Graduate Program Brochure - Printable Version (Handout)
The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is one of the nine major
research campuses of the University of California, the other eight of which are
located in Berkeley (UCB), Davis (UCD), Irvine (UCI), Los Angeles (UCLA),
Riverside (UCR), San Francisco (UCSF), Santa Barbara (UCSB), and Santa Cruz (UCSC).
A tenth campus is being developed in Merced.
The 1,200-acre campus of UCSD overlooks the Pacific Ocean from the coastal
bluffs of La Jolla in southern California. Famous for its sandy beaches and
year-round temperate climate, La Jolla lies fifteen minutes from downtown San
Diego (population 1.2 million), forty minutes from the border with Mexico, and
ninety minutes from greater Los Angeles.
Founded in 1960, UCSD now has approximately 20,000 students and 1,600 faculty.
Its numerous research consortiums include the Institute for Global Conflict and
Cooperation, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Center for
U.S.–Mexican Studies. The ten UCSD libraries house 2.9 million volumes, and its
researchers draw freely from the entire UC library system, which has holdings of
30 million volumes easily accessible by a coordinated computer network.
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The Department of Literature
The Department of Literature at UCSD bases itself on the premise that it is
necessary in today’s global environment to pursue literary research—even
traditionally focused Ph.D. research—in a linguistically and culturally diverse
academic setting.
Founded over forty years ago, the single Department of Literature gathers
together a group of scholars, critics, and writers committed to research and
debate on international and trans-disciplinary issues. The department’s
organization is unusual in that it is neither a department of English nor a
department of Comparative Literature as either is traditionally construed.
Rather, from its beginning, the Literature Department at UCSD has aimed to be a
department of world literatures and cultures within a single unit. We are
committed to the multilingual historical study of the connections and conflicts
between cultures and society. Teachers, scholars, writers, and students working
in different linguistic and cultural areas have been brought together by the
belief that contemporary scholarship—and the scholarship of the future—cuts
across disciplinary boundaries.
Today, the Department of Literature continues as a vibrant scholarly community
devoted to the research of textual issues in different languages and cultural
traditions. Its faculty includes over 50 professors who teach and conduct
research in Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Italian,
Korean, Latin, Russian, and Spanish. We also offer a concentration in
composition and a new M.F.A. in Writing. We
enroll approximately 15–20 students in our Ph.D. program each year, meaning that at any given time there are
some 100–120 graduate students at various stages of their studies. The program
strives to provide our students with an exciting and comfortable setting for
individualized study, to foster their personal intellectual interests, and to
prepare them for teaching positions in a rapidly changing profession.
In their course of study, students may concentrate in one language, but they
approach their work from the wider—and occasionally conflicting—perspectives of
comparative literature, critical theory, and cultural studies. The spectrum of
research within the Department of Literature extends widely from feminist,
multicultural, and historical concerns to more formalist and aesthetic
approaches. It was emblematic of
the department to have a philosopher, Herbert Marcuse, co-teach its seminar on
Surrealism in the 1960s; and since then Jean Baudrillard, Judith Butler, Michel
de Certeau, Umberto Eco, Jean Franco, Fredric Jameson, Ania Loomba, Jean
François Lyotard, Louis Marin, Jean-Luc Nancy, Edward Said, and Sylvia Wynter
(to name just a few) have been visitors or colleagues at UCSD.
Whatever its particular emphasis, graduate study in the Department of Literature
at UCSD is invariably involved in what has come to be categorized in academic
departments as “theory.” Because theory is understood to be inseparably tied to
specific geo-historical contexts as well as such transnational processes as
modernity, colonialism, and globalization, graduate students are expected to
work in two or more languages. Thus all graduate students in literature are
required to develop the ability to read and—when appropriate—to follow seminar
discussions in a second (or third) language. Graduate work also routinely
involves research in social, economic, or political history, as well as
philosophical, linguistic, or semiotic studies. Students draw on the
considerable resources of the large and diverse faculty in literature, and are
also encouraged to reach out to other departments and interdisciplinary programs
on campus.
