phd degree in art

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• Ph.D. in Fine Arts

School of Art Fine Arts Doctoral Program (Art)

Fine arts doctoral program (art).

The Art track of the Fine Arts Doctoral Program centers on art praxis, which we define as theoretically informed action aimed at creating change in academic, social, and community contexts. We have chosen the word "praxis" instead of "practice" to signal a different relationship to theory than assumed by the theory-practice binary, and to indicate a fundamental difference between MFA programs in studio practice and the PhD. For Aristotle, praxis meant an action that is valuable in itself, as opposed to that which leads to creation, and for scholars of modernity from Marx to Lefebvre, praxis was, and remains, infused with an ethical and political imperative, and designated a more grounded and intentional mode of social and political transformation.

The Art track is part of a College-wide Fine Arts Doctoral Program , which includes students focusing on music, theatre, dance, and visual art. All areas of the Fine Arts Doctoral Program require a series of core courses that bring together students from across the College for innovative interdisciplinary and collaborative inquiry. These core courses support the art area's commitment to blurring disciplinary boundaries through original modes of investigation.

Students conduct interdisciplinary research integrating methodologies from a home discipline related to Art with methodologies from disciplines of Music, Theatre, and Dance housed at other Schools in the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts or the University at large. Such interdisciplinarity is not simply additive, but transformative, blurring the chosen disciplines and even fundamentally altering them.

This program is for

• studio artists who want to transform their approach to making into a methodology for research,
• scholars who want to intervene in their home discipline by proposing novel ways of conducting research,
• curators and cultural practitioners who want to do community-engaged projects, and
• educators who want to rethink inquiry and develop meaningful practices organized around art and images that transform engagement through interdisciplinary initiatives.

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How to apply.

Interested candidates applying for admission to the Fine Arts Doctoral Program for Fall 2023 can do so through the Texas Tech University Graduate School portal.

A complete application - via the Graduate School application portal - will include the following:

• Official transcripts of all previous college-level study
• Official G.R.E. score report (The GRE score requirement has been waived for Fall 2024-entering applicants)
• 3 letters of recommendation
• Current resumé or curriculum vitae
• A scholarly writing sample (10-30 pages of academic writing)
• Art portfolio (optional)
• Statement of intent (800 words maximum; see tips on writing statements of intent). Please indicate in your statement the faculty members in the FADP(Art) program (see below) with whom you would like to work.
• For international students: passport and additional documents that prove your eligibility to study in the United States
• Registration fee

ENTRANCE QUALIFICATIONS

For acceptance into the doctoral program, the applicant must have completed a master's degree, or its equivalent, with emphasis in some area of the visual arts. Every effort is made to select candidates who show strong scholarship and professional competence.  Applicants who have not taken at least 15 hours of art history, art criticism, art education, arts administration, aesthetics, and/or visual culture courses at the college level may be required to meet the 15-hour minimum in the form of leveling courses taken here at TTU, which will not count toward the 60-hour minimum in the doctoral degree plan.

While the Fine Arts Doctoral Program (Art) takes applications year-round, please take into consideration the following dates:

JANUARY 15th for Fall semester entry, with full financial consideration.

OCTOBER 15th for Spring semester entry, with available/limited financial consideration.

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Degree handbook.

• PhD Handbook

ONLINE CATALOG INFORMATION

Student success, school of art alumni.

Class of 2012

Sara Peso White

Class of 2015

Bryan Wheeler, dissertation: “Painting ‘Section' or Painting Texas: Negotiating Modernity and Identity in the Texas New Deal Post Office Murals.” Lecturer in the School of Art and College of Media and Communication.

Class of 2016

Yuan-Ta Hsu

Lina Kattan, dissertation: “Conflicted Living Beings: The Performative Aspect of Female Bodies' Representations in Saudi Painting and Photography.” Associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Class of 2017

Norah Alqabba, dissertation: “Globalization and the Role of the Sharjah Biennale in the Transformation of Saudi Contemporary Sculpture”

Class of 2019

Kimberly Jones, dissertation: “Women in Contemporary Israeli Cinema”

Katharine Scherff, dissertation: “The Virtual Liturgy: An Examination of Medieval and Early Modern Ritual Objects as Media Technology.” Full-time Lecturer at TTU, Art History and Global Art Program, Affiliated Faculty Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center.

Jared Stanley, dissertation: “Working Through Grief: Continuing Bonds in the New Golden Age of American Television.” Division Chair, Division of Art and Design, School of Fine Arts and Communication, Bob Jones University.

Class of 2020 

Niloofar Gholamrezaei, dissertation: “Photographic Images, Distanced Realism, and the State of Being Modern in the Works of Mohammad Ghaffari and Otto Dix.” Assistant Professor of Visual Arts and General Education, Regis College.

Class of 2021

Ahmad Rafiei, dissertation: “Objects in Motion: Global Interactions and Cross-Cultural Exchange from Safavid to Twentieth-Century Iran.” Curatorial Fellow, Toledo Museum of Art, 2021-2024.

Sylvia Weintraub, dissertation: “Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Online: Why Making Matters on Pinterest.”

Assistant Professor of Art Education in the department of Visual and Theatre Arts at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Class of 2022

Corina Carmona, dissertation: “Re-membering a Coyolxauhqui Pedagogy: Creative and Cultural Praxis at the Intersection of Ethnic Studies and Fine Art”

Deepika Dhiman, dissertation: “Using Autoethnography and Visual Storytelling to Examine How Identity is Informed by Social Normative Behavior in India and the United States”

Class of 2023

Kathryn Kelley: “Creatives Engage with Spontaneous Self-Affirmation as a Part of Their Writing Practices”

Quest ions?

Contact the interim coordinator.

Andrés Peralta, PhD Interim FADP Coordinator

Fine Arts- Art Doctoral Program Faculty

Klinton Burgio-Ericson, PhD

Kevin Chua, PhD

Theresa Flanigan, PhD

Rina Little, PhD

Jorgelina Orfila, PhD

Andrés Peralta, PhD

Maia Toteva, PhD

Heather Warren-Crow, PhD

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The UC San Diego Visual Arts PhD Program grants two PhD degrees: Art History, Theory and Criticism and Art History, Theory and Criticism with a Concentration in Art Practice . The program embodies the department's commitment to innovative research by embracing the close intersection of art, media, and design practice with history, theory, and criticism, and by offering training in the history, theory, and criticism of a range and mix of areas represented in our MFA faculty, including studio art, film, video, photography, computational media, performance art, public art, design, visual culture, and socially engaged art practice. Regional and cultural frameworks of study include European and Latin American art, Chinese art, nineteenth-century French visual culture, Mesoamerican, Native American, and Indigenous art and material culture, Medieval art and culture, queer and feminist art, material culture, science, technology, and art; and ocean, environmental, and land art.

The Art Practice Concentration degree, which must be applied for at the time of application to the PhD program, follows the same course of scholarly training, research, and writing as the Art History, Theory and Criticism degree, with additional requirements in research-based art practice that span all years of coursework, qualifying, and doctoral research. Two students are admitted to this concentration annually.

Information for Current and Prospective Students

Requirement overview, program requirements.

• Coursework, 88 units

Language Requirement

• Qualifying Materials and Exams

Dissertation and Defense

• For VA77 Only- Art Practice Project and Exhibition

Full Time Enrollment

In order to remain eligible for financial support all graduate students must be enrolled   in 12 units of upper-division (100-199) or graduate level (200 and above) courses each quarter during the regular academic year. Graduate students must also maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0 to maintain good academic standing. The majority of students will choose to complete the majority of their academic coursework for a letter grade.

Pre-Candidacy

Coursework should be chosen in consultation with the Advisor and should be taken in preparation for the Qualifying phase. During the first three years in the program, students should aim to fulfill the following requirements:

• MA en Route Requirements (if interested and eligible)
• Qualifying Materials and Exams (year 3)

Advancing to candidacy occurs when the student has passed all course, language, and qualifying requirements and is ready to research and write a dissertation. Doctoral candidates, sometimes referred to as “all but dissertation” or ABD, work on their dissertation with Advisor and Committee consultation and feedback for two or more years. During this time, Art Practice candidates additionally produce the required art practice components. Each quarter, most doctoral candidates typically enroll in 8-12 units of VIS 299 and/or 4 units of a 500, in consultation with their Advisor. Candidacy concludes when the candidate completes and successfully defends the dissertation (and, for VA77, the additional Art Practice requirements) and is awarded the doctorate.

Degree Paths

The program consists of two degree paths: Art History, Theory and Criticism (VA76) and Art Practice (VA77), a concentration designed for artists engaged in advanced research who wish to pursue their work in an environment geared to doctoral study, and to produce studio, media, performance or public facing work alongside a written dissertation. See Handbook for further details.

Interdisciplinary Specializations

Students within the PhD program who are interested in the opportunity to undertake specialized research may apply to participate in an interdisciplinary specialization. Students accepted into a specialization program would be expected to complete coursework in addition to those required for their PhD program. The department offers interdisciplinary specializations with the following campus programs.

• Anthropogeny:   for students with an interest in human origins
• Critical Gender Studies:   providing specialized training in gender and sexuality
• Interdisciplinary Environmental Research : for students interested in environmental solutions

Curriculum: VA76 Art History, Theory and Criticism

VA76- 22 courses, 88 units

GENERAL FIELD EMPHASIS

During the first year of study, students declare a general area of study in consultation with their Advisor and with the approval of the Faculty Director. This general field emphasis will be considered as they choose courses and, toward year three, plan their qualifying materials. See the Handbook for general field options.

CORE REQUIREMENTS (8 courses, 32 units)

Required (4 courses, 16 units):

• VIS 200- Methods and Theories
• VIS 204- Rethinking Art History
• VIS 500 (1 course, 4 units)- Apprentice Teaching
• VIS 502- Graduate Teaching in Visual Arts

Breadth (4 courses, 16 units), choose from 4 different areas with 3 different faculty:

• Medieval, Renaissance or Early Modern Art- VIS 251, VIS 252
• Modern and Contemporary Art- VIS 254, VIS 255
• Media Studies- VIS 256
• Meso-American Art or North American Indigenous Art- VIS 257, VIS 260
• Asian Art- VIS 258
• Latin American Art- VIS 259
• Material Culture- VIS 261
• Design Studies- VIS 262

ELECTIVE REQUIREMENTS (14 courses, 56 units), choose from the following options:

• Art History Seminars (VIS 230-269), a minimum of 6 MUST be taken for the elective area
• Graduate Research (VIS 299), during 1st year with provisional advisor
• Professional Practice Seminar (VIS 220)
• Art Theory/Practice (VIS 206, VIS 210-219), a maximum of 2 may be taken
• Other Department, a maximum of 3 graduate level courses may be taken 
• Reading Courses (approved undergrad courses), a maximum of 4 may be taken 
• Directed Group Study (VIS 298), a maximum of 1 may be taken
• Individual Studies (VIS 295), a maximum of 12 units may be taken with Advisor

Curriculum: VA77 Art History, Theory and Criticism- Art Practice

VA77- 22 courses, 88 units

CORE REQUIREMENTS (12 courses, 48 units)

Required (9 courses, 36 units):

• VIS 206- Seminar in Art Practice Research
• VIS 207 (repeat 3 times for 12 units)- Working Practice for Art Practice
• VIS 210-219, 1 course from Art Theory/Practice 

Breadth (3 courses, 12 units), choose from 3 different areas with 3 different faculty:

ELECTIVE REQUIREMENTS (10 courses, 40 units), choose from the following options:

• Art History Seminars (VIS 230-269), a minimum of 3 MUST be taken for the elective area
• Art Theory/Practice (VIS 210-219), a maximum of 2 may be taken
• Other Department, a maximum of 3 may be taken 
• Reading Courses (approved undergrad courses), a maximum of 2 may be taken 
• Directed Group Study (VIS 298), a maximum of 4 units may be taken

For the VA76 PhD students, competency in reading, understanding, and interpreting texts in two languages other than English is required before advancement to candidacy (Qualifying Exam stage), and competency in at least one language is expected at the time of application to the program. Art Practice Concentration students (VA77) will be required to satisfy competency in one language other than English before advancing to PhD candidacy. The student and their Advisor will jointly determine examination languages. 

The Program’s language requirement may be met in one of three ways: 

• Passing the department’s in-house Language Exam  
• Passing one approved graduate-level language course 
• Passing two approved upper-division undergraduate language courses 
• Passing a two-year sequence of approved undergraduate language courses in a single language  

Required Paperwork

For each language exam or course sequence taken to satisfy a language requirement, a Language Completion form must be completed by the student, the proctor/instructor and submitted to the Student Affiars Manager in order to receive credit for completion of the language requirement. Submitted forms are automatically routed via DocuSign for approval and processing.

In-House Language Exams

In-house Language Exams test ability in reading and comprehension (by translation into English) only, not writing or spoken fluency in the designated language. The exam consists of two short texts, one less difficult to be translated into English without a dictionary, and one more difficult to be translated with a dictionary. The dictionary may be either a printed volume or an on-line resource. One hour is allowed for each section (total test time: 2 hours). The translations may be written on a computer or by hand. Exams are corrected by the faculty member responsible for designing the exam, who also invigilates the test. If adequate reading knowledge is not demonstrated, the student’s Advisor will review with the student and the faculty setting the exam the steps necessary to master the language and a new exam will be scheduled within a reasonable amount of time. 

