english phd reading list

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50 Book List

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Table of Contents

Early modern.

18th-Century

18th-Century British

Colonial - 18th-Century American

19th Century

19th Century American

Romanticism

19th-century british / victorian.

20th-Century

20th- & 21st-Century American

20th- & 21st-Century British & Irish

Contemporary Poetry & Poetics

Postcolonial Studies

Comics & graphic novels.

Cinema & Media Studies

(grouped by century, in alphabetical order of author's last name)

* indicates that selections of the work should be chosen in consultation with the student's committee.

Sixth Century List  

• Gildas,  On the Ruin of Britain  (Latin, 540s)

Eighth Century List

• "Caedmon's Hymn" (Old English, circa mid-7th century) and Books 1, 2, and 4 of Bede's  Ecclesiastical History  (Latin, 731)

Ninth Century List

• Asser's  Life of King Alfred  (Latin, 893) and Alfred's Preface to Gregory the Great's  Pastoral Care  (Old English, 890s)

Tenth Century List

• Battle poetry:  The Battle of Brunanburh  (Old English, 937) and  The Battle of Maldon  (Old English, 991)
• Beowulf  (Old English, MS c. 1000)
• Biblical and Visionary:  The Dream of the Rood  (Old English, MS  950-1000 ),  Genesis A  (Old English, MS  960-1000 ),  Judith  (Old English, MS  950-1050 )
• Hagiography: Cynewulf’s  Elene  (Old English, MS  950-1000 ), Aelfric’s  Life of Edmund  and  Life of Eugenia  (Old English, c. 990-1002)
• The Exeter Book miscellany (Old English, MS 940): selected riddles (Williamson ed. nos. 7, 8, 14, 15, 25, 26, 29, 32, 44, 47, 60) and elegies ( Deor ,  The Seafarer ,  The Wanderer , and  The Wife's Lament ).

Eleventh Century List

• The Tain-Bo-Cuailgne  (Irish, MS 1000s, use Kinsella translation).
• Wulfstan's  Sermon to the English  (Old English, 1010-1016, in Treharne, ed. Old and Middle English: An Anthology )
• Song of Roland  (Old French, circa 1125, use translated Penguin Classics edition) 

Twelfth Century List

• Geoffrey of Monmouth,  History of the Kings of Britain  (Latin, 1136).
• Gerald of Wales,  The Journey through Wales  and  The Description of Wales  (Latin, 1190s). OR  Topography of Ireland  (Latin, 1188) and  Conquest of Ireland  (Latin, 1189)
• Layamon,  The Brut  (Middle English, 1150-1200, use Mason ed. of  Arthurian Chronicles ) *
• Marie de France,  Lais  (Anglo-Norman, circa 1155-1170, use Shoaf Translation)
• The Life of Christina of Markyate (Latin, circa mid- to late-twelfth century, use Penguin Translation)

Thirteenth Century List

• Ancrene Wisse  (Middle English, circa 1230).
• Geoffrey of Vinsauf,  Poetria Nova  (Latin, circa 1210, in Murphy, ed., Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts )
• Egils saga Skallagrímssonar  (Old Norse, circa 1240)
• Havelok the Dane  (Middle English, 1290s),  King Horn  (Middle English, c. 1225), and  Sir Orfeo  (Middle English, early 1300s).
• Middle English debate poems:  The Owl and the Nightingale  (c. 1200-1215) and  Winner and Waster  (circa 1350).

Fourteenth Century List

• Geoffrey Chaucer's dream visions:  The Book of the Duchess ,  The Parliament of Fowls , and  The House of Fame  (Middle English, 1370s-1380s).
• Geoffrey Chaucer,  Troilus and Criseyde  (Middle English, 1380s).
• Geoffrey Chaucer, selections from  Canterbury Tales (Middle English, 1387-1400): either Fragments 1-4 (General Prologue, Knight, Miller, Reeve, Cook, Man of Law, Wife of Bath, Friar, Summoner, Clerk, Merchant) or Fragments 5-9 (Squire, Franklin, Physician, Pardoner, Shipman, Prioress, Sir Thopas, Melibee, Monk, Nun's Priest, Second Nun, Canon's Yeoman, Manciple, Parson's Prologue, and Chaucer's Retraction) (Middle English, 1390s). Make sure to read all relevant head- and endlinks. Alternatively, read the tales conveniently available in the edition of Kolve and Olson (Norton)--9 of the best-known tales.
• "Cleanness and Patience" (Middle English, late-fourteenth century, use  The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet , ed Andrew, Waldron, Peterson; trans. Finch)
• Richard Rolle,  Meditations on the Passion  (Middle English, circa 1300-49).
• John Gower, selections from the  Confessio Amantis : Prologue, Books 1, 2, 7, 8, and the Epilogue (Middle English, 1390s).
• Julian of Norwich, the Short Text of  Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love  (Middle English, circa 1393, use Penguin Translation).
• William Langland, selections from  Piers Plowman  (Middle English, circa late-fourtheenth century): either the  Visio  (Prologue-Passus 7) or the  Vita  (Passus 8-21) of the B-Text. Students may substitute the  Visio  (Prologue-Passus 9) or the  Vita  (Passus 10-22) of the C-Text instead (1370s). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells.
• Lollard writings: "Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards," "Confession of Hawisia Moone," "Prologue to the Wycliffite Bible, Chapter Fifteen," "Epistola Santhanae ad Cleros," "A Tretis on Miraclis Pleying," and "Church and State" (various dates, use the Hudson edition).
• Selected Middle English lyrics: Luria and Hoffman ed. nos. 6 ("Foweles in the frith"), 77 ("I have a gentil cok"), 80 ("Hogyn cam to bowers dore"), 81 ("We ben chapmen light of fote"), 82 ("In al this warld nis a merier life"), 90 ("May no man slepe in youre halle"), 138 ("Maiden in the mor lay"), 178 (Geoffrey Chaucer, "Lak of Stedfastnesse"), 181 ("I sing of a maiden"), 182 ("Salve Regina"), 190 ("Now goth sonne under wod"), 197 ("A God and yet a man?"), and 198 ("As I lay upon a night") (various dates).
• The Mabinogion  (Welsh, MS 1375-1425).
• The Alliterative  Morte Arthure  (Middle English, circa 1400). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells.
• Pearl  (Middle English, circa 1385).
• The Travels of Sir John Mandeville  (Middle English, circa 1375).
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight  (Middle English, circa 1385).

