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Job Placement


Since 2005, roughly half of Emory Ph.D. graduates have secured tenure-track academic positions at the institutions listed below. Of those who conduct national job searches, the figure is a bit higher.

Versatility in Job Searches

Many of our students also find rewarding careers in administrative, archival, or writing center positions at four-year colleges and universities. We are equally pleased to see the ingenuity of our students finding work in the business, nonprofit, and art worlds. One recent alum is a successful novelist; one is a researcher for the Council of Graduate Schools; one teaches at a private high school, and one works for a marketing firm. 

Each year, the department appoints two faculty members to serve as job placement officers; we have also begun a program of alternative career advising for those who wish to find university positions outside of conventional disciplinary appointments (in archives, administration, advising, etc). These faculty members guide students seeking academic positions by holding workshops, reviewing materials, and staging mock interviews.

Professional Development Support

Students traveling to the Modern Language Association conference and other venues for interviews receive financial support through the Laney Graduate School's Professional Development Support Funds. Our students find positions in departments across the country, in a variety of institutions, from large research universities to small liberal arts colleges.

The department also prepares students professionally long before they are ready to begin looking for positions. A brown-bag luncheon series on topics related to professionalization provides a forum for understanding how academic careers (as well as non-academic careers in which the PhD is relevant) take shape. There are also pedagogical seminars on composition and literature to prepare the teaching materials required for academic employment.

The lists below reflect positions secured by our recent graduates. Years listed are years of the degree, not necessarily years of appointment. The appointments listed are the most recent positions unless otherwise noted.

Job Placements


Photo: The Wind Among the Reeds and Poems, first editions by W.B. Yeats, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library.