There are a few departments that are “theory heavy” or “known for theory” (often more in the past than in the present): e.g., Duke, Pitt, SUNY Buffalo, Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, etc., but not as many as one would think. Nevertheless, those would not be departments you would want to apply to. It is more the case that you want a program big enough /good enough that it will support both traditional literary scholarship and more theory-oriented work, and thus allow a student to find his/her own way. UVa is a good example—one could go there and obtain and excellent traditional PhD in English literature, or go there and do something more theory heavy, or a bit of both. And that is because it is a big department stocked with excellent faculty. On this basis, one can recommend many more programs like this: Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, UCLA, U of Toronto, etc.; if you look at good public universities, almost all the good ones fit the same description: Indiana, Chapel Hill, Urbana, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida State, Penn State, etc. You won’t be able to “avoid theory” completely anywhere (nor do you really want to be that isolated intellectually), but at any of the above schools I would imagine that with the right planning and advising you would be able to do the kind of degree you want. As far as schools that are perhaps known particularly for their rigor in traditional English literature, I would add Notre Dame, Boston University, U of Chicago, U of Dallas, U of North Texas, Catholic University of America, etc. Also lots of programs in the UK and Canada. Good luck!
