Degree Requirements

All PhD students are required to pass two qualifying examinations, each of which has a different deadline and objective.

Major Field

The Major Field examinations can be taken in areas defined by period, nation, genre, or special subject. One’s “Major Field” should be thought of as “the literature in which one wants to specialize and about which one will have something of significance to say/write.” It holds much of the literature one will teach and continue to study over the length of a career. A “Major Field” is one’s ground.

Major Field Reading Lists

There are basic reading lists for fields available in the Programme Office. These basic lists may be modified to suit the interests of individual candidates. A substitution of 20% is permitted for all reading lists for the purposes of tailoring the lists to the interests of the student and for working around texts the student may already know well. Such substitutions are to be determined by agreement between the candidate and the candidate's Chief Examiner and are subject to approval by the Graduate Study Committee.

Period

(mainly, but not only, British):
Medieval Literature* (to 1500) medieval reading list (.docx)
Renaissance Literature (1485 to 1660) renaissance reading list (.docx)
Restoration & 18th Century Literature (1642 to 1798) restoration reading list (.pdf)
Romantic Literature (1789 to 1840) romantic reading list (.docx)
Victorian Literature (1832 to 1901) victorian reading list (.docx)
Modern Literature (1885 to 1950) modern reading list (.docx)
Contemporary Literature (1945 to present) contemporary reading list (.pdf)
*Students are advised that an introductory graduate course or, at the least, an upper-level undergraduate course in Old English, is deemed to be an almost essential preparation for the Medieval field and examination.

Nation

Canadian Literature Canadian reading list (.docx)
Post Colonial & Diasporic Literature post colonial reading list (.pdf)
U.S. Literature Before 1900  pre 1900 reading list (.pdf)
U.S. Literature After 1900 post 1900 reading list (.pdf)
World Literature reading list option i (.docx) | reading list option ii (.docx)

Subject

Theory theory reading list (.pdf)
Drama drama reading list (.docx)
Poetry poetry reading list (.docx)
Prose Narrative prose narrative reading list (.pdf)

Students begin reading for their Major Field in their first term and take the examination in their sixth term.  They prepare for the examination by working with a specialist supervisor in the field, meeting from time to time as agreed to discuss the works on a prepared reading list.

Examinations in the First Field

Candidates take the Major Field examination in Term 5 (end of winter term, Year II). The examination has two parts, written and oral. The written exam comprises two half-day sittings and is followed, normally within one week, by a two-hour oral examination. In the examination, candidates will be expected to demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of the designated field as well as an original, critical understanding of the field and its constitutive texts. The written examination contains questions concerning generic, historical, critical, and theoretical issues pertinent to the field. The oral examination comprises questions formulated in relation to the candidate’s written answers. Impromptu follow-up questions ensue. Generally, candidates are asked to move from their written responses to other texts on the list, so as to demonstrate truly comprehensive knowledge.

Dissertation Subfields

The purpose of this examination is to capitalize on the knowledge and ideas gained during the Major Field examination process and subsequently, so that students can work with supervisors to clarify fields of inquiry and areas of knowledge useful for developing the scope, character, and goals of their dissertations. Students work with three professors to isolate three sub-fields and crucial texts that will help generate and further develop ideas of sufficient significance for exploration in a dissertation. The goal is to generate lists of texts that will fuel students’ creativity and encourage them to generate significant terms of exploration within sub-fields deemed necessarily useful for the dissertation subject. The lists do not purport to be “comprehensive” of a field, but rather to a necessary initiation to productive sub-fields that will help the student to clarify the direction and goals of the dissertation.

To capitalize on the fresh knowledge of the Major Field, and to prevent students from losing energy and generally tarrying, the Dissertation Subfield examination must be completed by the end of Term 7 (the end of fall term, Year III). Enrollment in the Dissertation Proposal Seminar follows immediately in Term 8, winter of Year III).

Reading Lists

• Three reading lists of approximately 20 texts, each representing fields of inquiry and areas of knowledge useful for developing the dissertation and proposal.
• By “text,” we mean the number of poems or articles deemed by field specialists as sufficiently representative of an author's work or period. As on some current field lists in the GPE, eight-to-ten lyric poems of some length add up to “one text,” for instance, as would three essays or articles.  A novel or a play (other than very short ones) would also constitute “one text.”
• A text cannot appear twice on any of the lists, including that of the Major Field.
• Lists are drawn up in consultation with a committee of professors whose areas of demonstrable teaching and/or research qualify them to supervise in those areas.
• In consultation with the supervising professors, students must also generate a brief rationale (up to one page, single-spaced) for their choice of fields and texts, articulating the kind of knowledge they seek to gain from the fields and texts, and to what end it will be put in the dissertation.  The rationale, therefore, proposes fields of inquiry, texts representative of those fields, the relation between texts within and across fields, and the relation of the fields themselves.  In colloquial terms, it articulates what one feels one needs to know in order to get a footing in the dissertation topic, and thus the rationale also suggests what one hopes to produce with and from these texts.  The lists and texts are not exhaustive, but they must be justified as necessary.

Examination in the Dissertation Subfields

• The supervising professors of the sub-field lists form the committee for the examination. The examining committee may or may become the dissertation supervisory committee.  The latter depends on the process and the product of the examination.
• The examination will consist of a single 2-hour oral exam, which will explore and assess the student’s knowledge of texts on lists, and his or her ability to generate arguments towards a thesis for the dissertation.
• Prior to the examination, the professors serving as the examining committee will agree to the types of questions to be asked of the student to best assess the extent and quality of his or her knowledge of the texts on the lists, while promoting the overall goal of exploring ideas to be developed in a dissertation.