PhD - Doctor of Philosophy
All Ph.D. candidates are assigned an interim supervisor on entry to the program. A primary supervisor as agreed upon by the student, the faculty member, and the Program Director must be selected by March 15 of the first year in the program. A Comprehensive Supervisory Committee as agreed upon by the student, supervisor, the faculty members and Program Director is required by May 15 of the first year in the program. The supervisor and supervisory committee will work with the student to develop a program of study integrating course work, participation in the Humanities Graduate Seminar, comprehensive examinations and dissertation that demonstrates interdisciplinarity in the study of culture in a Humanities context.
All updates to a student's status require completion of the PhD Plan of Study. PhD Plan of Study form
Requirements for obtaining a PhD in Humanities:
- Course Requirements
Students will be required to take:
- The equivalent of three full graduate courses consistent with their plan of study, as approved by their supervisor and the Program Director
- At least two of the three courses will be in Humanities.
- One of the three courses may be a Directed Reading course (Humanities 6000), as approved by the student's supervisor and the Program Director.
- Comprehensive Examination
The objectives of the comprehensive examination are to prepare and qualify students to teach undergraduate courses in the areas examined and to equip students with the specialized knowledge they need to undertake research on their doctoral dissertation. Students in the Graduate Program in Humanities will be required to pass an oral comprehensive examination before undertaking their doctoral dissertation. They will normally be expected to take the examination at the end of their second or at the beginning of their third year of registration. Candidates will be required to demonstrate comprehensive knowledge within the designated areas on the examination. Evidence of such comprehensive knowledge will be assessed on the basis of the candidate's competence in providing answers to questions during the examination that address the material on the reading lists in relation to significant critical and theoretical issues. In the case of failure students will be permitted to re-sit the examination only once, and the re-examination is to take place within six months of the date of the first examination. A second failure will require withdrawal from the Program. The examination committee will be composed of four faculty: the Program Director or his/her representative; the student's supervisor; and two Humanities faculty appointed by the Director in consultation with the student and the supervisor.
Candidates for the doctorate must select two areas of study, the major and the minor. The comprehensive examination will assess the student's overall knowledge of both areas. The major area will be a coherent and definable area of scholarship within one of the Program fields: Comparative Perspectives and Cultural Boundaries; Religion, Values and Culture; or Science, Technology and Culture. The major area is normally the broad area within which the dissertation will be written and the area in which graduates would claim to be able to offer courses at the undergraduate survey level. The minor area is a more specialized sub-section of the major area. The minor area will cover the more specialized knowledge that students will need to research and to write their dissertation. It is also the area in which graduates would claim to be able to offer upper-level courses or research seminars. The definition of the major and minor areas will be determined by the Director, the candidate and the dissertation supervisor and approved by the Director at least six months before the Qualifying Examination. Students will be required to prepare reading lists for both the major and minor areas of their comprehensive examination and to have them approved by their dissertation supervisors.
Designating the major and the minor areas of the comprehensive exams within one of the Program fields is not typical of our graduate programs, especially those devoted to a particular discipline. In many graduate programs each area of study is identical to one of the fields. However there is precedent for loosening the relationship between fields and the areas of study in comprehensive exams. In the case of graduate programs in the disciplines, an important purpose of fields is to prevent students from becoming too specialized. But interdisciplinary programs are inherently broad. For an interdisciplinary program the purpose of major and minor areas of study in comprehensive exams is to provide focus, not breadth. In the Graduate Humanities Program the major and minor areas of study will provide this focus if they are defined somewhat more narrowly than the field which contains them.
The list for each comprehensive area must be submitted, together with a PhD Plan of Study indicating approval by the supervisory committee, to the Graduate Program Director for approval six months prior to the examination. All comprehensive examinations must be scheduled by Savi Ramjattan.
Further Information on Comprehensive Examinations
- Language Requirement
There is no official language requirement, but students working in an area where the language is other than English must demonstrate to the members of their dissertation supervisory committee that they have the ability to read primary sources and secondary literature in that language.
New Language Requirement for Students Entering Program in Fall 2009
Students working in an area where a language or languages other than English are necessary for their research must demonstrate to the members of their supervisory committee that they have the ability to read primary sources and/or scholarly literature in the relevant language or languages or have the ability to speak the relevant language or languages, as required for their research.
Students who are working in an area where they only require English for their primary research must demonstrate to the members of their supervisory committee that they are able to read one language other than English. Academic literature is produced in various languages and students need to have the ability to read authors relevant to their research in their original language as they pursue their studies and scholarly careers.Students must demonstrate competence in a language other than English before the approval of their Dissertation Proposal, which is normally in the eighth term of their program of study.
Means of Demonstrating Competence.
The new language requirements must be met by student entering the program in the fall of 2009 and thereafter.
- Dissertation
Students will be required to prepare a dissertation in which they make an original contribution to Humanities scholarship in the interdisciplinary study of culture. The completion of the dissertation will involve the following four steps:
- the establishment of a Supervisory Committee of three members, at least two of whom will be members of the Graduate Program in Humanities. The third member may be appointed in a Graduate Program other than Humanities;
- the preparation of a dissertation proposal (
  ), which must normally be approved the Supervisory Committee within three months of completing the final comprehensive examination, and approved by the Graduate Program Director and the Faculty of Graduate Studies;
- the writing of a dissertation acceptable to the Supervisory Committee and in the end formally approved as examinable by the members of that committee;
- the holding of an oral examination, centered on the dissertation and matters related to it, and presided over by an Examining Committee recommended by the program director for approval and appointment by the Dean of Graduate Studies (Section 36 of the Faculty Regulations: "Dissertation Examining Committee").
- Humanities Graduate Seminar
Ph.D. candidates will be required to take part in a non-credit seminar (the Humanities Graduate Seminar) in their first year, including students who have participated in the Seminar as candidates for the MA.
PhD Program Guidelines for Stages of Progress
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