Fifteenth Century List

• The Castle of Perseverance  (Middle English, Middle English, circa 1405-25).
• Corpus Christi plays: York  Creation and Fall of Lucifer , Chester  Noah's Flood , Brome  Abraham and Isaac , Wakefield  Second Shepherd's Play , Wakefield  Herod the Great , N-Town  Woman Taken in Adultery , York  Crucifixion , and Wakefield  Last Judgment  (Middle English, circa 1375-1570s).
• Robert Henryson,  The Testament of Cresseid  and "The Taill of the Wolf and the Wedder" (Middle Scots, before 1505).
• Thomas Hoccleve, "La Male Regle de T. Hoccleue" (Middle English, 1406) and Series : "Complaint" and "Dialog" (Middle English, 1421-1422). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells. *
• Margery Kempe,  The Book of Margery Kempe  (Middle English, circa 1436). You may read this text in the Penguin translation.
• John Lydgate,  The Complaynt of a Lovers Lyfe  and  The Temple of Glas  (c. 1400-10). You may use the Pearsall anthology published by Blackwells.
• Thomas Malory, selections from  Le Morte d'Arthur : Books 1-4, 18-19, and 20-21 of the Caxton edition (1485). Students may substitue Books 1, 7, and 8 of the Winchester MS instead (Middle English, circa 1470).
• Morality plays:  Everyman  (Middle English, circa 1510-25),  Mankind  (Middle English, 1465-70), and  Wisdom  (Middle English, 1460-65).
• Saints' plays: The Digby  Mary Magdalene  and the Croxton  Play of the Sacrament  (Middle English, 1475-1500).
• William Thorpe,  Testimony  (Middle English, 1407, selections found in Hudson, ed. Selections from English Wycliffite Writings )
• The Paston Letters  (Middle English, 1422-1509, use Norman Davis, Ed : Oxford World Classics)
• Christine de Pisan, The Book of the City of Ladies  (French, 1405), (in Selected Writings , ed. Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Brownlee)
• Roger Ascham,  The Scholemaster  (1570)
• Francis Bacon,  Essays  (1625)
• Aphra Behn, selected poetry (1684): “The Golden Age”; “On a Juniper Tree”; “The Disappointment”; “To Fair Clorinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More than Woman; “The Willing Mistress”; “A Letter to the Brother of the Pen in Tribulation”; “The Dream”; "Song (On Her Loving Two Equally”; “The Counsel”
• Aphra Behn,  Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave (1688)
• Thomas Browne,  Religio Medici  (1643)
• Thomas Browne,  Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial  (1658)
• Thomas Carew, poetry: "The Spring"; “A Rapture”; “Mediocrity in Love Rejected”; “To A.L. Persuasions to Love" (various dates)
• Elizabeth Cary,  Tragedie of Mariam  (1613)
• Baldassare Castiglione,  The Courtier , in translation by Thomas Hoby (1561)
• Margaret Cavendish,  The Blazing World  (1666)
• Margaret Cavendish,  The Convent of Pleasure  (1668)
• Richard Crashaw, selected poetry: “The Flaming Heart”; “A Hymn Saint Teresa”; “The Tear”; “Christ Crucified”; “The Weeper” (various dates)
• Thomas Dekker,  The Shoemaker's Holiday  (1599)
• Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton,  The Roaring Girl  (1611)
• John Donne,  Holy Sonnets  (circa 1615-1631)
• John Donne,  Songs and Sonnets  (circa 1595-1631)
• John Donne, Satires and Elegies (circa 1595-1631)
• Elizabeth I,  Poems and Speeches to Parliament *
• John Ford,  'Tis Pity She's a Whore  (1633)
• John Foxe,  Acts and Monuments  (1563) *
• Philip Gosson,  The School of Abuse  (1579) or Philip Stubbes,  The Anatomy of Abuses  (1579)
• George Herbert,  The Temple  (1633)
• Robert Herrick,  Hesperides  (1648)
• Thomas Heywood,  The Fair Maid of the West 1 and 2  (1631)
• Thomas Heywood,  Apology for Actors  (1612)
• Thomas Heywood,  Four Prentices of London  (1594)
• Ben Jonson,  Masque of Blackness  (1605), Masque of Beauty  (1608), Gypsies Metamorphosed  (1621)
• Ben Jonson,  Volpone  (1606)
• Ben Jonson,  Alchemist  (1612)
• Ben Jonson,  Epicoene  (1616)
• Ben Jonson, selected poetry: “Inviting a Friend to Supper”; “To Penshurst”; “An Ode to Himself”; “On My First Son”; “On My First Daughter”; “To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Pair, Sir Lucius Carey and Sir Henry Morrison”; “To the Reader”; “To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires”; “To Sir Robert Wroth” (c. 1598-1637)
• Amelia Lanyer,  Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum  and “To Cooke-ham” (1611)
• Ann Lok, “A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner” (1560)
• John Lyly,  Gallathea  (1592)
• Christopher Marlowe,  Tamburlaine  (1587-8)
• Christopher Marlowe,  Jew of Malta  (1589)
• Christopher Marlowe,  Doctor Faustus  (1592)
• Christopher Marlowe,  Edward II  (1594)
• Andrew Marvell, selected poetry: “The Garden”; “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn”; “Upon Appleton House”; “To His Coy Mistress”; “Bermudas”; “The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers”; “The Mower Against the Gardens”; “Damon the Mower”; “The Mower’s Song”; “The Mower against the Glo-worms”; “The Last Instructions to a Painter” (c. 1650-1667)
• Philip Massinger,  The Renegado  (1624)
• Thomas Middleton,  Women Beware Women  (1657)
• Thomas Middleton,  Revenger’s Tragedy  (1607)
• Thomas Middleton,  The Changeling  (1622)
• John Milton,  Areopagitica  (1644)
• John Milton, Paradise Lost  (1667)
• John Milton, Sonnets (c. 1630-1667)
• Michel de Montaigne, selections from  Essais  (1595), in Florio translation: "The Apology of Raymond Sebond," "Of Experience," "Of Cannibals" (1603)
• Thomas More,  Utopia  (1516)
• Thomas Nash, "Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton" (1594)
• Katherine Phillips, selected poetry: “Friendship’s Mystery”; “In Defense of Declared Friendship”; “Friendship”; “A Friend”; “A Dialogue of Friendship Multiplied”; “Rosania”; “To Mrs Mary Aubrey”; “Rosania’s Marriage”; “Philoclea’s Parting”; “To My Excellent Lucasia”; “On Rosania’s Apostacy, and Lucasia’s Friendship”; “To the Exellent Anne Owen”; “To the Lady E. Boyle”; “To Celimena”; “Lucasia, Rosania, and Orinda parting at a Fountain”; “Orinda to Lucasia”; “Rosania to Lucasia”; “To Antenor at Parting” (c. 1650-1664)
• Hester Pulter, selected poetry: “Upon the Death of my Dear and Lovely Daughter, Jane Pulter”; “Tell Me No More”; “Why Must I Thus Forever Be Confined”;  “The Garden, Or the Contention of Flowers”; “Aurora” [1 and 2]; “Universal Dissolution”; “To Astraea”; “Pardon Me, My Dearest Love”; “Of a Young Lady at Oxford”; “A Dialogue between Two Sisters” (c. 1640-1660)
• Hester Pulter, The Unfortunate Florinda  (circa 1655-1662)
• Querelle des femmes  texts:  Hic Mulier/Haec Vir  tracts (1620); Jane Anger, "Her protection for women" (1589); Joseph Swetnam, “The arraignement of lewde, idle, froward and unconstant women" (1615); Rachel Speght,  A Mouzell for Melastomus  (1617);  Swetnam the Woman-Hater Arraigned by Women  (1620)
• William Shakespeare,  Richard II  (1595)
• William Shakespeare,  Midsummer Night’s Dream  (1595
• William Shakespeare,  Merchant of Venice  (1598)
• William Shakespeare , Twelfth Night  (1601)
• William Shakespeare,  Othello  (1604)
• William Shakespeare , King Lear  (1605)
• William Shakespeare,  Antony and Cleopatra  (1608)
• William Shakespeare, Sonnets  (1609)
• Philip Sidney,  Astrophil and Stella  (1591)
• Philip Sidney,  The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia  (1593)
• Philip Sidney,  The Defence of Poesy  (1595)
• John Skelton, selected poetry: "Manerly Margery Mylk and Ale," "Phyllyp Sparowe" (c.1505-07), "To mystress Margaret Hussey" (from The Garland of Laurel, 1523), and "The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng" (c. 1517)
• John Skelton, Song and Sonnets  ("Tottell's Miscellany") (1557)
• Edmund Spenser,  The Faerie Queene , at least 3 books (1590)
• Edmund Spenser,  Amoretti  and  Epithalamium  (1595)
• Edmund Spenser,  A   View of the Present State of Ireland  (1596)
• Henry Vaughan, selected poetry from  Silex Scintillans I  (1650) and  Silex Scintillans II  (1685): "Regeneration"; "The Search"; "Vanity of Spirit"; "The Retreate"; "Silence and stealth of dayes"; "The Tempest"; "The World"; "I walked the other daye"; "They are all gone into the world of light"
• John Webster,  The White Devil  (1612)
• John Webster,  The Duchess of Malfi  (1623)
• Isabella Whitney,  Will and Testament  (1573)
• Mary Wroth,  Pamphilia to Amphilantus  (1621)
• Mary Wroth, Urania, Book One  (1621)
• John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, selected poetry: “The Imperfect Enjoyment”; “The Disabled Debauche”; “A Satire Against Reason and Mankind”; “Artemeza in the Town to Chloe in the Country”; “Fair Chloris in a Pigsty Lay”; “Against Constancy”; “Love and Life”; “A Ramble in Saint James’ Park”; “A Satire on King Charles II” (c. 1665-1678)
• Early modern race readings:  Race in Early Modern England :  A Documentary Companion , ed. Ania Loomba and Jonathan Burton *
• Travel narrative selections: Bartolome de las Casas  The Spanish Colony  (London, William Brome,1583); Walter Raleigh, "Discovery of Guiana" (1596); Thomas Harriot, "Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia"; John Smith, "True Relation of Such Occurrences of Note..."; Nicolas de Nicolay (1517-1583),  The Navigations...made into Turkey  (London: Thomas Dawson, 1585); Leo Africanus,  History of Africa , trans. Pory (1600)
• Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, selections from  The Spectator  (nb: these are VERY short essays): 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 26, 34, 50, 57, 66, 69, 81, 88, 106, 108, 109, 112, 113, 117, 119, 122, 130, 132, 137, 174, 189, 251, 261, 182, 203, 266, 276, 324, 335, 454, 517, 519
• Mary Astell,  Reflections Upon Marriage  (1700) and 1706 “Preface”
• Anna Barbauld,  Poems  (1773)
• Jane Barker,  The Galesia Trilogy, Part 1  (i.e., “Love Intrigues”; 1719), and “Selected Manuscript Poems." Use Carol Shiner Wilson edition (Oxford).
• William Beckford,  Vathek  (1782-French, 1786-English)
• Aphra Behn,  Oroonoko  (1688)
• Aphra Behn, The Rover  (1677-81)
• Aphra Behn, Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister  (1684-87)
• James Boswell,  Life of Johnson ( abridged) (1791)
• John Bunyan,  The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part I  (1678)
• Edmund Burke , A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful  (1756)
• Fanny Burney,  Evelina  (1778)
• Mary, Lady Chudleigh, “The Ladies Defence” (1700), “To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty” (the poem, not the dedication), “On the Death of his Highness the Duke of Glocester”, “To the Ladies”, “The Inquiry”, “On the Death of My Honoured Mother”, Essays in Prose and Verse: “Of Knowledge, To the Ladies”, “Of Friendship”, “Of Solitude”
• John Cleland,  Fanny Hill  (1748)
• George Coleman, the Younger,  Inkle and Yarico  (1787)
• William Congreve,  The Way of the World  (1700)
• William Cowper , “ The Task”,  “Expostulation,” “Conversation”, “Retirement”, and “The Castaway” (1785)
• Ottabah Cugoano,  Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery  (1757)
• Daniel Defoe,  Moll Flanders  (1722)
• Daniel Defoe,   Robinson Crusoe  (1719)
• John Dryden,  All For Love  (1678)
• John Dryden, “Absalom and Achitophel” (1681) “Mac Flecknoe” (1684); “To the Pious Memory of ... Mrs. Anne Killigrew” (1685); “To The Duchess of Ormode,” “Astraea Redux” (1660) “An Essay of Dramatic Poesy”(1688), “A “Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire” (1693); “Preface” to The Fables (1699)
• Olaudah Equiano,  The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African  (1789)
• Henry Fielding,  Joseph Andrews  (1742) and  Tom Jones  (1749)
• Sarah Fielding,  David Simple  (1744)
• Anne Finch, selections from Miscellany Poems (1713): “Introduction,” “The Apology,” “On Myself,” “The Bird and the Arras,” “The Spleen,” “To the Nightingale,” ”A Nocturnal Reverie,” and “A Supplication for the Joys of Heaven,” “Adam Pos’d”
• John Gay,  The Beggar’s Opera  (1728)
• Oliver Goldsmith,  The Vicar of Wakefield  (1766)
• Oliver Goldsmith,  She Stoops to Conquer  (1773)
• Thomas Gray, “The Bard”, “The Progress of Poesy”. : Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”,”Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat”, “Elegy Written in a County Church Yard,” “Sonnet on the Death of Richard West”
• William Collins, “Ode to Fear”, “Ode on the Poetical Character”, “Ode to Evening”, “An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland”
• Eliza Haywood,  Love in Excess  (1719) and  Fantomina  (1725)
• Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759), “Preface” to Shakespeare (1765); “Preface to The Dictionary (1755); selections from the Rambler (1750-52) including 2, 3, 4, 14, 18, 21, 23, 37, 47, 58, 60, 63, 77, 134, 144, 154, 155, 160, 185, 196, 208; Lives of the Most Eminent Poets, Milton, Gray (1779-81)
• Charlotte Lennox,  The Female Quixote  (1752)
• George Lillo,  The London Merchant  (1731)
• Edward Long,  The History of Jamaica  (1774)
• Henry Mackenzie,  The Man of Feeling  (1771)
• Dean Mahomet , The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth Century Journey Through India  (1793)
• Delarivier Manley,  The New Atalantis  (1709) and  The Power of Love  (1720)
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,  Turkish Embassy Letters  (1716-18), “Court poems by a Lady of Quality” (1716), “Eclogues”(1747)
• Thomas Otway,  Venice Preserved  (1682)
• Thomas Paine , The Rights of Man  (1791) alongside Edmund Burke,  Reflection on the Revolution in France  (1790)
• Alexander Pope (I), “An Essay on Criticism” (1711); “Rape of the Lock”(1714); “Windsor Forest” (1713); “An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” (1735); “Moral Essays” (1731-35)
• Samuel Richardson,  Pamela  (1740-41)
• Samuel Richardson, Clarissa (1747-48) (abridged edition acceptable)
• John Wilmot Rochester, selected poems: “The Imperfect Enjoyment,” “Of Nothing,” “A Satire Against Reason and Mankind” (1675), “Signior Dildo” alongside Aphra Behn, “Love Armed,” “The Disapointment,” “On Desire,” “On Her Loving Two Equally,” and “to the Fair Clarinda.”
• Elizabeth Singer Rowe,  Friendship in Death  (1728)
• Christopher Smart,  Jubilate Agno  (1739) and  Song to David  (1763)
• Thomas Sheridan,  The School for Scandal ( 1777)
• Sir Hans Sloane , Natural history of Jamaica  (1707, 1725)
• Tobias Smollett,  The Expedition of Humphry Clinker  (1771)
• Laurence Sterne,  Tristram Shandy  (1760-67)
• Laurence Sterne, Sentimental Journey  (1768)
• Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub (1704), Drapier’s Letters (1721), Gulliver’s Travels (1726), “A Modest Proposal” (1729); “An Argument Against the Abolishing of Christianity”, and Selected Poems
• James Thomson,  The Seasons  (1726)
• John Vanbrugh, “The Provok’d Wife” (1697)
• Horace Walpole,  The Castle of Otranto  (1764) and  The Mysterious Mother  (1768)
• William Wycherley,  The Country Wife ( 1671)  

