Requirements for the PhD in Art History

Applications must have an MA in art history ( or a closely related field) with at least a 3.0 grade-point average from an accredited college or university. Applicants must submit an official application plus fee, transcripts, the foreign language personal assessment form, three letters of recommendation, a statement of purpose, and a writing sample.

Students who have completed their MA in art history at Penn State and wish to proceed with doctoral studies at Penn State must also apply to the PhD program (submit new statement of purpose, recent writing sample, and three new letters of recommendation. These letters should preferably be from faculty members who may be on your future doctoral committee).

Students admitted into the PhD program in Art History are eligible to apply for admission to the dual-title programs in Asian Studies and Visual Studies. 

The Director of Graduate Studies will assist in advising all entering graduate students. Doctoral students are strongly encouraged to select an advisor from the graduate faculty in art history upon entrance into the program. The advisor is normally the faculty member who will supervise the student’s dissertation. Graduate students must have their choice of courses approved by their advisor.

Eighteen credits, not including dissertation research, are required for the PhD. At least 12 of these credits must be in art history. ARTH 560 Methods of Research in Art History (3 credits) is required. At least 12 of the art history credits must be at the 500 level (ARTH 596 cannot be used to fulfill this requirement). The student is advised to use the 3 to 6 credits of study outside the department to foster a relationship with a potential outside reader for the dissertation. Extra coursework may be recommended, based upon the results of the student’s qualifying examination. Moreover, students may be required by their doctoral committee to take additional specialized courses pertaining to the major area of study. Dual-title degree seekers should consult with their adviser, the DGS of the Art History Department, and the DGS of the dual-title department to ensure that they complete any additional courses required for the dual-title degree.

Auditing classes 

If a student wishes to register for a course without earning a letter grade or credit, the course may be taken as an audit.

A reading competency in two foreign languages must be demonstrated before the end of one year of study. The two foreign languages must be relevant to the student’s areas of study and will be determined through consultation with the student’s faculty adviser, subject to the approval of the Graduate Officer. To test students who are studying languages for which we do not have an in house faculty member knowledgeable in that particular language we will accept a letter from a language instructor attesting to the fact that the student passed a translation exam (timed, with a dictionary). Native speakers of languages other than English who expect to use those languages in their research may request a waiver to the language exam from the Director of Graduate Studies.

The Scholarship and Research Integrity (SARI) program is an opportunity for graduate students to engage broadly in a dialogue surrounding issues pertinent to research ethics. All new Art History graduate students (MA and PhD) are required to complete the SARI program (parts 1 and 2) in their first year of study. Their participation in and completion of the program will be monitored by the department’s Director of Graduate Studies.

The SARI Program has 2 parts:

Part 1: During the first year of enrollment, graduate students will be required to complete an online Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training program provided by the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). The Office for Research Protections (ORP) oversees this training, designated as “SARI @ PSU.”

Part 2:  Graduate students are also required to engage in an additional five hours of discussion-based RCR education. These discussions will encompass both universal and discipline-specific material. Part 2 is normally conducted during the course of ARTH 551 Historiography and ARTH 560 Methods of Research. Graduate students may attend the relevant sessions even if they are not enrolled in ARTH 560 (ARTH 551 is a required course for MA and PhD students). In the event that ARTH 560 is not offered during a graduate student’s first year of study, the required SARI workshops will be held over the course of a few evenings and will be organized by the Director of Graduate Studies.

Art History’s Program for Part 2: Five Hours of Discussion-Based RCR Education

Hours 1 and 2: Responsible Authorship:  Among the topics addressed are scholarly integrity, documentation standards, acknowledgments, research misconduct, collaboration, and mentor/trainee responsibilities. The Responsible Authorship unit is conducted by the professor teaching ARTH 560 and monitored by the Director of Graduate Studies.

Hour 3: Professional Conduct: This hour includes ethics and standards for writing resumes, grant proposals, and conference papers as well as practices of peer review, publication, negotiating contracts, interviewing human subjects, etc. The Professional Conduct session is conducted as a one-hour required workshop and is led by the graduate officer and one or two other faculty members chosen by the Director of Graduate Studies. Hour 3 may be conducted as part of ARTH 560.

