FAQ: “How Do I Do A PhD in Fanfiction?”

I am often contacted by potential graduate students interested in studying fanfiction at the PhD level, or by their advisors, asking for advice. Here are some general things that I suggest that people consider when thinking about their path. This page is geared towards helping potential graduate students think about not just their future research projects but a future career in academia. There are very few jobs available for university professors, and success in a PhD and beyond requires good mentorship and a supportive research environment, so doing your research before you apply is crucial. The following is most relevant to students in the US and Canada.

Q. What kind of department/program should I be applying to?

Fanfiction, as a field, is not very established in literary studies programs (e.g. English, Comparative Literature). Typically, at the moment, people who study fanfiction are situated in cultural/media studies programs (e.g. American Studies, Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Television Studies…), which can give a wider context and training for studying popular cultures and audiences, including methods like ethnography and quantitative or qualitative research, which literature programs typically cannot easily support. Which kind of program would your proposed project, or research questions, best fit into? To put it more simply, if your questions about fanfiction are about genre, form, style, other writing things, those are a fit for English programs; if your questions are about how audiences read it, how television producers interact with it, who produces it and why - those are better suited to media studies, cultural studies, or women, gender, and sexuality studies programs.

What do you imagine yourself teaching in the future? Film? Television? Classic literature? Creative writing? Studies of popular culture? Feminist theory? The kind of department in which you receive your PhD training - not just your advisor, but the courses you take, the people you talk with, the kinds of courses you get the opportunity to teach on - will affect the kinds of jobs for which you can later apply. If you want to teach film, and not literature - well, that should affect your choice on whether or not to apply to an English department for a PhD.

Q. How do I find a program that would be a good fit for me?

Set aside time for research - this is real work. The first thing to do is to ask professors who teach relevant courses in your institution. Where did they do their PhDs? Where have they recently had students admitted? What do they know about people in the field? Second - or if you don’t have anyone who could give you that kind of advice - look through recent issues of Transformative Works and Cultures (open access) and The Journal of Fandom Studies (might be available through your university library). Make a list of the authors of articles that seem broadly to fit with your interests, the universities at which they are either faculty or PhD students, and their departments. Cross out the ones in countries you would not be willing, or cannot move to. Then, start on those department websites.

Q. There is a professor I really want to work with, I love their work, their interests fit with mine, and/or I have heard they are a great mentor - what next?

If you have identified a possible faculty member you would like to work with - hopefully someone who has published on fanfiction in the past, or indicates a familiarity with it - it is always worth contacting them before you put in a formal application to the department (but if they don’t reply, don’t take it personally, and don’t let it stop you applying). While faculty typically are not able to take a lot of time to read materials or write a long email, they should be able to answer fairly concise questions about a) whether they are accepting PhD students in the coming year, and b) whether they would be interested in supervising your project (give a sentence or two description). You can also ask if they have any thoughts about who else in the department - or in other departments - you should look at. They know that your topic may change - this email exchange isn’t binding. You’re simply gathering information. Remember that your eventual PhD dissertation committee will have 3-4 people on it, which could include faculty from other departments. Don’t be afraid to contact people in departments outside of the one to which you are applying (e.g. if you are applying to American Studies, you might still be able to work with faculty in English, History, or Comparative Literature).

Q: I’ve identified an English program I really want to apply for, but how do I know if they would be a good place to do a PhD on fanfiction?

You can certainly contact the faculty you are interested in and ask them; see above. Your best friend, however, is the department website. Look in detail at the other faculty, at the current courses offered for graduate students, at the research interests of current PhD students. Is anyone else working on popular culture? on children’s literature? on digital literatures? on genre literature? If not, they may not be experienced in enough in your field to support you well and mentor you. Does the university have a media studies program? Does it offer undergraduate classes on popular media? If the only people teaching those classes are adjuncts or lecturers (not tenure track or permanently employed by the university, and usually not available to advise PhD projects), that suggests that the university does not invest in those subjects at the graduate level.

Q: I know I want to do something about fanfiction in my PhD, and I have an idea for a project, but I don’t know if it will work! Am I bound to do the project I propose?

Absolutely not. In the US and Canada, PhDs typically take 6-8 years*, and you don’t start working on the actual dissertation until towards the end of the third year; before that point you take multiple classes that are intended to give you a much broader grounding in a subject in which you will eventually teach. It is expected that your ideas and interests will evolve, even change dramatically. You make no commitment to work with a specific person when you apply (nor they with you!), nor even to stay in the specific time period/subfield in which you originally apply, although it’s unusual to switch dramatically in the first two years (e.g. to apply to work on science fiction and then switch to Renaissance drama). What US PhD admissions committees look for in your application as a whole is a sense that you are a proficient writer and original critical thinker, that you can conceive of an interesting, large-scale research project in your proposed field, that you can hold your own in a classroom setting, and that you have the maturity, and independence to do a PhD program. They are also considering whether the program is the right fit for the kinds of things you are interested in, but that is secondary to the other things, since there is room for change.

* Note that most US programs only have 5 years of guaranteed funding, but it is standard to take longer; one of the questions to ask of department officers and current graduate students if you are admitted to multiple programs is, “how do your students fund that 6th year?” - the answer is usually a mixture of competitive grants and teaching, but it’s something to know in advance.

Q: Who can I ask for help at my own undergraduate institution?

A. If you have worked closely with a professor - taken a senior class with them that you loved, written a senior thesis with them - certainly ask them for advice about applying for PhD programs. They may even have specific suggestions about potential people to contact in different universities who might be good advisors for your project. You could also reach out to the university careers center and see what resources they have for people considering graduate school.

Q. What else do you think people applying for graduate school should know?

My brilliant colleague Dr. Robin Bernstein has curated a list of advice for academics and graduate students here.

I will add that I always recommend that people who have been continuously in school for their whole lives take a year out between undergraduate and graduate degrees. Get a job, travel, teach, write, read; time out of educational settings builds essential emotional maturity, independence, and perspective. You also have more chance of being successful in your application after a year out; you will have all your final grades, and you can reassure admissions committees that you are not applying for a PhD because you cannot imagine leaving college. College professors should expect to be still writing references for people for 1-2 years after they leave college, and it is fine to contact them after you have graduated asking for a reference (although obviously, still give them at minimum several weeks’ notice before the deadline). However, even if you intend to take a year out, it is a good idea to talk about your graduate school plans with your professors before you graduate, while you and your work are fresh in their minds.