English (Ph.D.) Program Details
Degree Requirements
❱ Required coursework
❱ Qualifying or comprehensive examination
❱ Graduate School writing proficiency requirement
❱ Graduate School Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) requirement
❱ Dissertation
❱ Final oral examination/Dissertation defense
Research Specializations
❱ African American literature
❱ American literature
❱ British literature
❱ Caribbean literature
❱ Comparative studies
❱ Literary theory and criticism
Research Resources
Graduate students in the program will not have to travel far to access the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC). The Center is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for documenting the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. Located just steps from Locke Hall, where graduate courses are offered, MSRC makes available a wide range of research resources chronicling the black experience. Graduate student researchers also have quick access to the Library of Congress, located just ten minutes from Howard University's campus. Students can also draw on extensive archival collections across the Consortium.
Research Areas & Interests
Faculty Areas of Expertise
| First Name | Last Name | Research Area & Interests |
|---|---|---|
| Carole | Boyce-Davies | African Diaspora Literatures; Black Feminist Theories; Black Women and Political Leadership; Autobiographies; and Literary and Cultural Theory |
| Yasmin | DeGout | 20th-century African American authors, with an interest in writers such as James Baldwin and Gloria Naylor, as well as the cultural production of the Danish West Indies/United States Virgin Islands |
| Sabrina | Evans | Nineteenth and early twentieth-century African American literature, focusing on African American women's writing, archives, and public activism. |
| Curdella | Forbes | Caribbean literature and its intersections with African American history. Historical literary analysis and cultural memory, particularly through the lens of freedom and representation. |
| David | Green | Protest literature and writing program administration, especially within HBCU contexts. The intersection of literacy, activism, and institutional narratives. |
| Barbara | Griffin | Writing and African American literature |
| Nkonko | Kamwangamalu | Multilingualism, language policy, and English-medium instruction in Africa. Linguistic inequalities and the sociopolitical dimensions of language planning across African nations |
| Emily | Kugler | Eighteenth century British and Transatlantic Literature; histories of enslavement, empire, literary/print networks; digital humanities; gender/queer studies; games studies |
| Corey | Lamont | Caribbean Literature and Writing |
| Kevin | Modestino | American Literature and Writing |
| Elisa | Oh | Race, gender, and performance in early modern English literature. Her current projects include a book on choreographies of race and gender and articles on Shakespearean pedagogy and archival research |
| Kenton | Rambsy | Data-driven literary analysis, focusing on African American fiction and digital humanities. His work includes mapping literary geographies and visualizing Black cultural production. |
| Sheshalatha | Reddy | Colonial and postcolonial Anglophone literatures; Black British literature; postcolonial theory; Marxist feminism; and environmental humanities |
| Hannah | Regis | Caribbean poetics, ecocriticism, and cultural resilience. Her research includes Indigenous healing, queer subjectivity, and decolonial narratives in Caribbean literature. |
| Susanna | Sacks | African literature; digital cultures and digital literature; sociology of literature; literature & economics; economic development and cultural production; poetry and theatre |
| Christopher | Shinn | American and Comparative Global Literatures |
| Marc | Singer | American modernism, postmodernism, and contemporary literature, comics and graphic novels, visual culture, critical theory |
| Greg | Thomas | African, African-American & African Diaspora Studies; Literatures of the Americas in English; Race & Empire and Black Radical Traditions; Body Politics, Gender & Sexuality Studies; Philosophy, Critical Theory, and Black Intellectual History |
| Alla | Tovares | Language ideologies, intertextuality, conflict discourse, language and food, and digital discourse |
| Alexander | Tulin | Cultural cycles and civilizational time, indicating a philosophical and historical approach to literary and cultural analysis |
| Dana | Williams | African American literary studies, editorial history, and cultural transformation. Her current book project traces the development of the field and Morrison’s editorial influence. |
| Jennifer | Williams | 20th and 21st Century African American and Diasporic Literature; Black Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Afrofuturism; and Film Adaptation |
| JaLa | Wourman | Digital Media & Technology; Digital Humanities; African American Rhetoric; Visual Rhetoric & Design; Professional Writing & Technical Communication; and Cultural Rhetoric |
Sampling of Research
A sampling of research interests
- Constructions of race in literature
- Intersectionality and queer theory
- Digital humanities and citizenship in the public sphere
- Celebrity life narratives as ideologically affective spaces
- Postcolonial issues of diaspora and globalization
- The rhetoric of health and medicine
- Environmental Humanities
- Tropes of disease, disfigurement, and disassociation in contemporary African American literature
- Representations of womanhood and Neo-anticolonialism in 21st-century literature
Program of Study*
CORE COURSES (33 CR)
*Includes 6 credit hrs of Required Introductory Courses and 27 credit hrs of Reading Courses.
Required Introductory Courses (6 CR)
ENGG 200 Research Methods
ENGG 201 Scholarship: Critical Methods
Reading Courses (27 CR)
British Literature** (9 CR)
**Students must take three courses (9 credits total) in British Literature; one course (3 credits) from each of the three periods in British Literature listed below.
Period I: Early Modern British Literature
ENGG 211/212 English Renaissance Literature I/II
ENGG 220/221 Restoration Literature I/II
Period II: 18th-and 19th-Century British Literature
ENGG 223/224 18th- and-19th-Century British Literature I/II
Period II: 20th-and 21st-Century British Literature
ENGG 228/229 20th and 21st-Century British Literature I/II
American Literature (6 CR)
ENGG 233/234 American Literature I/II
African American Literature (6 CR)
ENGG 248/249 African American Literature I/II
Caribbean Literature (6 CR)
ENGL 231/232 Caribbean Literature I/II
ELECTIVE COURSES (21 CR)
- One study course in a major field (3 CR)
- One elective course in a major field (3 CR)
- Five additional electives (15 CR)
RESEARCH SEMINARS (6 CR)
Research seminars or additional elective credits in place of research seminar courses
DISSERTATION (12 CR)
*Courses included in the sample program of study are subject to change. Students should consult with their programs regarding their required program of study.
Admission to Candidacy
Students are admitted to formal candidacy by the Graduate School when they have completed the required coursework, passed the qualifying or comprehensive examination, submitted an approved topic for research, and been recommended by the Department. Candidates must also have satisfied the Graduate School writing proficiency requirement and Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) requirement.
Graduate Funding
Admitted students may be eligible to compete for Graduate School competitive awards, which provide tuition remission and a stipend during the academic year. Additionally, graduate research or teaching assistantships may be available at the department level. Research assistants and teaching assistants work no more than 20 hours a week under the program's direction, usually in support of faculty research (research assistants) or in support of assigned courses (teaching assistants). Please see the Funding website for more detailed information.