Hour 4: Copyright and Reproduction of Images: This hour addresses the ethics and legal/copyright issues involved in using images for teaching, online education, theses, and publications. This workshop is conducted as part of ARTH 560 Methods of Research. If ARTH 560 s not offered in a given year, the workshop will take place during a one-hour required evening session led by the graduate officer, visual resources curator, and arts librarian.

Hour 5: Museum Ethics: This covers such topics as provenance, accessioning/de-accessioning, restoration, conservation, exhibition issues, dealing with living artists and heirs, etc. This workshop is conducted as part of ARTH 560 Methods Research. If ARTH 560 is not offered in a given year, the workshop will take place as a one-hour required session led by at least one Palmer Museum of Art curator and the Director of Graduate Studies.

Dual-Title PhD in Asian Studies

The dual-title PhD in Art History and Asian Studies bestows an additional title (Asian Studies) to one’s title in Art History. It is not a second PhD degree, but rather a confirmation of an additional area of expertise. A dual-title PhD in Asian Studies certifies that a student has undergone rigorous, interdisciplinary training on Asia in conjunction with training in Art History at the PhD level. To apply for a dual-title PhD in Asian Studies, prospective students should note their wish also to be considered for acceptance into the dual-title degree program with Asian Studies. Successful applicants will have some background in Asian Studies and knowledge of one or more Asian languages. Admitted PhD candidates in Art History may also petition for acceptance into the dual-title PhD in Asian Studies, but admission into the dual-title PhD must occur prior to taking the Qualifying Exam. For more information on admission into the dual-title PhD in Asian Studies, consult with the Director of Graduate Studies.

Dual-Title PhD in Visual Studies

Penn State’s interdisciplinary Visual Studies dual-title PhD program brings together faculty and students from the Programs of Arts and Architecture, Programs of Communications, and Programs of the Liberal Arts. Faculty teaching in Visual Studies come from a wide range of departments, including Art History, Comparative Literature, English, French, German, Spanish, and Media Studies.

The Program comprises, in addition to elective seminars in those Colleges, two dedicated introductory courses, VSTUD 501 focused on approaches to visual culture in a variety of historical and geographical contexts, VSTUD 502 on issues of digitality in relation to the visual.

For questions and further information about Penn State’s dual-title  Visual Studies PhD program, please contact the Director of Graduate Studies.

The goal of the Qualifying Exam is to determine if the student has sufficient disciplinary knowledge and training to embark upon doctoral-level research and writing. In the Art History Department, this exam takes the form of a paper (called the “Qualifying Paper”) due at the end of the second semester of the first year of the PhD program. Typically, this Qualifying Paper is a research paper (15–25 pages) written in concert with a graduate-level course taken during the student’s first year (usually the student’s first semester) at Penn State.

Students are expected to seek and confirm two faculty members who will serve as first and second reader; these two graduate faculty members form the student’s Qualifying Exam Committee. A student’s adviser does not necessarily need to be a member of the Qualifying Exam Committee. Students will submit their Qualifying Paper to their Qualifying Exam Committee during the second semester of instruction, allowing the faculty at least two weeks to review the Qualifying Paper. This committee is not responsible for editing or proof-reading the Qualifying Paper; it should be considered “final” when it is submitted to the committee.

During finals week of the second semester, it is the student’s responsibility to arrange a formal meeting of 1 hour with their Qualifying Exam Committee and the DGS to discuss their Qualifying Paper. The purpose of this meeting is to evaluate student performance and make recommendations for revisions (not revisions necessary for to pass this curricular milestone) or extra coursework in specific fields.

The paper will be evaluated according to the student’s demonstrated understanding of the following criteria:

1. Strength of the Topic and/or Objective
2. A knowledge of relevant primary source material
3. A knowledge of relevant secondary literature
4. An original and defendable thesis
5. Clear conclusion

Evaluation of the Qualifying Paper will result in either a pass or fail. In the event that the two committee members disagree on whether the student has achieved a passing grade, the Director of Graduate Studies will cast the deciding vote.

