Resources for Current and Prospective Graduate Students
Graduate Schools and Applications
Graduate programs offering specializations in Children's Literature and Culture
- The New School University in New York City offers a Graduate Writing Program leading to a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) Degree with concentrations in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and writing for children.
- Hollins University in Roanoke, VA offers summer Master of Arts (M.A.) and M.F.A. programs exclusively in the study and writing of children's literature.
- Simmons College in Boston, MA offers an M.A. in children's literature, an M.F.A. in writing for children, as well as a dual-degree in Children’s Literature and Education (M.A./MAT) for students who wish to become certified as an elementary, middle, or high school teacher. The Simmons curriculum emphasizes historical and critical analysis, including feminist, ideological, and multicultural perspectives for those who are, or intend to be, involved in teaching, library services, publishing, writing, or related fields.
- The English Department at The University of Connecticut, Storrs, offers both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees with concentrations in children's literature. Small seminars provide a wide range of courses in major authors, periods, genres, literary criticism and theory, children's literature, rhetoric and composition theory, women's literature and creative writing. Interdisciplinary studies are encouraged and students may design special courses with individual professors.
- The English Department at Eastern Michigan State University offers an M.A. with an emphasis in children's literature.
- The English Department at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, TX offers an M.A. degree with a specialization in children's literature.
- The English department at the University of Florida in Gainesville offers both M.A. and Ph.d. programs with concentrations in children's literature and culture. The English graduate program at U of F is unique for the diversity of its course offerings and the flexibility in the design of its graduate programs. In addition to offerings in the traditional literary periods and Creative Writing, interdisciplinary areas of particular strength include film studies, media and technology studies, cultural studies, children’s literature and culture, rhetoric and composition, and postcolonial studies. The University of Florida is also home to the Center for the Study of Children's Literature and Culture, an interdisciplinary center based in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Members of the Center include faculty and researchers from the University community: teachers, librarians, media specialists, and others working directly with children, as well as artists and writers creating works for children in print and other media. U of F's Baldwin Library houses The Baldwin Collection of Historical Children's Literature one of the leading historical collections of children's literature in the country.
- Illinois State University's English department offers both the M.A. and Ph.D. in Children's Literature, and is one of the most established graduate programs in the field.
- The College of Education at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus offers both M.A. and Ph.d. programs in Literacy Education, emphasizing children's literature, English education, language arts, reading education, and writing education.
- San Diego State University's Department of English and Comparative Literature has a children's literature program which now offers an M.A. with a specialization in children's literature. SDSU will also soon be home to a National Center for the Study of Children's Literature.
- For students interested in studying in the UK, Roehampton University of Surrey offers an M.A. in Children's Literature as part of their Childhood Studies program, as well as opportunities to focus on children's literature and culture at the doctoral level. The University of Surrey Roehampton houses a number of special collections and archives in children's literature, and is home to The National Centre for Research in Children's Literature, which facilitates and supports research exchange in the field of children's literature.
- The University of Worcester's International Research Centre on Children's Literature, Literacy, and Creativity offers undergraduate and graduate programs with an interdisciplinary and international focus.
- The Cambridge/Homerton Research and Teaching Centre for Children's Literature has a
strong international focus and a special interest in historical and
sociocultural perspectives on children's literature. The Centre offers an undergraduate program in Children and Literature, MPhil and MEd programs in Critical Approaches to Children's Literature, as well as Ph.D. study in related areas
(children's and young adult literature, children's literature in
education, children's literature and childhood studies, children's reading,
multimediality and visual literacy, writing for children).. The Centre offers a research seminar series is
throughout the academic year, and also hosts the annual Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture.
English Graduate programs offering specializations in Victorian (or Nineteenth-Century) Literature and Culture
- King’s College London: The MA in Nineteenth-Century Studies at King’s College London is a new interdisciplinary degree that focuses on the history, literature, visual culture, built environment, and legacy of the nineteenth-century world. Taught by specialists from History, English and Geography, the program offers an exceptionally wide range of modules. Students take a core module called Doing Nineteenth-Century Studies, which introduces a range of topics and concepts based on themes such as “nation, state and empire,” “the country and the city,” and “representing the nineteenth century.” They also complete a 15,000 word research dissertation and can choose from more than 15 optional modules. Students can also work as an intern with key cultural and heritage organisations in London including English Heritage, the National Maritime Museum, the Museum of London Archaeology Service, the Post Office Museum and the Royal College of Surgeons Hunterian Museum. These internship projects are counted as part of the degree. Please visit the program's website for application details.