Colonial to Eighteenth Century American

• The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History , ed. David Hall, second edition, 1990
• William Bradford,  Of Plymouth Plantation  (c. 1630-50; 1856)
• Anne Bradstreet,  Several Poems  (1678)
• The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico , ed. Miguel Leon-Portillo, expanded and updated edition, 1992 (c. 16th century)
• Charles Brockden Brown,  Wieland ;  or The Transformation. An American Tale  (1798)
• Christopher Columbus,  The Four Voyages,  ed. J.M. Cohen, 1969  ( c. late 15th and early 16th century)
• Constitution of the United States (1787)
• J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur,  Letters from an American Farmer  (1782)
• Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca,  The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca  (1542)
• Bernal Diaz del Castillo,  True History of the Conquest of New Spain  (c.1568-85; 1632)
• John Danforth, "A Brief Recognition of New Englands Errand into the Wilderness" (1670)
• Declaration of Independence (1776)
• Jonathan Edwards, selected writings: "The Spider Letter" (1723); "Personal Narrative" (c. 1739); "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741), "Freedom of the Will" (1754)
• Hannah Foster,  The Coquette ;  or The History of Eliza Wharton; A Novel; Founded on Fact  (1797)
• Benjamin Franklin,  The Autobiography  (c. 1771-1790; 1868)
• Briton Hammon,  A Narrative of the Uncomon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man  (1760)
• Thomas Jefferson,  Notes on the State of Virginia  (1787)
• John Marrant,  A Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a Black  (1785)
• Cotton Mather,  intro. to Magnalia Christi Americana  (1702)
• Tom Paine,  Common Sense  (1776)
• Mary Rowlandson,  The Sovereignty and Goodness of God  (1682)
• Susana Rowson,  Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth  (1791)
• Susana Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, or  A Struggle for Freedom  (1794)
• Phillis Wheatley,  Poems on Various Subjects  and  Religious and Moral  (1773)
• Roger Williams,  A Key into the Language of America  (1643)
• John Winthrop, "A Modell of Christian Charity" (1630)

