Executive Officer for Admissions and Professor, English; Professor, Global Early Modern Studies

Tanya Agathocleous

Deputy Executive Officer for Placement and Professor, English

Radhika Kashyap

Assistant Program Officer, English; College Assistant, Comparative Literature