Admissions: Media Aesthetics

For the 2024-2025 admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants planning to focus their graduate work on “media aesthetics.” We are looking for students who are asking and answering questions of how distinct mediums (print, performance, film, digital media, etc.) shape aesthetic experience, as well as those studying historical and cultural approaches to media and mediation. This work can be done in any period, and it can be transnational and multilinguistic in scope.

We are particularly interested in applicants whose intellectual work engages with one or more of the following: medium specificity; remediation; adaptation and comparative media; new and old media; game studies; literary settings and environments; theatrical scenes, sets and contexts; atmospherics; book history; manuscript culture; trans-media; electronic literature; and artistic media including performance. We also welcome hybrid scholars working in creative and critical work in and across media, or public humanities and public facing work that foregrounds mediation.

“Media aesthetics” is part of a multiyear area of focus for the University of Chicago’s Department of English, in “Literary Worlds and Worldings.” This area will be our focus for the next three years, with each year emphasizing a different theme within this broad topic:

We are excited about this multiyear admissions initiative, and believe the English department has much to offer incoming graduate students working in these areas of study.

Q: What is “media aesthetics” anyway?

A: Good question! We understand “media aesthetics” quite broadly, to include a wide range of literary, aesthetic, and cultural approaches to media and mediation. Work on “media aesthetics” could involve a wide range of questions about how distinct mediums (print, theater, film, digital media, etc.) shape aesthetic experience; and/or historical and cultural approaches to media and mediation. It could intersect with any historical period and with a variety of other traditional (or nontraditional) subfields. It can be transnational and multilinguistic in scope.

We are particularly interested in applicants whose intellectual project engages with one or more of the following: medium specificity; remediation; adaptation and comparative media; new and old media; game studies; literary settings and environments; theatrical scenes, sets and contexts; atmospherics; book history; manuscript culture; trans-media; electronic literature; and artistic media including performance. We also welcome hybrid scholars working in creative and critical work in and across media, or public humanities and public facing work that foregrounds mediation.

Q: Will this year’s focus apply to future admissions cycles?

A: No. This year’s focus applies to the admissions cycle for 2024-25 only.

“Media aesthetics” is part of a multiyear area of focus for the University of Chicago’s Department of English, in “Literary Worlds and Worldings.” This area will be our Ph.D. admissions focus for the next three years, with each year emphasizing a different theme within this broad topic.

Future Admissions Themes

Year 2 (2025–26): Environmental, ecological, and/or spatial matters, including eco-aesthetics, built environments and literature, geography and urbanization, and environmental e/affects. Prospective students might also consider connections to the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization.

Year 3 (2026–27): Transnational literature, migration, and movement, including decolonial literatures, speculative fictions, the movement of cultural meaning, and translation.

Q: Should I apply this year if my research interests are outside of the thematic focus for this year’s application cycle?

A: No. For the 2024-25 application cycle, the department is only considering the applications of students planning to focus on media aesthetics: literary, aesthetic, and cultural approaches to media and mediation. However, if your interests include other research areas in addition to media aesthetics we would be glad to consider your application.

Q: What if I have research interests that extend beyond the thematic focus for this year’s application cycle?

A: We welcome applicants whose intellectual interests include but also extend beyond a focus on media aesthetics. The University of Chicago English Department has a strong commitment to interdisciplinary research and methods. Faculty have training in a number of disciplinary formations, including Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, American Studies, Black Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies. Our faculty and graduate students work on a wide range of subfields, geographical areas, languages, and objects. Many work in collaboration with other departments and centers on campus and in the greater Chicago area.

Q: Will enrolled students be able to take courses and work with faculty outside of the research area specified in the admissions application?

A: Yes. New students will benefit from the array of faculty and courses within the department focused in and around “media aesthetics,” but also from the entire departmental faculty, who are uniformly committed to support the thriving of all of our graduate students, this year and thereafter. In addition, many of our students do coursework in other departments such as Cinema and Media Studies, Theater and Performance Studies, Comparative Literature, History, etc.