Doctoral Program

Founded in 1952, the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts is one of the oldest centers for interdisciplinary graduate education in North America. Initially designed as an alternative to conventional discipline-based education, it became the catalyst for new and experimental interdisciplinary programs at Emory. Some of them have spun off to become free-standing units. New ones emerge as new questions and problems present themselves. The ILA continues to redefine its mission and to provide a challenging, interdisciplinary space for both faculty and students to pursue theoretically sophisticated and historically grounded studies of culture and society . Within the ILA, students and faculty currently work within one or more intellectual approaches that include American Studies or Interdisciplinary Studies.

Affiliated and Certificate Programs

Along with the Ph.D. in the ILA, students can find resources and in some cases earn certificates demonstrating concentrations in the following departments and programs with which the ILA has strong links:

• African Studies
• African-American Studies
• Comparative Literature
• Digital Scholarship
• European Studies
• Gender/Sexuality
• Medieval Studies
• Philosophy
• Psychoanalytic Studies
• Southern Studies
• Studies in Sexuality
• Women's Studies

ILA Research Working Groups

• Health & Illness
• Media & Public Scholarship
• Memory & History
• Migrations & Diaspora
• Religion, Literature, Philosophy, Ethics