Carleton’s PhD English program recognizes the shaping power of cultural context for understanding the production of literature. It is devoted to the study of the production, circulation and reception of texts within and across established fields, historical periods and genres. It addresses questions about what people understand by the idea of literature in different times and places and why it matters; about who should have access to literature, either as readers or writers; about the power of literature to forge communities and, in doing so, to be a force for change; and about how these issues are mediated by the shaping influence of broader legal, technological, political and social contexts.
A collaborative Specialization in African Studies is available.
Capital Advantage
Our students benefit both research-wise and career-wise from the wealth of institutions that are located in Canada’s capital city. Ottawa is home to government departments, foreign embassies, many non-governmental associations, research institutes, and arts organizations.
Fields of Specialization
- Production of Literature
Faculty Research Highlights
- Sarah Brouillette. Author of UNESCO and the Fate of the Literary (Stanford UP, 2019)
- Travis DeCook. Author of The Origins of the Bible and Early Modern Political Thought: Revelation and the Boundaries of Scripture (Cambridge UP, forthcoming 2021)
- Paul Keen. Author of A Defence of the Humanities in a Utilitarian Age: Imagining What We Know, 1800-1850 (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2020)
- Barbara Leckie. Author of Open Houses: Poverty, the Novel, and the Architectural Idea in Nineteenth-Century Britain (U Pennsylvania P, 2018)
- Jody Mason. Author of Home Feelings: Liberal Citizenship and the Canadian Reading Camp Movement (McGill Queen’s UP, 2019)
- Stuart J. Murray, Canada Research Chair in Rhetoric and Ethics. Co-Editor of Radical Sex Between Men (Routledge, 2018)
- Franny Nudelman. Author of Fighting Sleep: The War for the Mind and the U.S. Military (Verso, 2019)
- Andrew Wallace. Author of The Presence of Rome in Medieval and Early Modern Britain: Texts, Artifacts, and Beliefs (Cambridge UP, forthcoming 2020)