If the Qualifying Paper is deemed unacceptable, the student will have until June 15 of that academic year to revise it with the assistance of their first reader. Students will submit the improved Qualifying Paper to their Qualifying Exam Committee and the DGS. The student will schedule a meeting with their Qualifying Exam Committee and the DGS to evaluate the revisions. If the revised paper is deemed unacceptable, the student will be dismissed from the program.

The outside member of the committee may be solicited from the expanse of scholars in other fields at Penn State whose interests are interdisciplinary with art history.

Current List of Faculty Members from Outside the Department who are Serving on Art History Doctoral Committees:

• Jennifer Boittin, Associate Professor of French, Francophone Studies, and History
• Ann Clements, Professor of Music Education and Assistant Vice Provost
• Jonathan Eburne, Professor of Comparative Literature and English
• Greg Eghigian, Professor of Modern History
• Charlotte Eubanks, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Japanese, and Asian Studies
• Ronnie Hsia, Edwin Earle Sparks Professor of History
• Nina Jablonski, Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology
• Simone Osthoff, Professor of Art
• Donald Redford, Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and History
• Christopher Reed, Distinguished Professor or English, Visual Culture, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Art History
• Anne Rose, Distinguished Professor of History & Religious Studies
• Sherry Roush, Professor of Italian
• Kathryn Slazer, Associate Professor of History & Corman-McCourntey Early Career Professor in Medieval Studies
• Marcia Tacconi, Professor of Musicology
• Adrian Wanner, Liberal Arts Research Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature

.a  provideThe comprehensive examination assesses a student’s knowledge of a primary field, a secondary field, and, in the case of dual-title degree seekers, an additional dual-title field in anticipation of advanced, independent research and dissertation writing. The comprehensive examination is scheduled and administered with the approval of the PhD Committee when the student has completed coursework for the PhD degree and should be completed before the end of the fourth semester. Students enrolled in dual-title degree programs may seek approval from the Director of Graduate Studies to adjust this schedule to accommodate necessary additional coursework.

The comprehensive examination consists of two parts: The Preliminary Written Field Examinations, followed by the Comprehensive Oral Examination. For the purposes of the Graduate School, the Comprehensive Oral Examination with the doctoral committee is considered the official Comprehensive Oral Examination, while The Preliminary Written Field Examinations, are considered preliminary “area” examinations administered within the department that lead to the official Comprehensive Oral Examination. The Preliminary Written Field Examinations focus on one primary field and one secondary field in art history: and, in the case of dual-title degree seekers, an additional secondary dual-title field. Primary and secondary fields may be defined using the CAA dissertation headings for convenience and consistency, though use of the CAA headings is not required. Dual-title degree seekers will define their additional secondary field in consultation with their dual-title adviser. Upon the completion of the Preliminary Written Field Examinations, the official Comprehensive Oral Examination is administered with the entire doctoral committee.

Preliminary Area Examinations:

Preliminary Written Field exams should be scheduled during a two-week period and may be completed on campus or at home. If the student is pursuing a dual-title Field, the Preliminary Written Field Examinations should be scheduled within a three-week period. It is the responsibility of the graduate student to work with the faculty supervisors of their primary and secondary fields to find agreeable dates, times, and locations for the administration of the preliminary written field examinations.

For the Primary Field: One essay (open book) to be completed within an eight-hour time limit that is designed to test the candidate’s grasp of the nature of the problem, significant works of visual and material culture, familiarity with the relevant literature, divergent scholarly viewpoints, and the candidate’s own conclusions. The faculty member who directs the student’s preparation of this primary field exam should be the student’s doctoral adviser.

For the Secondary Field: One essay (open book) to be completed within a four-hour time limit that is designed to test the candidate’s familiarity with the relevant literature, divergent scholarly viewpoints and bearing upon the secondary field. The faculty member who directs the student’s preparation of this secondary field should be a member of the student’s doctoral committee whose area of expertise is aligned with this secondary field.

For the Dual-Title Field: One essay (open book) to be completed within a four-hour time limit that is designed to test the candidate’s familiarity with the relevant literature, divergent scholarly viewpoints and bearing upon the dual-title field. The faculty member who directs the student’s preparation of this dual-title field should be a member of the student’s doctoral committee and is their dual-title adviser.

