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This archived information is dated to the 2008-09 academic year only and may no longer be current.

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Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities

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Graduate Programs in Interdisciplinary Studies inHumanities

The Graduate Program in Humanities (GPH) provides graduate students in different disciplines an opportunity to broaden their knowledge of intellectual and cultural history by focusing on texts and ideas which have been central to all humanistic disciplines from the ancient world to the present. The program's seminars usually focus on specific topics or issues in the context of historical, literary, philosophical, religious, and other disciplinary and theoretical orientations. The program provides a unique opportunity to study highly influential texts with a view to their relevance to the student's own disciplinary field.

GPH members must be students earning the Ph.D. in an academic department at Stanford. Doctoral students who complete the requirements for their departments and the GPH are awarded doctoral degrees designating their primary department "and Humanities."

Students may register for the program at any time, usually during the first quarter of graduate study. Members of the program are given first preference in registration for all of its offerings. Students complete the five GPH seminars (HUMNTIES 321-325). The course of study culminates in the GPH student symposium, which is developed and organized by the students in the program.

Although students in the GPH generally complete the program course work in their first two years of graduate study, requirements of some participating departments may necessitate completion of the GPH over three years. In some instances, one or more of the GPH seminars may fit within the requirements of the student's home department.

The following are participating departments in the program: Art and Art History, Classics, Comparative Literature, Drama, Education, English, French and Italian, German Studies, History, Modern Thought and Literature, Music, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Spanish and Portuguese. Doctoral students from other departments may participate with consent of their home departments and approval of the Director of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities.

REQUIREMENTS

Continue satisfactory work in the student's major field, in accordance with department requirements.

  1. Complete graduate-level course work in the five required areas: classical age, the middle ages, Renaissance and early modern period, the Enlightenment, and modernity, with at least three of the five areas to be covered by the GPH Seminars (HUMNTIES 321-325). The remaining two may be covered by GPH seminars or, by petition, by courses in the student's Ph.D. program or cognate field.
  2. Enrollment and participation in HUMNTIES 301, The Graduate Student and Faculty Colloquium, during the quarters the student is enrolled in the required seminars, up through completion of the symposium requirement.
  3. Participate in the GPH student symposium, usually at the end of the second year of GPH course work (HUMNTIES 298; registration for units is optional).
  4. One quarter of interdisciplinary teaching. Students may apply to TA an undergraduate Humanities course, or may petition to count a departmental teaching assistantship if the course reaches beyond the scope of a single discipline.
  5. Reading knowledge of at least one foreign language, ancient or modern, to be certified in the first two years of graduate work.
  6. Passing the University oral examination according to the schedule prescribed by the major department with one GPH representative, approved by the director, as a member of the examining committee.
  7. Submission of a Ph.D. dissertation acceptable to a committee which includes one representative of the GPH, approved by the director.

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