You can find our new PhD program template and course descriptions below.
| First Semester | |||
| Course Code | Course | Cr. | ECTS |
| EL 68A | Required Course: Proseminar | 4 | 10 |
| EL | Elective WLL Special Topics Course(EL 68B: Sp. Top.: Pol. & Poe. of Literary Form) |
4 | 10 |
| EL | Elective WLL Special Topics Course(EL 68C: Sp. Top.: Lyric and Gender) |
4 | 10 |
| Second Semester | |||
| Course Code | Course | Cr. | ECTS |
| EL | Elective WLL Special Topics Course(EL 68P: Sp. Top.: Poetry and the Self) |
4 | 10 |
| EL | Elective WLL Special Topics Course (EL 68R: Sp. Top.: Postmodern Fictions) |
4 | 10 |
| EL | Elective WLL Special Topics Course(EL 68S: Sp. Top.: Melancholy and Literature) |
4 | 10 |
| Third Semester | |||
| Course Code | Course | Cr. | ECTS |
| EL | Elective WLL Special Topics Course(EL 68T: Sp. Top.: Tragic Visions in British and American Drama) |
4 | 10 |
| EL | Elective WLL Special Topics Course OR an Elective Non- WLL Course(EL 69A) |
4 | 10 |
| EL 689 | Studies in English Literature | 1 | 5 |
| EL 790 | Doctoral Dissertation | 0 | 120 |
| Total | 29 | 205 | |
PhD COURSES
SPRING 2021
EL 68P: Sp. Top.: Poetry and the Self
Instructor: Cihan Yurdaün
Syllabus:
Course Description:
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EL 68R: Sp. Top.: Postmodern Fictions
Instructor: Naz Bulamur
Syllabus: EL 68R.01 Course Syllabus
Course Description:
This course will examine postmodern fictions written in a period beginning in the 1960’s continuing to the present. We could also call such texts as ‘metafictions’—that is, texts which foreground, even insist, on their textual status. We will examine how experimental novels lay bare their own fictionality, challenge our traditional reading strategies, and also blur boundaries between story telling and truth telling. As Linda Hutcheon writes in A Poetics of Postmodernism, history, like fiction, is not objective, and that both storytellers and historians narrate selective and impartial accounts of the past. Indeed, autobiography, story, theory, and history are merged as Julia Kristeva revisits Byzantine history, Kurt Vonnegut questions the bombing of Dresden at the end of World War II, and Lynne Tillman portrays the 1980s Turkey in her fragmented travel narrative. The study of postmodern fictions will also enable us to explore how contemporary writers use innovative narrative techniques to reflect on ideologies of race, ethnicity, and gender. Essays of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Raymond Federman, John Urry, and Hélène Cixous will compliment and enrich our discussions of the novels.
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EL 68S: Sp. Top.: Melancholy and Literature
Instructor: Hande Tekdemir
Syllabus: EL 68S.01 Course Syllabus
Course Description:
Starting with Freud’s theorization of melancholy as the inability to come to terms with loss, we will engage in this class with a number of mid- and late nineteenth century literary texts which exemplify melancholic reactions to the modern age. Taking melancholy as a pathological condition of being modern, we will consider how these texts deal with “loss” that has been brought about by the modern world and how they challenge some of the foundational premises of modern society.
The long nineteenth century has witnessed major changes because of industrialization, urbanization, and colonization of other lands, which generated different perceptions of time and space. While studying a number of texts produced during this exciting, if traumatic, period, we will pay particular attention to various “restless” literary figures such as the flâneur, the detective, the vampire, the traveler, and the underground man who are critical of modernity and who do not feel themselves at home in their rapidly changing environment.
As we focus on the relationship between nineteenth-century literary modernity and melancholy, and examine an eclectic group of literary figures and tropes, we will engage with the following major questions: What does it mean to be modern? What is melancholic about it? How does literature function as a means of resistance and/or conformity to the modern world? In the readings scheduled before the spring break, we’ll take melancholy as a historical, political, cultural condition in our discussion of urban melancholy, cultural belatedness and racial melancholia, among others. After the break, we’ll take melancholy as a primarily “affective” phenomenon in our dscussion of Gothic fiction and neo-Victorian fiction, which will be accompanied by theoretical readings on gender theory and trauma theory.
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FALL 2021
EL 68T:Tragic Visions in British and American Drama
Instructor: Aslı Tekinay
Syllabus:
Course Description:
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EL 69A : This is a tutorial course designed to focus on a specific literary movement or text or author/poet/dramatist for a detailed analysis. Topics vary from year to year.
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EL 689: Studies in English Literature