Our primary research facility is RUSH RHEES LIBRARY, which holds several million volumes in an open-stack environment. In 1997, the Library installed a state-of-the-art electronic catalogue, Voyager, which provides a union listing of all the University’s libraries, together with direct links to various on-line resources and archives and to other web sites. Remote access (from on campus and off) and high powered, versatile search capabilities make it well suited to the sophisticated research requirements of graduate students. Graduate students in the Department of English may make use of a variety of specialized collections and several research opportunities unique to the University of Rochester; these enable students, at beginning and advanced levels, to pursue topics in depth, explore new territory, develop interdisciplinary expertise, or work with non-traditional materials.
The KOLLER-COLLINS GRADUATE CENTER—an attractive space within Rush Rhees Library dedicated to research and lectures in literary studies—contains non-circulating collections of particular value to graduate students and faculty in English. The ROSSELL HOPE ROBBINS LIBRARY, a group of more than 20,000 books and periodicals devoted to Medieval Studies, with its own reading rooms and stacks, provides one of the best research facilities in North America for advanced work in Old and Middle English, medieval history and art, and the continental literature of the High Middle Ages. The KOLLER-COLLINS COLLECTION, housed in the main reading rooms of the Center, consists of 7,000 primary texts and reference works in all areas of British and American literature and critical theory; the Collection also includes special holdings in the works of several authors, including Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Graham Greene, and the Elizabethan dramatists. These collections, together with an adjacent seminar room, reading lounges, and the offices of the Middle English Texts series and the Chaucer Bibliographies, insure that graduate students have unfettered access to essential materials in a space that fosters independent work and enables students to share their professional interests.
The DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, also located in Rush Rhees Library, houses unique research materials, including books, manuscripts, maps, prints, broadsides, and other printed ephemera, many associates with particular collections. This corpus of some 75,000 volumes ranges from holographs and incunabula to modern first editions; areas of outstanding strength include earlier English drama, a grouping of nineteenth-century authors (Robert Southey, Benjamin Disraeli, John Ruskin, and others), early American children’s books, filmed books, and modern poetry. The University owns unpublished materials associated with a number of Rochester luminaries (Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and William Henry Seward), with playwrights and performers of nineteenth-century British and American theater, and with a number of twentieth-century novelists and poets (among them, Adelaide Crapsey, John MacInnes, Hyam Plutzik, John Gardner, and John Williams). Special Collections also possesses an exceptional assortment of Dime Novels published in late nineteenth-century America, encompassing Westerns, science fiction, detective and adventure stories, sports books, and inspirational reading of the Horatio Alger type. The Hyam Plutzik Library of Contemporary Writing, which houses the William and Hannelore Heyen collection of manuscripts, broadsides and first editions of twentieth century poetry, a remarkable collection containing thousands of items, provides unique research opportunities for the advanced study of contemporary writing.
The SUSAN B. ANTHONY INSTITUTE FOR GENDER AND WOMEN’S STUDIES provides an interdisciplinary forum for intellectual and pedagogical discussions concerning feminist theory and practice and the academic disciplines of gender and women’s studies. The Institute regularly features lectures, conferences, and research seminars, including an annual graduate student conference. The Institute also offers a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies and supports graduate student teaching and research through travel grants, research grants, teaching fellowships, and an annual award for best dissertation in gender studies.
The MULTIMEDIA CENTER provides, among other things, sophisticated computer and video equipment and software for student projects, knowledgeable help in designing and executing such projects, and classrooms outfitted for multimedia instruction. The Center offers a program of brief presentations to introduce novice users to its equipment and facilities. The Multimedia Center also houses the collection of films, videos, and DVDs belonging to the Film Studies Collection (see below).
The FREDERICK DOUGLASS INSTITUTE FOR AFRICAN AND AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES has a broad mandate that includes graduate education. The Institute offers interdisciplinary courses through several departments.
The GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE, located several miles from the main campus, possesses an unparalleled collection of photographs, filsm, and related materials. An international center for film scholars, it has one of the two or three richest film archives in the world. The University’s association with the Eastman House provides a channel for students interested in serious study of the history, criticism, and art of film. Eastman House each year sponsors internships especially suited for Rochester Ph.D. students, and it offers various employment opportunities that have strengthened the credentials of Film Studies students.
The FILM STUDIES PROGRAM on the River Campus has a core collection of more than 900 films of all kinds from many countries and periods, as well as some 3,000 videotapes. These materials are used in teaching the many popular film courses at the University and are also available for private viewing. In addition, the Program provides resources for students interested in pursuing graduate study in film as part of their advanced work in English; Film Studies students also have opportunities to teach, or to assist with instruction in, courses connected to film, video, and cultural studies. The Film Studies Program has had a strong impact not only on students working directly in these areas, but on other graduate students who have applied film criticism and theory to more traditional projects in literary studies.
Finally, FACULTY RESEARCH PROJECTS—Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, the online Blake Archive, the Middle English Texts series, the Chaucer Bibliographies, and the Camelot Project among them—have provided students with opportunities to enhance their professional expertise, including research, editorial, and technical skills, and to earn supplemental income. These undertakings have been supported chiefly by outside grants—from NEH, the Getty Foundation, and other sources—and their continuing vitality (and funding) therefore depends largely on the productivity of graduate assistance. The medley of demands, from long-term planning to painstaking formatting or editorial adjustments, from the accommodation of sudden changes in the publishing cycle to the scramble for financial backing, has contributed notably to the credentials Ph.D.s bring to the job market.
