Ph.D. in English

The Graduate Program in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln offers the Ph.D. for students interested in Literary and Cultural Studies, Creative Writing, and Composition and Rhetoric. Competitive assistantships at the Ph.D. level give students the opportunity to work with the Prairie Schooner, The Walt Whitman Archive, or The Cather Project, or to assist faculty who are planning national conferences or working on research projects. Teaching Assistantships, which are available to Ph.D. students and second-year M.A. students, give students the opportunity to teach first-year composition and other classes. See the Financial Aid section below for information on assistantships.

Program Details

The Ph.D. program offers a highly individualized program of study. Early in their studies, students choose a Supervisory Committee of four Graduate Faculty Fellows to advise them and help them shape their programs. With their committee members, students develop a program of coursework, two reading lists for their comprehensive exams, and plans to meet foreign language requirements. The Supervisory Committee also guides students in choosing and developing a dissertation topic and writing the dissertation. The Ph.D. program consists of 90 hours beyond the B.A. The usual program is 24-30 hours of coursework beyond the M.A., plus a maximum of 30 hours of dissertation credit. The department accepts up to 36 hours of M.A. credit as part of the Ph.D. degree.

Ph.D. in English with a Specialization in Creative Writing

As is true of all Ph.D. students, those specializing in Creative Writing develop a program of coursework, reading lists for two comprehensive exam areas, and plans to meet foreign language requirements in consultation with a self-selected Supervisory Committee. Students in Creative Writing write a creative dissertation, which can be a book of poetry, a collection of short stories, a novel, a collection of essays, or a multi-genre work.

For more detailed information about the Ph.D. Program:

Ph.D. Handbook

Ph.D. students have the option of earning an interdisciplinary specialization or graduate certificate on top of their departmental specialization. Interdisciplinary specializations can be earned in Ethnic Studies, Great Plains Studies, Nineteenth-Century Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies.  The English Department also offers two graduate certificates: the Certificate in the Teaching of Writing and the Digital Humanities Certificate.

Department Assistantships

Students who are admitted directly into the Ph.D. program with a B.A. are eligible for up to six years of funding. The funding for the first year will normally be a Research Assistantship as described above on the M.A. page of the website. The second and succeeding years of funding will be a Teaching Assistantship.

Students who enter the Ph.D. program with an M.A. or M.F.A. are eligible for up to five years of funding as Teaching Assistants. Teaching Assistants teach two sections of first-year composition each semester their first year of teaching. We support new Teaching Assistants with a required weeklong teaching workshop the week before classes begin and a seminar in Composition Theory and Practice in their first Fall semester. After their first year, some Teaching Assistants also have the opportunity to tutor in the Writing Center, while others are eligible to teach literature or creative writing courses. There are some opportunities for summer teaching as well.

Ph.D. students also have the opportunity for special assistantships with the Walt Whitman Archive, the monograph series Studies in Writing and Rhetoric, or as Associate Coordinator of the Writing Center.

Students who do not receive department assistantships on admission can compete for Renewable Teaching Assistantships after their first year in the program. Stipends and benefits are the same as for other Teaching Assistantships. Please note that the number of Renewable Teaching Assistantships we are able to award varies from year to year and that in a typical year not all Ph.D. students who apply for Renewable Teaching Assistantships are awarded them.

Assistantship Package

In the 2026-2027 academic year, the stipend for Teaching Assistants was $19,853 plus tuition remission (either out-of-state or in-state) for up to 12 hours each semester and 6 hours in the summer. The assistantships cover a large portion of the student health insurance premium, but do not cover books and student fees. We expect our 2027-2028 stipends to be at these levels with possibilities for slight increases.

Other Assistantships and Fellowships

Each year, the English Department awards several fellowships to graduate students. Ph.D. students are eligible for the following recruitment fellowships: Othmer Fellowships, Chancellor’s Doctoral Fellowships, Centennial Fellowships, Card Fellowships, Pulos Fellowships (awarded to students in nineteenth-century literature), McPhee Fellowships, and Edgren Tuition Fellowships. Ph.D. students are also eligible for the Van Sickle Fellowship in Creative Writing, Stuff Retention Fellowships, and Stuff Dissertation Fellowships (which award the student a one course release from their TA duties). In their second year, Ph.D. students are eligible for fellowships through Graduate Studies.

Our Ph.D. students have also obtained assistantships that provide tuition remission plus a stipend in Women’s and Gender Studies, Graduate Studies, Student Involvement, the Great Plains Quarterly, and the journal Great Plains Research. Others teach at local community and four-year colleges.