The Comprehensive Oral Examination:

This is a critical discussion of the student’s Preliminary Written Field Exam essays, specifically, and their primary, secondary, and, when applicable, dual-title fields, generally with the student’s doctoral committee. The faculty member who oversaw the student’s preparation of their primary field will direct the discussion of the resulting essay, and the faculty member who oversaw the student’s preparation of their secondary field will direct the discussion of that resulting essay. For a dual-title student, the dual-title advising faculty member will direct the discussion of that field essay. All members of the committee may participate in all phases of the oral examination; the third department committee member and the outside committee member are not required to prepare their own line of questioning (although they are welcome to do so). At the discretion of individual examiners, students may be asked to identify or discuss relevant examples of visual or material culture during the comprehensive oral examination; these examples may be presented as slides.

The comprehensive oral examination should be scheduled about one week after the last preliminary written field exam essay is submitted. All members of the doctoral committee should be provided with copies of all of the student’s preliminary written field examination essays.  It is the student’s responsibility to work with all members of their doctoral committee to find an agreeable date, time, and location for the comprehensive oral examination. Students should confirm with individual examiners whether or not slides will be part of their comprehensive oral when arranging the date and location of the comprehensive oral examination.

The Graduate School must be officially notified of the date of the comprehensive oral examination; please provide the date, time and location to the department’s administrative coordinator three weeks in advance and request them to submit the doctoral exam request to the Graduate School.  

Criteria for Evaluation

Students will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Demonstrates knowledge of their fields of primary and secondary specialization and, in the case of dual-title degree seekers, an additional secondary field through written and oral presentations at a level sufficient for carrying out advanced research and scholarship in those fields.
• Demonstrates familiarity with the historiography and current state of research in a primary and a secondary field of specialization and, in the case of dual-title degree seekers, an additional secondary field, at a level sufficient for developing research questions appropriate to those fields.
• If a candidate fails the exam, the doctoral committee will determine whether another examination may be taken or if the student is terminated from the program. In cases where a second attempt is permitted by the doctoral committee, this exam must take place within three months of the first attempt. Failure at the second attempt automatically results in the student’s dismissal from the program. The doctoral Committee will determine the date which takes place within three months.

ARTH 496/596 

Graduate students preparing for the Comprehensive Examination may enroll in either ARTH 496 or ARTH 596. Students may take up to 18 credits of ARTH 496 and up to 9 credits of ARTH 596. Exceeding the credit limit may result in courses not counting toward full time enrollment and/or course credit satisfaction. PhD students who completed the MA at Penn State may find that LionPath counts ARTH 596 taken prior to matriculation into the PhD program toward the total allowed credits. Students uncertain about whether or not they have reached the maximum allowed credits for ARTH 596 are advised to consult with their assigned Graduate Enrollment officer. 

The dissertation topic should be chosen in careful consultation with the student’s advisor. In most cases the Prospectus is written during the fourth semester of the PhD Program. The Prospectus should be between ca. 10 and ca. 20 pages (3500-5000 words) in length, double-spaced, and written as a narrative.

The format of the Prospectus should be determined by the student in consultation with their advisor, but normally it includes the following sections:

Narrative Statement:

Approximately 3 pages

• What is the problem you would like to study?
• State clearly and succinctly your research problem, its importance for the field, and how it migh be pursued

Historiographical Context of the Dissertation Topic

Approximately 3 pages

• Provide an overview of the research that has previously addressed this problem and discuss it critically.
• How do yo propose to improve, challenge, and build from the positions of these earlier works?
• How does your project relate to and/or contribute to the larger disciplinary or field concerns?

Methodology

Approximately 2 pages

• Discuss the methods and theoretical frameworks you will bring to bear on this topic and discuss why and how they are useful.

Sources:

Approximately 2 pages

• Provide the sources (primary and secondary sources) you will consult to construct your argument and their locations and accessibility.
• Do any of these sources present challenges to current understandings of your reserach topic?

Chapter Outline:

Approximately 3 pages

• Provide an outline of the dissertation with brief (paragraph long) overviews of what each chapter will cover.

Research Plan:

Approximately 2 pages

• Provide a description of research done to date.
• Outline when you will consult relevant sites, collections, archives, etc.

