English Language and Literature

Field Description

The Ph.D. Program. The doctoral program in English Language and Literature enrolls about 10 new students each year in the Ph.D. program. Our small size allows us to offer a generous financial support package, details of which are outlined on our department website. At the same time, we have a large and diverse graduate faculty with competence in a wide range of literary, theoretical, and cultural fields. Students choose a Special Committee of three faculty members, from whom they receive a great deal of individual attention. Working with this committee, students design their own courses of study within the very broad framework laid down by the department. The program is extremely flexible in regard to such matters as course selection, the design of examinations, and the election of minor subjects of concentration outside the department. English Ph.D. students pursuing interdisciplinary research may include on their Special Committees faculty members from related fields such as Comparative Literature, Romance Studies, German Studies, History, Classics, Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Linguistics, Performing and Media Arts, Government, and Philosophy.

The Ph.D. candidate is normally expected to complete six or seven one-semester courses for credit in the first year of residence and a total of six or seven more in the second and third years. The program of any doctoral candidate's formal and informal study, whatever his or her particular interests, should be comprehensive enough to ensure familiarity with the authors and works that have been the most influential in determining the course of literatures in English; the theory and criticism of literature; the relations between literature and other disciplines; and concerns and tools of literary and cultural history such as textual criticism, study of genre, source, and influence, as well as wider issues of cultural production and historical and social contexts that bear on literature.

M.F.A./Ph.D. Joint Degree Program. Admission to our Joint MFA/PhD degree program remains on hold. We encourage you to consider applying to either the MFA or PhD program instead, if you would like to be considered for admission. Thank you for your understanding.

The M.F.A. Program. The Creative Writing program in the department of English Language and Literature offers an M.F.A. degree only, with concentrations in either poetry or fiction. Each year the department enrolls only eight students, four in each concentration. Our small size allows us to offer a generous financial support package, details of which are outlined on our department website. At the same time, we have a large and diverse graduate faculty with competence in a wide range of literary, theoretical, and cultural fields. Students choose a Special Committee of two faculty members who provide a great deal of individual attention and encourage students to design their own courses of study within the very broad framework laid down by the department.

Students participate in a graduate writing workshop each semester and take 6 additional one-semester courses for credit, at least four of them in literatures in English, Comparative Literature, literature in the modern or classical languages, or cultural studies (typically two per semester during the first year and one per semester during the second year). First year students receive practical training by working as Editorial Assistants for Epoch, a periodical or prose and poetry published by the Creative Writing staff of the department. The most significant requirement of the M.F.A. degree is the completion of a book-length manuscript: a collection of poems, short stories, or a novel.

The Special Committee. Every student selects a Special Committee who will be responsible for providing the student with a great deal of individual attention. The University system of Special Committees allows students to design their own courses of study within a broad framework laid down by the department, and it encourages a close working relationship between professors and students, promoting freedom and flexibility in the pursuit of the graduate degree. The student's Special Committee guides and supervises all academic work and assesses progress at a series of meetings with the student.

Teaching. Teaching is considered an integral part of training for the profession. The Field requires a carefully supervised teaching experience of at least one year for every doctoral and masters candidate as part of the training for the degree. The Department of Literatures in English, in conjunction with the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, offers excellent training for beginning teachers and varied and interesting teaching within the university-wide First-Year Writing Program. Graduate students are assigned to writing courses under such general rubrics as "Writing Across Cultures," "American Voices," "Word and Image," "Reading Now," and "Writing the Environment," among others. Serving as a Teaching Assistant for a lecture course taught by a member of the Department of Literatures in English faculty is another way graduate students participate in the teaching of undergraduates.

View the procedural guides for the M.F.A. program and Ph.D. program.

Contact Information

Website: http://english.cornell.edu/graduate
Email: english_grad@cornell.edu
Phone: 607-254-3471

250 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

Data and Statistics

• Research Master's Program Statistics
• Doctoral Program Statistics

Field Manual

• Manual

Subject and Degrees

Creative Writing

• Creative Writing (M.F.A.) (Ithaca)

English Language and Literature

• English Language and Literature (Ph.D.) (Ithaca)

Concentrations by Subject

Creative Writing

• creative writing

English Language and Literature

• African American literature
• American literature after 1865
• American literature to 1865
• American studies
• colonial and postcolonial literatures
• cultural studies
• dramatic literature
• English poetry
• lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies
• literary criticism and theory
• Old and Middle English
• prose fiction
• the English Renaissance to 1660
• the nineteenth century
• the Restoration and the eighteenth century
• the twentieth century
• women's literature

Faculty

Elizabeth S. Anker

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century; women's literature
• Research Interests: postcolonial literature; human rights; literary theory; narrative studies