- The Centre for Studies in Literature at the University of Portsmouth is seeking applications from prospective PhD students and has particular strengths in Nineteenth-Century studies; it is affiliated to the Dickens Project (University of California) and is currently conducting research on figures associated with the South Coast including Dickens, Tennyson, Conan Doyle, and Swinburne.
- Indiana University (Bloomington, IN)
- University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE)
- University of Iowa (Iowa City)
- University of Washington (Seattle, WA)
- University of Florida (Gainesville, FL)
- Loyola University (Chicago, IL)
- University of Missouri-Columbia
- University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
- Wayne State University (Detroit, MI)
Graduate programs offering specializations in Digital Humanities and New Media
Academic Writing and Research
- The GradHacker website is a digital roundtable for discussion and advice on how to negotiate graduate school and hacks
and survival tips for grad life, whether this be how to use a new learning
management system for teaching, new ways to organize tweets for networking, methods
for dealing with committees, new technologies to help with dissertation
writing, strategies for being a teaching assistant, or even ways to get exercise.
Advice on Academic Writing: This excellent collection of resources from the University of Toronto offers practical advice on academic writing issues commonly faced by students, including Planning & Organizing; Reading & Researching; Using Sources; Specific Types of Writing; Style & Editing; Grammar & Punctuation.
- Guide to integrating and citing quotations
- Using literary quotations from the UW Madison Writer's Handbook
- Writing a bibliography using MLA Style
- Using MLA format from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
- University of Wisconsin's Online Writing Handbook
includes a guide to MLA style as well as information on academic writing and research issues from thesis statements to quoting, paraphrasing and documentation.
- The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing: This site is the online version of a new writing primer, developed by Michael Harvey (a professor at Washington College in Maryland), that will be of great help to many students who find themselves grappling with writing college-level assignments and papers. The homepage for the guide contains hypertext links to various sections, including those dealing with style, structure, evidence, and paper mechanics. From the main page, students can access any of the primer's many sections quickly, such as those dealing with the use of the historical present, finding a voice, and nominalizations. All of these sections are complemented by a profuse number of examples that illustrate the different writing tools and potential pitfalls that students may encounter (from The Internet Scout Report).
Teaching Resources
- The GradHacker website is a digital roundtable for discussion and advice on how to negotiate graduate school and hacks
and survival tips for grad life, whether this be how to use a new learning
management system for teaching, new ways to organize tweets for networking, methods
for dealing with committees, new technologies to help with dissertation
writing, strategies for being a teaching assistant, or even ways to get exercise.
- An excellent annotated bibliography of pedagogy resources from the University of Toronto.
- Information on putting together a teaching dossier from the University of Minnesota and the University of Wyoming.
- An annotated collection of pedagogy Web resources for teachers of English and language arts, primarily directed towards K-12 teachers, but with some useful information for university-level teachers.
- The Voice of the Shuttle archive of courses, syllabi, and other teaching materials.
Professional Resources
- The GradHacker website is a digital roundtable for discussion and advice on how to negotiate graduate school and hacks
and survival tips for grad life, whether this be how to use a new learning
management system for teaching, new ways to organize tweets for networking, methods
for dealing with committees, new technologies to help with dissertation
writing, strategies for being a teaching assistant, or even ways to get exercise.
- A History of English Studies website developed by Rita Raley, U. California Santa Barbara, while a graduate student at UCSB. The page includes fully searchable primary documents on by Thomas B. Macaulay; John Henry Newman; Adam Sedgwick; Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett; Mary Wollstonecraft; Raymond Williams; Gayatri Spivak; Gauri Viswanathan; D.J. Palmer; Chris Baldick; Franklin Court; Brian Massumi; Avital Ronell; and others.
- Modern Language Association (MLA): You're probably already familiar with MLA style guidelines for documenting research papers, but the organization's Web site also offers a searchable guide to doctoral programs in English language and literature, a searchable index of job listings in English, and information on the annual convention.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education: news, information, and job listings for college and university graduate students, faculty members and administrators
- The online journal Inside Higher Ed offers news, opinion and career advice and services for all of higher education including graduate students, faculty, and administrators.
- The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). NCTE's mission is "to advance teaching, research, and student achievement in English language arts at all scholastic levels"; one of its journals, College English, is available on-line through the UMD Library.
- Preparing Future Faculty: The Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program is a national movement to transform the way aspiring faculty members are prepared for their careers. PFF programs provide doctoral students, as well as some master’s and postdoctoral students, with opportunities to observe and experience faculty responsibilities at a variety of academic institutions with varying missions, diverse student bodies, and different expectations for faculty.
- Humbul: Oxford University's searchable catalogue of online humanities resources.
- Braintrack University Index: links to university home pages (world-wide).