Postgraduate Study
PhD/MPhil American Studies
With our outstanding collection of Americana, we are pleased to
offer the research degrees of MPhil and PhD on a full- or part-time
basis.
In history, our principal areas of expertise are immigration;
war and 20th-century American society; the culture and
history of the 1930s; and history on film. In literary and cultural
studies, the main areas of research activity include poetry;
Modernist and Postmodernist aesthetics; women's writing; and the
visual arts - cinema, painting, photography, sculpture,
architecture.
The best indication of how the interaction of our small unit
works to the advantage of our students, lies in the work of our
recent PhD candidates. The fertile crossing of disciplinary borders
is apparent in projects such as "How Can One Tell the Truth About
My Lai?" - a recent dissertation examining how historians,
novelists, journalists, filmmakers, and the United States Army
itself, have examined and sought to ‘explain' and represent the
massacre that occurred in March 1968 in the Vietnamese hamlet of My
Lai in Vietnam. Another recent student drew upon cultural studies,
gender studies and political history to analyze the Cold War
constructions of masculinity in Marvel Comics, 1961-76.
More traditional, but no less impressive, are past and
current projects on: the Republican Party and the Civil Rights
movement; the Anglican Church in the Cold War era; the
representation of Progressivism in American periodicals;
Postmodernist women novelists; the effects of the Great Depression
in Delaware; Moral Optimism in post-war American fiction; Women
photographers in the 1930s; the poetry of Charles Bukowski; and the
historical significance of the National Association for the
advancement of Colored People.
Many of our successful candidates have subsequently become
lecturers at a wide range of universities and colleges including
Cambridge, Liverpool, Stirling, Bangor, Plymouth and Manchester.
Others have entered teaching, publishing, arts administration and
broadcasting.
Applicants for MPhil and PhD degrees are asked to submit a
detailed proposal for research (a few pages of description and a
brief indicative bibliography) together with examples of their
written work (approximately 5,000 words on any pertinent subject).
At least two members of staff with appropriate expertise will read
this material independently and confer, to ensure that proposals
for research are viable from the outset. Once admitted, you are
allocated a specialist as supervisor who remains responsible for
your academic progress and well-being throughout the period of
study. If you want to discuss ideas before drawing up a formal
proposal, please contact the department for advice.