The English Department’s four graduate focal areas in literary studies offer special opportunities for intellectual preparation and innovation to groups of graduate students and faculty members with shared commitments. The focal areas support fresh approaches to traditional fields and concerns of literary studies as well as thoughtful ways of investigating emerging cultural forms and practices. Building on the period-based expertise of graduate students and faculty members, the programming and coursework dedicated to the focal areas enable participants to become expert about topics and problems that cross periods, nations, and regions.
In the academy and the rest of the world, ideas about literature and how it matters have been changing. Expanded canons, ongoing developments in critical theory and cultural studies, new forms of interdisciplinary exchange, and the important transformations wrought by digital culture have revitalized literary studies. Grounded in literature’s long association with the history of writing and print and the cultural value of art, the graduate focal areas also prepare scholars and teachers to examine literature’s life across media and language’s activity in the world.
Pitt’s graduate focal areas are designed to be broad enough to accommodate a range of scholarly projects but specific enough to offer direct support for those projects in the form of coursework, programming, and intellectual community. We are a department that encourages thinkers to follow important questions where they lead rather than trying to fit them into familiar academic containers. The department has made a commitment to support faculty and graduate student preparation and innovation in the graduate focal areas so that graduate students whose interests align with one or more of the focal areas can count on supports for their scholarship and teaching.
To learn more about each focal area and its upcoming programming, browse its webpage on the Literature Program site:
Children’s Literature and Childhood Studies
Genealogies of Modernity: Medieval and Early Modern
Additional Information about the graduate focal areas:
- Applicants to the MA and PhD programs in Literature should identify the focal area that best fits their interests. As a Department we value interdisciplinary scholarship, and we have a long tradition of supporting excellent graduate students whose work cuts across our programs and focal areas. We expect most students will work beyond the areas of specialization they select in their application.
- The focal areas are based in the literature sector of the English Department’s MA and PhD programs, degree programs that also serve students working in comp-rhet, film, or combinations of these fields. However, the focal areas welcome faculty members and MA or PhD students who are based in comp-rhet or film as well as MFA students and Writing Program faculty. The focal areas also extend beyond the department, building on relationships with particular other programs and departments at the University of Pittsburgh.