Call for Applications:
Please inform any potentially interested undergraduate or MA.MS students looking to do (further) graduate work that we are inviting applications to the Graduate Program in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo for:
MA – Rhetoric and Communication Design
MA – Experimental Digital Media
PhD – Doctor of Philosophy Degree
Applications from domestic applicants will be reviewed starting 1 February 2024. Applications will be considered after this date.
Apply here: https://grad.apply.uwaterloo.ca/apply/
About Graduate Studies in English
Graduate study at UWaterloo English offers a broad range of options. Our MAs in Literary Studies, Rhetoric and Communication Design, and Experimental Digital Media allow you to focus on a specific area of intellectual, artistic, or professional interest while developing a broad base of knowledge in other critical fields. You can also take your MA as a co-op degree, mixing study and work experience. Our one-year MA degrees are fully funded, allowing students flexibility to study, work, and live in the Waterloo region.
Our PhD program will make you an agile scholar with expertise in multiple fields. If you want to work in the academy after your degree, our program has an enviable placement rate. If you want to continue on elsewhere, our graduates’ unique combination of knowledge and skills makes them sought after in business, industry, and the non-profit sector. Applicants enjoy 4 years of a fully funded program, and are often competitive recipients of prestigious scholarships such as the SSHRC Doctoral fellowship and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Our graduates have gone to hold positions both in and outside of academia.
You can read about our funding packages here.
The department’s faculty are internationally known scholars and innovative teachers whose research areas range from Middle English literature to postcolonial studies and from classical rhetoric to video game design. No matter what your interests, our professors will foster your development as a researcher and teacher. Our graduate students are a vibrant, active community who organize their own academic events and present their research at national and international conferences.
Recent courses offered in our programs include:
The Rhetoric of Algorithms
Ontologies for the Humanities
Figural Logic
The Trans Eighteenth Century
Computational Rhetoric
Critical Race Theory
The Anthropocene, Critical Theory, Race
Critical Design Methods
Modernism and Gender
Gothic Atmospheres
Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication
Click HERE to see more past courses and future courses
Graduate study in English at Waterloo is unique.
No matter if your interest is in rhetorical study, great works of literature, or digital media, Waterloo English offers an integrative experience in English Studies. We are one of the only departments in North America in which the study of literature is combined with the ancient tradition of rhetoric and the blossoming of new, radical perspectives that have accompanied the current digital revolution.
Our faculty cover all periods of British, American and Canadian, and Postcolonial literatures, and have a wide variety of expertise, from close historical study to new media to the rhetorical tradition, and use the most advanced theoretical and critical tools. The department is also home to a wide range of teaching and research in literature, rhetoric, writing, professional communication, and the creative and experimental use of digital media.
Prospective students are encouraged to reach out to the Associate Chair, Graduate Studies, Jennifer Clary-Lemon, or to our Graduate Administrator, Agata Jagielska.
Randy Allen Harris
Rhetoric, Linguistics, Communication Design
English Language and Literature | University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 | HH 247 | Twitter, ProfRaha
UW Scholar Site
I acknowledge that I work on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (Neutral), Anishnaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, land promised and given to Six Nations, which includes six miles on each side of the Grand River.