Students requesting an in-house language examination should consult with faculty responsible for particular languages:

• Chinese and Japanese : Professor Kuiyi Shen 
• French : Professors. Jordan Rose and John Welchman 
• German : Professor Alena Williams 
• Italian : Professor William Tronzo 
• Korean : Professor Kyong Park
• Mayan languages : Professor Elizabeth Newsome 
• Spanish : Professors Elizabeth Newsome and Mariana Wardwell 
• Turkish: Professors Memo Akten and Pinar Yoldas

Individual arrangements for determination of competency will be made for those languages that cannot be tested by department faculty . 

Committee Constitution and Management

About the committee.

This is the group of four faculty who agree to the student’s request for mentorship and evaluation during the qualifying and doctoral years. The Committee is chaired by the Advisor(s). In addition to mentoring and guiding the student’s research, this team serves as the Qualifying Committee and the Doctoral or Dissertation Committee, conducting the Qualifying Exam and the Dissertation Defense. The committee must be formally appointed by Graduate Division in the process outlined below.

Committee Constitution

The Committee Chair is the student’s Faculty Advisor/Co-Advisors and is selected by Year Two through mutual agreement with the student. The rest of the Committee is constituted through request and consent between the student and other faculty, with the guidance and approval of the Advisor(s). 

Makeup of the committee:

• 3 Visual Arts Faculty (including the Chair/Co-Chairs), 1 member may be a non-PhD faculty
• 1 tenured or emeritus faculty from outside the department

For each option, Assistant or Acting-Associate Faculty may serve as a general member or Co-Chair but not as sole Chair. The Graduate Division website has  additional information  about committees and a  Committee Membership Table  which may be helpful in determining what role a faculty member may serve on a committee.

Submitting Your Committee

After faculty have agreed to serve on the Committee, and the Faculty Advisor has approved the list, the student must complete and send the  Committee Constitution form  which will be routed to the Student Affiars Manager for processing.  This form must be approved by the Graduate Division by Week 5 BEFORE the Qualifying Exam .

Changing Your Committee

There are times when committee membership must change after the intial review and approval. All changes to committee membership need to be approved by the Department and then Graduate Division. Committee reconstitution must be completely reviewed and approved by Week 5, the quarter PRIOR to QE/Defense. When changing committee membership:

• Review the Committee Membership requirements 
• Discuss the change in committee membership with the Committee Chair/Co-chairs
• Discuss the change in committee with impacted committee members
• Complete the   Committee Reconstitution form   which will be routed to the Student Affairs Manager for processing.

Committee Management

It is the responsibility of the student, in consultation with their advisor/committee chair, to engage with and request feedback on drafts of written materials and (for VA77) documentation of artwork progress with all committee members during research and writing of their qualifying materials and dissertation. The student also must email final copies of all materials to their Committee prior to their Qualifying Exam and Dissertation Defense. 

Qualifying Exam, Advancement to Candidacy

About the qualifying process.

The Qualifying process occurs throughout Year Three. The student, under the supervision of the Advisor and with the advice of the Committee, prepares two bibliographies (one on the chosen field of emphasis and the second pertaining to the proposed dissertation); writes a qualifying paper and a dissertation prospectus; and takes written and oral examinations pertaining to these documents. The Art Practice PhD additionally requires a practice prospectus and a third bibliography.

Qualifying Exam

The Qualifying Examination has two parts: A Written Examination in which the student writes two essays over five days in response to questions provided by the Committee; and two weeks later,  a 2- or 2.5-hour Oral Examination led by the Committee, during which the student is asked questions and put in dialog about all of the qualifying materials.

Qualifying Timeline

A student must have completed all required course work and passed all language examinations before taking the qualifying examination, which will be held no later than the end of the third year. Upon successful completion of the qualifying examination, the student will be advanced to candidacy.

Qualifying Exam Administrative Checklist  

Qualifying Exam Failure

Should a student fail the examination, the Faculty Committee will clarify the weaknesses in the exam, so that the student can prepare to take it a second time. If a second oral examination is warranted, they will have to re-take and pass the exam prior to the end of the Pre-Candidacy Time Limit (or they need an extension approved to continue). They can always take a leave and return but if the PCTL is expired, they will have to advance before returning or an exception to extend the time would be need to be approved prior to retuning. If the student fails the oral examination a second time, their graduate studies in the department will be terminated.

MA en Route

• Five Art History seminars 
• VIS 200 Methods and Theories
• VIS 204 Re-Thinking Art History 
• One Theory/Practice seminar (chosen from VIS 210-219)
• Four breadth courses, from four different breadth areas

We do not offer an MA with an Art Practice concentration. Therefore, Art Practice concentration students must make a formal change in their degree aim to designate Art History, Theory, and Criticism (VA76). This change must take place at least two quarters prior to the Qualifying Exam. 

Note:   Students who wish to receive an MA as part of the Ph.D. program   must apply for master’s degree candidacy by the end of the second week of the quarter in which they expect to receive the degree.   Please see the Graduate Coordinator regarding this process.

Necessary Documents for the Qualifying Exam

• Report of the Qualifying Exam

Necessary Documents for the MA on the Way

• Application for MA (due week two) 
• Final Report for MA 

Best Practices for Completing the Report of the Qualifying Exam and Final Report via DocuSign:

• Ahead of your exam/defense ask faculty to add [email protected] as a “safe sender” so those emails are less likely to go to junk/spam. Although campus IT has taken steps to identify DocuSign as a safe sender, it is still recommended that individual users do so as well.
• At the end of your Exam/Defense ask your committee members to check their email for the DocuSign email with the link to the form and sign while you're all online together. 
• ask the faculty to check their junk folder, spam quarantine, or other spam folders
• next, ask them to log into their DocuSign account using their @ucsd.edu email address and SSO credentials to access the form/s directly (https://docusign.ucsd.edu) *some people have personal DocuSign accounts so ask them to ensure they are logging into the UCSD DocuSign account
• Get verbal confirmation of who has signed and who has not, then follow-up with the Student Affairs Manager to resolve any issues your committee members have with signing the form.
• Once the appropriate form is submitted to the Graduate Division, the appropriate fee will be charged directly to the student’s financial TritonLink account. 

About the Dissertation

Following successful completion of the qualifying examinations, the candidate will research and write a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of their Advisor and with the input of the Committee. Students in the art practice concentration (VA77) will submit a written dissertation that observes the same regulations and conventions as VA 76, except that the length requirement is slightly shorter and there must be one additional chapter devoted to discussion of the art practice. In addition, Art Practice candidates will additionally produce and exhibit a visual component. See the Handbook for details. 

About the Defense

After the committee has reviewed the finished dissertation (and art practice components, for VA 77), the candidate will orally defend their dissertation (and art practice work and exhibition), responding to questions from the Committee in a meeting that may be public (the student may invite visitors), as per university policy. The Dissertation Defense is the culmination of all of your work within the Ph.D. program. Please read all of the information on the Graduate Division's website about " Preparing to Graduate " and make an appointment to speak with the Student Affairs Manager one year prior to when you plan to defend.

Roles and Responsibilities for the Defense

Student will:

• Schedule the Dissertation Defense with their committee. This is normally scheduled for three hours. (You are responsible for reserving a room or scheduling the zoom meeting). 
• Complete the PhD Dissertation Defense Notification form which will notify the Student Affairs Manager of the date and time of the defense. This form is required so that the Final Report paperwork can be initiated and sent to your committee members on the date of the defense.
• Follow-up with your committee, the Graduate Division, and the Student Affairs Manager about any issues surrounding the completion of your degree.

Faculty Advisor will:

• Ensure the   policy   appropriate participation of all members of the committee at the Dissertation Defense. It is also helpful to remind all committee members to sign the forms by checking their inboxes for the DocuSign request to sign the forms. These sometimes end up in a person's spam folder.

Student Affairs Manager will:

• Fill out the Final Report form via DocuSign and route the form the morning of the exam/defense for signature to all committee members, the department chair, and the Graduate Division.
• Follow-up with committee members regarding signatures on the Final Report and general petition forms (if needed).
• Send out the announcement of the defense to department faculty and graduate students.

Additional Information and Tasks

Preliminary Dissertation Appointments with the Graduate Division: Students will schedule their preliminary and final appointments with Graduate Division Academic Affairs Advisors utilizing the online calendaring system they have in place:   https://gradforms.ucsd.edu/calendar/index.php

Committee Management : If you need to make any changes to your doctoral committee please follow the instructions above in the "Committee Management" drawer. 

Embargo Your Dissertation:   Talk to your faculty advisor about embargoing your dissertation. You may want to embargo your dissertation if you are planning to turn it into a book. The embargo will delay the university's publication of your dissertation and prevent other academics from using your research.   https://grad.ucsd.edu/_files/academics/DissertThesisReleaseTemplate.pdf

Necessary Documents for the Dissertation Defense

• Final Report (routed for signature by the Student Affairs Manager)

Best Practices for Completing the Final Report via DocuSign:

• At the end of your Defense ask your committee members to check their email for the DocuSign email with the link to the form and sign while you're all online together. 
• Get verbal confirmation of who has signed and who has not, then follow up with the Student Affairs Manager to resolve any issues your committee members have with signing the form.

Paying Associated Fees:  For students who will need to pay fees (advancement to candidacy, thesis submission fee, filing fee, re-admit fee), they will be charged on the financial TritonLink account once the form is received by the Graduate Division. There is no need for students to go to the cashier’s office.

Grades and Evaluations

Only courses in which a student received grades of A, B, or S are allowed toward satisfaction of the requirements for the degree. Note that a “C” is generally regarded as unsatisfactory within this department. In satisfaction of all program requirements and electives, A, A-, and B+ are regarded as acceptable grades for seminars and courses. Grades of B, B- indicate weaknesses and are cause for concern. Grades of C+ or below are regarded as unsatisfactory and may lead to academic probation. University policy states that any student with more than 8 units of “U” and/or “F” grades is barred from future registration including the next available quarter. It is not recommended that VIS 295/298/299 are taken for a letter grade.

Grade Point Average

A graduate student must maintain a minimum grade point average of at least 3.0 (B average) to continue in good standing. A student is subject to dismissal if the overall grade point average falls below 3.0 at any time.

Spring Evaluation

Every Spring quarter, Advisors (in the first year Provisional Advisors) will submit an evaluation of their advisee’s progress to Graduate Division. Students are expected to submit a summary of the past academic year to their advisor. These evaluations serve as an important tool for students and advisors in assessing student progress, while also providing suggestions and goals for students’ successful completion of their projects.   

The Graduate Division will review the evaluations when student/departments are making specific requests for exceptions

The duration of the Ph.D. program is five to eight years. University and departmental regulations stipulate that the maximum tenure of graduate study at UC San Diego or Total Registered Time Limit (TRTL) is eight years; while seven years is the limit for receiving any type of university financial support or a student's Support Time Limit (SUTL). For the Department of Visual Arts, the "normative" time to degree is 6 years. Students are expected to pass their qualifying exam and advance to candidacy in year three, but no later than year four which is the university's Pre-candidacy time limit (PCTL).

To learn more about time limits please visit the Graduate Division website.

Time Limits:  https://grad.ucsd.edu/academics/progress-to-degree/time-to-doctorate-policy.html

You can check your time limit by logging into the Graduate Student Portal.

Graduate Student Portal:  https://gradforms.ucsd.edu/portal/student/

PhD Current Students

Phd handbook.

The department website and catalog are great resources for students to learn generally about the PhD program and progress towards their degree. There are detailed instructions and robust program information available in the full PhD Handbook. Each student should refer to this resource throughout their academic career.

2023-24 Academic Year

2022-23 Academic Year  

2021-22 Academic Year

How to Apply

• Join our PhD Art History Program (VA76)
• Join our PhD Art Practice Program (VA77)

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PhD in Art Education

The Doctor of Philosophy in Art Education degree is designed for students who want to make a scholarly contribution to the Art Education field.

Allison Rowe, PhD (2021). “Work Like a River” (participatory lecture, 2017). Photo by Larissa Issler

PhD Art Education

At the University of Illinois, faculty and graduate students build a vibrant community of inquiry within the context of a Research 1 university. This community, including faculty whose breadth of interests span topics including contemporary art and visual culture in education, formal and informal learning, cultural policy and urban studies, and teacher training and identity, provides an intellectually stimulating environment for graduate students to stretch themselves intellectually and become world authorities on the particular topic of their dissertation.

Some doctoral students receive funding and support as teaching assistants for 4 years, and this funding is conditional upon academic standing. This funding includes a tuition waiver, a salary, health insurance, annual conference funding, plus many opportunities to gain competitive grants. Students complete coursework, consisting of 5 courses in art education, courses in research methodology and writing, courses in a minor that complements individual student interest, and courses that prepare students for the qualifying exam (taken after one year of full-time study) and the preliminary exam (at the conclusion of coursework). Examples of minors include Asian Studies, Art History, New Media, Museum Studies, and Women’s Studies. Following the conclusion of coursework, students write a dissertation that contributes new knowledge to the field of art education. Finally, students defend their dissertation.