19th-Century American

• Henry Adams,  The Education of Henry Adams  (1907)
• Louisa May Alcott,  Little Women  (1868-69)
• William Apess, "The Experiences of Five Christian Indians; or An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man" (1833); and "Eulogy on King Philip" (1836)
• Black Hawk,  Life of Black Hawk  (1833)
• William Wells Brown,  Clotel , or  The President's Daughter  (1853)
• Abraham Cahan,  Yekl ,  A Tale of the New York Ghetto  (1896)
• Charles Chesnutt,  The Marrow of Tradition  (1901)
• Charles Chesnutt, Conjure Woman (1899)
• Kate Chopin,  The Awakening  (1899)
• James Fenimore Cooper,  Pioneers  (1823)
• Stephen Crane,  The Red Badge of Courage  (1895)
• Martin Delany,  Blake , or  The Huts of America  (1859-62)
• Emily Dickinson, selected poetry: "Papa above!" (61); "One dignity delays for all" (98); "Faith is a fine invention" (185); "I taste a liquor never brewed" (214); "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" (216); "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!" (249); "`Hope' is a thing with feathers--" (254); "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" (280); "The Soul selects her own Society--" (303); "There came a Day at Summer's full" (322); "A Bird came down the Walk--" (328); "After great pain, a formal feeling comes--" (341); "Much Madness is divinest sense--" (435); "This is my letter to the World" (441); "This was a Poet--it is That" (448); "I died for Beauty--but was scarce" (449); "It was not Death, for I stood up" (510); "I started Early--Took my Dog--" (520); "Mine--by the Right of White Election" (528); "Publication--is the Auction" (709); "Because I could not stop for Death" (712); "My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun" (754); "It is an honorable Thought" (946); "The Bible is an antique Volume--" (1545); "Apparently with no surprise" (1624)
• Frederick Douglass,  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave  (1845)
• Theodore Dreiser,  Sister Carrie  (1900; the text derived from the first edition, NOT the so-called "restored" Pennsylvania Edition)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar,  Lyrics of a Lowly Life  (1896)
• Black Elk,  Black Elk Speaks  (1932)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, selected writings: "Nature" (1836), "The American Scholar" (1837), "The Divinity School Address" (1838), "Experience" (1844), "The Poet" (1844)
• Fanny Fern,  Ruth Hall  and Other Writings, ed. Joyce W. Warren (Rutgers UP)
• Mary Wilkins Freeman,  A New England Nun and Other Stories  (1891)
• Margaret Fuller,  Woman in the 19th Century  (1845)
• Frances Harper,  Iola Leroy , or  Shadows Uplifted  (1892)
• Nathaniel Hawthorne,  The Scarlet Letter  (1850)
• William Dean Howells,  A Hazard of New Fortunes  (1890)
• Washington Irving,  The Sketch Book  (1820)
• Harriet Jacobs,  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl  (1861)
• Henry James,  The Ambassadors  (1903)
• Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady  (1881)
• Sarah Orne Jewett,  Country of the Pointed Firs  (1896)
• Emma Lazarus, selected poetry: “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport”, “The New Colossus”, “1492”, “The Crowing of the Red Cock”, “In Exile”, “The New Year”, “Venus of the Louvre” (1867-1876)
• Abraham Lincoln, selected speeches: "House Divided" (1858), "Address at Cooper Institute" (1860), "First Inaugural Address" (1861), "Emancipation Proclamation" (1863), "Gettysburg Address" (1863), "Second Inaugural Address" (1865)
• George Lippard,  The Quaker City , or the  Monks of Monk Hall  (1843-44)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,  The Song of Hiawatha  (1855)
• Herman Melville,  Moby Dick  (1851)
• Herman Melville, selected writings: “The Encantadas”, “Shiloh”, “The Swamp Angel”, “The Martyr”, and “The House-Top.”
• Frank Norris,  McTeague  (1899)
• Edgar Allan Poe, selections from  Fall of the House of Usher and Other Works:  “The Raven”, “Ulalume”, “Annabel Lee”, “The Philosophy of Composition”, “The Imp of the Perverse”, “The Man of the Crowd”, “The Purloined Letter”, “The Gold-Bug”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1831-1849)
• Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton,  The Squatter  and the  Don  (1885)
• Jane Johnstone Schoolcraft, Poems (Robert Dale Parker, ed.  The sound the stars make rushing through the sky: The writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft ) (circa 1840)
• Catherine Maria Sedgwick,  Hope Leslie  (1827)
• E. D. E. N. Southworth,  The Hidden Hand  (1859)
• Harriet Beecher Stowe,  Uncle Tom's Cabin  (1852)
• Henry David Thoreau,  Walden  (1854) and "Resistance to Civil Government [Civil Disobedience]" (1849)
• Mark Twain,  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  (1885)
• David Walker,  David Walker's Appeal, In Four Articles, Together With a Preamble, To The Coloured Citizens Of The World, But in Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those of The United States of America  (1829)
• Walt Whitman,  Leaves of Grass , selected poems (1891 edition): "Song of Myself," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "When I Heard at the Close of the Day," "A March in the Ranks Hard Prest," and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
• Harriet Wilson,  Our Nig  (1856)
• Anon.,  The Woman of Colour  (1808)
• Jane Austen,  Mansfield Park  (1814)
• Jane Austen,  Emma  (1816)
• Jane Austen,  Persuasion  (1818)
• Robert Bage,  Hermsprong; or, Man as He Is Not  (1796)
• Joanna Baillie,  A series of Plays...on the Passions  (1798-1812)
• John Bell, ed .  The British Album  (1790)
• Anna Barbauld,  Epistle to William Wilberforce  (1793)
• Anna Barbauld,  An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1792), Sins of the Fathers, Sins of the Nation (1795), and Eighteen Hundred and Eleven  (1812)
• William Blake,  Songs of Innocence and of Experience  (1789; 1794),  Book of Thel  (1789),  Visions of the Daughters of Albion  (1793)
• William Blake,  Marriage of Heaven and Hell  (1790),  America  (1793),  Europe  (1794),  Book of Urizen  (1794)
• William Blake,  Milton  (1804)
• Edmund Burke,  Reflections on the Revolution in France  (1790)
• Edmund Burke, "Speech on Mr. Fox's East India Bill," and "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity" (1800)
• Robert Burns, selected poetry: “To a Mouse”, “To a Louse”, “The Holy Fair”, “To a Mountain-Daisy”, ”John Barleycorn, A Ballad”, “Epistle to J.L***k, an Old Scottish Bard”, “Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet”, “Holy Willie’s Prayer”, “Address to the Unco Guid”, “Address to the Deil”, “Songs: ‘It was upon a Lammas night’, “Green Grow the Rushes”, “John Anderson, My Jo,” “Ae Fond Kiss”, “A Red, Red Rose”, “Afton Water”, “Ye Banks and Braes”, “Open the Door To Me, Oh” (1785)
• Hannah Cowley,  The Runaway  (1776),  The Belle's Stratagem  (1781),  A Bold Stroke for a Husband  (1783), and  A Day in Turkey  (1791)
• George Gordon Byron,  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage  (1812-1818)
• George Gordon Byron , The Giaour  (1813)  and The Corsair  (1814)
• George Gordon Byron,   Don Juan  (1819-1824)
• George Gordon Byron, Manfred  (1817),  Cain  (1821), and  Sardanapalus  (1821)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge,  Fears in Solitude, with France , an  Ode and Frost at Midnight  (1798),  Remorse  (1813),  Christabel ,  Kubla Khan , and  the Pains of Sleep  (1816)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge,  Sybilline Leaves  (1817)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge,  Biographia Literaria  (1817)
• Erasmus Darwin,  The Loves of the  Plants (1789)
• Thomas DeQuincey,  Confessions of an English Opium Eater  (1822 or 1856)
• Maria Edgeworth,  Castle Rackrent  (1800) and  Ennui  (1809)
• Maria Edgeworth, Belinda  (1801)
• Olaudah Equiano,  Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavaus Vassa, the African  (1789)
• Susan Ferrier,  Marriage  (1818)
• William Godwin,  Political Justice  (1793)
• William Godwin,  Caleb Williams  (1794)
• William Hazlitt,  The Spirit of the Age  (1825)
• Felicia Hemans,  Records of Women  (1828)
• Elizabeth Inchbald,  A Mogul Tale  (1784),  Such Things Are  (1788 ), Everyone Has His Fault  (1793), and  Lovers' Vows  (1798)
• Elizabeth Inchbald,  A Simple Story  (1791)
• Francis Jeffrey,  Edinburgh Review , Volume 1 (1802) and William Gifford,  Quarterly Review,  Volume 1 (1809)
• John Keats , Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems  (1820)
• Charles Lamb,  Essays of Elia  (1821)
• Matthew Lewis,  The Monk  (1796) and  The Castle Spectre  (1797)
• John Malthus,  An Essay on Population  (1798)
• Hannah More , Strictures on Female Education  (1798)
• Amelia Opie,  Adeline Mowbray: The Mother and Daughter  (1804)
• Sydney Owenson,  The Wild Irish Girl  (1806)
• Thomas Paine,  The Rights of Man  (1792)
• Ann Radcliffe,  The Mysteries of Udolpho  (1794)
• Ann Radcliffe,  The Italian  (1797)
• Mary Robinson,  Poems  (1791) and  Memoirs  (1801)
• Mary Robinson,  Walsingham  (1798)
• Mary Robinson,  Lyrical Tales  (1800)
• Walter Scott,  The Lay of the Last Minstrel  (1805) and  Marmion  (1808)
• Walter Scott,  Waverley  (1814)
• Walter Scott,  A Tale of Old Mortality  (1816)
• Mary Shelley,  Frankenstein ( 1818)
• Mary Shelley,  Valperga  (1823)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley,  The Cenci  (1819) alongside Charles Robert Maturin,  Bertram  (1816)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound and other Poems  (1820)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley,  Adonais  (1821), "The Triumph of Life" (1824) and "A Defence of Poetry" (1821)
• Charlotte Smith,  Elegiac Sonnets  (1784)
• Charlotte Smith,  Desmond  (1792)
• Charlotte Smith,  The Emigrants  (1793),  Beachy Head and other Poems  (1807)
• Robert Southey,  Poems  (1799)
• Robert Southey,  Thalabathe Destroyer  (1801)
• The Anti-Jacobin, or, Weekly Examiner  (1797-8)
• Helen Maria Williams,  Poems  (1786) and  Reflections on the Revolution in France  (1790)
• Mary Wollstonecraft,  A Vindication of the Rights of Woman  (1792)
• Mary Wollstonecraft,  Mary: A Fiction  (1787) and  Maria; Or the Wrongs of Woman  (1798)
• William Wordsworth,  Lyrical Ballads  (1798 and 1800)
• William Wordsworth, The Prelude ( 1799-1805; pub. 1850)

(in alphabetical order according to author's last name)

