What is the Ph.D. in Literature Program?
Known for its multilingual, intercultural, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of literature, Notre Dame’s innovative Ph.D. in Literature program enables students to complete a Ph.D. with a specialization in a national literature, a genre or a historical period or literary theory.
By combining the resources of a broad spectrum of departments and research institutes across the University, the program also encourages students to complete a M.A. degree in the appropriate language.
Featured Faculty
Vittorio Hösle

Hösle’s specializations include philosophy (ethics, metaphysics, political philosophy, aesthetics) and intellectual history. In the field of literature he has published a book on Greek tragedy (in German 1984; Italian translation 1986) as well as one on Woody Allen (in German in 2001, in Spanish in 2002, in English in 2007) and a major study on the philosophical dialogue (in German 2006). In philosophy his major works are: Hegels System (2 volumes, Hamburg 1987, in Korean and Portuguese in 2007) and Moral und Politik (Munich, 1997; English translation Notre Dame 2004). His exchange of letters with a young girl, The Dead Philosopher’s Café, has been translated into thirteen languages. He is concurrent professor in the Department of Philosophy and in the Department of Political Science. “More >”:http://www.nd.edu/~governme/faculty/profiles/vittorio-hosle/
Terry Eagleton

Professor Terry Eagleton is the Excellence in English Distinguished Visitor. He has written around fifty books and is himself the subject of at least two monographs, is one of the world’s leading literary critics and, according to The Independent in 2007, ‘the man who succeeded F. R. Leavis as Britain’s most influential academic critic.’ Prior to his move to Lancaster, Terry Eagleton was John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester (2001-2008) and before that Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford (1992-2001). Professor Eagleton is a Fellow of both the British Academy and the English Association, and has held visiting appointments at such universities as Cornell, Duke, Iowa, Melbourne, Notre Dame, Trinity College Dublin, and Yale.
Piero Boitani

Professor Boitani received his Laurea in Lettere from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” then went on to earn degrees from Wittenberg and Cambridge Universities. Currently professor of comparative literature at La Sapienza, Boitani has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Connecticut, Ohio State University and Keio University in Tokyo, and is a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.