During this course of study, there are numerous resources available to graduate students in Art Education, both within our program and across the University of Illinois:

• At our major comprehensive research university, students have access to the broadest possible range of elective courses.
• Visual Arts Research is a scholarly, refereed journal and has been published through the Art Education program for over 40 years. It is edited by Art Education faculty.
• The Everyday Arts Lab offers an excellent local site for graduate research for those interested in arts and social practice.
• With a total of 14 million titles the University of Illinois Library houses the largest collection of any public university in the world. The Ricker Library of Architecture and Art has 120,000 titles and 33,00 serials.
• The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory is a program that promote conversations among a range of departments in the humanities, social sciences, and performing arts by organizing lectures, panel discussions, and conferences, as well as the Modern Critical Theory lecture series.
• The Krannert Art Museum includes an archive of over 8,000 works of art and rotating exhibitions of traditional and innovative art works.
• The Spurlock Museum highlights the diversity of cultures around the globe.
• Illinois is host to the  International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry , which brings a large contingent of art education scholars to campus.
• Regular visiting speakers from other institutions including Kevin Tavin, Amelia Kraehe, David Darts, Olivia Gude, Luis Camnitzer, Matthew Goulish, Marjorie Manifold, and Stephanie Springgay.
• Devoted room for Art Education PhD students including carrels for your use.

Faculty Interests

• Arts-based research
• Community arts education
• Conceptual art practices and theory
• Creative cities
• Cultural globalization
• Emerging curriculum theory
• Performance studies
• Psychoanalysis
• Social practice
• Socially engaged art
• Teacher identity
• Urban education
• Visual culture
• Youth studies

Ask Us a Question

Ellen de Waard  

Laura Hetrick  

Sarah Travis  

Doctor of Philosophy

The Institute of Fine Arts is dedicated to graduate teaching and advanced research in the history of art and archeology and in the conservation and technology of works of art. The Institute strives to give its students not only a sound knowledge in the history of art, but also a foundation in research, connoisseurship, and theory as a basis for independent critical judgment and research. The student following the PhD course of study gains a deeper understanding of a subject area, beyond what is normally acquired at the master’s level and develops a capacity for independent scholarship. The PhD Program at the Institute of Fine Arts is a course of study designed for the person who wants to investigate the role of the visual arts in culture through detailed, object-based examination as well as historical and theoretical interpretation. The degree program provides a focused and rigorous experience supported by interaction with the leading scholars of the Institute, and access to New York area museums, curators, conservators, archaeological sites and NYU’s global network. The program is designed for up to six years of full-time funded study. A total of 18 courses (72 points) are required for the PhD degree. Each student registers for three courses per semester for the first five semesters. One course in the fifth semester is dedicated to developing the dissertation proposal. In the sixth semester students register for 12 points devoted preparing for the oral exam and beginning work on the dissertation. Exceptions to full-time study are made only for urgent financial or medical reasons and must have the approval from the Director of Graduate Studies.

Distribution Requirements

Students must take at least one seminar in four fields outside of their area of specialization. The Proseminar may count as one of these seminars. Students are required to take one course in technical studies of works of art. The minimum total seminars for PhD students is six. Students may take courses in other relevant disciplines in consultation with their advisor, and subject to the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies.

Distribution requirements are met by choosing courses in the following fields:

• Pre-modern Asia
• Pre-modern Africa and the Middle East
• The Ancient Mediterranean and Middle East, including
• Pre-modern Europe and the Americas
• Post-1750 Global
• Museum and Curatorial Studies
• Technical Studies of Works of Art
• Architectural History

Course Definitions and Requirements

Proseminar : The purpose of the Proseminar is to introduce students in the doctoral program to advanced research methods in the history of art. Because it is a dedicated course for the entering PhD student, it will serve to consolidate the cohort. It is taken during the first semester and is taught by a rotation of the Institute faculty, with a different faculty member chosen each year. Emphasis is placed on the specific practices of art-historical analysis in relation to visual and textual interpretation. The contents of the seminar vary each year according to the research interests of the chosen instructor. The class is structured around specific problems in the history of art rather than broad conceptual paradigms, with an emphasis on historical interpretation. Colloquium: A colloquium provides an analysis or overview of the state of the literature on a given art historical topic or problem, with extensive reading, discussion, and presentations. There may be a final paper.

Seminar: A seminar is a focused advanced course that explores a topic in depth. Seminars are often based on an exhibition in the New York area. Students are expected to produce a substantive paper that demonstrates original research. Lecture: Lecture courses explore topics or historical periods, giving overviews of major issues as well as detailed analysis of specific problems and works of art. Students are responsible for assigned and recommended reading, and may produce short papers and/or take an exam.

Curatorial Track

This doctoral-level program is offered jointly by the Institute of Fine Arts and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, under the supervision of the Joint Committee on Curatorial Studies composed of faculty, curators, and the Directors of both institutions. The purpose of the program is to prepare students for curatorial careers in specialized fields. Students are required to take two courses in Curatorial Studies, which are taught at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, before being offered an internship at the Museum.

Language Requirement

PhD students must demonstrate proficiency in reading two modern research languages other than English that are relevant to their studies. Proficiency is demonstrated by passing an examination administered by the Institute of Fine Arts. International students focusing on a field of study in which their native language is relevant may be granted an exemption from the language requirement pending submission of an exemption form signed by their advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies.

Qualifying Paper

The Qualifying Paper may be developed from seminar work or might be on a topic devised in consultation with the student’s advisor. Normally, the student will be advised to produce a detailed study on a subject that leads towards the dissertation. It should be no longer than 10,000 words (excluding bibliography and footnotes).

Students are examined on a major field consisting of two contiguous areas and a third component that can be in a related field providing skills for their dissertation.

Students are encouraged to teach after passing the second year review. Opportunities for teaching at NYU and at other New York area colleges and universities will be coordinated by the Director of Graduate Studies.

PhD students are funded for up to six years, depending on the transfer of previous graduate work. The program is normally divided into three years of course work, exams, and submission of a dissertation proposal and three years for dissertation research and writing. Variations to this pattern might occur according to opportunities for students to develop skills or experience in their specialist fields, as approved by the student’s advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies. Students are encouraged to compete for outside fellowships. The award of such fellowships might extend the number of years taken to complete the program. Institute funding will be suspended during the period of outside fellowship support.

Students Entering with a Master’s Degree

To receive the PhD degree, all Institute requirements must have been fulfilled, including a Master’s thesis (of copy of which is submitted with the application), and a distribution of courses within areas of study that correspond to those outlined in Distribution Requirements. No credits will be automatically transferred; credit will be awarded based upon evaluation by the Institute Faculty at the First Year Course Review. In addition, at least one written comprehension exam in a foreign language must have been passed. The student entering with a MA degree must pass an exam in a second language, if not yet attained, by the end of his/her first year of study. Entering students who have been awarded an MA at the Institute will begin as third year PhD students. They are expected to have a distribution of courses that meet the Course Distribution for the PhD and are required to pass a written comprehension exam in a second language.

Degree Requirements

PhD | Masters Degree | Conservation

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PhD Program

The UCLA Department of Art History offers a two-stage graduate program toward the PhD. Students are not admitted for a terminal master’s (MA) degree. The MA is awarded in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD and is granted with the successful completion of the first stage of the program, typically at the end of the second year, 6th quarter, in residence. Normative time to degree for the PhD is seven years from the term of admission. For students entering with a MA in hand, the normative time to degree is five years from the term of admission.

All students are required to complete the M.A. requirements in the department. The Graduate Review Committee may waive the M.A. requirements, at the time of admission, for students matriculating with a M.A. degree in Art History or adjacent discipline from another institution. Following Academic Senate policy on duplication of degrees, a student who enters the program with a M.A. degree in Art History from another institution is not eligible to receive a second M.A. degree in Art History from UCLA.

Please see here for the official UCLA Art History Graduate Program Requirements published on the Graduate Division website.

• The student is assigned a faculty mentor upon admission to the program. The mentor is responsible for the student’s course of study and must be consulted at least once each quarter. A change of faculty supervision and/or change in field(s) must be approved by the Graduate Review Committee.
• The Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) offers intellectual guidance, approves any exceptions to the program requirements, and adjudicates disputes between a student and his/her faculty mentor. The DGS further serves as Chair of the Graduate Review Committee, which governs the admissions process.
• The Student Affairs Officer (SAO) assists students with all the administrative aspects of moving through the program.
• Each spring quarter, the entire faculty reviews the status of each graduate student to ensure appropriate time-to-degree progress.

Toward the MA

Requirements for the MA

• Satisfaction of the first language requirement.
• Successful completion of AH 200 with a grade of “B+” or better.
• Nine graduate and upper division courses (36 units) completed while in the program. At least six of those courses (24 units) must be at the graduate level, including four graduate seminars. AH 200 may be counted towards the required six courses.
• Successful completion of a qualifying paper (approximately 30 pages) according to the standards and procedures outlined below.

* Typically the above requirements are completed within the first two years of study (6 quarters).

Distribution of Coursework

The nine required courses must include at least two courses from Group A and two courses from Group B noted below.

Qualifying Paper for the MA

• The qualifying paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper written for a class from the first year of coursework. It should be approximately 30 pages in length (excluding footnotes, images, and bibliography) and should demonstrate the student’s ability 1) to formulate a thesis, 2) to present an extended argument, and 3) to conduct original research. Quality of the writing will also be evaluated.
• By the end of the fall quarter of the second year, student selects a class paper from the first year in consultation with his or her advisor to revise and expand as the qualifying paper.
• In the following winter quarter, student enrolls for 4 units of 598 (RSRCH-MASTER THESIS) to work on the paper under the supervision of advisor.
• Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) will contact each student during the winter quarter (usually early February) to appoint a committee of three faculty readers for the qualifying paper, one of which is the student’s advisor. At least one of the faculty readers will have had no classroom contact with the student. All students may suggest potential readers; however, the DGS will balance the student’s request against equity of faculty workload.
• On the first day of instruction of the spring quarter, students submits three copies of the qualifying paper to the Student Affairs Officer (SAO) along with a list of the three readers assigned to review the paper.
• The qualifying papers will be distributed to the three assigned faculty readers and each reader will complete an evaluation form and submit it to the SAO within three weeks of receipt of the paper.
• By the fourth week of the spring quarter, the SAO will make available the papers with reader’s comments to the student and these papers will be added to the student’s permanent file.
• The Graduate Review Committee, taking into consideration the faculty reader evaluations, will determine whether the student will be awarded the MA and permitted to proceed into the PhDprogram. In some cases, the Committee may recommend that the student receive the MA degree but discontinue further graduate study. It is also possible (although very rare) that the student’s work may not be judged adequate to receive the MA.

Completion of the MA

• Prior to the third week of the spring quarter in the second year, the student should complete the “Petition for Advancement to Candidacy for the Master’s Degree” (provided by and returned to the SAO).
• Once the Department has accepted the qualifying paper, the student must file it with Graduate Division by the Monday of the tenth week of the spring quarter, formatted as a thesis.
• Graduate Division guidelines for formatting MA theses are available  here . Workshops on thesis formatting are offered at the beginning of each fall and winter quarters. See the Grad Division website for more information.
• Following the Department’s annual spring review of graduate students, the student must submit a completed form for transfer from the MA to the PhD program (provided by and returned to the SAO).

Toward the PhD

Upon the completion of the MA or starting with a MA from another institution, the student begins the PhD program having chosen a major field of study within art history, often known at the time of application. By the end of the second quarter of residence at the PhD stage, the student also selects a minor field, which may be outside the department (e.g. Architecture, History, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Archaeology, etc.). The major and minor advisors are responsible for the student’s course of study and completion of requirements within the selected field. Graduate Review Committee must approve any change of advisor(s) or the major and minor fields.

Requirements for the PhD

• Satisfaction of language requirements (minimum 2, including 1 from MA stage; more may be required depending on field of study)
• Completion of 8 graduate and upper division courses (32 units)
• Written comprehensive exams in major and minor fields
• Dissertation prospectus and oral qualifying exam
• Doctoral dissertation
• A total of 8 graduate and upper division courses are required, of which at least 4 must be art history courses at the graduate level.
• Of the nine courses (36 units) required for the MA, students may use a maximum of two of these (8 units) to count towards Ph.D. coursework. Students may also apply courses taken in excess of MA requirements towards fulfilling Ph.D. course requirements. (This does not apply to students who received their MA from other institutions/departments.)
• 5 courses in one field are required to claim it as the major field; 3 courses in one field are required to claim it as the minor field. The minor can also be from outside the department (e.g. Architecture, History, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Archaeology, etc.).
• Students entering the PhD stage deficient in Art History 200 (Art Historical Theories and Methodologies) or its equivalent must add this to the total requirements. In some cases, Art History 201 (Topics in Historiography of Art History) may be required by faculty/advisor recommendation. Any additional coursework required by the Graduate Review Committee at time of admission must be completed during the first two quarters of residence and may not count toward the minimum course requirements for either the MA or PhD degree.