Prospectus Deadlines* (normally 4th semester):

Week 8: Prospectus due to the PhD Committee
Week 10: Prospectus defense
Week 14: Prospectus submission

*For dual-title students, this timeline will be adjusted to accommodate additional course requirements in consultation with the adviser and the DGS of the Art History Department and the DGS of the dual-title department.

Dissertation (PhD thesis) research is undertaken in earnest after students pass the comprehensive examination and have their prospectus approved by the doctoral committee. Please be aware of the University’s continuous registration requirement for doctoral students working on dissertations:

PhD students who have passed the Comprehensive Examination may enroll in ARTH 601 (full time) or ARTH 600 (per credit). It will be possible for post-comps PhD students to register for as little as 1 credit hour and maintain standing in the program, albeit part-time status (a minimum of 9 credit hours are required for full-time status). In some cases, registering for fewer credit hours will be financially advantageous. 

Some VERY important caveats: 

• International students MUST remain enrolled in ARTH 601 in order to maintain full-time student status that is required for visa status. 
• Shifting to part-time status (anything less than 9 credits) may affect status of student loans: students with loans in deferment are advised to consult with their lender prior to switching to part-time status in order to learn what effect this might have on the status of their loans. 
• Students on assistantship MUST be full-time and, therefore, enrolled in ARTH 601. 
• Per Graduate School policy GCAC-608, students may be registered full-time or part-time in the semester of the Final Oral Defense (Dissertation Defense). 
• Students contemplating a shift to part-time status from full-time status are encouraged to consult with their advisors so that they are aware of a potential change in status. 

Questions regarding the change in policy may be directed to Director of Graduate Studies or to the Department Head. 

All committee members should review at least one chapter draft fairly early in the process to make sure all are agreeable to the topic, method, depth of research, quality of writing, etc. It is the responsibility of the advisor to critique each chapter as it is produced. The final defense should only be scheduled after the advisor has read the entire dissertation ad deems it ready for distribution to the entire committee.

After the doctoral candidate has satisfied all other requirements for the degree, and on the recommendation of the doctoral adviser, the final oral examination is scheduled for the student to defend the doctoral thesis/dissertation. It is the responsibility of the student to find a date, time, and location convenient for all members of the committee. The Graduate school requires at least three weeks’ notice for officially scheduling this examination. Please ask the department’s  administrative coordinator at least a month in advance of the scheduled date to notify the Graduate School of the date, time, and location of the exam.

The Graduate School establishes deadlines for completing a thesis in any particular semester. These deadlines may be found on the Graduate School website.

It is the doctoral candidate’s responsibility to provide a copy of the dissertation to each member of the doctoral committee at least two weeks before the scheduled examination. To be eligible to take the Final Oral Examination, the shared dissertation should be in its complete form, according to the guidelines established by the Graduate School, with all of the required component parts included (these can be found in the “Thesis and Dissertation Guide.” While the length of a dissertation necessarily varies, theses shorter than 200 pages are normally not sufficient.  It is the student’s responsibility to contact the Graduate School for a “format review” of their thesis, ideally before submitting the dissertation to their graduate committee.

The final examination is oral, open to the public, and is largely related to a discussion of the dissertation, but it may cover the candidate’s entire field of study. The format of the Final Oral Examination should be discussed between the student and their doctoral adviser, and this format should be communicated to the entire doctoral committee prior to the Exam’s scheduling. Generally, the student presents a brief (15-30 minutes) synopsis of their dissertation’s objectives, methods, organization, arguments, and conclusions with the help of a slide presentation. Thereafter, the committee poses questions, comments, and critiques of the dissertation and/or other questions related to the student’s education or future professional goals. Then, the floor will be opened to the public who can then ask their own questions. Upon the completion of this part, everyone except for the doctoral committee will be asked to vacate the room so the result of the examination can be privately discussed. When a decision is determined, the student will be asked to return to the room and will be informed of the results of their Final Oral Examination. In Art History, the results available to the committee are: pass, fail, or pass with revisions.  In the event of a “revise with revisions” outcome, the committee has the discretion to ask to see the revised dissertation before it is filed with the Graduate School.