• Matthew Arnold, selected essays and poems: “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” "Memorial Verses" (1850), "To Marguerite -- Continued" (1852); "The Buried Life" (1852); "Empedocles on Etna" (1852); "The Scholar-Gypsy" (1853); Preface to  Poems  (1853); "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse" (1855); "Dover Beach" (1867); "On the Study of Poetry" (1880)
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon,  Lady Audley's Secret  (1862)
• Charlotte Bronte,  Villette  (1853)
• Emily Bronte,  Wuthering Heights  (1847)
• Elizabeth Barrrett Browning,  Aurora Leigh  (1857)
• Robert Browning, selected poems: "Porphyria's Lover" (1842), "My Last Duchess" (1842). "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" (1845), "Love Among the Ruins" (1855), "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" (1855), "Fra Lippo Lippi" (1855), "The Last Ride Together" (1855), "Andrea del Sarto" (1855), "Two in the Campagna" (1855). "A Grammarian's Funeral" (1855), "Cleon" (1855), "Caliban Upon Setebos" (1864)
• Thomas Carlyle, "On History" (1830) and  On Heroes and Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History  (1841)
• Lewis Carroll,  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland  (1865)
• Lewis Carroll,  Through the Looking Glass  (1872)
• Wilkie Collins,  The Woman in White  (1859-1860)
• Wilkie Collins,  The Moonstone  (1868)
• Charles Darwin,  On the Origin of Species  (1859)
• Charles Dickens,  Dombey and Son  (1848)
• Charles Dickens, Bleak House  (1852)
• George Eliot,  The Mill on the Floss  (1860)
• George Eliot,  Middlemarch  (1871-72)
• Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx,  T he German Ideology: Preface and Part One  (1845-6)
• Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx,  Manifesto of the Communist Party  (1848)
• Elizabeth Gaskell,  Mary Barton  (1848)
• Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South  (1854–55)
• W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan,  Patience ,  or Bunthorne's Bride  (1881)
• W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, Ruddigore, or the Witch's Curse  (1887)
• George Gissing,  New Grub Street  (1891)
• Sarah Grand,  The Heavenly Twins  (1893) and "The New Aspect of the Woman Question" (1894)
• H. Rider Haggard,  She  (1885)
• H. Rider Haggard,  King Solomon’s Mines  (1886)
• Thomas Hardy,  Tess of the d'Urbervilles  (1891)
• Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure  (1895)
• Gerard Manly Hopkins, "The Wreck of the Deutschland", "God's Grandeur", "The Windhover", "Pied Beauty", "Spring and Fall", "[Carrion Comfort]". "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day" (all pub. posth. 1918)
• Mary Kingsley,  Travels in West Africa  (1897)
• Rudyard Kipling,  Kim  (1901)
• Karl Marx, from  Capital Volume I  (1867, English edition 1887): Chapter One: “The Commodity,” Chapter Six: “The Sale and Purchase of Labour Power,” Chapter Ten: “The Working Day,” and Chapter Twenty-Six: “The Secret of Primitive Accumulation”
• Henry Mayhew,  London Labour and the London Poor  (1861-62; use Penguin ed.) *
• J. S. Mill, "What is Poetry?" (1833);  On Liberty  (1859);  The Subjection of Women  (1869)
• William Morris,  News from Nowhere  (1890)
• Walter Pater,  Studies in the History of The Renaissance  (1873)
• Arthur Wing Pinero,  The Second Mrs. Tanqueray  (1894)
• Arthur Wing Pinero, Trelawny of the "Wells"  (1899)
• Mary Prince,  The History of Mary Prince  (1831)
• Christina Rossetti, "Goblin Market" (1862); "Song ('When I am Dead, My Dearest')" (1862), "Up-Hill" (1862), "Winter: My Secret" (1862), "Sleeping at Last" (1896),  Speaking Likeness  (1874)
• John Ruskin, from  Modern Painters II  (1846): "The Imaginative Faculty" from  The Stones of Venice II  (1853): "The Nature of Gothic"; from  Modern Painters III  (1856):   "Of the Pathetic Fallacy"; “The Work of Iron” (1858) and “The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century” (1884)
• Mary Seacole,  Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands  (1857)
• Olive Schreiner,  The Story of an African Farm  (1883)
• George Bernard Shaw,  Mrs. Warren's Profession  (1898); selections from dramatic criticism
• Robert Louis Stevenson,  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  (1886)
• Bram Stoker,  Dracula  (1897)
• Algernon Charles Swinburne, selected poems: "Faustine" (1862); Choruses from  Atalanta in Calydon  (1865): "When the hounds of spring" and "Before the beginning of years"; "Laus Veneris" (1866); "The Triumph of Time" (1866); "Itylus" (1866); "Hymn to Proserpine" (1866); "Ave atque Vale" (1868); "Hertha" (1871); "To Walt Whitman in America" (1871)
• Alfred Tennyson,  In Memoriam  (1850),  Idylls of the King  (1859-74)
• William Makepeace Thackeray,  Vanity Fair  (1847-48)
• Anthony Trollope,  Can You Forgive Her?  (1864-5)
• Anthony Trollope,  The Way We Live Now  (1874-75)
• Oscar Wilde,  The Picture of Dorian Gray  (1890)
• Oscar Wilde,  Lady Windemere's Fan  (1892)
• Oscar Wilde,  A Woman of No Importance  (1893)
• Oscar Wilde,  Salome  (1893)
• Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband  (1895)
• Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest  (1895)
• Ellen Wood,  East Lynne  (1860-1)

20th- & 21st- Century American

ASAM indicates that the work is part of the Asian American literary tradition

AFAM indicates that the work is part of the African American literary tradition

LATX indicates that the work is part of the Latinx literary tradition

INDG indicates that the work is part of the indigenous American literary tradition

• Kathy Acker,  Blood and Guts in High School  (1984)
• Sherwood Anderson,  Winesburg, Ohio  (1919)
• Isaac Asimov,  Foundation  (1951)
• Gloria Anzaldua,  Borderlands  (1987), LATX
• Margaret Atwood,  The Handmaid’s Tale  (1985)
• James Baldwin,  Go Tell it on the Mountain  (1953), AFAM
• Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones),  The Dutchman  (1964), AFAM
• Paul Beatty,  The Sellout  (2015), AFAM
• Carlos Bulosan,  America is in the Heart  (1946), ASAM
• William S. Burroughs,  Naked Lunch  (1959)
• Octavia Butler,  Kindred  (1979), AFAM
• Willa Cather,  My Antonia  (1918)
• Theresa Hak Kyung Cha,  Dictee  (1982), ASAM
• Michael Chabon,  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay  (2000)
• Sandra Cisneros,  The House on Mango Street , LATX
• Leonard Cohen,  Beautiful Losers  (1966)
• Samuel R. Delany,  Dhalgren  (1975)
• Don De Lillo,  White Noise  (1985)
• Don De Lillo,  Underworld  (1997)
• Junot Diaz,  The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao  (2007), LATX
• John Dos Passos,  The Big Money  (1936)
• W. E. B. DuBois,  The Souls of Black Folk  (1903), AFAM
• Jennifer Egan,  A Visit from the Goon Squad  (2010)
• Bret Easton Ellis,  American Psycho  (1991)
• Ralph Ellison,  Invisible Man  (1952), AFAM
• Louise Erdrich,  Tracks  (1988), INDG
• William Faulkner,  Go Down, Moses  (1942)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald,  The Great Gatsby  (1925)
• Jonathan Franzen,  The Corrections  (2001)
• Jonathan Franzen,  Freedom  (2010)
• William Gibson,  Neuromancer  (1984)
• William Gibson,  Pattern Recognition  (2003)
• Ernest Hemingway,  The Sun Also Rises  (1924)
• Frank Herbert,  Dune  (1965)
• Sheila Heti,  How Should a Person Be?  (2010)
• Patricia Highsmith,  The Price of Salt  (1952)
• Zora Neale Hurston,  Their Eyes Were Watching God  (1937), AFAM
• William James, selected lectures and essays: “The Stream of Thought”, “Association”, “The Perception of Time” (all 1890) “A World of Pure Experience” (1904), and “What Pragmatism Means” (1907).
• James Weldon Johnson,  The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man  (1912), AFAM
• Jack Kerouac,  On the Road  (1957)
• Jack Kerouac,  Visions of Cody  (1959; 1972)
• Ken Kesey,  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest  (1962)
• Maxine Hong Kingston,  The Woman Warrior  (1976), ASAM
• Tony Kushner,  Angels in America  (1992)
• Nella Larsen,  Passing  (1929), AFAM
• Nella Larsen,  Quicksand  (1928), AFAM
• Chang-Rae Lee,  Native Speaker  (1995), ASAM
• Ben Lerner,  10:04  (2014)
• Patricia Lockwood,  No One is Talking About This  (2021)
• Audre Lorde,  Zami  (1982), AFAM
• Emily St-John Mandel,  Station Eleven  (2014)
• Cormac McCarthy,  Blood Meridian  (1985)
• Claude McKay,  Home to Harlem  (1928);  Banjo  (1929), AFAM
• Arthur Miller,  Death of a Salesman  (1949)
• Henry Miller,  Tropic of Cancer  (1934; 1961 in US)
• Henry Miller,  The Air-Conditioned Nightmare  (1945)
• N. Scott Momaday,  House Made of Dawn  (1968), INDG
• Cherrie Moraga,  Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca paso por sus labios  (1983; 2000), LATX
• Toni Morrison,  Beloved  (1987), AFAM
• Vladimir Nabokov,  Lolita  (1955)
• Maggie Nelson,  The Argonauts  (2015)
• Tim O’Brien,  The Things They Carried  (1990)
• Flannery O'Connor,  A Good Man is Hard to Find  (1955)
• John Okada,  No-No Boy  (1979), ASAM
• Eugene O'Neill,  Long Day's Journey Into Night  (1956)
• Ann Petry,  The Street  (1946), AFAM
• Richard Powers,  Galatea 2.2  (1995)
• Richard Powers,  The Overstory  (2019)
• Thomas Pynchon,  The Crying of Lot 49  (1966)
• Ishmael Reed,  Mumbo Jumbo  (1972), AFAM
• Marilynne Robinson,  Gilead  (2005)
• Phillip Roth,  The Human Stain  (1995)
• George Saunders,  Lincoln in the Bardo  (2017)
• Leslie Marmom Silko,  Ceremony  (1977), INDG
• Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton),  Mrs. Spring Fragrance  (1912), ASAM
• Art Spiegelman,  Maus  and  Maus II  (1986-91)
• Gertrude Stein,  Three Lives  (1909)
• John Steinbeck,  The Grapes of Wrath  (1939)
• Hunter S. Thompson,  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas  (1971)
• John Kennedy Toole,  A Confederacy of Dunces  (1980)
• Jean Toomer,  Cane  (1923), AFAM
• Helena Maria Viramontes,  The Moths and Other Stories  (1995), LATX
• David Foster Wallace,  Infinite Jest  (1996)
• James Welch,  Fools Crow  (1986), INDG
• Nathanael West,  The Day of the Locust  (1939)
• Edith Wharton,  The House of Mirth  (1905)
• Colson Whitehead,  The Intuitionist  (1999)
• Colson Whitehead,  The Underground Railroad  (2016)
• Tennessee Williams,  A Streetcar Named Desire  (1947)
• August Wilson,  Piano Lesson  (1990), AFAM
• Richard Wright,  Native Son  (1940), AFAM
• Tomás Rivera,  And the Earth Did Not Devour Him / …y no se le tragó la tierra  (1971), LATX
• Charles Yu,  How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel  (2011), ASAM

