|
On-line Catalog:
Humanities Center Graduate Courses (.pdf file)
Information on Graduate
Admissions
The center
sponsors programs of study leading to the Ph.D. degree in two general
fields: comparative literature and intellectual history. These programs are
designed with the cooperation of the faculty in the adjacent literary and
historical departments. Only a few highly qualified applicants can be
admitted; the center gives priority to candidates whose proposed course of
study is congruent with faculty interests and strengths.
Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Each
student works with an ad hoc committee of three faculty members who help to
design a coherent, individual program of studies. During the first two
years the candidate works closely with each of his or her advisers. The
course of studies, seminars, and tutorials leads to three area examinations
administered by the advisory committee. During the second year, qualified
students are invited to teach under faculty supervision, and on occasion
advanced students have been allowed to offer undergraduate seminars of
their own design.
Program in Comparative Literature
Normally,
candidates for the Ph.D. in comparative literature should be competent in
three national literatures and have a general familiarity with critical
theory. Students in this program are encouraged to spend at least one year
of study abroad, usually as members of groups working in Paris,
Florence, Hamburg,
Geneva, or Madrid in programs sponsored by the
modern language departments and the Center. The University maintains the
Villa Spelman in Florence as a study center, and the
Departments of German and Romance Languages and Literatures have regular
programs of faculty exchange.
Students
in the comparative literature program can apply for a joint major with the
Department of German. They become supervised teaching assistants in that
department and receive a master?s
degree in German upon completion of the field examinations, before the
doctoral degree in comparative literature. On a more ad hoc basis, similar
arrangements for well-qualified candidates can generally be made with the
Departments of Classics and Romance Languages and Literatures.
Program in Intellectual History
The
center's doctoral program also allows flexibility in the construction of a
course of study in intellectual history involving comparatist
and interdisciplinary approaches. Candidates should also note related
special programs at Hopkins,
such as the program in political theory and the research facilities of the
Institute of the History of Medicine.
Advisors
Upon their
arrival, entering students should select, in consultation with the
Director, a member of the Center's faculty to serve as their academic
adviser, pro tem. As time goes on and their interests further define
themselves, they may wish to change advisers and may very well wind up
working most closely with faculty in another department; should this become
the case, they should nevertheless meet regularly -- that is, each semester
-- to discuss their progress with whomever in the
Center is serving as Director of Graduate Studies.
Course Work
During
their first two years, students are expected to take two seminars for
credit each semester, in addition to whatever language courses they may
enroll in and to whatever courses they choose to audit. They should select
seminars-- which need not be restricted to Humanities Center
offerings-- in consultation with their advisers. Students arriving after
having taken graduate courses elsewhere should discuss with the Director of
Graduate Studies the possibility of having that work counted towards
satisfying the Center's course requirements.
Third-Year Review
At some
point during their third year of residence-- after completing all
outstanding seminar papers, and preferably by mid-year-- students will have
their work reviewed by a faculty committee composed of three teachers from
among the Humanities Center faculty and from among the faculty from the
other departments with whom the student plans to conduct field exams. The
purpose of the review is to allow the faculty to assess the student's
progress, to clarify her/his status as regards remaining course work, and
to define future fields. In preparation for this review, the student will
circulate, in advance of the meeting, materials that the student judges to
be work that will best serve the purpose of the review.
Field Examinations
Students
are expected, in their third and fourth years, to complete three field
exams. The purpose of requirement is two-fold: the exams may serve to help
a student refine her/his thinking about a dissertation topic, or they may
be a means of extending and deepening a student's knowledge of an area of
studies in which s/he proposes to teach and conduct research. The
examinations themselves may take a variety of forms: one could work further
on a project begun in a seminar and produce a longer paper that would
become part of a dissertation; one could read one's way into and across a
particular field, writing a series of short papers on one's reading, or
else sitting for a written or oral examination on the material studied; one
could design and teach an undergraduate course in one's area of interest;
one could complete the requirements for a M. A. degree in another
department, as a way of strengthening one's claim to teach in that field.
These are choices to be discussed with one's committee at the third-year
review.
Undergraduate
Teaching
During
one's years at the Center one will have a number of opportunities to
develop one's skills and confidence as a teacher. In the second year and
thereafter, students will ordinarily serve as assistants in courses taught
by the Center's faculty or, if appropriate, in courses in other
departments: in the past, our students have taught in the French and German
language programs, in English composition and literature courses, as well
as assisting in history, philosophy and political science courses. More
experienced students are encouraged to teach courses of their own
invention-- as a way of completing a field exam, or in competition for one
of the Dean's Teaching Fellowships, or simply to add to the Center's array
of offerings.
Dissertation
Review
A secondformal review of a student's work will take place
after the completion of field exams, either in the fourth or in the fall
semester of a student's fifth year. The aim of this review is to bring the
student together with thefaculty with whom s/he
will write a dissertation. This review will not take place until the
student believes that s/he has a substantial piece of work associated with
the dissertation, e.g., the draft of a chapter. This work will be
circulated before the review, along with a prospectus of 10 - 40 pages, to
the faculty the student wishes to have as dissertation advisers. (If all of
these advisers are from outside the Humanities Center,
one of the Center's faculty, selected by the student,
will also sit in on the review.) This discussion is not intended to replace
the Graduate Board Oral, which will take place after the dissertation has
been completed, but will serve to mark the transition from work on the
field exams to the preparation and writing of a thesis.
Departmental Presentations
Late in a
student's work on a dissertation--preferably in the fifth year or the
beginning of the sixth--s/he will be asked to give a talk on material from
her/his dissertation to the assembled students and faculty of the Center
and invited guests. The aim of this requirement is to give students
experience in the more formal presentation of their work, to make possible
a wider range of response to that work than a dissertation committee can
provide, and to allow all students of the Center--whose research interests
vary widely--to become better acquainted with each other's projects.
|