Kevin D. Attell

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; colonial and postcolonial literatures; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: 20th-century American and British literature; literacy and critical theory; history and theory of the novel; postcolonial studies; film studies

Anindita Banerjee

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies
• Research Interests: Environmental humanities, speculative fiction, media studies, migrancy

Jeremy H. Braddock

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: 20th-century American literature; transatlantic modernism; African American literature; visual studies; film; libraries, archives and information

Mary Pat Brady

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; American literature after 1865; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; women's literature
• Research Interests: U.S. Latino and Latina literatures and cultures; cultural studies; American literature after 1865; critical geography; multi-ethnic literature, theories of race and sexuality

Laura Schaefer Brown

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; the Restoration and the eighteenth century; women's literature
• Research Interests: restoration and eighteenth-century literature

NoViolet Bulawayo

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: Creative Writing

Jodi A. Byrd

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American studies; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory
• Research Interests: American Indian and Indigenous literatures, Indigenous feminisms and queer Indigenous studies, Indigenous critical theory, settler colonial studies, critical technology studies, video game studies

Cathy Caruth

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; literary criticism and theory; Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: British and German romanticism; literary theory; literature and theory of drama; psychoanalysis

Eric T Cheyfitz

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; American literature after 1865; American literature to 1865; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory
• Research Interests: American literatures; federal Indian law; Native American literatures

Elisha Cohn

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: colonial and postcolonial literatures; the nineteenth century; women's literature
• Research Interests: 19th century British literature and culture; history and theory of the novel; lyric poetry

Naminata Diabate

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; women's literature
• Research Interests: African and Diasporic African literature, film studies, and (new)media studies, gender, sexuality, race

Grant A. Farred

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: Africana studies; cultural studies; postcolonial theory; race theory; African-American literature; Diasporic literature and theory; literature and philosophy

Chelsea Mikael Frazier

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; colonial and postcolonial literatures; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; women's literature
• Research Interests: African American and African Diaspora studies, gender and sexuality, environmental humanities

Emily Jane Fridlund

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: fiction

J. Ellen Gainor

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: dramatic literature; the nineteenth century; the twentieth century; women's literature
• Research Interests: British and American Drama; feminist theatre criticism; women playwrights; dramaturgy

Andrew Scott Galloway

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: English poetry; Old and Middle English
• Research Interests: Medieval English poetry (esp. Layamon, Chaucer, Langland, Gower); medieval drama; medieval history writing; history of the book; literature and the prospect of cultural history

Roger Stephen Gilbert

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; American literature to 1865; English poetry
• Research Interests: American poetry; modern and contemporary poetry; aesthetics and evaluation

Ellis Hanson

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: cultural studies; dramatic literature; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; the nineteenth century; women's literature
• Research Interests: Victorian literature; decadence and aestheticism; gender and sexuality studies; and film

Rebeca L. Hey-Colon

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; American studies; cultural studies; women's literature
• Research Interests: US Latinx/a/o literatures and cultures, Afro-latinx literatures and cultures, Afro-diasporic spiritualities and religions, Caribbean studies, Cultural studies

Juliana Hu Pegues

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; American studies; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; women's literature
• Research Interests: Asian American studies, Native and Indigenous studies, women of color feminisms, queer of color critique

George Hutchinson

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; American literature after 1865; American literature to 1865; American studies
• Research Interests: American modernism; African American literature; race in American culture; Walt Whitman

Ishion Hutchinson

• Campus: Ithaca - (Divisional Member)
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; colonial and postcolonial literatures; dramatic literature; English poetry; the twentieth century; Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: poetry in translation; American and British poetry; creative writing and creative reading; the long poem and the Epic

Karen Jaime

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American studies; cultural studies; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; women's literature

Jane A. Juffer

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; women's literature
• Research Interests: cultural studies; Latino/a studies; ethnography; feminist, gender and sexuality studies

Rayna M Kalas

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: dramatic literature; English poetry; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; the English Renaissance to 1660
• Research Interests: 16th- and 17th-century poetry and prose; poetics and technology; visual studies; the labor and craft of writing in the early modern period

Adhy Kim

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American studies; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: transnational Asian American studies, comparative empire studies, environmental humanities, speculative fiction

Alexandra Grace Kleeman

• Campus: Ithaca - (Divisional Member)
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing

John R. Lennon

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: creative writing (fiction): contemporary literature; crime and science fiction novels

Caroline Elizabeth Levine

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; English poetry; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; the nineteenth century
• Research Interests: Victorian literature and culture; narrative theory; formalism; literary and cultural theory; world literature;the relations between art and politics

