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Graduate Program
Ph.D. in Medieval Studies
The Ph.D. in Medieval Studies requires: one additional year of coursework beyond the two required for the Master of Medieval Studies degree; the successful completion of at least 60 credit hours of study; one additional examination in a modern language; completion of paleography if it was postponed from year two of the M.M.S.; successful completion of five written Ph. D. candidacy examinations (one of three hours' and four of two hours' duration); one oral Ph. D. candidacy examination (normally of 90 minutes' duration); presentation of a dissertation proposal; presentation and defense of a satisfactory dissertation.
Third-year coursework normally consists of two or three courses taken in the fall semester, followed by a spring semester devoted to MI 77001 (Field Examination Preparation). Students who enter the Medieval Institute with a master's degree may not formally transfer credit from previous coursework but may, with the approval of the Director and their adviser, accelerate their progress to the candidacy exams.
Ph.D. candidacy exams are based on the totality of a student's coursework and five reading lists prepared in close consultation with five examiners. Normally, three lists (and, therefore, examiners) will represent one discipline. (For guidelines on disciplines and examination fields of study/lists see below.) A fourth list/examiner may represent a substantially different field within that discipline. Typically, two lists/examiners will represent disciplines outside the major discipline but closely related to it intellectually, chronologically, or methodologically. It is expected that a student will retain at least three examiners from the M.M.S. oral exam for the Ph.D. candidacy exam. One candidacy list/examiner may be drawn for outside the Medieval Institute faculty.
Students preparing for candidacy examinations must submit to the Director complete reading lists, signed by their examiners, by January 15 of their sixth semester. Written candidacy exams will normally be scheduled in the third week of April. Ph.D. oral exams will normally be scheduled in the fourth week of April. Students will write a three-hour examination in their major field of study and two-hour exams in the other four fields. The oral exam, chaired by the student's adviser, will usually last 90 minutes but may extend to 120 minutes.
THIRD-YEAR REVIEW: In early May of each year the Director and the Graduate Committee will review the accomplishments of the members of the third-year class. There will be three possible recommendations.
1. Permission to proceed to the dissertation proposal.
2. Requirement to re-take the Ph.D. examinations in the following
September with the possibility at that time to recommend continuation
or dismissal.
3. Dismissal with only an M.M.S. degree.
The Dissertation Proposal
Proposals are expected to be submitted not later than November 1 in the fall semester of the student's fourth year. If a student cannot meet this deadline, he or she will ask the Director to schedule a meeting involving the Director, the adviser, and the student to ascertain when a proposal can be submitted. A student who has not submitted a dissertation proposal by the end of his or her fourth year may be dismissed from the program.
To facilitate preparation of the proposal, rising fourth-year students will be provided with summer stipends to permit them several months of continuous work after the Ph.D. examinations.
All students must submit a dissertation proposal of 20 to 25 pages. The dissertation proposal may consist of as many as three parts. This proposal should answer three basic questions: What questions/problems/issues will this dissertation address? Why should this dissertation be written at all; that is, what will be its original contribution to scholarship? What is the envisaged plan of work? The proposal should conclude with 3 to5 pages of annotated bibliography.
Proposals will be discussed in a 60 to 90 minute session with the adviser, the Director (if he or she wishes to attend), another professor from the field of emphasis, and the interdisciplinary examiner from the Ph.D. exams (or an appropriate substitute).
The Dissertation
When a student and his or her adviser agree that a dissertation is ready to be defended, documents should be filed in the Medieval Institute and the Graduate School to initiate a defense. Defense committees will consist of five members of the faculty: one, the chair, who is appointed by the Graduate School and does not vote; the student's adviser; and three chosen by the student and his or her adviser in consultation with the Director. The Director may appoint him/herself as an examiner of any dissertation submitted to the Medieval Institute. At least one dissertation examiner in addition to the Graduate School representative must come from a department other than the one in which the student's field of emphasis resides. A student may petition the Director and the Graduate School to have one examiner from outside the University. In such cases, the Medieval Institute will sustain reasonable costs for such an outside examiner.
Fields of Study
"Fields" represent segments of vast disciplines. No student, or professor, can be expected to know all there is to know within any one of them. Accordingly, fields will be defined, for purposes of study and examination, by reading lists created by students in close consultation with their professors. A student whose primary discipline is, say, history, will choose at least three fields within history (and may, for Ph.D. candidacy exams choose another field in history outside the Middle Ages). Reading lists may emphasize primary sources, exciting recent scholarship, classic works of scholarship, or a combination of the three. Required reading may mean either books or articles. Students and faculty members will be expected to strike the appropriate balance depending upon the needs and traditions within particular academic fields. As rough guidelines, M.M.S. lists should amount to 25 to 30 primary texts or books (or the equivalent in articles) and Ph.D. lists should amount to 50 to 60 primary texts or books (or the equivalent in articles).
The following Disciplines, with Fields (or examination fields) are currently available:
Art History: Late Antique Art, Early Medieval Art, Later Medieval Art, Byzantine Art, Renaissance Art
History: Late Antiquity, The Early Middle Ages, The High Middle Ages, The Late Middle Ages, The Renaissance, The Mediterranean World, The Islamic World, Byzantium, The Medieval Church, Medieval Intellectual History, Medieval Economic History
Language and Literature: Arabic, Dante and/or Petrarch and/or Boccaccio, Old English, Middle English, Old French, Middle French, Old High German,
Middle High German, Late Antique Latin, Medieval Latin, Renaissance Latin, Medieval Spanish Literature
Manuscript Studies: Codicology, Paleography, Text Editing
Music: Musicology, Music History
Philosophy: Late Antique Philosophy, Early Medieval Philosophy, High Medieval Philosophy, Late Medieval Philosophy, Islamic Philosophy,
Medieval Jewish Philosophy
Theology: Greek Patristic Theology, Latin Patristic Theology, Early Medieval Theology, High Medieval Theology, Late Medieval Theology, Byzantine Theology, Islamic Theology, Medieval Judaism
Graduate Handbook
Detailed information about administrative policies and procedures is contained in the Graduate Handbook of the Medieval Institute. Click here to see a copy.
Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs
For Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the Medieval Institute's Ph.D. Program, click here.
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