Written Comprehensive Examinations

• Upon completion of coursework and fulfillment of language requirements, the student takes the PhD written comprehensive examinations in the major and minor fields of study, designed and evaluated by the student’s major and minor advisors respectively.
• The purpose of the examinations is to test the student’s breadth and depth of knowledge in his/her fields of study. If a student fails to pass the examination or part thereof, the failed portion may be repeated once no later than the subsequent quarter of residence. No further repetition will be allowed. The written comprehensive examinations may be taken during any two-week period of the Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters. Typically, students take these exams during the winter quarter of the second year in residence, 5th quarter, in the PhD program.
• The Department offers two formats for the major and minor written exams, the details of which must be worked out in advance between the student and the examiner. Format A: Take-home. 2-3 essay questions to be completed in 1 week (for the minor exam, 1-2 questions to be completed in 3 days). Format B: Sit-down. 2-3 essay questions to be completed in 6 hours (for the minor exam, 1-2 questions to be completed in 3 hours). Many faculty incorporate designing of a syllabus as an exam question and the formats above do not preclude this possibility. Such an assignment would count as one question/essay.
• The specific format and dates for the major and minor exams must be submitted to the Student Affairs Officer at least three weeks in advance using the appropriate departmental form.

Doctoral Committee

• Upon passing the written comprehensive examinations in major and minor fields of study, the student selects a dissertation topic and nominates the members of his/her Doctoral Committee in consultation with his/her advisor.
• This committee minimally consists of the major advisor, now serving as committee chair, two additional members of the art history faculty (normally, but not necessarily, including the student’s minor advisor), and one member from another UCLA department. For details on the acceptable status of these members and for minimum university standards of the doctoral committee,  please see page 14-17 in the Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study manual .
• The student and committee chair must agree on all committee members. Any changes in committee constitution after formal nomination must be reported to and approved by the Graduate Division; replacing the committee chair can only occur by consent or if the faculty member leaves UCLA.
• Please note that the Graduate Division generally approves Committee nominations within 2-3 weeks, and the oral qualifying exam may not be taken before official approval has been received.

Dissertation Prospectus and Oral Qualifying Examination

• The dissertation topic should be identified in discussions with the advisor. These discussions usually evolve organically through the course of study and are highly individualized. Typically, the oral examination is scheduled during the quarter following the successful completion of the written examinations.
• Once the Doctoral Committee has been officially approved by Graduate Division, and after having conducted considerable exploratory research and preparation for his/her dissertation, the student submits to each member of the Doctoral Committee a dissertation prospectus. The prospectus should not be distributed to the full committee without the approval of the student’s committee chair.
• The dissertation prospectus should not exceed 20 pages and include a statement of purpose regarding the art historical topic/problem being addressed (what is at stake in the study), tentative chapter outlines, working bibliography, research plan, methodological strategies, and preliminary schedule for completion.
• Students should submit the prospectus to committee members 2-3 weeks before the oral examination date to allow sufficient time for the prospectus to be reviewed. If any member of the Doctoral Committee finds the prospectus inadequate, he or she must notify the committee chair at least one week prior to the oral examination date. In some cases, the prospectus must be revised and/or the examination date postponed.
• The student is responsible for scheduling the oral exam, consulting with committee members well in advance regarding the date and time of availability of each faculty member. The SAO helps the student reserve an appropriate space for the exam.
• The purpose of the oral examination is to assess the validity and feasibility of the proposed dissertation topic and its methodologies, as well as the soundness of the student’s projected approach to completing the project.
• At the end of the examination, each committee member reports the examination as “passed” or “not passed.” A student may not pass and may not be advanced to candidacy if more than one member votes “not passed” regardless of the size of the committee, or if the major advisor so votes. Upon majority vote of the committee, the oral qualifying examination may be repeated once. Students upon passing the oral examination are formally advanced to candidacy by the Graduate Division.
• At the time of the exam, the Doctoral Committee decides, by unanimous agreement, whether or not to waive the final oral examination (not normally required) and selects, again by unanimous agreement, a minimum of three members, two from the art history faculty and one from an outside department, who will read, approve, and certify the final draft of the dissertation. For details regarding the acceptable status of these certifying members, consult the publication, Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.
• Upon passing the oral examination, the student is officially Advanced to Candidacy (ATC).

Dissertation and Final Oral Examination (if required)

• After advancing to candidacy, the student works on the dissertation in consultation with his/her advisor, committee chair, as well as Doctoral Committee certifying members according to the rules laid out in the above named publication. Upon completion of the dissertation or individual chapters thereof, and with  approval  of the committee chair, the student circulates a copy of the dissertation  in Week 1 of the quarter  for comments and suggestions from the certifying members of the Doctoral Committee.  Each  reader is allowed  four  weeks in which to read it and make corrections and comments, and the student is allowed  three  weeks in which to respond and revise the dissertation. It is incumbent upon the student to communicate in a timely manner with all certifying members of the Doctoral Committee to ensure adequate time for review. Committee members must be consulted as each reader may require more time.  PLEASE REVIEW the timeline for dissertation completion  which clearly outlines the schedule for submission during the student’s final quarter.
• After incorporating into the final draft of the dissertation the recommended changes, the student will circulate the dissertation again among the certifying members of the Doctoral Committee. This draft should be circulated sufficiently in advance of the deadline for filing the dissertation so that each reader is allowed at least two weeks in which to reread it (see quarterly Schedule of Classes for filing deadlines).
• Each certifying member of the committee then decides whether or not to approve the dissertation. In cases where less than the entire committee acts as certifying members, approval of the dissertation must be unanimous. If the entire committee acts as certifying members, the dissertation is considered approved with one negative decision so long as that negative decision is not that of the committee chair. After final approval by the Dean of the Graduate Division, the student files the required number of copies of the dissertation with the Manuscript Advisor of the Office of University Archives. Deadlines for filing the dissertation fall approximately two weeks before the date the degree is to be awarded.
• Note: A final oral examination is not normally required for Art History, but in some cases it may be requested by the Doctoral Committee (determined at the oral qualifying exam), and is held prior to filing the dissertation. All members of the committee must attend and vote. A student may pass with one negative vote so long as that vote is not that of the committee chair. In case of failure, the Doctoral Committee decides, by unanimous agreement, whether or not the candidate may be re-examined.
• Upon filing the dissertation, the student receives the Ph.D.

Language Requirements

The completion of the PhD requires reading knowledge of a minimum of two foreign languages relevant to the student’s field of study (more than two may be required in some cases and must be determined in consultation with the faculty advisor). Applicants are expected to already possess reading proficiency in at least one of the two languages for which they will be responsible. New students shall sit for at least one language exam upon arrival at UCLA.

Students at the MA stage are expected to satisfy their first foreign language requirement by the end of the 3rd quarter in residence. It is highly recommended that they complete the second language requirement by the end of the 6th quarter in residence.

Students at the PhD stage are expected to satisfy their second foreign language requirement by the end of the 1st quarter and any additional languages by the end of the 3rd quarter in residence (or in consultation with the major advisor).

Fulfilling the Language Requirement

Option 1: Pass the Departmental Foreign Language Exam.

The language exam consists of translation of a text of 300-700 words chosen by the examiner to be translated into English in three hours (use of a non-electronic dictionary is allowed). Specific qualities of the language and expected level of proficiency in the field will impact the choice and length of the selected text. The Department expects accurate rendition in English rather than a strict translation, word for word, and values the quality of the translation over the completion of the exam.

Language exams are scheduled four times a year, approximately three weeks prior to finals week during the regular academic quarters. Entering students must sit for the first language exam in the first week of the fall quarter. Exam results will be sent out by email within three weeks of the exam date. If feedback on the exam is desired after the results have been announced, students are welcome to contact the examiner. If a student fails the exam and wants to appeal, he or she should contact the Chair of the Language Committee or Director of Graduate Studies.

Option 2: Complete UCLA courses  French 6, German 6, Italian 6, Spanish 25, or other relevant language classes with a minimum grade of “B”.

The following is a general guideline for language requirements in relation to specific fields of study. The final selection and number of languages is to be determined in consultation with the primary advisor.

African Indigenous African languages, Arabic, French, German, Portuguese Ancient/Mediterranean/Near East Akkadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Latin Chinese/Korean/Japanese Two East Asian languages, for pre-modern studies additionally literary Chinese or Japanese Byzantine/Western Medieval French, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Slavic Languages, Turkish, Spanish Indigenous Americas One European language, one indigenous language (e.g., Quechua, Nahuatl, Maya), one other language (depending on topic) Islamic Arabic, Turkish/Ottoman, Persian, French, German Latin America Spanish (mandatory), French, German, Portuguese Modern & Contemporary Europe & America French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian Renaissance/Baroque/Early Modern Italian, French, Spanish, German, Latin, Dutch, Slavic Languages, Latin and/or Greek (depending on topic) South Asia Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu, Persian Southeast Asia Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian

History of Art PhD

The Department of History of Art offers a two-stage integrated master's and doctoral program (MA/PhD) in preparation for college teaching, writing, and specialized curatorial careers. Students are not admitted to work for a terminal MA degree, though students may apply for the MA after meeting Stage I requirements toward the PhD. Students work closely with faculty in courses, seminars, and on independent research projects to develop independent thought and a thorough knowledge of the field and its critical methods. Cross-disciplinary work in Berkeley's distinguished departments of languages and literature, philosophy, rhetoric, film studies, women's studies, history, and the social sciences is strongly encouraged. A student may opt for a more formal relationship with other departments through Designated Emphases programs, including film studies; folklore; women, gender, and sexuality; and critical theory.

Contact Info

[email protected]

416 Doe Library #6020

Berkeley, CA 94720

At a Glance

Admit Term(s)

Application Deadline

December 4, 2023

Degree Type(s)

Doctoral / PhD

Degree Awarded

GRE Requirements

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• Ph.D. in Art History & Visual Culture

The Ph.D. Program in Art History & Visual Culture is committed to preparing you for advanced research in the global visual cultures of the past and present. The Department recognizes that visual literacy plays an increasingly important role in contemporary society. Art, architecture, mass media (television, video, film, internet), and urbanism all work through reference to visual and spatial conventions. We strive to provide you with the necessary tools to understand objects and archives and with the skills to interpret visual and material culture for the benefit of the broader community. We invite applications from highly qualified students interested in careers in research, teaching, and criticism.

Requirements for a Ph.D.

• 12 to 15 courses (excluding language courses), of which at least 10 are taken from the Art, Art History & Visual Studies department
• 2 to 4 courses taken from other departments at Duke
• Language proficiency in at least two foreign languages
• Preliminary exam
• Note the former Ph.D. track in Visual & Media Studies has now been replaced by a new Ph.D. program in Computational Media, Arts & Cultures (CMAC)
• Also review Ph.D. Program Guidelines attached below
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An intensive program with tracks in Art Education and Art History. Students engage in intensive research and work closely with faculty mentors. They procure jobs at universities and museums and routinely secure tenure track and curatorial positions.

Degree Type: Doctoral

Degree Program Code: PHD_ARTS

Degree Program Summary:

The Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia offers graduate study in art education, art history, and studio art. The programs, leading to the M.A., M.A.Ed., M.F.A., Ed.S., and Ph.D. degrees are described in detail in the Graduate Handbook. Graduate programs necessarily presume certain aptitudes on the part of applicants, based on documented results of previous study. Admission to graduate programs is very competitive. Successful applicants are mature, highly motivated individuals capable of sustained studio work or scholarly pursuit at an advanced level. Working under the guidance of a faculty of experienced, recognized professionals, students are encouraged to develop the self-discipline essential to productive independent study and self-realization as artists and/or scholars. Our graduate program in Studio Art is structured to foster stylistic diversity through individual exploration. There is no dominating opinion or aesthetic espoused by the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The wide variety of images and approaches present at the school attest to the healthy ferment of ideas among students and faculty. Scholarly publications in art education and art history reflect the same freedom of inquiry.

Candidates for the PhD in art are required to demonstrate competence in either history of art or art education. When appropriate, a candidate’s program of study may include courses in the theory and criticism of art and relevant areas of study outside the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The research skills requirement, in the history of art emphasis, is a reading knowledge of two foreign languages. In the art education emphasis, the research skills requirement may be met by completing a minimum of three of the specified research courses. Satisfactory completion of written and oral preliminary examinations, a dissertation demonstrating original research, and a final oral defense before an examining committee of the faculty are also required.

The Georgia Museum of Art is a significant resource for the Lamar Dodd School of Art. It has a major collection of American paintings and over 5000 works on paper from all periods. The museum sponsors a full schedule of in-house and traveling exhibitions each year.

Applicants are admitted for the fall semester. Funding is available.

The deadline for applications is January 1.

Locations Offered:

Athens (Main Campus)

College / School:

Franklin College of Arts & Sciences

346 Brooks Hall Athens, GA 30602

706-542-8776

Department:

Lamar Dodd School of Art

Graduate Coordinator(s):

Isabelle Wallace

Phone Number:

706-542-1636

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The doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania provides students with broad training in the history of art and its critical approaches, yet also focused training in their selected fields.  Students completing the Ph.D. are well prepared for teaching positions at the university and college level and for curatorial positions in museums and galleries.  Faculty work closely with Ph.D. students to outline an appropriate course of study and mentor students while preparing them for assistantships, curatorial internships, and other career orientations.

Admission to the program is by application to the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, which administers full fellowship packages to all admitted students.  (See the "Admissions" page on this site.)  Both B.A. and M.A. students are eligible to apply.  Students normally pursue coursework over their first three years and, once admitted to Ph.D. candidacy (following their area exams), devote their time thereafter to dissertation research and writing.  Students entering the program with an M.A. may chose to accelerate their coursework at Penn to gain candidacy to the Ph.D. more quickly.

