Why Study With Us - Graduate Programs

We are a large and diverse department, with internationally-recognized strengths in many fields, including Canadian Literature, Cultural Studies, English literature, American Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Modernism. We encourage innovative, interdisciplinary research, and we have a vibrant intellectual climate, bolstered by several speaker series and visiting lecturers.

Our department is consistently ranked as one of the top Canadian graduate programs in English, and a recent international unit review team concluded:

"This is where you come if you want to do innovative work."

The advantages of Graduate Studies in our Department at the U of A right now are great. We have excellent internal funding packages and a very high success rate for external funding. We offer all incoming students funding packages, with minimum annual $30,000 for PhD students and $20,000 for MA students. We have very high success rates for SSHRC and other major scholarships: many of our PhD students hold a major external award, including Vanier and Trudeau scholarships.

We support student travel for research and conferences, and we have innovative program structures that allow students to pursue exciting and original research. We have an active and very supportive Graduate Students of English Collective, and a department culture that values graduate student participation.

Edmonton, a lively city of one million people dubbed "the festival city" for its many arts festivals, is one of the most affordable large cities in the country and is laid out around a beautiful river valley.

We are offering an MA in English, both Course-Based, and Thesis-Based, and the PhD in English. Applications open this year on October 1, 2022 and close on January 15, 2023. On the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research web site, you can find information for prospective students, about web-based applications, tuition, fees, cost of living, and about general issues pertaining to studying at the U of A and living in Edmonton.

Want to know what former graduates have to say about the Graduate Program in English? Check out testimonials by our graduates.

Please feel free to contact the Graduate Advisor (humgrad3@ualberta.ca), or the Associate Chair, Graduate Studies (efsgrad@ualberta.ca) if you have any questions about our graduate program.