DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPY IN LITERATURE

Ph.D. Litt. (48 Units)

Department of Literature

De La Salle University

Rationale

The Department believes that the students must be allowed to design their own program and specialize in one of the three areas: literary studies, creative writing and cultural studies. Offering courses in creative writing on the Ph.D. level is the department’s answer to the increasing demands for more high-level training in imaginative writing. The core courses will provide the writers/students with adequate background in the critical and theoretical aspects of writing, which is expected of a Ph.D. graduate and which should complement their craft and knowledge of techniques. Under the guidance of experience writers will have sufficient opportunities to hone their craft further.

The Department’s Interest in cultural studies has gradually increased in the last few years. It has been reflected in the curriculum (via course offerings), faculty, research, and projects of graduate students. It is hoped that these endeavors will create more opportunities for multidisciplinary / anti-disciplinary for among Filipino scholars in the national and international scenes. The cultural studies courses will include topics and issues like cultural production of arts and media, cyber technology and globalization, pop culture, gender and sexuality, language and ideology, nation/nationalism, community formations, neo-colonial and postcolonial interrelations, region and ethnicity, etc. It will cover a wider range of theories and methods of inquiry, exploring interrelations and interactions among the subject areas and disciplines. Literature nevertheless will serve as a point of convergence for all these cultural concerns, topics and issues.

The Department of Literature at De La Salle University prides itself in being the CHED-Center of Excellence. It continually seeks to establish De La Salle University as the center for literary and cultural studies, the hub of intellectual and critical exchange across disciplines. It resolves to revitalize and advance research and scholarship in the humanities.

Objectives and Goals of the Program

The Doctor of Philosophy in Literature Program aims to develop competent and responsible literary scholars by providing them training in research and literary criticism, creative writing, and cultural studies; opportunities for sustained investigation of aspects of literature and literary history, particularly that of the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Australia-New Zealand; and supervision in the production of research projects that will be vital contributions to the fields of literary/cultural studies and literary production. The program lists a variety of course offerings, allowing the student to shape a personal program of study in any of the following areas: genre studies, regional literature, literary history, literature and ideas, translation, and textual/cultural criticism.

Admission Requirements

To qualify for admission to the program, the applicant must have:

* A Master’s degree in English or Filipino, or some related field, with a strong background in literature, from a college of good standing.
* Two completed research papers (excluding MA thesis) with a reputable institution.
* A research agenda for the next three years (for submission a week before enrolment).
* Accomplished application form together with two letters of recommendation from former teachers attesting to the applicant’s ability to do doctoral work.
* An interview with the Graduate Committee.
* A reading proficiency in a foreign language other than English and a Philippine language other than Filipino.

Course Requirements

Core Courses 15 Units
Major Courses 21 Units
Dissertation 12 Units
Total: 48 Units

Core Courses (15 Units)

Introduction to Scholarship (3 units)

This course prepares the students for the profession of a scholar. It acquaints them with the knowledge and utilization of essential resources for literary scholarship. It introduces the various methods and materials of research, including bibliography, textual criticism, historical criticism, the effective use of electronic technology, and selected critical and theoretical approaches. Critical questions and issues that have challenged the scholarly profession such as those concerning the nature of the text, the question of evidence, literary value, canonicity, authorship, historiography, book production, and institutional culture will be raised and examined.

Twentieth Century Theory and Criticism (3 units)

This course provides an introductory knowledge and understanding of modern and contemporary theories of literary and cultural criticism in the twentieth century. It seeks to equip the students with basic critical vocabulary, acquaint them with significant theoretical concepts, and introduce them to a range of topics and issues related to authorship, narrative, tradition, interpretation, language, culture, ideology and hegemony, gender and sexuality, subjectivity and identity, modernism and postmodernism, race and ethnicity, etc.