Students generally take three seminars in each semester; some of that coursework includes also pedagogical instruction when the student serves as a Teaching Assistant. To ensure a broad understanding of art's history, the Department asks students to take three seminars focusing on periods prior to 1750 and three after.

Further details regarding the graduate program may be found in the  Graduate Bulletin .

Ph.D. in Art, Art History and Visual Studies

General info.

• Faculty working with students: 20
• Students: 26
• Part time study available: No
• Application Terms: Fall
• Application Deadline: December 14

Stanley Abe Director of Graduate Studies Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies Duke University Box 90766 Durham, NC 27708-0764

Phone: (919) 684-2224

Email:  [email protected]

Website:  https://aahvs.duke.edu

Program Description

The program, which is designed for a small group of students, emphasizes the study of art, architecture and visual culture within a theoretical and historical frame. The Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies offers an interdisciplinary program of graduate study leading to the Ph.D. (No M.A. is offered. Please find more information on the Digital Art History/Computational Media M.A. tracks).

We invite applications from dedicated students interested in careers in research, criticism, teaching, and museum work. Admission is highly competitive and limited to an average of four new students per year. The Department makes every effort to offer full funding to all admitted candidates. Students are trained for teaching by serving as graders and teaching assistants.

Duke University is now in the forefront of academic institutions supporting interdisciplinary and theoretical initiatives in the humanities. Art History and Visual Studies have a unique contribution to make to these efforts and all members of the faculty are engaged in innovative teaching or research projects involving faculty from other departments and programs. All members of the graduate faculty team-teach courses or have courses cross-listed in other departments (African and African-American Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Classical Studies, Economics, Literature, Germanic Languages and Literature, Religion) or programs (Documentary Studies, Women's Studies, International Comparative Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies). Students have a minor field outside the department.

The department works cooperatively with the art history program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as with the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

Program Statistics

• Art, Art History and Visual Studies: PhD Admissions and Enrollment Statistics
• Art, Art History and Visual Studies: PhD Completion Rate Statistics
• Art, Art History and Visual Studies: PhD Time to Degree Statistics
• Art, Art History and Visual Studies: PhD Career Outcomes Statistics

Application Information

Application Terms:  Fall

Application Deadline:  December 14

Graduate School Application Requirements See the  Application Instructions  page for important details about each Graduate School requirement.

• Transcripts: Unofficial transcripts required with application submission; official transcripts required upon admission
• Letters of Recommendation: 3 Required
• Statement of Purpose: Required (see department guidance below)
• Résumé: Required
• GRE Scores: GRE General - Optional
• English Language Exam: TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo English Test required* for applicants whose first language is not English * test waiver may apply for some applicants
• GPA: Undergraduate GPA calculated on 4.0 scale required

Department-Specific Application Requirements (submitted through online application)

Writing Sample A 10-page writing sample is required with your application.

We strongly encourage you to review additional department-specific application guidance from the program to which you are applying:  Departmental Application Guidance

List of Graduate School Programs and Degrees

MA or PhD in Art History

The graduate Art History programs at UT, comprising the MA in Art History and the PhD in Art History, are among the nation’s largest and most distinguished, with nearly twenty full-time faculty members who are leading scholars in their fields and represent a diversity of critical and methodological outlooks. Students in Art History are regularly honored with prestigious awards and fellowships, and alumni from this program lead successful careers at colleges, universities, and museums worldwide.

The programs’ expansive scope comprises courses covering a wide range of periods and cultures of art, while areas of special concentration are represented by several active research centers. Interdisciplinary study and collaboration play a vital role in the program. Additionally, research is enhanced by access to the many resources available across campus including the Blanton Museum of Art, one of the country’s leading university art museums; the university’s notable library system; and cultural archives such as the Harry Ransom Center.

Eligibility

Applicants to the Master of Arts Program are expected to have completed a broad range of undergraduate coursework in art history (18 hours in art history are recommended) and related fields. MA students will be required to demonstrate proficiency in reading/translating one contemporary language other than English prior to beginning the fourth semester in residence.

Program Tracks

Four MA tracks are offered:

• General (allows students to cover diverse historical areas of art history)
• Ancient (Western and Non-Western)
• Medieval to Early Modern

Program of Work — General Track

Program of work — specialized track, specialized tracks, example program plan, language requirement.

MA students must have reading/translation competence in at least one modern language in addition to English. The additional language will be relevant to the student’s areas of study and will allow the student to understand the scholarship of their field. The language will be determined in consultation with the Graduate Adviser and the choice is subject to ratification by the Graduate Studies Committee.

The choice of language is flexible but must be decided in consultation with one’s advisor/committee chair or the Graduate Adviser if an advisor has not yet been selected. Language courses cannot count toward fulfillment of the requirement for six hours of coursework taken outside the department (supporting work or Minor).

The language exam requirement must be fulfilled in one of the following ways:

• 4 semesters of college-level language courses passed at grade B or above. Advanced placement credit can count towards the required number of courses.
• Departmental exam to test translation proficiency in French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Portuguese (and other languages as petitioned by students) administered 3 times each year (beginning and end of fall semester, and once during spring semester). Exams are graded by at least 2 faculty members. Language exams will be administered to students who wish take it in a given semester. The exam proceeds simultaneously, in a single location and time that works for all. This requirement can be fulfilled in one of the following ways, and must be satisfied by the end of the third long semester in residence.
• To compensate for the exceptional difficulty involved, students who plan on qualifying in a language other than the traditional European languages may be allowed to do so. Permission may be granted after consultation with the Graduate Adviser and after petitioning the faculty to substitute an instructional course in that language in place of a supporting (i.e. out-of-department) course.

Thesis Colloquium

During the semester of enrollment in Thesis research (ARH 698A, 3 hours), usually in the third semester of residence and after the completion of 18 hours of coursework, the student presents a topic for faculty approval in a Thesis Colloquium. Enrollment in ARH 698B Thesis (3 hours) may take place only after an approved presentation.

• In the first year, no later than the end of the Spring semester, the student will contact an Art History faculty member about supervising the thesis and initiate a discussion about possible topics.
• Students are encouraged to interview faculty in their area of specialization in order to find a faculty supervisor/committee chair. Students and supervisors must be in alignment to accommodate their professional goals. Failing to find a supervisor will result in termination from the program.
• The wise Art History Master’s student will take advantage of the summer following the first year to develop and research a topic or possible topics with the goal of being ready to schedule the colloquium in the early part of the Fall semester.
• If the colloquium is not held, a grade of Incomplete is assigned; a final grade will be assigned when the colloquium is held during the next long semester.

Refer to the handbook for details regarding the processes involved with submitting the final thesis and applying for graduation.

Program Handbook

Applicants to the Doctoral Program must have an MA in art history or an MA in a related field with substantial coursework in art history at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Applicants completing the second year of a Master’s program are also eligible to apply.

Program of Work

The Doctor of Philosophy degree requires at least thirty hours of coursework beyond the MA degree. Course requirements include:

• A minimum of five graduate seminars in at least two of the department’s chronological groupings of western and non-western art: Ancient; Medieval to Early Modern; and Modern

Nine hours of supporting work, normally consisting of two graduate seminars outside the Department of Art and Art History in areas related to the major field, and one graduate reading course outside the Department of Art and Art History often taken in the context of preparation for the qualifying examination. All of these courses must be taken for a letter grade.

A minimum of six hours of dissertation research and writing

Further requirements include reading/translation competence in at least two contemporary languages in addition to English, a dissertation colloquium, written and oral qualifying examinations that admit the student to doctoral candidacy, the dissertation, and the oral defense of the dissertation. PhD students who are employed as Teaching Assistants must enroll for one term in ARH 398T Supervised Teaching in Art History , a pedagogy seminar that meets one hour per week. This course does not count toward completion of the degree.

Doctoral students must have reading/translation competence in at least 2 modern languages in addition to English. These languages will be relevant to students’ areas of study and will allow individuals to undertake primary research and understand the scholarship of their chosen field.

Language courses cannot count toward fulfillment of the requirement for 9 hours of coursework taken outside the department (supporting work or minor). Each language requirement can be fulfilled in one of the following ways, and must be satisfied before advancing to doctoral candidacy:

• Four semesters of college-level language courses passed at grade B or above. Advanced Placement credit can count towards the required number of courses.

Departmental exam to test translation proficiency in French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Portuguese (and other languages as petitioned by students) administered twice per semester. Exams are graded by at least two faculty members. Language exams will be administered to students who wish take it in a given semester. The exam proceeds simultaneously, in a single location and time that works for all. The choice of language is flexible but must be decided in consultation with one’s adviser.

Confirmation of completion of a modern language requirement from the student’s Master’s program.

To compensate for the exceptional difficulty involved, students who plan on qualifying in a language other than the traditional European languages may be allowed, after consultation with the graduate advisor and after petitioning the faculty, to substitute an instructional course in that language in place of a supporting (i.e. out-of-department) course.

Dissertation Colloquium

The Colloquium is intended to be an informal conversation with the faculty concerning the topic, its feasibility, and potential pitfalls that might affect the student’s ability to complete it successfully.

The Dissertation Colloquium is held during the third or fourth term of the student’s residence and after the completion of at least 18 hours of coursework. A week before the scheduled Dissertation Colloquium, the student presents to the Graduate Adviser for Art History and the faculty a written prospectus, prepared with the help of the dissertation adviser.

The topics for the qualifying examination are also set at the Colloquium, and the examining committee is determined. At this time, the composition of the dissertation committee is also discussed. The student must complete the Qualifying Examination by the end of the next long semester following the Colloquium.

Qualifying Examination

The student will be examined in four areas: at least two broad areas of expertise and one or two focused areas with the possibility of one area being directed by a faculty member outside the Department. All of these exams will be written and must be completed within a one-week period. In consultation with each faculty member on their examination committee, students will schedule three-hour time periods during which they will take the written exams.

At least two weeks before the examination, the student will confirm with the Graduate Coordinator the date and time of each examination and the name and email address of any examiner not on the Art History faculty. The student will determine the order of the questions. The Graduate Coordinator will solicit questions from each examiner.

Within several days of the completion of the last written examination, a two-hour oral examination on the same topics will follow with the entire examining committee. During this exam the examining committee will question the student about the exam questions. To schedule the oral examination, please use the same process used for scheduling the Colloquium. The student's performance on these exams will be ranked "Pass" or "Failure." For additional details and procedures, please refer to the Graduate Handbook.

Once the student has completed all program requirements and passed the qualifying exams, the committee supervising the dissertation is formalized in the doctoral candidacy application process.

Learn more about completing the Application for Doctoral Candidacy →

• After admission to Candidacy for the doctoral degree, the student must stay in continuous enrollment in dissertation hours each spring and fall until the degree is completed.

Students doing research abroad while in doctoral candidacy may be eligible for Independent Study and Research status.

Example Topics

Below are examples of past qualifying examinations topics. Please note that these can include both general subjects and topics related to a particular student’s dissertation research:

Medieval Art

• Northern Renaissance Art
• French Court Culture and Patronage (possibly an outside the Department question)
• Fourteenth-Century Manuscript Illumination

Modern/Contemporary European Art

• European Art, 1890–1945
• Art of the United States, 1945–1985
• Art and Philosophy of Language (Examiner: Art History Dept.)
• Little Magazines and Literary Modernism (Examiner: English Dept.)

Dissertation

The dissertation must make an original contribution to scholarship. It normally requires fieldwork of at least a year’s duration. The Dissertation Committee directs the student during the completion of the dissertation. Defense of the dissertation (Final Oral Examination) before at least four members of the Dissertation Committee is a University requirement; the dissertation supervisor must be physically present for the defense to take place.

Learn more about submitting the request for the Final Oral Examination →

Refer to the handbook for details regarding the processes involved with submitting the final draft, defending, and applying for graduation.

• Current Graduate Students

Funding resources at the MA level, such as scholarships and in-state tuition waivers, are limited and awarded on a case-by-case basis. Each semester, MA students may apply for positions as a Grader for a large introductory/survey or upper-division class. Once assigned to grade for a course, the Grader must attend all lectures and grade all exams and assignments for the course. The number of Grader positions varies each year, and the salary is based on the number of students in the class. A few MA students also may be awarded Teaching Assistant positions, when these are available, again on a case-by-case basis.

The faculty’s goal is to support all admitted PhD students with a combination of Teaching Assistantships, Assistant Instructor positions, Graduate Research Assistant positions and scholarship funds so they can earn their degree with as little outside cost as possible.

A limited number of Graduate Research Assistant positions may be available each semester to both MA and PhD students.

All applicants are considered for financial support; it is not necessary to apply or request separately.

FAQ Visit Apply

Program Contacts

[email protected] Graduate Program Coordinator

Dr. Nassos Papalexandrou   Graduate Advisor

PhD Art History Admission

The Department welcomes graduate applications from individuals with a broad range of life experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds who would contribute to our community of scholars. Review of applications is holistic and individualized, considering each applicant’s academic record and accomplishments, letters of recommendation, and admissions essays in order to understand how an applicant’s life experiences have shaped their past and potential contributions to their field.