* indicates that a different work by the same author may be substituted

• Kingsley Amis,  Lucky Jim  (1954)
• Monica Ali,  Brick Lane  (2003) *
• Margaret Atwood,  The Handmaid's Tale  (1986)
• Pat Barkeer,  The Silence of the Girls  (2018) *
• Samuel Beckett,  Molloy (1951)
• Samuel Beckett,  Waiting for Godot  (1952)
• Anna Burns,  Milkman  (2018)
• Angela Carter,  The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories  (1979)
• Caryl Churchill,  Top Girls  (1984)
• Joseph Conrad,  Lord Jim  (1900)
• Joseph Conrad,  Heart of Darkness  (1902)
• Ford Madox Ford,  The Good Soldier  (1915)
• E. M. Forster,  A Passage to India  (1924)
• Radcliffe Hall,  The Well of Loneliness  (1928)
• Alan Hollinghurst,  The Line of Beauty  (2004) *
• Kazuo Ishiguro,  Never Let Me Go  (2005)
• Kazuo Ishiguro,  Remains of the Day  (1989)
• James Joyce,  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  (1915)
• James Joyce,  Ulysses  (1922)
• Hari Kunzru, Gods Without Men  (2011) *
• D. H. Lawrence,  Women in Love  (1918)
• John Le Carré,  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy  (1974)
• Doris Lessing,  The Golden Notebook  (1966)
• Hilary Mantel,  Wolf Hall  (2009)
• Ian McEwan,  On Chesil Beach  (2007) *
• George Orwell,  1984  (1949)
• Caryl Phillips,  Crossing the River (1993) *
• Harold Pinter,  The Birthday Party  (1957)
• Zia Hyder Rahman,  In the Light of What We Know  (2014) *
• Jean Rhys,  Wide Sargasso Sea  (1966)
• Sally Rooney,  Normal People
• Salman Rushdie,  The Satanic Verses  (1989)
• Samuel Selvon,  The Lonely Londoners  (1956)
• Kamila Shamsie,  Home Fire  (2017)
• George Bernard Shaw,  Man & Superman  (1903)
• Ali Smith,  How to be Both  (2014)
• Zadie Smith,  White Teeth  (2000)
• John Synge,  Playboy of the Western World  (1907)
• Evelyn Waugh,  Decline and Fall  (1929)
• Jeanette Winterson,  Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit  (1989)
• Virginia Woolf,  A Room of One's Own  (1929)
• Virginia Woolf,  Mrs. Dalloway  (1922)

Contemporary Poetry & Poetics 

(in chronological order of original publication date)

• W. B. Yeats,  Selected Poems  (2015, originally published 1889 - 1939)
• T.S. Eliot,  Collected Poems 1909-1962  (1965) *
• Ezra Pound,  Personae  (1909)
• Amy Lowell,  Selected Poems,  American Poets Project (2004, originally written 1910-1925)
• Claude McKay,  Selected Poems of Claude McKay  (1953, written 1912-1948)
• Robert Frost,  North of Boston  (1914)
• Gertrude Stein,  Tender Buttons  (1914)
• Ezra Pound,  Pisan Cantos  (1915-1962)
• Mina Loy,  Songs to Johannes  (1917), see  https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/loy/poem_loy_Songs_to_Joannes.html#loy_joannes_notes_intro )
• Lola Ridge, "The Ghetto" in  The Ghetto and Other Poems   (1918)
• Charles Reznikoff,  The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (1918-1975)  (2015)*
• Louis Zukofsky,  Selected Poems,  American Poets Project (2006, originally published 1922-1978)
• Jean Toomer,  Cane  (1923)
• William Carlos Williams,  Spring and All  (1923)
• Langston Hughes,  Collected Poems of Langston Hughes  (1994, originally published 1926-1964)
• Laura Riding,  The Laura (Riding) Jackson Reader  (2005, originally written 1926-1976) *
• James Weldon Johnson, God's Trombones (1927)
• Kenneth Fearing,  Selected Poems,  American Poets Project (2004, originally published 1928-1943)
• Lorine Niedecker,  Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works  (2002, originally published 1928-1952) *
• Hart Crane,  The Bridge  (1930)
• Charles Reznikoff,  Testimony  (1934)
• Muriel Rukeyser,  Theory of Flight  (1935)
• Muriel Rukeyser,  Selected Poems,  American Poets Project (2004, originally published 1935-1976)
• Jackson Mac Low,  Representative Works, 1938-1955  (1986) *
• Muriel Rukeyser,  U.S. 1  (1938)
• Frank O'Hara,  Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara  (1995, poems originally published in 1940s) *
• Wallace Stevens, “Ideas of Order at Key West” (1936), "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” (1950), and "The Noble Rider and the Sounds of Words" (1942)
• H.D.,  Trilogy  (1944-1946)
• Charles Olson,  Collected Poems of Charles Olson  (1987, originally published 1949-1969)*
• Langston Hughes,   Montage of a Dream Deferred   (1951)
• Jackson Mac Low,  Doings: assorted performance pieces 1955/2002  (2005)
• Allen Ginsberg,  Howl and other Poems  (1956)
• William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams (1939-1962) (1986) *
• William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1946-1948)
• Hugh MacDiarmid,  Selected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid  (1954)
• Hugh MacDiarmid,  Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle  (1956)
• Frank O'Hara, "Personism: A Manifesto" in The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara  (1959)
• Gwendolyn Brooks,  The Bean Eaters  (1960)
• Bob Kaufman, "Jail Poems" in Beatitude Anthology (1960)
• Robert Creeley,  For Love  (1962)
• Frank O'Hara,  Lunch Poems  (1964)
• Lucille Clifton,  The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton   (1965-2010) (2015)*
• Jack Spicer,  Language  in  My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer  (2008, originally published 1965)
• Melvin Tolson,  Harlem Gallery  (1965) 
• John Ashbery,  Rivers and Mountains  (1966)
• Basil Bunting,  Briggflatts  (1966)
• Adrienne Rich, On Lies in  On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978  (1979)
• Adrienne Rich,  Secrets and Silence  in  On Lies, Secrets, and Silence : Selected Prose, 1966-1978  (1979)
• Robert Creeley,  Words  (1967)
• George Oppen,  Of Being Numerous  (1968)
• Gwendolyn Brooks,  Riot  (1969)
• Robert Creeley,   Pieces  (1969)
• Robert Hayden, Words in the Mourning Time (1970)
• Jackson Mac Low,  Stanzas for Iris Lezak  (1971)
• John Ashbery,  Three Poems ( 1972)
• Adrienne Rich,  Diving into the Wreck  (1973)
• John Ashbery,  Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror  (1975)
• Robert Hayden,  Angle of Ascent  (1975)
• John Ashbery,  Double Dream of Spring  (1976)
• Lyn Hejinian,  My Life  (1980)
• James Schuyler,  The Morning of the Poem  (1980)
• Carolyn Forché,  The Country Between Us  (1981)
• Sterling Brown,  The Collected Poems of Sterling Brown  (1983) *
• Elizabeth Alexander, The Venus Hottentot (1825) (1990)
• John Ashbery,  Flow Chart (1991)
• Susan Howe,  My Emily Dickinson  (1985)
• Barbara Guest,  Defensive Rapture  (1993)
• Yusef Komunyakaa,  Neon Vernacular  (1993)
• Eavan Boland,  In a Time of Violence  (1995)
• Barbara Guest,  Fair Realism  (1995)
• Lynda Hull,  The Only World  (1995)
• Sascha Feinstein,  Misterioso  (2000)
• Harryette Mullen,  Sleeping with the Dictionary  (2002)
• Tyehimba Jess,  Leadbelly  (2004)
• Terrance Hayes,  Wind in a Box  (2006)
• M. NourbeSe Philip,  Zong!  (2008)
• Julie Carr,  100 Notes on Violence  (2010)
• Nikki Finney,  Head Off & Split: Poems  (2011)
• Tim Seibles,  Fast Animal  (2012)
• Evie Shockley,  The New Black  (2012)
• Tracy K. Smith,  Life on Mars  (2012)
• Jordan Abel,  The Place of Scraps  (2013)
• Caroline Bergvall,  Drift  (2014)
• Alexis Pauline Gumbs, M Archive: After the End of the World  (2018)
• Divya Victor, Curb  (2021)
• Ezra Pound, “A Retrospect” in Literary Essays of Ezra Pound  (1918)
• Gertrude Stein, "Composition as Explanation" (1926)
• Louis Zukofsky, "An Objective" in  Prepositions+: The Collected Critical Essays  (2000, originally published in 1931)
• Charles Olson, "Projective Verse" in  The Collected Poems of Charles Olson  (1987, originally published in 1950)
• Robert Creeley, "Was that a Real Poem or Did You Just Make It Up?" in  Collected Essays ,  A Quick Graph  (1974)

