20 Archive: Former Exam Areas & Reading Lists

In the fall of 2025, the English Graduate Committee agreed to significant revisions in the graduate exam process. These revisions featured 1) allowing directed readings to be used for examination prep, 2) consolidating the standard areas available for exams from 17 to 12, and 3) revising the suggested Reading Lists that accompany each exam area.

We have archived the outdated lists from the previous system here:

1. Old & Middle English reading list (obsolete)
2. Early Modern British Literature: 1500-1660, including Milton reading list (obsolete)
3. Restoration and 18th c. British Reading List (obsolete)
4. Nineteenth-Century British Literature:
   1. Romantics Reading List (obsolete)
   2. Victorian Reading List (obsolete)
5. Twentieth Century British Reading List (obsolete)
6. Early American to 1830 Reading List (obsolete)
7. American Lit 1830-1910 reading list (obsolete)
8. American 1910-present Reading List (obsolete)
9. Criticism & Critical Theory reading list (obsolete)
10. Composition, Language, and Rhetoric Reading List (obsolete)
11. Children and Young Adult Reading List (obsolete)
12. Linguistics Reading List (obsolete)
13. Popular Culture and Film Studies:
    1. Popular Culture reading list (obsolete)
    2. Film Studies reading list (obsolete)
14. Anglophone Reading List (obsolete)
15. Folklore reading list (obsolete)

These reading lists may be used for research and study purposes. Students wishing to take exams in retired areas must secure their own examiners among graduate faculty.

Find the former Guidelines for PhD Exams 2020 (obsolete) here. 

Recording of 2020 Prelim Exam Panel (information obsolete)