Doctor of Philosophy Requirements
Program of Study
Doctoral candidates must complete three years in residence at Brandeis and a minimum of 16 semester courses. Programs of study and major will be formulated for each student, subject to the approval of the executive committee. An average of at least A- is normally required for continuation in the program.
Incoming students normally will be expected to take two double-credit courses of Directed Research in American History in their first year of residence. The committee may, at its discretion, grant a student transfer credit of up to one year toward the Ph.D. residence requirement for relevant graduate or professional work done elsewhere. Application for such credit shall be considered only after a student has completed one term's residence in a full-time program. The second 300-level Directed Research course may be waived by the committee on the basis of a master's thesis or comparable research project at the graduate or professional level done elsewhere. In the first year all students enroll in the Colloquium in American History.
Teaching Requirement
As part of the graduate training program, Ph.D. students serve as teaching fellows for four semesters, normally during their second and third years of study. All teaching fellows enroll in a section of HISTÊ340a and b, which provides supervision as well as instruction in the aims and techniques of teaching American history at the college level.
Residence Requirement
The minimum residence requirement for doctoral students is three years.
Language Requirement
A high level of reading proficiency in one foreign language is required of all students. Students are expected to pass the language examination before they take their general examination. The completion of language requirements at another university does not exempt the candidate from the Brandeis requirement.
Qualifying Examination
Each doctoral candidate must pass at the doctoral level a qualifying examination in the following four fields: (1) general American history, one examiner to be in early American history and the other in modern American history; (2) a period or topic of specialization in American history; (3) an area of comparative modern European, Asian, Latin American, or African history; (4) a related discipline in the social sciences or humanities, or a subdiscipline in history.
All proposed fields must be submitted in writing and approved by the executive committee. The period of specialization will normally be selected from the following: 1607-1763, 1763-1815, 1815-1877, 1877-1914, 1914-present.
The comparative history field may focus on such themes as 19th-century emigration/immigration, 18th-century American and European political and social philosophy, the history of the modern family, or the frontier in global perspective. The fourth field may involve training in politics, international relations, economics, or literature, for example, to provide perspectives and methods that can illuminate historical problems. Or it can involve a subdiscipline in history that has a distinctive subject matter and methodology, such as American social, legal, ecological, or intellectual history.
Students entering the program without previous graduate training in American history are expected to take the qualifying examination no later than the end of their fifth term of residence and must pass the examination by the end of the sixth term. Students who have earned an M.A. degree in history elsewhere are expected to take and pass the qualifying examination by the end of their second year in the program.
Qualifying examinations will be taken separately for each of the fields, with the general American field coming at the end. For each of the fields (2), (3), and (4), as above, the student will choose one appropriate faculty member with the approval of the chair of the program. That faculty member, in consultation with the student, will define the requirements, course of preparation, and mode of examination (written and/or oral) for the field.
For the general American field, two faculty members in consultation with the student will define in advance the major themes or problems on which the examination will be based. So far as possible, fields (3) and (4), as above, should be selected with a view to broadening and deepening the student's understanding of his/her American history fields and providing valuable background for the dissertation work.
With the consent of the chair and the professor concerned, qualified students in appropriate cases may be examined in fields (3) or (4), as above, by a faculty member at another university. Moreover, with the consent of the executive committee, examinations in fields (3) or (4), as above, may be waived for students with the M.A., J.D., or other advanced degrees.
Dissertation
During the early stages of their dissertation work students are expected to present a prospectus in a Works-in-Progress session attended by the program's students and faculty. When the dissertation is accepted by the committee, a Final Oral Examination will be scheduled at which the candidate must successfully defend his/her dissertation before the committee and other members of the faculty who may participate. In most cases a student's dissertation committee consists of the advisor, another American history faculty member, and an outside reader from another university.