The theoretical diversity of the Department of Literature is grounded in the
concern of its members with ongoing, open-ended questions. Is there an idea of
“literature” shared among various cultures and languages? How are ideas of
literature inherited or transferred between various cultures and languages? Are
histories of literature now directing us to a world of texts beyond our
traditional geographies? Does the study of literature within global or
transnational frameworks revise accepted notions of styles and genres, of texts
and historical contexts, or periods, canons, and genders? The introductory
sequence taken by all entering Ph.D. students explores many of these questions,
which are also often addressed in courses throughout the department,
particularly those offered under the rubrics of Cultural Studies and Theory.
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The Ph.D. in Literature
The Department of Literature grants the degree of Ph.D. in Literature to
emphasize the transnational outlook of its program and its stake in theoretical,
interdisciplinary, and cultural studies.
Students in the Ph.D. program begin with formal course work and develop toward
independent research. The first three years of doctoral study are devoted to
seminars and independent studies, and culminate in the student’s advancement to
candidacy. Because the Ph.D. program has strong comparatist and theoretical tendencies, all language requirements must be
satisfied by the end of the third year of study, while qualifying examinations
are expected to display an appropriate interdisciplinary or comparatist
component.
The fourth and the fifth years are devoted to the research and writing of the
doctoral dissertation. Upon the successful defense of the dissertation, the
student is awarded the Ph.D. in Literature.
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Sections and Areas of Concentration
Although doctoral study at UCSD involves work throughout the department, many
graduate students center their research on traditional language areas, which are
represented in the various sections. An increasing number of graduate students
also work in areas of departmental strength that cut across sectional
boundaries.
There are currently seven sections within the department: Comparative Literature
(including Italian, Classics, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), Cultural
Studies, Literatures in English, French, German, Spanish, and Writing.
Additional areas of strength include Chicano/a~Latino/a Studies, Composition,
European Studies, Film and Visual Cultures, Latin American Literary and Cultural
Studies, Medieval/Early Modern Studies, Transnational Africa/African Diaspora
Studies (including African American and Caribbean), and Transnational Asia/Asian
Diaspora Studies.
Prospective students apply to one of the seven sections, but should also
indicate in their statement of purpose if they have particular research
interests in one or more of the department’s additional areas of concentration.
Sections
- Comparative Literature
Students whose primary area of concentration lies within the Comparative
Literature Section commit themselves to the study of three languages and
literatures in the original. Various theoretical definitions of “Comparative
Literature” highlight a synchronic emphasis (e.g., “1592” in Britain, Spain,
and Flanders; existentialisms in Germany, France, and the U.S.), a
diachronic emphasis (e.g., the “I” in Renaissance perspective,
seventeenth-century philosophy, and nineteenth-century narrative), or a
transnational approach (e.g., East/West/North/South poetics; New Wave
cinemas in France, Germany, Japan, and the U.S.). Theory, histories of
literary criticism, and aesthetics also form part of the discipline’s focus.
The Comparative Literature Section also houses student and faculty groups
that work in languages such as Chinese, Classics (Greek and Latin), Hebrew,
Italian, Japanese, and Russian, which are not administered by autonomous
sections.
The Classics group welcomes students with comparative interests who study
classical Greek and Latin literature in conjunction with a focus in a modern
literature. The Classics faculty is committed to studying ancient culture in
relation to modern critical theory (feminism, cultural studies, and other
approaches), as well as in a comparative context, and offers one or two
seminars a year. Graduate courses in Classics are also offered in the
Departments of Philosophy, History, Visual Arts, and Theatre and Dance.
Faculty from UCSD participate in an intercampus Ph.D. Program in Classics in
conjunction with UC Irvine and UC Riverside.
- Cultural Studies
The Cultural Studies and
Critical Theory Section offers graduate students the opportunity to study
various theoretical approaches as well as “culture” from a materialist
perspective within the comparative context of several traditions of language
and literature. A Cultural Studies project may locate its inquiry within a
single national and historical context (e.g., nineteenth-century U.S.
culture), or it may consider the forms and practices generated by the
encounter between two or more cultural entities. Culture, broadly defined,
is approached as a set of historically specific practices that include
literary, aesthetic, visual, performative, juridical, and a variety of
“popular” forms and articulations.
