OU's English Graduate Program offers a vibrant intellectual community with specializations in literary and cultural studies, rhetoric and writing, and creative writing.
Oklahoma’s graduate program in Literature and Cultural Studies (LCS) prepares students to become scholar-practitioners in the study of Global, British and American literary traditions. We emphasize historical and thematic breadth and conceptual depth in literary studies. For PhDs, we invite applications in Native American Literary and Cultural Studies (NALCS), especially, as this has been our area of strength. We invite MA applications in any area of interest. Our professors represent the diversity of the field, covering the different historical periods in national and global literatures, and also researching aesthetic and genre theory, indigenous, de-colonial and post-colonial studies, environmental humanities, and cultural studies, among others. Recent courses demonstrating this breadth, include:
Beyond the classroom, some faculty serve as editors of academic journals:
New graduate students work closely with their faculty advisors to develop a unique program of study, both at the PhD and MA levels. Several of our PhD students have been successful in getting tenure track jobs
Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Oklahoma History, Historical Fiction, Early Modern Women Writers.
Check out Professor Askew's upcoming publication of six short stories, The Hungry and the Haunted: Stories.
Postcolonial, Global and World Literature, Environmental Humanities; Cultural Studies.
Check out Professor Baishya's latest chapter in The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial and Decolonial Literature. "Riddles of Sand: Storied Matter and Local Planetarity in Jatin Mipun’s 'Tarun Peguk Agom'"
Energy humanities; ecocriticism; Indigenous and Latinx studies; American literature, disability studies; fiction and poetics; early film; theories of migration and diaspora.
Check out Professor Gomez’s recent article on the intersection of energy access and political power in “The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Tracing Mexican American Environmental Concerns in María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don"
Poetry Writing, Fiction Writing, Creative Nonfiction Writing, Writing for Creative Publication, Early African American Literature, Blues Poetics, and Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century African American Literature.
Check out Professor Honorée Fanonne Jeffers' lauded debut novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.
African and African diaspora literary and cultural studies, postcolonial studies, decolonial theory and film studies, Global South studies, African cinema and literature, Caribbean literature and film, African American literature and film.
Check out Professor Keresztesi’s recent publications Literary Black Power in the Caribbean: Fiction, Music and Film and the co-edited The Western in the Global South
Early modern literature; Shakespeare; law and literature; history of political thought; theater history; rhetoric and poetics; political theory; social history.
Check out Professor Mansky's recent publication: Libels and Theater in Shakespeare's England: Publics, Politics, Performance.
Nineteenth-century American literature; twentieth-century American literature; literary theory.
Check out Professor William Henry McDonald's profile to learn more about his teaching and research interests, including his critical publications.
American Indian literature; literary criticism and theory; film.
Check out Professor Nelson's monograph Progressive Traditions: Identity in Cherokee Literature and Culture, published by The University of Oklahoma Press.
Twentieth-century literature; literature and medicine; critical theory; semiotics.
Check out Professor Schleifer's new, open-access publication, Literary Studies and Well-Being: Structures of Experience in the Worldly Work of Literature and Healthcare.
Nineteenth-century literature (especially poetry and non-fiction), aestheticism and decadence, Pre-Raphaelite art and poetry, twentieth-century poetry, aesthetic theory, genre theory.
Check out Professor Sider's monograph, Parting Words: Victorian Poetry and Public Address.
Poetry, Poetics and Aesthetics, Native American Literature, Diné Literature.
Check out Professor Skeets' award winning collection, Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers.
African American literature and culture; Africana studies; Cold War culture; Comparative Literature; Literary Theory.
Check out Professor Tolliver’s book on the Cold War and African diaspora literature, Of Vagabonds and Fellow Travelers.
World literature (early, 20th-century, and contemporary), world cinema, postcolonial studies, North American studies, translation studies.
Check out Professor Tolliver’s book The Quebec Connection: A Poetics of Solidarity in Global Francophone Literatures.
American Indian rhetorics, literatures, critical theories, gender studies
Check out Professor Wieser's recent co-edited NCTE/CCCC Cross-Caucus Symposium written with Ersula Ore and Christina V. Cedillo.
Cultural rhetoric studies; post-45 American literature; Cold War culture; Civil Rights Movement; literary and critical theory; queer theory; the graphic novel; environmental literature, ecocriticism, and the new materialism
Check Out Professor Zeigler's most recent book Red Scare Racism and Cold War Black Radicalism.
For other questions contact our graduate program liaison Brenda Mackey (bmackey@ou.edu) or director of graduate study Dr. Sandra Tarabochia (sltarabochia@ou.edu).
Also, be sure to check out our English Graduate Studies FAQ, here.
