Program Requirements
Timeline
Ideally, graduate students will complete their coursework (16 courses) during their first two years in the program. The minor field would constitute one-fourth of this coursework and students would present their minor field portfolios in the fall of their third year. The third funded summer will normally be spent preparing for general examinations, which graduate students are expected to take at the beginning of their fourth year. Graduate students should plan to submit a dissertation prospectus by the end of the fourth year, if not sooner. It is possible to complete our program in five years, although most students have taken six years, extending their Teaching Fellow training into the fifth year and holding a guaranteed dissertation completion fellowship in the sixth year.
Requirements
The requirements for the PhD program are:
Residence (Academic) — Minimum of two years (see The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Policies). In practice, most students should expect course work to extend into the third year.
Good Standing — The minimum standard set by the department for satisfactory work by graduate students is an A-/B+ average (as many A’s as B’s). Students who fall below this level must, in the following term, demonstrate their ability to meet this minimum in courses taken within the department. Only students who remain in good standing are eligible to take the PhD general examinations.
Special Fields — Slavic literatures, Slavic linguistics.
Program of Study — Out of the 16 half-courses required, at least two must be seminars or conference courses, which involve the writing of a substantial research paper. One-hundred-level courses in literature may be counted for graduate credit with permission of the chair and the professor involved, and on condition that a graduate-level paper be submitted as part of the course work.
General Requirements:
- Slavic 299: Proseminar
- Ling 250: Old Church Slavonic
Graduate students will choose the option that makes the most intellectual sense for them, in consultation with the DGS.
There are two general programs of study, corresponding to the special fields listed above. All students are required to take the Proseminar and Old Church Slavonic, the former in the first term of the first year.
Plan A — Slavic languages and literatures with concentration on the study of literature. The candidate will choose one major Slavic language and literature and a minor field, which can be another Slavic language and literature, another European language and literature, Slavic linguistics and language pedagogy, Russian and East European history, or comparative literature (six courses in the major field and four in the minor field).
Plan B — Slavic languages and literatures with concentration on the study of Slavic linguistics. In this program the candidate will choose one Slavic language as the major (four courses), a second Slavic language as the first minor (two courses), and a related elective field as the second minor (two courses). Additionally, Introduction to Comparative Slavic Linguistics and Introduction to Linguistics are required.
Languages — Before the candidate is eligible for the general examinations, a reading knowledge of both French and German or French or German, plus one other language of demonstrable importance to the student’s research interests must be demonstrated, and departmental requirements in the major Slavic language and in the minor Slavic language or languages (one for candidates who have chosen a second Slavic field under Plan A, two for Plan B) must be satisfied. (See the Graduate Program Requirements document available in the department office for more specific details.)
Policy on Incompletes — Students may have one Incomplete in a term and must ask permission of the director of graduate studies. They must make clear that this will be the only Incomplete requested that term. The Incomplete must be made up by the end of the next term. Students may not request another Incomplete until the one outstanding has been made up. In addition, students may not begin their minor or major general examinations if they have an Incomplete in the field to be examined.
To be eligible to each, students must not have any incompletes in their required courses.
Teaching— As part of their preparation candidates are expected to teach within their areas of specialization. Teaching is supervised by members of the department and includes a program of teacher training. In order to qualify for teaching language, all graduate students are required to take Ling. 200: Second Language Acquisition during their first semester of language teaching.
General Examinations — Before proceeding to write a dissertation, the candidate must pass the examinations; they will be offered only during the fall and spring terms. (more detail about the examinations is available under the tabs "Plan A: Literature" and "Plan B: Linguistics"
Application for the Degree — Degree applications can be completed using the online tool found at http://gsasdegreeapp.fas.harvard.edu. For additional information for degree applicants, please visit the FAS Registrar's Office Degree Information page.