University Application Materials

The application for admission as well as general information about applying is available from the Graduate Admissions website; please visit  Graduate Admissions  to apply. Prior to applying you must first determine if you are eligible -  application eligibility (undergraduate degree requirements) . International applicants, please also see  Bechtel International Center  and Graduate Admissions  International Applicants  for more information and any additional application requirements. Prospective students may apply beginning in late September (please verify the precise date on the  Graduate Admissions  website). The following documents are required by the university and can not be waived; please click on the links for more detailed information about each:

Letters of Recommendation : Three letters of recommendation are required. The department does not accept applicant recommendation via a letter service (i.e. Interfolio or other service). It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that letters are submitted to the electronic application by the published deadline. Please only submit three letters.

Transcripts : Upload a scanned copy of your official transcript(s) with the online application. Applicants must upload transcripts from every post-secondary institution attended as a full-time student and for at least one academic year. Transcripts from current degree programs also need to be submitted.

Statement of Purpose : You must indicate in the first sentence of your SOP the name of the program to which you are applying and the area you wish to study (e.g. PhD in Art History – Modern). The Statement of Purpose should describe succinctly your reasons for applying to the proposed program at Stanford, your preparation for this field of study, research interests, future career plans, and other aspects of your background and interests which may aid the admissions committee in evaluating your aptitude and motivation for graduate study. Applicants can include and mention faculty members, with overlapping research interests whom they would like to work with and why, in their statement of purpose. The Statement of Purpose must be: 1,000 words or less; single-spaced; formatted with 1-inch margins and 12-point, Times New Roman font.

Application Fee : The application fee $125, is non-refundable, and must be received by the application deadline (fee waivers are available to eligible students. Please see  Graduate Fee Waivers  for more information). The Department does not offer fee waivers outside of the process at the Graduate Fee Waivers page. Please do not contact the department requesting to waive the application fee.

GRE Scores: Graduate Record Exam (GRE) General Test is no longer required for admission to the Department of Art & Art History.

TOEFL Scores : Required when first language is not English; IELTS is not accepted. Please note that the department can NOT waive the TOEFL requirement. If you wish to submit a request for TOEFL waiver, please see  GRE and TOEFL Requirements . It is the applicant's responsibility to ensure that the scores are submitted to the electronic application by the published deadline.  (Note: To bypass the entry of TOEFL scores in the application, enter a future test date. You can add in the additional information section of the application that you have received a waiver from Graduate Admissions.)

Online Application

* Please note all application materials, once submitted as part of your application, become the property of Stanford University. Materials will not be returned and copies will not be provided for applicants nor released to other institutions. Please keep a copy for your records. Re-applicants must submit new supporting documents and complete the online graduate application.

Writing Sample Requirement

In addition to the University application materials listed above, applicants in Art History are required to submit a writing sample.  You should upload your writing sample along with your online application (only one writing sample will be accepted). It should be 20 pages maximum, including illustrations and bibliography – neither papers over this limit nor entire Master’s theses will be accepted.

Start Your Application

For admission in Autumn Quarter of the next academic year, all required application materials, including your test scores and recommendation letters, must be received on-line by no later than  December 1 at 9:00 pm (PT).

Note: The Graduate Admissions period opens in late September each year for applications to be submitted by the published deadline in December (for matriculation beginning in the following academic year). After April 15th each year, the Graduate Admissions period is closed, and the online application will reopen during the following September.

Selection Process

Application review takes place between mid-February and mid-March; applicants are notified by e-mail of their status around March 15th. Accepted students are admitted for the following Autumn Quarter; no applicants for mid-year entrance will be considered.  You will be contacted via e-mail regarding your application status after the deadline; please do not contact the Department in this regard. Applicants who are chosen as finalists for admissions are asked to make themselves available for an individual interview by faculty via Skype.  Admitted prospective students are invited for a campus visit intended to introduce them to faculty, current graduate students, and to members of the larger Stanford community involved in the arts.  Library, museum and other facilities are part of this introduction to the PhD program in Art History at Stanford.

The Art and Art History Department recognizes that the Supreme Court issued a ruling in June 2023 about the consideration of certain types of demographic information as part of an admission review. All applications submitted during upcoming application cycles will be reviewed in conformance with that decision.

Knight-Hennessy Scholars

Join dozens of  Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences  students who gain valuable leadership skills in a multidisciplinary, multicultural community as  Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS). KHS admits up to 100 select applicants each year from across Stanford’s seven graduate schools, and delivers engaging experiences that prepare them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders ready to address complex global challenges. As a scholar, you join a distinguished cohort, participate in up to three years of leadership programming, and receive full funding for up to three years of your PhD studies at Stanford. Candidates of any country may apply. KHS applicants must have earned their first undergraduate degree within the last seven years, and must apply to both a Stanford graduate program and to KHS. Stanford PhD students may also apply to KHS during their first year of PhD enrollment. If you aspire to be a leader in your field, we invite you to apply. The KHS application deadline is October 11, 2023. Learn more about  KHS admission .

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Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies  

The Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies (AFVS) at Harvard offers a graduate program in Film and Visual Studies leading to a PhD.

The Department also offers a secondary field in Film and Visual Studies for students already admitted to PhD programs in other departments in the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The study of film at Harvard functions within the multi-disciplinary examination of audio-visual experience. From Hugo Münsterberg's pathbreaking forays into the psychological reception of moving images and Rudolf Arnheim’s seminal investigations of "visual thinking" to Paul Sachs’s incorporation of film into the academic and curatorial focus of the fine arts at Harvard and Stanley Cavell’s philosophical approaches to the medium, Harvard has sustained a distinguished tradition of engaging cinema and the cultural, visual, spatial, and philosophical questions that it raises. With their emphases on experimentation in the contemporary arts and creative collaboration among practitioners and critics, the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies (AFVS) and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts provide a singular and unparalleled site for advanced research in Film and Visual Studies. The program aims to foster critical understanding of the interactions between the making of and thinking about film and video, between studio art, performance, and visual culture, and between different arts and pursuits whose objects are audio-visual entities. The Carpenter Center also supports a lively research culture, including the Film and Visual Studies Colloquium and a Film and Visual Studies Workshop for advanced doctoral students, as well as lecture series and exhibitions featuring distinguished artists, filmmakers, and scholars.

Interdisciplinary in its impetus, the program draws on and consolidates course offerings in departments throughout the Faculty of Arts and Sciences which consider film and other arts in all their various countenances and investigate the place of visual arts within a variety of contexts. Graduate students may also take advantage of the significant resources of the Harvard Film Archive (HFA), which houses a vast collection of 16mm and 35mm film prints as well as rare video materials, vintage film posters, photographs, and promotional materials. The HFA furthers the artistic and academic appreciation of moving image media within the Harvard and the New England community, offering a setting where students and faculty can interact with filmmakers and artists. In early 2003, the HFA opened a new Conservation Center that allows the HFA conservator and staff to accession new films as well as to preserve its significant collections of independent, international, and silent films.

Students and faculty in Film and Visual Studies are also eligible to apply to the Harvard Film Study Center for fellowships which are awarded annually in support of original film, video, and photographic projects. Established in 1957, the Film Study Center provides production equipment, post-production facilities, technical support, and funding for nonfiction works that interpret the world through images and sounds. Among the many important films to have been produced at the Film Study Center are John Marshall's The Hunters (1956), Robert Gardner's Forest of Bliss (1985), Irene Lusztig's Reconstruction (2001), Ross McElwee's Bright Leaves (2003), Peter Galison and Robb Moss’s Secrecy (2008), Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Sweetgrass (2009), Véréna Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki’s Foreign Parts (2011), Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s Leviathan (2013) and De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2022), Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez’s Manakamana (2014), Mati Diop’s Atlantiques (2019), Ernst Karel and Veronika

Kusumaryati’s Expedition Content (2020), and Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós’ Dry Ground Burning (2022).

Images:  Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine  (2005), directed by Peter Tscherkassky, from a print in the collection of the Harvard Film Archive.

• Undergraduate
• Academic Requirements
• Secondary Field in Film and Visual Studies
• Film and Visual Studies PhD Alumni:
• Graduate Program FAQs
• Courses in Art, Film, and Visual Studies -Fall 2024 (Spring 2025 COMING SOON!)

Graduate Contacts

Laura Frahm Director of Graduate Studies 

Emily Amendola Graduate Coordinator Film and Visual Studies Program (617) 495-9720 amendola [at] fas.harvard.edu  

FAQs about the Graduate Program

My native language is not english; do i have to take the an english language proficiency exam.

Adequate  command of spoken and written English  is essential to success in graduate study at Harvard. Applicants who are non-native English speakers can demonstrate English proficiency in one of three ways:

• Receiving an undergraduate degree from an academic institution where English is the primary language of instruction.*
• Earning a minimum score of 80 on the Internet based test (iBT) of the ...

When is the application deadline for admission to the Ph.D. program in Film and Visual Studies?

December 15, 2023

Where can I obtain an admissions application?

Applications are found on the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website ( https://gsas.harvard.edu/admissions/apply ). 

Program Type

• Combined Degree (4)
• Degree Granting (72)
• Summer Programs (1)
• Visiting Students (4)

Academic Areas

• Arts & Architecture (4)
• Biological Sciences (4)
• Engineering & Applied Sciences (10)
• Harvard Integrated Life Sciences (14)
• History (14)
• Humanities (22)
• Languages (9)
• Mathematics (2)
• Medical Sciences (7)
• Physical Sciences (6)
• Social Sciences (21)

Degrees Offered

• AB/AM, AB/SM (1)
• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (68)
• Master of Arts (AM) (8)
• Master of Engineering (ME) (2)
• Master of Science (SM) (4)

GRE Requirement

• Not Accepted (28)
• Optional (28)
• Required (14)

African and African American Studies

American studies, anthropology, applied mathematics, applied physics, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, bioengineering, biological and biomedical sciences, biological sciences in public health.

The Art Education program at the Lamar Dodd School of Art is grounded in critical, experiential, and interdisciplinary inquiry. Faculty and students benefit from close proximity to the Georgia Museum of Art, partnerships with schools and community organizations in diverse settings, and the expertise of renowned studio and art history faculty within the School. As a community of art educators, we explore the intersections of contemporary art, histories of art education, visual culture, service-learning, social justice, and digital technology. Graduates are encouraged to be innovators who challenge the status quo through locally and globally transformative practices.

Art Education

Art Education Faculty

Current Art Education Graduate Students

Art Education Alumni

Graduate Admissions

Funding and Research Support

Recent MAEd & PhD topics in Art Education

Handbooks and Forms

A Doctor of Philosophy in Art degree with an emphasis in Art Education is the highest degree offered by the area of Art Education. The culmination of the degree is the acceptance of a doctoral dissertation that demonstrates that the student is capable of doing independent and original research that contributes to the body of knowledge in the field. 

Candidates for the degree will demonstrate competence in academic writing, research methodologies and contemporary theories and practices in art education and related disciplines. The specific sequence of courses for each candidate will depend on his or her area of interest and previous coursework. The PhD offers eligibility for an upgraded T-7 Georgia teaching certification for those working in PK-12 schools.

Faculty Contact

Dr.  Mira Kallio-Tavin , Graduate Coordinator for Art Education,  [email protected]

Key Information

This program requires:

• An intense level of commitment and is best suited for those who have professional aspirations that require a PhD (Higher Education, Administration, etc.).
• Minimum 12 hours of Art Education
• Minimum 9 hours of Research
• Minimum 8 hours of Electives
• After completing coursework, students must register for dissertation research hours 2 out of the 3 semesters each year until the degree is completed.
• Coursework that is primarily in-person, as the program is residential.
• The following Exams and Checkpoints: Qualifying Exam, Written Comprehensive Exam and Oral Defense, Prospectus, Written Dissertation and Oral Defense

Two Options to Pursue the PhD in Art with an emphasis in Art Education

• Full-time study that is funded by a Graduate Assistantship, which covers all tuition and offers a monthly stipend (August through May). Graduate assistants typically serve as graders or instructors for courses in the School of Art. Students should anticipate a minimum of four years to complete the degree, with assistantship funding available for three of those years. We are able to offer a limited number of assistantships to highly qualified applicants each year.
• Part-time study. With this option, it is possible for students to maintain full-time employment elsewhere and take one or two courses each semester through the completion of the degree. All courses are offered in the evenings or during the summer, with some online options. This option requires students to perform all of their commitments to the PhD on top of their regular work and personal commitments. Students should anticipate a minimum of five years (often more) to complete the degree as a part-time student.

Certificates that can be pursued in connection with the PhD Degree

Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies Certificate

Museum Studies Certificate

Interdisciplinary Disability Studies Certificate

Certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Resources and Links

PhD Handbook

• Provides further details about requirements for the PhD degree

Recently Completed Dissertations

Application Instructions and Requirements

Tuition Rates

• Select "Tuition & Fees", then select "Academic Year", then refer to the "Graduate Tuition Standard Rate for Master & PhD Candidates".

Graduate Studies at the Lamar Dodd School of Art

Guidelines and due dates for graduate projects can be found on the University of Georgia  Graduate School website . 

For more information about graduate programs at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, contact  our Graduate Office .

PhD candidate in Art Education Kira Hegeman completing field work.

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Art Education, Ph.D.