Philippine Critical Tradition (3 units)

This course examines the different trends and traditions of literary and cultural criticism in the Philippine contexts. It acquaints the students with a range of critical views and reading practices by Filipino critics such as Miguel Bernad, Nick Joaquin, Bienvenido Lumbera, E. San Juan, Lucila Hosillos, Isagani R. Cruz, Soledad Reyes, Nicanor Tiongson, Resil Mojares, Alice Guillermo, Virgilio Almario, Oscar Campomanes, Roland Tolentino, and Caroline Hau.

Literature and Philosophy: The Intellectual as Writer (3 units)

This course acquaints the students with the different schools of thought focusing on the philosophy of literature. This includes philosophical discourses on literature and philosophical examinations of literary texts. Critical questions and issues concerning the relation between literature and philosophy will be raised and examined. Specific topics may include the following: tragedy, Chinese classical poetry, Romanticism, phenomenology, existentialism, postmodernism, and hypertextuality.

Critical Writing (3 units)

A scholarly writing workshop course designed to examine the practice of literary studies and criticism.

Major Coures (21 Untits)

Modern Literary Masterpieces 1 (3 units)

A reading course on modern and contemporary literary masterpieces, with emphasis on the works that have significantly changed the course of literary history in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.

Modern Literary Masterpieces 2 (3 units)

A reading course on the Western canon from the Modern to the Contemporary Period.

Literary History of the Philippines 1 (3 units)

A reading course on the history of Philippine literature in the various vernacular and foreign languages, with emphasis on how that history is constructed; includes both ‘canonized’ and marginalized authors from the different regions and sectors in the Philippines and explores themes, movements, periods, trends, issues, and prospects in Philippine literary history. Students are expected to submit and defend a title proposal for their own project in literary history.

Literary History of the Philippines 2 (Practicum) (3 units)

The Practicum component of the Ph.D. Literature Program, this course consists of tutorials and fieldwork on an approved project in literary history. Students will be assigned mentors to guide them in the process of field research. Students are expected to submit the first chapter of the research project on Philippine literary history by term end.

Creative Writing Courses

Genre 1 (3 units)

Directed readings in the genre (fiction, poetry, drama, or creative nonfiction) as written by writers living in Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America.

Genre 2 (3 units)

Elementary writing exercises in the genre (classical short stories for fiction, metered and rhymed poems for poetry, well-made one-act plays for drama, and literary essays for creative nonfiction).

Genre 3 (3 units)

Advanced writing exercises in the genre (modern short stories for fiction, free verse for poetry, experimental plays for drama, and autobiography for creative nonfiction)

The Genre Concept (3 units)

This course explores the theoretical implications of genre studies on the different divisions and categories of literary forms which have developed in various cultures of the world at certain periods of history. It focuses on the changes in the way writers and readers define these categories in modern and postmodern literary forms and practices, where it is difficult to define the boundaries of one genre from another. Such interstices and conjuncts open up new conceptual spaces in the re-thinking of literary genres as the forms relate to each other and to other arts like dance, music, theater, and the visual arts.

Cultural Studies Courses

Cultural Studies: Founding Texts (3 units)

Comprehensive consideration of the founding texts of Cultural Studies, especially from the research and early theorizing of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (E.P. Thompson, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, and Stuart Hall).

The Culture Concept (3 units)

Culture is one of the most contested concepts across the disciplines and foundational to Cultural Studies. This course acquaints the students with classical, anthropological, sociological, and literary definitions of culture.

Disciplinarity, Inter-Disciplinarity, and Anti-Disciplinarity (3 units)

The most palpable impact of Cultural Studies on academic study was an epistemological critique and institutional transformation of several disciplines in the social and human sciences, going beyond traditional conception of ‘discipline’ and overhauling late-modern conceptions of ‘interdisciplinarity,’ hence the characterization of Cultural Studies as ‘antidisciplinary.’ This course introduces the students to the rich and growing literature in Cultural Studies on these questions.

Filipino Cultural Studies (Practicum) (3 units)

Consideration of the varieties of older and relatively autonomous forms of Cultural Studies in the Philippine critical tradition, from Isabelo de los Reyes and Jose Rizal to Nick Joaquin, Reynaldo Ileto, and Soledad Reyes.

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPY IN LITERATURE