Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

History of Graduate Studies in English at SFU

Since its inception in the 1960s, the Graduate Program in the English Department has provided a broad-based M.A. program, to which was later added a small, selective Ph.D. program. In the department's early years, our emphasis on Romantics and later fields of literature meant that most graduate students focused in these areas. Faculty hirings in the 70s, 80s, and 90s resulted in changes in the graduate curriculum. We now attract students whose interests cover the broad range of English Studies, with many concentrating on modern and contemporary literature and theory. As a department, we currently have particular strengths in 18th- and 19th- century literature, 20th-century literatures in English, and we have maintained our distinctive strength in Canadian literature.