American Literary Studies provides instruction in nineteenth and twentieth century American literature. Additionally, several of our ALS faculty specialize in Chicana/o literary and cultural studies, and Native American literature and rhetoric, generating dynamic, interdisciplinary approaches to areas such as romanticism and realism, Western, Southwestern, and regional literature, early American Indian Writings, Recovering U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage texts, nineteenth-century American women writers and major authors, Native American rhetoric and philosophies, law and literature, film studies and critical theory, and American, Chicana/o, and Native American literary and cultural production in the age of empires and globalization. <br><br>The PhD in Language and Literature degree requires 51 hours of coursework, comprehensive exams in three areas, a Foreign Language requirement, and a doctoral dissertation. Typically, PhD students have recently completed a Master's degree in English with something in excess of 30 semester hours. The English department accepts up to 24 of those hours toward the PhD degree, leaving students 30 hours of regular course work to complete from the time of matriculation. The degree requires a minimum of four years of extended study to master a specific subject completely and to extend the body of knowledge about that subject. Applicants should already possess a Master's degree in English or a related discipline. The requirements below are for all doctoral students in British and American literatures.