Ph.D. in Art Education (+Dual Ph.D.)

TODO FIXME : DRAFT : WORK IN PROGRESS

Elevate your scholarship and the art education profession..

The Ph.D. in Art Education prepares students to become innovative researchers, informed educators, and leaders in higher education, schools, communities, and museums. At Penn State, you’ll enjoy all the resources of a large research university within a close-knit, collegial environment of faculty and fellow students committed to making an impact on the field of art education.

Program Application Deadline

The deadline for applications for AY 2023–24 is January 15, 2023.

To be assured full consideration, please review all details on program and admission requirements, and ensure that you apply by this deadline.

Earn a Ph.D. in Art Education at Penn State

Take your experience and research in art education to the next level. Penn State’s Ph.D. in Art Education–including unique dual-title options that incorporate African American and Diaspora Studies or Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies –is ideal if you want to build on your experience in the field through original research projects that make significant contributions to art education theory and practice.

Coursework in art education and related disciplines such as philosophy, curriculum and instruction, sociology, anthropology, and other fields provides necessary theoretical and methodological background for dissertation research. Doctoral students are required to complete 32 credits of graduate coursework (20 of which are to be completed in art education), pass their Qualifying Examination, English Competency Examination, Comprehensive Examination, Final Examination, and submit a dissertation.

Faculty bring a range of teaching, research, and administrative experience from across the country and around the world. The international student body provides students with insight into a range of art teaching practices. You’ll benefit from all the resources of a large research university while studying as part of the collaborative, close-knit community within the Penn State School of Visual Arts.

Applicants apply for admission to the program via the Graduate School application for admission . Requirements listed here are in addition to Graduate Council policies listed under GCAC-300 Admissions Policies .

The language of instruction at Penn State is English. English proficiency test scores (TOEFL/IELTS) may be required for international applicants. See GCAC-305 Admission Requirements for International Students for more information.

Students who seek admission to the graduate program must make formal application to The Graduate School and admissions committee of the Art Education program. To be admitted without deficiencies, the student is expected to have completed either a baccalaureate degree in art education or a program considered by the admissions committee to provide an appropriate background for the application’s degree objectives. Related programs include work in studio art, art history, art education, education, museum education, etc. Deficiencies may be made up by course work that is not counted as credit toward an advanced degree. Students pursuing graduate degrees may simultaneously take course work leading to teaching certification and art supervisory certification. The students who plan to teach art education at the college level should note that some institutions require professors to hold a public school art teaching certificate and to have had public school teaching experience.

Students with a minimum 3.00 junior/senior grade-point average (on a 4.00 scale) and with appropriate course backgrounds will be considered for admission. The most qualified applicants will be accepted up to the number of spaces that are available for new students. Exceptions to the minimum 3.00 average may be made for students with special backgrounds, abilities, and interests. Transcripts should indicate high attainment in appropriate academic and creative work. Letters of recommendation should attest to scholarship and ability to work independently. In addition to the above requirements, there are specific requirements for each degree program:

M.S. and Ph.D. Application Materials

• Completed official Penn State Graduate School Application for Admission .
• professional objectives
• how these objectives would be furthered by graduate study,
• the areas in which research and creative work are planned,
• what the applicant hopes to do with the graduate degree he or she is seeking to attain, and
• evidence that the applicant is prepared to undertake graduate level work.
• Submit an example of scholarly writing.
• Submit three (3) letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation should attest to the applicant’s scholarship and ability to work independently.
• Submit official transcripts from all post-secondary institutions attended .
• Submit a Portfolio (optional). Applicants may submit images of their creative works that represent arts-based research or images that illustrate their conception of art.
• Indicate in your Statement of Professional Intent if you would like to be considered for an Assistantship/Fellowship.

M.P.S. Application Materials

• Statement of purpose in pursuing the M.P.S. in Art Education.
• Three letters of recommendation.
• Teaching portfolio to include teaching philosophy and a sample of curricular materials developed by the applicant.
• A critical reflective written response to an article provided in the GRADS application site. The response should outline the key arguments made by the author(s), a critical evaluation of the logic and assumptions in the article, and a connection to the applicant’s own instructional or professional experience.
• Curriculum vitae with evidence of professional leadership and service.
• Official transcripts from all post-secondary institutions attended , including official military transcripts (if applicable). (All college or university transcripts are required regardless of the length of time that has passed, the grades earned, or the accreditation of the institutions attended.)
• International applicants whose first language is not English or who have received a baccalaureate or master’s degree from an institution in which the language of instruction is not English, please refer to GCAC-305 Admission Requirements for International Students .

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Ph.D. in Art Education Handbook

Graduate courses carry numbers from 500 to 699 and 800 to 899. Advanced undergraduate courses numbered between 400 and 499 may be used to meet some graduate degree requirements when taken by graduate students. Courses below the 400 level may not. A graduate student may register for or audit these courses in order to make up deficiencies or to fill in gaps in previous education but not to meet requirements for an advanced degree.

Art Education (AED) Course List

Graduate assistantships available to students in this program and other forms of student aid are described in the Tuition & Funding section of The Graduate School’s website. Students on graduate assistantships must adhere to the course load limits set by The Graduate School.

Current Cohort Bios

Dissertations

Aaron Knochel

• Associate Professor of Art Education

[email protected]

814.863.7309

Is the Ph.D. in Art Education right for you?

The Ph.D. in Art Education is for scholars who want to delve deeper into art education research topics. Students in the program conduct original research with the potential to impact art education theory and practice.

The program fosters collaboration, collegiality, and innovation within a close-knit environment where students also enjoy all the resources of a large research university.

Degree Options

Penn State’s Art Education program offers the opportunity to pursue one of two extraordinary dual-title Ph.D. degree options – Art Education + African American and Diaspora Studies, or Art Education + Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Either of these novel, interdisciplinary options will position you to make a lasting impact on the art education profession.

Dual Ph.D. and Diaspora Studies

This dual-title Ph.D. is for scholars who want to delve deeper into art education research topics with a focus on African American life, art, and visual culture. Students in the program conduct original research with the potential to impact art education theory and practice, as well as the field of African American and diaspora studies.

In addition to art education and African American and diaspora studies, course work covers related disciplines such as philosophy, curriculum and instruction, sociology, anthropology, and other fields, providing the necessary theoretical and methodological background for a dissertation. Students must complete 47 credits.

Faculty bring a range of teaching, research, and administrative experience from across the country and around the world. The international student body provides students with insight into a range of art teaching and research practices.

Graduate Bulletin Links

• African American and Diaspora Studies Bulletin page.
• Graduate Studies information related to the dual-title Ph.D. in Art Education + African American and Diaspora Studies.

Dual Ph.D. and Gender Studies

The dual-title graduate degree in Art Education + Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies is for students who want to focus on feminist and non-binary perspectives and pedagogy in their art education research.

Coursework in art education, gender and sexuality studies, and related disciplines such as philosophy, curriculum and instruction, sociology, anthropology, and other fields provides necessary theoretical and methodological background for thesis and dissertation research.

Faculty for the dual-title degree program bring a range of teaching, research, and administrative experience from across the country and around the world. The international student body provides students with insight into a range of teaching practices.

• Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Bulletin page .
• Graduate Studies information related to the dual-title Ph.D. in Art Education + Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Guides + Resources

• Art Education Ph. D. Handbook
• The Graduate School At Penn State

Considering the Ph.D. in Art Education? Consider this.

You’ll make an impact on the discipline through your research.

• Faculty bring experience from across the country and the world.
• Dual-title Ph.D. options layer diverse, interdisciplinary perspectives with Art Ed scholarship.
• Enjoy SoVA’s close-knit environment, along with all the resources of a major research university.
• Program fosters collaboration, collegiality, and innovation.
• Penn State has sponsored the annual Graduate Research in Art Education (GRAE) conference since 2005.

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Art Education (MA, PhD, Online)

The MA program in Art Education gives students the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to be well-informed and reflective practitioners, teachers, and researchers. The program consists of a coherent pattern of courses and other educational experiences, either a research thesis or a final project, and a final oral examination.

The Online Master's Degree Program in Art Education at The Ohio State University is the first and premier online art education offering in the United States. The program has served art(s) educators teaching in a variety of settings, including public and private schools, community arts centers, museums, residential facilities, and colleges and universities.

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Graduation 2024

Innovation awaits, welcome to the graduate school of arts & sciences at wake forest university.

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is one of the engines of creativity of Wake Forest University. Our hallmark is world-class scholarship fueled by an interdisciplinary, collaborative environment. Whether it is a traditional liberal arts approach, or cutting edge training in biomedical innovation, our small size (~800 students in total) ensures that you will have individual attention, tailored advising and research opportunities well-matched to your interests.

As a student here, you won’t just be a face in a crowd but part of a world-class team of researchers and educators working on important, world changing problems in their respective fields of knowledge. We’re dedicated to preparing the next generation of independent, intellectual leaders in their fields – whether it’s academics, industry or your own unique career path.

In the various pages on our site you’ll find that our programs span the full range of the liberal arts and sciences and the biomedical sciences. Currently, we house 30 master and doctoral disciplinary or interdisciplinary programs, and sponsor 12 programs jointly with the schools of Medicine (MD/PhD, MD/MS, MD/MA & MMS/PhD), Business (MBA/PhD), Divinity (MA/MDiv), and College (BS/BA & MA).

We welcome you – our current and prospective students, faculty and friends – to our website. We invite you to explore this website, and the our  biomedical science graduate programs website , and let us know if you have any questions we can help answer.

News & Updates

• Graduate & Professional Student Appreciation Week April 1, 2024
• Kimberly Jones – 2024 Hooding Speaker February 16, 2024
• GSAS Student Resume Workshop September 1, 2023

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THE GRADUATE SCHOOL AT BROOKSTOWN IS HOME TO OUR LIBERAL ARTS PROGRAMS.

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INNOVATION QUARTER IS THE PRIMARY LOCATION OF OUR BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE PROGRAMS.

RIT graduate pursues Ph.D. across time zones

Nastaran Nagshineh, center, defended her Ph.D. thesis at RIT in April. Faculty from RIT’s Rochester and Dubai campuses served on her thesis committee and include, from left to right, Kathleen Lamkin-Kennard, Steven Weinstein, Nathaniel Barlow, and David Kofke (a professor at the University at Buffalo). Mohamed Samaha participated remotely and appears on the video screen behind the group and alongside Nagshineh’s picture.

Nastaran Nagshineh is one of the first Ph.D. candidates to bridge RIT’s Rochester and Dubai campuses. Her accomplishment creates a path for future students at the university’s international campuses.

Nagshineh completed her Ph.D. in mathematical modeling while working full time as a mathematics lecturer at RIT Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, teaching as many as five classes a semester. She described her Ph.D. journey as “an exercise in perseverance” due to competing demands and long days. Rochester is eight hours behind Dubai, and the time difference meant many late-night classes and meetings.

“I saw this collaboration as an opportunity, rather than as a challenge, because my primary adviser, Dr. Steven Weinstein (RIT professor of chemical engineering), and my co-adviser, Dr. Mohamed Samaha (RIT Dubai associate professor of mechanical engineering), both have the same area of research interest,” she said. “They both worked toward my success.”

Nagshineh is one of 67 RIT Ph.D. students who defended their thesis this academic year and who will earn their doctorate. RIT awarded 63 Ph.D. degrees in 2023.

In 2020-2021, RIT’s Graduate School met and surpassed the university’s goal of conferring 50 Ph.D. degrees during an academic year. That number will continue to grow as students cycle through the seven new Ph.D. programs that RIT has added since 2017, said Diane Slusarski , dean of RIT’s Graduate School.

Meeting these goals puts RIT on a path toward achieving an “R1,” or research-intensive designation, from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Learning. RIT is currently ranked as an R2 institution . Many factors go into changing a university’s status, including research investment and maintaining a three-year average of 70 Ph.D. degrees awarded per year, according to Slusarski.

“We have met the goals of the strategic plan, and now we look forward to contributing to the research innovation in the future,” Slusarski said. “We want to help the new programs thrive and win national research awards.”

RIT’s emphasis on high-level research is seen in Nagshineh’s Ph.D. work. She applies mathematical modeling to the field of fluid dynamics. Her research has been published in top-tier journals and has gained notice, said Weinstein, her thesis adviser.

Weinstein describes Nagshineh’s accomplishments as “a testament to a fantastic work ethic and commitment” and is inspirational to younger students at Rochester and Dubai.

“The collaboration between RIT Dubai/Rochester has continued,” he said. “Another paper was submitted a few weeks ago with Mohamed Samaha and Nate Barlow (RIT associate professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics) as co-authors, as well as Cade Reinberger, a younger Ph.D. student in my research group.”

Mathematical modeling is one of RIT’s newer Ph.D. degree programs, and Nagshineh is among its earliest graduates. The program has doubled in size since it began accepting students in 2017, Slusarski said. This past fall, the mathematical modeling program had 35 students, with two graduating this year.

Altogether, RIT has 13 Ph.D. degree programs currently enrolling 438 students, with computing and information sciences accounting for the largest with 117 students. RIT’s other Ph.D. programs include astrophysical sciences and technology , biomedical and chemical engineering , business administration , color science , electrical and computer engineering, imaging science , mechanical and industrial engineering , microsystems engineering , and sustainability .