- Literatures in English
While our focus remains on
writing produced in Britain and the U.S., as its title is meant to imply,
the Literatures in English Section encourages study of Anglophone writing in
a global and multicultural context. UCSD’s comparative emphasis offers
several advantages for the study of literatures in English. By actively
studying in a second (and even a third) literature, students are in a unique
position to explore theoretical currents and critical modes within and
beyond the English-speaking world, and to evaluate claims for the uniqueness
of its national literary traditions. It is not uncommon, for example, for
students working in early modern English drama to draw upon Spanish and
French, as well as English exploration narratives in the New World, or for a
student of American modernism to work with congruent developments in the
Caribbean or the Indian subcontinent. Traditionally, faculty members in the
Literatures in English Section have research and scholarly interests in
several fields, allowing the graduate student to work across national,
linguistic, and methodological borders.
- French
The French Section
pursues a double aim in its Ph.D. program. The first is to offer a
strong knowledge of literature and its cultural context from the Renaissance
through the twentieth century: this study covers metropolitan canonical
texts as well as more recent Francophone productions (African, Caribbean,
and immigrant literature). The second aim is to provide a diversity of
approaches, such as critical theory (from Marxism to poststructuralism),
historical contextualization, semiotic or psychoanalytic analysis, or
cultural perspectives, such as feminist or ethnic studies. Students
concentrating in French and Francophone studies work primarily with the
members of the French Section, and develop an individualized program of
study with teachers of their choice from all sections.
- German
The German Section
concentrates its teaching and research on German literature and culture from
the eighteenth century to the present, and cuts across traditional national
and disciplinary boundaries. Students with a primary concentration in German
combine seminars and directed research to address the fields, issues, and
interpretive approaches in which they have the greatest interest. By drawing
upon the faculty of the Department of Literature as a whole, as well as
other departments across campus, students can extend their work—if they so
choose—into film, theory, theatre, philosophy, or social history. The
freedom enjoyed by students working in German at UCSD permits them to
develop an interdisciplinary course of study geared to the future of
teaching and research in the broad field of German Studies.
- Spanish
The Spanish Section is committed
to the study of literature and culture in their material and political
context. The faculty encourages the use of a dialectical method that
combines formal analysis with a discussion of broader social issues.
Following in the footsteps of section founders such as Carlos
Blanco-Aguinaga, the Spanish Section continues its rich history of
scholarship and teaching in all areas of Spanish peninsular cultures ranging
from medieval to the early modern and contemporary periods. The section is
especially strong in its coverage of Latin American and U.S. Latino topics
(see Areas of Concentration). It is recommended that students conduct
research across disciplines and national boundaries, e.g. literatures of the
Americas or transatlantic studies. All students in the section will gain a
broad knowledge of a diverse range of Spanish-speaking traditions. Because
of the unique structure of the graduate program, seminars will expose
students to the latest trends in Latin American and European cultural
theory.
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Areas of Concentration
- Chicano/a ~Latino/a Studies
This concentration investigates
the cultural production of ethnic Mexican and other Spanish-speaking
communities in the United States. Spanning the period from the U.S.
occupation of northern Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century to the present
day, courses cover a wide range of objects such as literary writing,
testimonials, biographies, visual arts, music, film, and performance art.
While each faculty member has individualized approaches and interests, the
group shares a commitment to historical studies and textual analysis as well
as to bilingualism and community involvement. Within this general framework,
issues of class, gender, sexuality, immigration, race, social movements, and
religion complement the investigation of specific social and economic
contexts. Students are encouraged to historicize the present as well as the
past in order to understand contemporary objective conditions for
Spanish-speaking and indigenous communities in the United States.
Comparative studies of multiple U.S. ethnic groups as well as research on
transnational connections to Latin America are encouraged. Faculty members
collaborate closely with UCSD’s Chicano/a~Latino/a Arts and Humanities
Program, the California Cultures in Comparative Perspective Program, and the
Department of Ethnic Studies.