Literary Works  (in chronological order of publication date, with region noted)

• Rudyard Kipling,  Kim  (1901), India
• Joseph Conrad,  Heart of Darkness  (1902), Africa
• Rabindranath Tagore,  The Home and the World  (1916), South Asia
• E M Forster,  A Passage to India  (1924), South Asia
• Patricia Galvão,  Industrial Park  (1933), Latin America
• Raja Rao,  Kanthapura  (1938), South Asia
• José María Arguedas,  Yawar Fiesta  (1941), Latin America
• Alejo Carpentier,  The Kingdom of This World  (1949), Latin America
• George Lamming,  In the Castle of My Skin  (1950), Caribbean
• Samuel Selvon,  The Lonely Londoners  (1956), Caribbean
• Rosario Castellanos,  The Nine Guardians: A Novel  (1957), Latin America
• Chinua Achebe,  Things Fall Apart  (1959), Africa
• Ousmane Sembène,  God’s Bits of Wood  (1962), Africa
• Jean Rhys,  Wide Sargasso Sea  (1966), Caribbean
• V. S. Naipaul,  A House for Mr. Biswas  (1967), South Asia / Caribbean
• Ayi Kwei Armah,  The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born  (1968), Africa
• Aimé Césaire,  A Tempest  (1969), Caribbean
• Tayeb Salih,  Season of Migration to the North  (1969), Africa
• Bessie Head,  A Question of Power  (1974), Africa
• Wole Soyinka , Death and the King's Horseman  (1975), Africa
• Raj Anand,  Coolie  (1976), India
• Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona,  The Island  (1976), Africa
• Ama Ata Aidoo,  Our Sister Killjoy  (1977), Africa
• Ngūgī wa Thiong’o,  Petals of Blood  (1977), Africa
• Domitila Barrios de Chúngara with Moema Viezzer,  Let Me Speak! Testimony of Domitila, a Woman of the Bolivian Mines  (1978), Latin America
• Buchi Emecheta,  The Joys of Motherhood  (1979), Africa
• J. M. Coetzee,  Waiting for the Barbarians  (1980), Africa
• Mariama Bâ,  So Long a Letter  (1981), Africa
• Brian Friel,  Translations  (1981), Ireland
• Nadine Gordimer , July's People  (1981), Africa
• Salman Rushdie,  Midnight’s Children  (1981), South Asia
• Keri Hulme,  The Bone People  (1983), New Zealand
• Nawal El Saadawi,  Woman at Point Zero  (1983), North Africa
• Ken Saro Wiwa,  Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English  (1985), Africa
• Michelle Cliff,  No Telephone to Heaven  (1987), Caribbean
• Tsitsi Dangarembga,  Nervous Conditions  (1988), Africa
• Amitav Ghosh,  Shadow Lines  (1988), South Asia
• Jamaica Kincaid,  A Small Place  (1988), Caribbean
• Bapsi Sidhwa,  Cracking India  (1988), South Asia
• Mario Vargas Llosa,  The Storyteller  (1989), Latin America
• Claribel Alegría and Darwin Flakoll,  The Death of Somoza  (1990), Latin America
• Derek Walcott,  Omeros  (1990), Caribbean
• Ben Okri,  The Famished Road  (1991), Africa
• Hanif Kureishi,  My Son the Fanatic  (1994), South Asia
• Shyam Selvadurai,  Funny Boy  (1994), South Asia
• Mahasweta Devi,  Imaginary Maps: Three Stories  (1995), South Asia
• Zakes Mda,  Ways of Dying  (1995), Africa
• Arundhati Roy,  The God of Small Things  (1998), South Asia
• J. M. Coetzee,  Disgrace  (1999) [Africa]
• Edwidge Danticat,  The Farming of Bones  (1999), Caribbean
• Arundhati Roy,  The Algebra of Infinite Justice  (2001), South Asia
• Teju Cole,  Every Day Is for the Thief  (2007), Africa
• Aravind Adiga,  The White Tiger: A Novel  (2008), South Asia
• Amitav Ghosh,  Sea of Poppies  (2008), South Asia
• Urmila Pawar,  The Weave of my Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs  (2009), South Asia
• Yashpal,  This is Not that Dawn  (2010), South Asia
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,  Americanah  (2014), Africa
• NoViolet Bulawayo,  We Need New Names  (2014), Africa
• Yaa Gyasi,  Homegoing  (2016), Africa
• Maaza Mengiste,  The Shadow King  (2019), Africa

Readings/Theory  (grouped by region, in chronological order according to original publication date)

South Asia / Middle East

• M. K. Gandhi,  Hind Swaraj  (1909)
• B. R. Ambedkar,  The Annihilation of Caste  (1936)
• Jawaharlal Nehru,  The Discovery of India  (1946)
• Edward Said,  Orientalism  (1979)
• Salman Rushdie,  Imaginary Homelands  (2002)
• Ranajit Guha, “On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India” in  Subaltern Studies I: Writings on South Asian History and Society  (1982)
• Partha Chatterjee,  Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World  (1986)
• Binyavanga Wainaina, “How to Write about Africa” in  How to Write about Africa  (2022, originally published in 2005)
• Sharmila Rege,  Writing Caste, Writing Gender  (2006)

Latin America

• José Carlos Mariátegui , Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality  (1928)
• Che Guevara,  Socialism and Man in Cuba  (1965)
• Roberto Schwarz,  Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Culture  (1992)
• Latin American Subaltern Studies Group, "Founding Statement" in  Boundary2 20.3  (Autumn 1993)
• Neil Larsen,  Reading North by South  (1995)
• C. L. R. James,  The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution  (1938)
• Aimé Césaire,  A Discourse on Colonialism  (1950)
• Frantz Fanon,  Black Skin, White Masks  (1952)
• Frantz Fanon,  A Dying Colonialism  (1959)
• Frantz Fanon,  The Wretched of the Earth  (1961)
• Édouard Glissant,  Caribbean Discourse  (1981)
• Léopold Sédar Senghor, "Negritude: A Humanism of the Twentieth Century" in  Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader  (1994, originally published in French in 1966)
• Ngūgī wa Thiong’o,  Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature  (1986)
• Roberto Fernández Retamar,  Caliban and Other Essays  (1989)

Multi-Regional

• Amilcar Cabral,  The Weapon of Theory  (1966)
• Benedict Anderson,  Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism  (1983)
• Aijaz Ahmad,  In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literature  (1992)
• Edward Said,  Culture and Imperialism  (1993)
• Urvashi Butalia,  The Other Side of Silence  (1998)
• E. San Juan Jr.,  Beyond Postcolonial Theory  (1998)
• Rob Nixon,  Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor  (2011)
• Mary Louise Pratt,  Planetary Longings  (2022)

(in chronological order of publication date)

• Rodolphe Töpffer,  The Adventures of Obadiah   Oldbuck ( 1837)
• Rudolph Dirks,  The Katzenjammer Kids  (1897-1913)
• Winsor McCay,  Little Nemo in Slumberland  (1905-1914)
• George Herriman,  Krazy Kat  (1914-1944) *
• Early superhero comics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) (1938-1945) *
• Charles M. Schulz,  Peanuts  strip (1950-2000) *
• R. Crumb, Collected Works (1967- ) *
• Mad  Magazine (Al Feldstein, ed., 1952-1985) *
• Keiji Nakazawa,  Barefoot Gen  series (1973-1987)
• Osamu Tezuka,  Black Jack  series (1973-1983)
• Harvey Pekar,  American Splendor  (1976-2008)
• Will Eisner,  A Contract with God  (1978)
• Art Spiegelman,  MAUS , Vols I and II (1980-1992)
• Frank Miller,  Batman: The Dark Knight Returns  (1986)
• Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons,  Watchmen  (1986-1987)
• Lynda Barry,  The Good Times are Killing Me  (1988)
• Lynda Barry,  One Hundred Demons  (2002)
• Neil Gaiman,  The Sandman  (1989-1996)
• Scott McCloud,  Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art  (1993)
• Daniel Clowes,  Ghost World  (1995)
• Marjane Satrapi,  The Complete Persepolis  (2000)
• Chris Ware,  Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth  (2000)
• Joe Sacco,  Palestine  (2001)
• Joe Sacco,  Footnotes in Gaza  (2009)
• Phoebe Gloeckner,  The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures  (2002)
• Craig Thompson,  Blankets: An Illustrated Novel  (2003)
• Charles Burns,  Black Hole  (2005)
• Alison Bechdel,  Fun   Home: A Family Tragicomic  (2006)
• Shaun Tan,  The Arrival  (2006)
• David B.,  Epileptic  (2006)
• Gene Luen Yang,  American Born Chinese  (2006)
• Ulli Lust,  Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life  (2008)
• Gabrielle Bell,  The Voyeurs  (2012)
• John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell,  March  Vols I, II, and III (2013-2017)
• Adrian Tomine,  Killing and Dying  (2015)
• Ben Passmore,  Your Black Friend and Other Strangers  (2016)
• Emil Ferris,  My Favorite Thing is Monsters  (2017)
• John Jennings & Stacey Robinson, Tony Medina,  I am Alfonso Jones  (2017)
• Victoria Lomasko,  Other Russias  (2017)
• Thi Bui,  The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir  (2017)
• John Jennings & Damian Duffy,  Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation  (2018)
• Nick Drnaso,  Sabrina  (2018)

