Required Courses

A. COURSEWORK

ILA Foundations (4 credit hours). Required.

This course, required for incoming CHT students but not limited to them, is taken in the fall semester of the first year of course work. The course varies each year, but is designed to accomplish three key objectives.

• It should encompass an historical perspective that extends beyond the compass of European modernity.
• It should train students in reading practices, teaching them to read critically, analytically, and with an eye toward applying what they learn in other contexts.
• It should engage with key texts from a variety of critical traditions.

Pedagogy (2 credit hours). Required.

The Pedagogy course is taken in the spring of the second year, and is designed to ground students in the principles and practices of good teaching. Pedagogy uses IDS 213 and IDS 216 as examples for observation and course design. Training continues in the third year as students teach a section of IDS 213 or 216 through the supervised team teaching model currently used in those courses.

Research Design (4 credit hours). Required.

The Research Design course is offered every spring semester and students may take it in either their second or third year. Basing their work on their anticipated dissertation topic, students in Research Design focus on three components integral to the preparation of a scholarly plan for research: 1) elements of research design, 2) text-based and place-based methods and approaches, and 3) preparation of a doctoral research proposal for funding.

Recommended courses

In addition to the required courses referred to above, students with interests either in research on public scholarship or in non-teaching careers are strongly encouraged to take course offerings in public scholarship. Over the years many graduates of the ILA program have had distinguished careers as public scholars associated with museums and other institutions involved in publishing, broadcasting and similar endeavors. These courses in public scholarship are designed to provide skills in the analysis or practice of forms of public scholarship.

Students choose other courses, those offered in the ILA or in other graduate programs, in consultation with their advisors.

B. STUDY PLAN

Students in CHT need to think about their intellectual and professional objectives systematically from early on. To help students define their areas of expertise so as to orient course work, the program requires them to develop a study plan in which they articulate their intellectual goals. In the spring semester of the first year, all students, regardless of standing (i.e. whether or not they enter the program with a master’s degree) submit a written formal plan for achieving

1. methodological competence
2. language competence
3. theoretical competence, and
4. historical-cultural competence

in the fields, areas, or disciplinary formations that will structure their studies.

In addition, students are encouraged to situate their Ph.D. work within a larger professional context - for example: by indicating their current view of their potential career path(s). The study plan should not exceed five pages.

Each student identifies a study plan committee, which consists of at least two members of the Emory faculty, at least one of whom must be a member of the CHT Program faculty. The study plan is to be submitted to the committee members by March 1. The study plan is reviewed in a meeting with the student's committee, which then approves it or makes suggestions for changes. The meeting with the committee will take place by the end of the week after spring break. The advisor is responsible for assuring that suggested changes are made by the student.

The revised study plan must be approved by the advisor and submitted by the student to the ILA Graduate Secretary no later than April 1. The CHT Program faculty as a whole reviews the study plans at a meeting in April, taking into consideration for each:

• how well it addresses the four areas of competence outlined above;
• the appropriateness of the faculty committee selected for the study plan;
• how viable the plan is, including the degree to which the student would need enrichment courses in order to carry it out;
• the coherence of the student's stated intellectual goals and potential career path(s) .

The study plan must be approved by the CHT Program faculty for the student to advance to the second year of study. Based on its meeting in April, the faculty may make recommendations on the study plans to be incorporated in the public presentations and the final written versions, which will be kept in the students' files. Students should indicate in writing on the final version they turn in after the public presentation whether they permit their plan to be available for consultation by future students.

Public Presentation of the Study Plan .As a complement to the development and approval of the study plan, all first-year CHT students make a ten-minute public presentation to the community about their intellectual projects and goals before the end of the spring semester. These presentations, which should be framed for an interdisciplinary audience, are followed by brief question-and-answer sessions.

C. EVALUATION

The CHT faculty as a whole evaluates the progress of students through the program each year. A student's progress is considered with particular care in the initial two years.

First year students are evaluated after the end of the Fall semester on the basis of their performance in classes, with particular attention being paid to the paper submitted for the Foundations course. Students will have a second evaluation during the spring semester of their first year. CHT faculty will review their Study Plan and their progress through coursework. Students' continuation in the program is based on satisfactory faculty evaluation.

Second year students are evaluated at the end of the academic year on the basis of their performance in classes, with particular attention paid to the preparation and presentation of their dissertation project within the context of the Research Design course.

By the end of the second year, the faculty also considers a student’s progress toward development of a dissertation project.

D. PH.D. QUALIFYING EXAMINATION

Each student will complete a take-home written exam on three fields of expertise (three essays of approximately ten pages each to be completed in a one week period) followed by an oral defense.

The Qualifying Examination should demonstrate the student's competence in the study of particular historical and cultural contexts as well as his or her theoretical and methodological preparation to write an interdisciplinary dissertation. Specification of the fields and reading lists for each one will be developed in consultation with the student's advisor and other committee members.

Since the exam should provide professional accreditation for the future teaching and research beyond the dissertation, it should test breadth of knowledge as well as specialized competence. At least two of the categories, therefore, shall be defined in terms of existing fields, disciplines, or recognized areas of study. The third field may be focused more narrowly on the student's dissertation project.

E. DISSERTATION PROCESS

Prospectus . In the semester following his or her qualifying examinations, the student will submit a draft prospectus and bibliography. Drafts will be reviewed by the student's committee; when committee members are satisfied that the project is sufficiently well formulated, a defense will be scheduled.

Prospectus Defense . The prospectus defense will be a public presentation of the dissertation project followed by a question and answer session with the committee and other community members. At the conclusion of the defense, the committee will confer and decide on the approval of the prospectus. The prospectus defense, which generally will take about one hour, should take place within one semester of the oral part of the qualifying examination.

Dissertation Defense or Presentation. (See Doctoral Dissertation Prospectus, p.11, for additional details.)

PROGRESS THROUGH COURSEWORK , SERVICE
AND DISSERTATION PROCESS

(assumes a student entering in advanced standing;
students in full standing, see Appendix B2)

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