Why I Chose YSJ for my English Literature PhD

I think it was as early as the second year of my undergraduate degree when I decided that I wanted to do a PhD. I didn’t have a topic in mind or anything like that. I just knew that I wanted to stay involved in academia for as long as possible.

I undertook both my BA and MA at YSJ and had a brilliant time. My MA thesis was on contemporary Scottish nature writing and the ethics of rewilding in the work of Kathleen Jamie. In all honesty, I chose this topic with the ulterior motive of getting funding as part of a Doctoral Training Partnership to extend my research further—both ecocriticism and devolutionary literature are quite fashionable topics of research at the moment.

But as I began my research, I found myself being sucked into the topic more and more, and, in the end, I was hooked. My MA supervisor, Dr Alex Beaumont, was a fantastic influence and gave me confidence that this was a project worth pursuing, and now he, and Dr Ben Garlick, supervise my PhD, the working title of which is: Nature and Nation in Contemporary Scottish Literature.

The project questions whether nature or the landscape can be mobilised to serve both political aspirations of sovereignty and the demands of the coming climate crisis. If ideologically fraught but archetypally Scottish landscapes such as the Highlands are used to push a certain type of Scottish-ness, does this commodification, or backdropping, not inhibit a way of thinking about the environment that is critically proportionate to the coming climate crisis? These are the type of questions that genuinely motivate me, as they are catalysts for interrogating the role of literature more broadly when it comes to the climate crisis.

I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit hole here, because I realise it might not speak to everyone. What I’d like to do is to provide a bit of insight on applying for an English Literature PhD at YSJ and what it’s like to actually do it.

“I chose to stay here, and do my PhD here, because of the community.”

I chose to stay here, and do my PhD here, because of the community.  Although I was sometimes a bit self-conscious in doing so, everyone I’ve ever reached out to here has been more than happy to help me and give me advice. I’d love to give back to this community, that I have leaned on so heavily during my four-ish years studying here. So, if you have any questions I don’t cover here, or if you want to chat about my research, or even just have someone look over your application please email me.

I started my PhD in February this year, and I submitted my application last November. I gave myself a six-month break after I handed in my MA dissertation to decompress a little and find some work that I could balance alongside a PhD .

I already had quite a strong idea of what I wanted to research but I’d recommend giving yourself as much time as possible to fill this out and running it by some of your lecturers. For example, I reached out to Alex several times for example before submitting my application. Moreover, if you have ambitions to study an English Literature PhD, speak to as many people as possible about it, ask questions.

The application form itself is not too complicated—it asks for the aims of your proposed research, the expected outcomes, and contribution to knowledge, as well as indicative primary texts and critical sources. It comes to a little over 1000 words total.

Also, as I’m often reminded, PhDs tend to change focus as you’re writing them, so don’t worry if you have completely fleshed out all your ideas yet.

Your application is used to pair you with the most suitable supervisors, who you will then be invited to an interview with. During the interview, you will have to deliver a 10-minute presentation on your proposed research and then have a discussion with your prospective supervisors on your project and motivations for doing a PhD.

That sounds quite intimidating, but I actually found it a really productive opportunity to discuss my ideas with people who clearly had similar interests to me. You’ll then learn if you’ve been offered a place, and when you’d like to start.

It’s then mostly on you! I meet with my supervisors around once a month and spend three to four hours a day actively working on my project. At the moment, I’m mostly reading, making annotated bibliographies, and doing some close reading exercises.

I balance doing my PhD with some part-time work, and that, along with funding are the main challenges for me—I use the government’s Postgraduate Doctoral Loan. Personally, I find time management quite difficult and it’s something I’m working on. Especially when things are a bit busy at work, I can find myself falling out of the flow of PhD work a little, but then I do something like this blog and it reinvigorates me.

There’s also a strong emphasis on professional development at YSJ. The PhD was described to me as almost an apprenticeship for a career in academia, which is something I love. I didn’t get this sense when I was talking to other universities about PhDs, and I think it comes from that strong community—everyone wants to see you succeed. 

For me, that and the contemporary, youthful vibe of the university makes it the ideal place to do an English Literature PhD and to start your academic career.

• By Oscar, PhD student at York St John University

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