- Composition
An interdisciplinary
sub-specialization in composition and rhetoric is available to students
interested in theory and research on writing and teaching practices.
European Studies
The unusual structure of the
single Literature Department is particularly conducive to the comparative
study of literatures and cultures within Europe, and to the examination of
European traditions in global context, both past and present. The department
brings together scholars whose interests range from ancient Greece and Rome
to contemporary European culture. In recent years, faculty and graduate
students at UCSD have explored such issues as the role of minorities in
contemporary European culture, the cultural history of nation-formation and
European imperialism, race, class, and gender as intersecting categories of
European culture, and the emergence of film and other visual cultures within
modern Europe. The department is particularly strong in European
intellectual history and contemporary critical theory. Faculty either
specialize in particular national traditions (French, German, Italian,
Russian, Spanish) or pursue comparatist and/or interdisciplinary
literary and cultural studies. Hence prospective graduate students interested in European Studies may apply to sections in Comparative
Literature, Cultural Studies, French, German, or Spanish, depending on their
particular areas of interest.
- Film and Visual Cultures
The film studies group is
dedicated to comparative, interdisciplinary research on film, literature,
and visual culture in both national and transnational contexts. The faculty
offers courses on special topics in film history and national cinemas, such
as African, American, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Italian,
Russian/Soviet, as well as ethnic, diasporic, and regional cinemas such as
Asian and Asian American. The faculty explores film criticism and film
theory in relation to auteurs, genres, movements, and modes of
representation. Methods and issues span cultural historiography,
globalization, feminism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, psychoanalysis,
semiotics, as well as film and the other arts (music, painting, photography,
special effects, et al.).
- Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies
This concentration investigates the literatures, film,
oral traditions, music, and other forms of culture produced in Latin
America from the conquest through the present. Faculty members explore
these areas of cultural production in sociohistorical context and study the
relationship between the roduction/consumption of culture and the unequal
distribution of wealth and power in Latin America. The concentration also
investigates Latin American cultural and political relations with Spain and
encourages research on transatlantic topics. Recent graduate seminars and
faculty projects have focused on Latin American literary and cultural
theory, testimonio, film, the influence of indigenous cultures on the
narrative form of the twentieth-century Latin American novel, U.S.-Mexico
border culture and literature, and contemporary cultural critiques of the
free-market, neoliberal social order imposed in Latin America over the last
three decades. Faculty members are affiliated with the Department of Ethnic
Studies, the Center for U.S.–Mexican Studies, and the Center for Iberian and
Latin American Studies (CILAS).
- Medieval / Early Modern Studies
This concentration investigates
the cultural production of the late medieval and early modern periods. While
each faculty member has specific projects and interests, it may be said that
the group as a whole employs what has come to be called a cultural studies
approach to literature. Relevant aspects of contemporary theories of
literature, history, and culture are brought together in order to study
societies of the past, an approach that also allows consideration of these
paradigms within a range of different historical frameworks. Such an
approach acknowledges both the continuity and the alterity of cultural
formations of gender, sexuality, race, and class, thus challenging the
limits of traditional periodization schemes. An emphasis is placed upon the
historical conditions of possibility of texts and upon writing and
performance as material practices, as well as upon the relationship between
writing and other forms of symbolic production and exchange. We are
concerned to historicize the present as well as the past, to explore the
reciprocal pressures by which the past shapes the present and the present
reshapes the past. Please see the department web site for
a fuller description and list of faculty with
their research interests.
Transnational Africa / Black Diaspora Studies
The unusual structure of a single Department of
Literature is particularly conducive to the transnational and multilingual
study of the African diaspora, and in recent years the department has
developed growing strength in this area. Faculty explore how race,
ethnicity, and class function as component aspects of the ways in which we
investigate African and black diasporan literatures. Graduate seminars have
focused on such diverse topics as African oral narratives, relations between
early modern Europe and northern Africa, Francophone and Hispanic
literatures of the Caribbean, and various aspects of African American
literature and culture.