Mary Loeffelholz

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; American literature to 1865; American studies; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; the nineteenth century; women's literature
• Research Interests: Nineteenth century American literature and culture, American poetry, theory of the lyric, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century women’s writing

Gregory Michael Londe

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American studies; colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; English poetry; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: 19th, 20th, and 21st century Anglophone literature Modernism Institutional histories of literary culture Economics and literature Comparative and transnational poetics Irish studies

Philip A. Lorenz

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: dramatic literature; literary criticism and theory; the English Renaissance to 1660
• Research Interests: Renaissance Drama, political theology, sovereignty, poetics and theory, literature and philosophy

Kate McCullough

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; American literature to 1865; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; women's literature
• Research Interests: American literature after 1865; women's literature; feminist literary criticism and theory; lesbian/queer theory

Natalie Anne-Marie Melas

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: colonial and postcolonial literatures; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: postcolonial questions; the politics of disciplinary histories; cultural comparison; modernisms (English, French, Caribbean, Greek, Egyptian); Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean literature and theory; multilingualism

Satya Prakash Mohanty

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: critical theory; 20th-century literature; colonial and postcolonial studies; the novel; modernism/postmodernism; film; South Asian literature and culture

Jonathan Beck Monroe

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; English poetry; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: modern and contemporary poetry; comparative/interdisciplinary approaches; modernism/postmodernism; critical theory; sociohistorical and linguistic criticism; romanticism

Valzhyna Mort Hutchinson

• Campus: Ithaca - (Divisional Member)
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: poetry

Timothy Conway Murray

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: cultural studies; dramatic literature; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; the English Renaissance to 1660; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: international film and new media; visual studies; performance; theory and aesthetics; psychoanalysis; Renaissance studies

Mukoma Wa Ngugi

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: colonial and postcolonial literatures; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory
• Research Interests:

Mendi Lewis Obadike

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; American studies
• Research Interests: Sound Studies, Sound Art, African American Literature and Culture, Poetry, Performance, Media Art

Ernesto Quinonez

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: creative writing; fiction

Masha Raskolnikov

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: dramatic literature; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; Old and Middle English; women's literature
• Research Interests: Middle English literature, allegory, medieval literary theory and rhetoric, contemporary critical theory, feminist and queer studies

Riche D. Richardson

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; American studies; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; women's literature
• Research Interests: american literature; gender studies; southern studies

Jessica M. Rosenberg

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: dramatic literature; English poetry; literary criticism and theory; the English Renaissance to 1660
• Research Interests: -Early modern literature and culture -History of Science -History of the Book -Media Studies -Poetry and Poetics -Plant Studies

Nicholas G. Salvato

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; dramatic literature; lesbian, bisexual, and gay literary studies; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: 20th- and 21st-century literature; theater and culture; performance history and theory; American modernism; queer studies

Shirley R Samuels

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American literature after 1865; American literature to 1865; cultural studies; the nineteenth century; women's literature
• Research Interests: American literature and culture; 18th- and 19th-century American fiction; feminist criticism, American studies

Daniel R Schwarz

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: cultural studies; English poetry; literary criticism and theory; prose fiction; the nineteenth century; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: the British novel from Defoe with a special focus on Joyce, Conrad, Lawrence, Hardy, Forster, and Woolf; cultural criticism, especially the modernist tradition, including the relation between literature and the visual arts; 20th-century poetry, especially Wallace Stevens; Holocaust studies; literary theory; the changing nature of literary studies and the profession; Victorian poetry and Victorian studies; theory of the novel; American history and culture, with a special focus on New York City; media studies

Anna Shechtman

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American studies; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: American studies, cultural studies, literary criticism and theory, the twentieth century

Derrick R. Spires

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; American literature to 1865; American studies; the nineteenth century
• Research Interests: African American literature and culture, black print culture, African American intellectual history, pre-20th century American black speculative fiction, critical race studies, politics and aesthetics

Lindsay C Thomas

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: American studies; cultural studies; literary criticism and theory; the twentieth century
• Research Interests: 20th- and 21st-century American literature; digital media; digital humanities; literary sociology

Nafissa Danielle Thompson-Spires

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: fiction

Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: creative writing, 19th-century American literature, African American literature

Helena Maria Viramontes

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Creative Writing: creative writing
• Research Interests: creative writing

Lenora Warren

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: African American literature; American literature to 1865; American studies; prose fiction; women's literature
• Research Interests: Transatlantic literature, History of Race, History of Revolution, Abolition, Enslavement

Samantha Zacher

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: English Language and Literature: Old and Middle English
• Research Interests: Old and Middle English literature; manuscript studies; rhetoric; studies in orality and literacy; history of the English language