New programs in cognitive science and physics will launch in the fall.

The growth in RIT graduate education—with more than 3,000 master’s and doctoral students—reflects a demographic change in the student population, Slusarski said. “We have a higher percentage of women in the graduate programs than we have for RIT undergraduate programs.”

RIT’s graduate programs enroll 42 percent women, according to Christie Leone , assistant dean for the Graduate School.

Nagshineh, who also holds an MS in electrical engineering from RIT Dubai, welcomes her role as a mentor to other women students on both campuses.

“As a young woman in an Arabic country, the power of women is often underestimated and undervalued, and I hope to serve as a role model to female students, especially those that question their path,” Nagshineh said.

She plans to continue in her career as a professor and a researcher. “I would like to pursue a research program where I can advise my own students and teach them more deeply.”

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Title: Imani Perry, Award-Winning Interdisciplinary Scholar, To Speak at 2024 Graduate School Commencement

Imani Perry, a professor at Harvard University, and Georgetown alumna, will be the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences 2024 commencement speaker at Georgetown University.

Perry is widely known as an interdisciplinary scholar, teacher and thought-provoking writer. She is both a Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow, and she serves as the contributing writer for a regular column with The Atlantic , Unsettled Territory .

We invite you to get to know our speaker better as we look forward with anticipation to commencement.

Historian, Advocate and Writer

Born in the South, Perry was raised in Birmingham, Alabama and Cambridge, Massachusetts. She earned a double major in literature and American studies from Yale University in 1994 and went on to receive her Ph.D. in American Studies and J.D. at Harvard University in 2000. After completing her doctoral studies, she came to Georgetown University Law Center as a Future Law Scholars Fellow, teaching literature and law, and earned her LL.M. in 2002.

Perry has held teaching and research positions at several prestigious academic institutions, and in fall 2023 was appointed to Harvard University’s faculty as the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies. She was also appointed as the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, a leading center for interdisciplinary research with a longstanding legacy of fostering inclusion for women in education.

The author of eight books, Perry is also the editor of a posthumous collection of Black feminist Ntozake Shange’s unpublished works, Sing A Black Girl’s Song , including poems, essays and plays from throughout the prolific writer’s life. Perry’s book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation , won the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction. It is rooted in themes of the Black South and community, inviting readers into the lives of those at the margins to find meaning in others’ stories to challenge and inform their own. In her acceptance speech for the award, she emphasized the importance of truth within the act of writing, and that while a primarily solitary act, it was a labor of solidarity within the collective writing community.

Dr. Perry’s scholarship exemplifies the power of a multidisciplinary approach for illuminating difficult truths. – Alexander Sens, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

“Dr. Perry’s scholarship exemplifies the power of a multidisciplinary approach for illuminating difficult truths,” said Alexander Sens, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. “We are delighted and honored that she will return to Georgetown to share her thoughts with our graduating students, and we look forward to recognizing her with an honorary degree.”

Perry actively leans into themes of pop culture and the arts in her writing, as well as political and legal frameworks – and is consistently lauded for it. Her 2018 novel, May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem , was nominated for the 50th NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. In that same year, her posthumous biography on playwright Lorraine Hansberry was listed as a New York Times notable book and won the 2019 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, among others.

At the Commencement Ceremony, Perry will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

The Graduate School’s ceremony for graduating students, their families and our community will take place on Friday, May 17, at 9:00 a.m. on Healy Lawn. 

For more information about Commencement weekend, please visit the official Commencement website .

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Georgetown Announces Graduation Speakers for the Class of 2024

Celebrating the Class of 2024

Brian Greene, 2023 Graduate School Commencement Speaker

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Saint Louis University Museum of Art to Present What Is Christ, a Limited Exhibition Exploring Ignatian Spirituality

Maggie Rotermund Senior Media Relations Specialist [email protected] 314-977-8018

Reserved for members of the media.

ST. LOUIS – The Saint Louis University Museum of Art ( SLUMA ) will present a new, limited exhibition by Nick Leeper, S.J. , a Jesuit scholastic and graduate student in philosophy at Saint Louis University.

“What Is Christ,” a collection of Leeper’s paintings and sculptures, opens Friday, May 3, and will run through Sunday, May 26.

The works in the exhibition encourage the viewer to see God through secular items.

“The heart of Ignatian spirituality is using one’s imagination,” Leeper said. “Art is a mode to engage that. We should be prepared to use our imagination to have an encounter with God.”

The pieces in the exhibition – four oil paintings and four sculptures of wood and plaster – came out of Leeper’s capstone project. As he was writing about philosophy in art and religion, he thought he should also create works that demonstrated what he was writing about.

“I was looking at the intersection of philosophy and art through a Jesuit lens,” Leeper said.

Artists, including El Greco and Manet, portray Christ through phenomena such as light and color. Leeper’s work examines how secular objects can reveal more deeply who Christ is. 

“The exhibition is about encountering God in ordinary objects,” he said. “Theatre, art, movies, songs – they give us more than just the words or what we see. Art inspires the imagination.”

See more of Leeper’s work

Leeper began working on the pieces last summer while at an art school in New York and continued to develop the pieces when he returned to SLU in the fall.

Leeper, who belongs to the Jesuits USA East Province, will graduate from SLU this month and return to New York City to teach art and history at Xavier High School. During his time at SLU, he’s helped run Java with the Jesuits and was part of the team that expanded the regular coffee sessions to include six retreats this year.

Leeper has a bachelor’s degree in history and education from Rutgers University-Newark and a master’s in church management at Villanova University.

There will be an opening reception from 6-8 p.m. Friday, May 3, at SLUMA, located at 3663 Lindell Blvd. SLUMA is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday.

About SLUMA

Opened in 2003, the Saint Louis University Museum of Art (SLUMA) is located in a Beaux Arts style building, originally built in 1900 for the Saint Louis Club. Saint Louis University’s collection, which dates back to the University’s early days, continues the Jesuit philosophy of focusing on educating the whole person. SLUMA represents a critical step in realizing the University’s mission, advancing St. Ignatius’ ideals, as well as increasing the overall exposure of society to the arts. Distinguished by its Jesuit-based tradition, the museum developed into one of the nation’s top university museums. 

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Kudos to Victoria Money!

Congratulations to graduate student Victoria Money, she has been awarded a Bilinski Fellowship!

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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Dozens Are Arrested in Pro-Palestinian Protest at Art Institute of Chicago

The Chicago police said that 68 people had been arrested and charged with trespassing.

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Officers and Pro-Palestinian Protesters Clash at the Art Institute of Chicago

Sixty-eight people were arrested and charged with trespassing by the chicago police after the museum requested that the demonstrators and their encampment be removed..

Crowd chanting: “We will free Palestine, within our lifetime.” “Leave them alone, leave them alone.” [expletives] [expletives] [expletives]

By Yan Zhuang

• May 5, 2024

The police forcibly dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment at the Art Institute of Chicago museum on Saturday and arrested dozens of protesters, hours after demonstrators had gathered in a garden at the institute and set up tents.

Some of the demonstrators were students at the affiliated School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the museum said in a statement.

The Chicago police said on social media that officers had removed the protesters at the school’s request. A Chicago Police spokesman said Sunday that 68 people had been arrested and charged with trespassing.

The protesters set up the encampment in the North Garden, which is part of the Art Institute of Chicago museum, at about 11 a.m. on Saturday, the police said. While encampments at some other U.S. schools during the recent wave of pro-Palestinian protests have stood for days or even weeks before police action, in this case the police said that officers “immediately responded” to maintain the safety of the protesters and the public.

The People’s Art Institute, the organizers of the protest, said on social media that the demonstrators’ demands included that the institute formally condemn Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, remove any programs that legitimize the “occupation of Palestine” and divest from any individuals or entities that support Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Photos that the group uploaded to social media showed a sign in the encampment that read “Hind’s Garden,” a reference to Hind Rajab , a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed this year in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The museum said that it had offered protesters an alternate venue and that the school promised students that they would not face academic sanctions or charges if they relocated there.

The statement added that some protesters “surrounded and shoved a security officer and stole their keys to the museum, blocked emergency exits and barricaded gates.”

After about two hours of negotiations, the museum asked officers to remove the protesters, the police said. Officers issued warnings and eventually removed and arrested protesters, the police said.

Videos posted by the organizers showed police forcibly pulling demonstrators out of the human chain they had formed outside the garden while some of the protesters chanted, “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?”

An earlier version of this article misstated the entity that released a statement about the protest. It was the Art Institute of Chicago museum, not the affiliated School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

How we handle corrections

Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news. More about Yan Zhuang

Our Coverage of the U.S. Campus Protests

News and Analysis

G.W.U. : Hours before the mayor of Washington, D.C., was scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill about the city’s handling of a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University, police moved to break up the encampment .

U.C.L.A. : A police consulting firm will review a violent confrontation  at the University of California, Los Angeles, in which a group of counterprotesters attacked demonstrators  at a pro-Palestinian encampment while security guards and police officers failed to intervene.

UChicago : Police officers removed the pro-Palestinian encampment  at the University of Chicago, a move that was sure to be closely watched because the school has long considered itself a model for free expression on campus .

Remembering the 1968 Protests:  As Chicago prepares to host the Democratic National Convention , it wants to shed memories of chaos from half a century ago even as the campus protests are growing.

Protests in Europe:  In countries across Europe, students have staged their own pro-Palestinian sit-ins and protests  on the lawns of their universities. And in several instances, the authorities are taking a similar approach to their U.S. counterparts: shutting them down.

Outside Agitators:  Officials in New York City have blamed “external actors” for escalating demonstrations at Columbia, but student protesters reject the claim .

A Spotlight on Student Journalists:  Columbia’s radio station and other student-led news outlets have provided some of the most detailed coverage  of the turmoil engulfing campuses.

Diamond, Queller elected to National Academy of Sciences

Two scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are among the 120 members and 24 international members recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

Washington University’s new academy members are Michael S. Diamond, MD, PhD , the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine, and David C. Queller , PhD, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences.

“Michael Diamond and David Queller are leading scientists in their fields, and this important recognition honors their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research,” said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. “I extend my enthusiastic congratulations to both on the important recognition they have received by their election to the National Academy of Sciences.”

Michael S. Diamond

Diamond is an internationally recognized expert on emerging viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19; flaviviruses such as Zika, dengue and West Nile viruses; and alphaviruses such as Chikungunya and the equine encephalitis viruses. He and his group seek to understand how such viruses cause disease and evade the body’s defenses.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Diamond developed a mouse model of COVID-19 infection that was used by researchers around the world. His work on the antibody response to infection led to multiple drug and vaccine candidates, one of which — created in collaboration with David T. Curiel, MD, PhD, a distinguished professor of radiation oncology — was developed into an intranasal vaccine and approved for use in India. As each new variant arose and spread, Diamond’s lab assessed how it fared against antibody-based therapeutics and natural and vaccine-induced immunity, and the findings of this research informed public policy.

Diamond is known for his groundbreaking work on Zika virus, which can cause babies to be born with tiny, misshapen heads. With colleagues, Diamond developed the first animal model of Zika infection during pregnancy, identified protective antibodies against the virus and helped to develop a Zika vaccine that is now in clinical trials. He also studies alphaviruses, mosquito-borne viruses that can cause encephalitis or arthritis. His lab identified new receptors alphaviruses use to infect cells, laying the groundwork for treatments for these debilitating and sometimes deadly infections.

Diamond is also a professor of molecular microbiology and of pathology and immunology, an associate director for the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs, and a director of the Center for Vaccines & Immunity to Microbial Pathogens. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Medicine, and a recipient of the Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award from the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Diamond earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 1985, followed by his medical and doctoral degrees from Harvard University in 1994. He completed a residency in internal medicine, research fellowships in molecular and cell biology and in infectious diseases, and a clinical fellowship in infectious diseases before joining the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in 2001.

David C. Queller

Queller is one of the country’s foremost evolutionary biologists. He works primarily on social evolution. His research has applications in experimental evolution, genomics and modeling.

Queller’s theoretical work has centered on kin selection. He developed methods that have been widely applied for estimating relatedness. Queller also has developed models of kin selection and its relation to other social forces, including models of the role of viscosity in kin selection; of kin conflict in seeds; of the evolution of eusociality via demographic advantages; and of evolutionary conflicts and the fundamental theorem of natural selection.

Queller also has conducted empirical research on social insects and social amoebas together with his wife and collaborator, Joan E. Strassmann, the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences. Strassmann is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Queller-Strassmann research group has published influential research showing the ubiquity of relatedness in social insects, its importance in both cooperation and conflict, the evolution of cheating in social amoebas and its control by high relatedness, kin discrimination, pleiotropy and the evolution of resistance.

The group is additionally studying genomic imprinting, amoeba-bacteria farming symbiosis, the units of selection and the evolution of organismality. Much of their current work centers on the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum .

Queller graduated from the University of Illinois in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in the history and philosophy of science. He earned a PhD in biology in 1982 from the University of Michigan. His dissertation applied sexual selection theory and kin selection theory to plants. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, he spent many years on the faculty at Rice University, moving to Washington University in 2011.

Queller is a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Among other honors, Queller won the American Society of Naturalists Young Investigator Award in 1985 and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1988.

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