- Transnational Asia / Asian Diaspora Studies
In recent years, the Department
of Literature has been building considerable faculty expertise in the area
of “Asia,” broadly cast in terms of the comparative emphasis of the
department to include projects on cross-national, trans-Pacific, and
inter-Asian relations and on Asian diaspora cultures. The department has
offered graduate seminars that include such topics as globalization and
culture, diaspora studies, the cultures of U.S. wars in Asia, the cold war
and cultural memory, Chinese cinema, and Asian American fiction. An
increasing number of graduate students have originated multilingual
dissertation projects that draw on this knowledge.
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Financial Support
The Department of Literature
recognizes the need of most students for ongoing financial support. Financial
support is provided to doctoral students in the form of fellowships and
scholarships, tuition and fee scholarships, teaching and research
assistantships, dissertation fellowships, and other special awards. Students
entering the program with a B.A. may be supported for five years. Continuing
support depends upon the funds available, the number of students eligible, and
the rate of student progress. Students are eligible for financial support at
UCSD beginning with their first quarter.
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Student Teaching
To help its doctoral students prepare
for teaching careers, the Department of Literature requires apprentice teaching
for at least three quarters—although students generally choose to teach more.
Students may teach in literature, film, and language courses, as well as several
different writing programs and humanities lecture series across the UCSD campus.
Most teaching involves conducting discussion sections and related activities
under the guidance of a supervising professor. All apprentice teaching earns
academic credit while providing basic financial support.
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Job Placement
Since its inception in 1963 the Department of Literature has enjoyed success in
placing its graduates. Some of its former Ph.D. students are now tenured at such
institutions as the University of California (Davis, Los Angeles, Riverside, San
Diego, and Santa Cruz), Miami University (Ohio), the University of Michigan and
Michigan State University, the University of Mississippi, Ohio State University,
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), Rice University, the University of
Rochester, the University of Texas, the University of Washington, Washington
State University, and the University of Wisconsin.
Most recent graduates hold tenure-track positions at institutions such as Bryn
Mawr, California State University (Humboldt), Columbia University, Duke
University, the University of Iowa, the University of North Carolina (Chapel
Hill), Ohio State University, the University of Oregon, Princeton University,
Purdue University, Rutgers University, San Diego State University, the
University of Texas (Austin), the University of Utah, and the University of
Wisconsin (Madison). Other graduates hold full-time appointments at institutions
outside the U.S., including El Colegio de Mexico, the University of Padua, Rijks
University, the University of Trieste, the University of Wales, and Yonsei
University. The Department of Literature has long-standing relationships with
universities in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where many graduates in Comparative
Literature now teach.
The record of our Ph.D.s speaks clearly for the vigor and relevance of our
approach to graduate study. Their accomplishments often begin before they leave:
graduate students in the Department of Literature have started their publishing
careers in journals that include America Literature, boundary 2, Criticism, ELH,
ELR, New German Review, New Literary History, positions, Social Text, and South
Atlantic Quarterly. Many have delivered papers at professional conferences using
travel funds reserved by the department for this purpose.
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Applications and Handbooks
The following documents are available online:
Applications are due in December for the following fall quarter. The application
deadline can be found at http://literature.ucsd.edu/grad/gradappinfo.html.
Students applying to the Ph.D. program are required to submit
GRE scores (general test only) and writing samples. Ph.D. applicants should
demonstrate their knowledge of languages other than English, and clearly
indicate their intended fields of research.
For further information and
application materials, please write:
Graduate Studies Coordinator
The Department of Literature
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0410
La Jolla, CA 92093-0410
or call: (858) 534-3217
or email: litgrad@ucsd.edu
Nondiscrimination Statement
The University of California, in compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, does not discriminate on the basis of
race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or age in any of its
policies, procedures, or practices; nor does the university discriminate on the
basis of sexual orientation. This nondiscrimination policy covers admission and
access to, and treatment and employment in, university programs and activities,
including but not limited to, academic admission, financial aid, educational
services, and student employment. Inquiries regarding the university’s equal
opportunity policies may be directed to the campus compliance coordinator, (858)
534-0195.
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