Cinema and Media Studies 

Films  (in chronological order of release date)

• Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory (1895) and Arrival of a Train at a Station (1895)
• George Méliès, A Trip to the Moon (1902)
• Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery (1903)
• D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Oscar Micheaux, Within Our Gates (1920)
• Robert J. Flaherty, Nanook of the North (1922)
• Sergei Eisenstein, The Battleship Potemkin (1925)
• Buster Keaton, The General (1926)
• F. W. Murnau, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
• Dziga Vertov, Man with the Movie Camera (1929)
• Fritz Lang, M (1931)
• Frank Capra, It Happened One Night (1934)
• Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936)
• Jean Renoir, The Grand Illusion (1937)
• Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (1941)
• Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied, Meshes of the Afternoo n (1943)
• Laurence Olivier, Henry V (1944)
• Roberto Rossellini, Rome, Open City (1945)
• Howard Hawks, The Big Sleep (1946)
• Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon (1950)
• Stanley Donen, Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
• Satyajit Ray, Pather Panchali (1955)
• John Ford, The Searchers (1956)
• Alain Resnais, Hiroshima mon Amour (1959)
• Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo (1958)
• Ritwick Ghatak, Meghe Dakha Tara (1960)
• Jean-Luc Godard, Contempt (1963)
• Federico Fellini, 8 1/2 (1963)
• Albert Maysles and David Maysles, Gimme Shelter (1970)
• Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather (1972)
• Djibril Diop Mambéty, Touki Bouki (1973)
• M. S. Sathyu, Garm Hava (1973)
• Shyam Benegal, Ankur (1974)
• Ousmane Sembène, Xala (1975)
• Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver (1976)
• R. W. Fassbinder, The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978)
• Aparna Sen, 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981)
• María Luisa Bemberg, Camila (1984)
• Agnès Varda, Vagabond (1985)
• Stephen Frears, My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
• David Lynch, Blue Velvet (1986)
• John Woo, A Better Tomorrow (1986)
• John Lasseter, Luxo Jr. (1986)
• Claire Denis, Chocolat (1988)
• Mira Nair, Salaam Bombay! (1988)
• Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing (1989)
• Julie Dash, Daughters of the Dust (1991)
• Zhang Yimou, Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
• Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Nargess (1992)
• Djibril Diop Mambéty, Hyènes (1992)
• Jane Campion, The Piano (1993)
• Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Deepa Mehta, Elements trilogy (1996-2005)
• Abbas Kiarostami, Taste of Cherry (1997)
• Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke (1997)
• Lucrecia Martel, The Swamp (2001)
• Abderrahmane Sissako, Bamako (2006)
• Jia Zhangke, Platform (2000)
• Jia Zhangke, Still Life (2006)
• Florian Thalhofer, Planet Galata: A Bridge in Istanbul (2010)
• Hito Steyerl, In Free Fall (2010)
• Harun Farocki,  Parallel I-IV  (2012-14)
• Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave (2013)
• Kelly Reichardt, Certain Women (2016)
• Nonny de la Peña, Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story (2017) 

Readings/Theory (in chronological order of original publication date)

• Hugo Münsterberg, "Why We Go to the Movies" in  Cosmopolitan  60.1   (Dec 1915)
• Béla Balázs, "The Close-Up" in  Béla Balázs: Early Film Theory: Visible Man and the Spirit of Film  (2010, originally published in French in 1924)
• Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in  Illuminations: Essays and Reflections  (1968, originally published in German in 1935)
• Sergei Eisenstein, "Dickens, Griffith, and Film Today" in  Film Form: Essays in Film Theory  (1949, originally published in Russian in 1944)
• Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" in  Dialect of the Enlightenment  (1989, originally published in German in 1944)
• Alexandre Astruc, "The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Camera-Stylo" in  Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures: A Critical Anthology (2014, originally published in French in 1948)
• André Bazin, "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema" in  What is Cinema ? Essays Selected and Translated by Hugh Gray (2004, originally published in French in early 1950s)
• Siegfried Kracauer, "The Establishment of Physical Existence" in  Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality  (1965, originally published in German in 1960)
• Maya Deren, "Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality" in  Daedalus  89.1   (Winter 1960)
• Marshall McLuhan,  Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man  (1964) *
• Jean-Louis Baudry, "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus" in  Film Quarterly  28.2 (Winter 1974-1975, originally published in French in 1970)
• Laura Mulvey, " Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema " in Screen 16.3 (Autumn 1975)
• Richard Dyer, "Entertainment and Utopia" in  Only Entertainment  (1977)
• Richard Dyer, "Stars as Types" and "Stars as Images" in  Stars  (1979)
• Giles Deleuze,  Cinema 1: The Movement Image (1986, originally published in French in 1983) *
• Rick Altman, "A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre" in  Cinema Journal  23.2 (Spring 1984)
• David Bordwell, "Art-Cinema Narration" in  Narration in the Fiction Film  (1985)
• Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde" in  Wide Angle  8.3-4 (1986)
• Bill Nichols, "Documentary Modes of Representation" in Representing Reality  (1991)
• Lynn Spigel,  Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America  (1992) *
• Robert Stam and Ella Shohat,  Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media  (1994) *
• Manthia Diawara,   "Black American Cinema: the New Realism" in  Cinemas of the Black Diaspora: Diversity, Dependence, and Oppositionality (1995)
• Henry Jenkins, "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Further Reflections" in  New Media: Theories of Practices of Digitexuality  (2003)
• Peter Wollen, "The Auteur Theory: Michael Curtiz, and Casablanca" in  Authorship and Film  (2003)
• Mary Ann Doane, "Information, Crisis, and Catastrophe" in  New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader (2005)
• Linda Hutcheon,  Theory of Adaptation  (2006) *
• John Thornton Caldwell,  Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television  (2008) *
• John Durham Peters,  The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media  (2015) *
• Patricia White, Women's Cinema, World Cinema: Projecting Contemporary Feminisms  (2015) *
• Lev Manovich, "What is Digital Cinema?" in  Post-Cimena: Theorizing 21st-Century Film  (2016)
• Karl Schoonover and Rosalind Galt,  Queer Cinema in the World  (2016) *

Secondary Menu

• 18th Century Search
• Artist in Residence Search
• Best Practices Exams & Reading Lists

This guide was prepared by GEA Representatives Rachel Gevlin and Chris Huebner in collaboration with fellow graduate students with the intention of demystifying the process of assembling a committee and preparing for exams.

Initial Questions to Ask Advisor and Committee Members

• What do you believe the reading year is for? Am I reading to gain comprehension of the field, to prepare for writing my first chapter, or to “explore” areas?
• How often should we meet? How often should I meet with other committee members? When do I need to start thinking concretely about a dissertation topic?
• What method/theory do you admire? What writers /critics do you like as a model? (This is a question that you could ask your advisor as well as a general question to consider yourself)

Constructing Lists

• How should I build my lists? Should I start big and cut? Should I start small and add?
• Is each list the domain of one advisor? Should my committee members collaborate to construct lists?
• What should the balance of prose/poetry/visual media be (for applicable projects)?
• How general/canonical should my lists be? How specific should they be to my own interests or to the specific “niche” of my project?
• How closely should my minor lists relate to each other? How closely should my minor lists relate to my major list?
• Should secondary texts be on primary lists (and vice versa)? If so, what should the ratio be?
• Should minor lists have sections?
• Do you have general formatting preferences for my lists? (Citations, numbering, ordering chronologically/alphabetically, etc.)

How to Handle Reading

• How should I prioritize which texts to start reading? What are the 20 most important?
• How closely should I be reading each text?
• How should I read? For argument? For factual or historical background?
• As I read through my lists, should I produce any writing?

Preparing for Exams

• What is the procedure for oral exams? What should I prepare? Who starts? Will there be times when I will be asked to leave the room? Is it acceptable to take notes or record audio during the exam?
• Who will draft the questions, and will I have any input in what they are?
• How much ‘quizzing’ on small details (dates, character names, etc.) from the texts will there be? Am I likely to be asked questions about texts that aren’t on my lists?
• What types of questions should I expect? i.e. Will I be asked to give a survey of a period? Will each question entail making an argument? Will I be expected to respond to specific critics?
• How many questions will there be? Different advisors have different expectations, but the general outline (from the handbook) is the following: “The major exam is typically scheduled first. The format is usually to answer 2 or 3 questions from a choice of between 4 to 6 questions. For the minor exam, the format is usually to answer 1 or 2 on each minor field (2-4 in total) from between 4 and 6 questions.”
• In my oral exam, should I have an answer prepared for every question that was asked on the written exams, or only for those that I answered in writing?
• What kind of feedback can I expect after my exams are completed?
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PhD Reading Lists

Phd exam reading lists.

• American Literature from 1620 to 1865
• American Literature from 1865 to 1965
• British Modernism
• Contemporary Literature
• English Romanticism
• Ethnography
• History of Literary Criticism
• Modern Literary Theory
• Postcolonial Literature
• Renaissance Literature
• Restoration in the 18th Century
• Rhetoric and Composition
• Victorian Literature