PhD in Comparative Studies
Cultures, Languages, and Literatures (CLL)
FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
Further Information
Full program details are available at: http://www.fau.edu/comparativestudies
Or from:
Dr. Michael J. Horswell Director and
Associate Professor of Spanish
Ph.D. in Comparative Studies
The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of
Arts & Letters
Florida Atlantic University
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Tel: 561/297-4225
Fax: 561/297-2058
Email: letters@fau.edu
FINANCIAL SUPPORT
A limited number of PhD level Graduate Teaching Assistantships are awarded on a competitive basis each year to full-time students. The stipend is $15,000 per year, renewable for four years. It includes a full tuition waiver. Most teaching is conducted in the departments of English and Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature.
The PhD program also awards Presidential Fellowships to the most outstanding candidates, which are two-year awards of $5,000 added to the GTA stipend.
The PhD program awards one Life Long Learning Society of Jupiter Teaching Fellowship, which is renewable for four years.
All applicants to the PhD program should indicate their interest in competing for these assistantships in their statement of intent, including in which department they feel qualified to teach, based on their MA experience.
The Program
The Cultures, Languages, and Literatures Program at Florida Atlantic University is designed as an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary course of study that enables doctoral students to develop expertise within traditional disciplines and across disciplinary and cultural boundaries. At the heart of our program is the recognition that cultures, languages, and literatures are most fruitfully understood through comparative modes of analysis that include an ever-changing landscape of theory and methodologies.
This program is both interdisciplinary (the integration of different fields) and multidisciplinary (the comparative analyses of different fields). Primary areas of strength for this broadly based program include studies of literature and migration, rhetoric and composition, U.S. multiethnic literatures, early modern literatures, gender, sexuality and embodiment, modernity and postmodernity in literature, space and place in literature, and postcolonial literature and culture. The curriculum also draws from such disciplines as Anthropology, Art History, Communication, History, Peace Studies, Philosophy and Religion, Political Science, Sociology, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, among others.
This program promotes interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work through a cohesive course of study. All students follow an interdisciplinary core curriculum before developing, in consultation with their advisory committee, areas of specialization that might themselves be multidisciplinary. We encourage students to address issues in cultures, languages, and literatures from multiple perspectives and to seek convergence of these perspectives through the insights of interdisciplinary approaches.
Comparative Studies Admission Requirements
*MA, MS, MAT or MFA degree in a relevant discipline. *Minimum 3.5 GPA in previous graduate courses.
* Competitive scores in the verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing sections of the Graduate Record Examination. (GRE must have been taken within the past five years.)
*For international applicants, a competitive TOEFL score is also required.
* Applicants must submit an academic paper, approximately 20 pages in length and with scholarly documentation, which demonstrates the applicant's analytical and explanatory skills and command of the discipline in the area of the Master's degree. Candidates who plan to work in lingua are required to submit an additional academic paper in that language, too.
*A statement of intent that outlines the applicant's field(s) of study and describes how your academic background has prepared you for this program.
Three (3) letters of recommendation, including at least two from professors whose course(s) the applicant has taken. These letters should be current, and should attest to the applicant's intellectual qualifications for the PhD in Comparative Studies.