Program Requirements
AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
The Department of African and African American Studies offers graduate programs in the fields of African American Studies and of African Studies. Their aim is to offer rigorous interdisciplinary training in the humanities and the social sciences, with a focus in a disciplinary field, leading to the PhD.
Advising
• In their first year, students are advised by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), who serves as their mentor until they choose an advisor, generally before the beginning of their second year. After consulting with the DGS, a student may change advisors. Students are encouraged to discuss their interests outside of the primary field with faculty from other departments. This process enables students to develop relationships with various faculty members from whom the student will ultimately select a dissertation committee.
Academic Residence
• A minimum of two years of full-time study (14 half-courses or equivalent) is required.
Program of Study
• Students must take a combination of 14 courses of which eight must be courses in a primary field. The distribution of courses in the first three years of study is as follows:
First Year
• African and African American Studies 301/302
This yearlong course is co-taught by the faculty of the program. It aims to introduce students to central topics and themes in African and African American studies and to major theories and debates. The first term focuses on issues in literature, philosophy, and culture, including: the concepts of race and ethnicity, slavery and the slave narrative, debates about African literature, the American literary canon, the African and the American in African American culture. The second term focuses on issues in social science and public policy, including: race and class, the role of race in the political system, the study of racial attitudes, racial discrimination, and issues such as affirmative action, criminal justice, and redistricting. There are two required final presentations to the faculty at the end of each term, one on a humanities topic, the other on a social science topic.
• In addition, students must ordinarily take at least six other courses, of which at least two must be in African or African American studies and two in the primary field.
Second Year
• Students must ordinarily take at least six courses in their second year.
• Students will ordinarily be required to take all of the following courses or their equivalents by the end of their second year:
• African and African American Studies 218 — Topics in African and African American History (or applicable graduate seminar in another department encompassing a broad survey of African, African American, or Caribbean History)
• One graduate seminar in African and African American Literature
• African and African-American Studies 241 — Topics in African and African American Social Science (or applicable graduate seminar in another department focusing on Social Science methods)
• By the end of the second year, the total number of courses taken in African and African American Studies and the primary field should be 14, including at least eight in the primary field. In particular, students should take all courses required for an AM in their primary field.
• Students specializing in African or African American Studies may substitute other appropriate courses with the approval of the DGS. Students who have already done an equivalent course at other institutions may be permitted to substitute graduate level work at Harvard in African and African American history, literature, and social science, respectively, for these courses, with the consent of the DGS. (The department will require both a copy of the syllabus of the course at the undergraduate institution and an oral or written examination of the student administered by an appropriate member of the department's faculty.)
Third Year
• By the end of the fall term of this year students must have completed the oral exam described below.
• Students who at this stage have not yet produced a seminar paper deemed of publishable quality must enroll in a graduate course in which they produce a paper of publishable quality. This can be the 14th required course. (This may be taken through AAAS 391. Directed Writing)
• Students must have completed all course work by the time they are admitted to candidacy.
Master of Arts (AM)
• The department does not admit candidates for a terminal AM degree, but students who have met all the course requirements for the degree may petition to be awarded an AM in African and African American Studies. (Students may also find that they can meet the requirements for the AM in their primary field. Students should consult with the DGS in their primary field if they wish to pursue this option.)
Teaching
• An important element of graduate education in the program is the experience of working as a teaching fellow in courses in African or African American Studies. The department also encourages students to seek teaching opportunities in their primary fields.
• The graduate committee must verify that a student has had sufficient preparation in teaching before voting him or her a degree. Students ordinarily teach at least two courses in African and African American studies and one in their primary field during their third and fourth years.
• If designated as part of the student's financial package, students are expected to teach in their third and fourth years at the rate of 2/5 per term. The department will assist the student in securing teaching positions. Priority for teaching fellow positions is given to students in their third and fourth years of graduate study.
Other Requirements
Languages
• The student's advisor will identify the language requirements appropriate for the student's research in the primary field. In general, these requirements reflect the language requirements of the graduate program in their primary field. However, the DGS and the student's primary advisor may propose modifications of these requirements if, in their judgment, a different language is more suitable. The student's orals committee is responsible for determining whether the student has met an appropriate language requirement before proposing a candidate to the graduate committee for admission to the doctorate. Students in African Studies are required, in addition to a major European language, to take at least one African language to the level at which they reach proficiency.
Grade Requirements
• Students must maintain a grade average of B+ or better in each year of graduate work. Where the primary field requires either that all courses be passed at or above a certain grade or that the student's average grade be higher than B+, the student will be required to meet that requirement for courses in the primary field.
• No more than one Incomplete may be carried forward at any one time by a graduate student in African and African American Studies. It must be made up no later than six weeks after the start of the next term. In applying for an Incomplete, students must have signed permission from the instructor and the Director of Graduate Studies, or the course in question may not count toward the program requirements. If students do not complete work by the deadline, the course will not count toward the program requirements, unless there are documented extenuating circumstances.
Admission to Candidacy
Oral Examination
• Once students have completed their course work, they begin to prepare for their oral exam in their primary field. For this purpose they require a committee, consisting of their major advisor and at least two others, at least one of whom should be a member of the discipline of the primary field. This committee, the student's orals committee, meets with the student once his or her course work is complete, and defines a bibliography and a set of topics on which the student will be examined orally in the first term of the third year. Once the student has passed the oral exam, he or she prepares a written prospectus.
The Dissertation
Prospectus
• Ordinarily the orals committee then becomes the dissertation committee, but students may reform their committee at this stage. Students have flexibility in picking their major advisor at the stage that the dissertation committee is formed, since this is the right moment to identify the member of the faculty whose work is closest to theirs. The dissertation committee is responsible for approving the prospectus, and this should ordinarily be completed and accepted at the latest by the middle of their fourth year. The composition of the student's orals and dissertation committees is subject to the approval of the graduate committee in African and African American Studies, though students are given great flexibility in choosing their advisors.
• The prospectus is due at the latest by the end of the first term of the fourth year of residence. The student must discuss the prospectus with each member of the dissertation committee and then have a final oral exam on that prospectus: If the committee accepts the prospectus at the exam, the student is admitted to candidacy and begins research for the dissertation.
• NOTE: Many departments and independent groups organize dissertation colloquia for students in their fourth, fifth, and sixth years, at which they may present and discuss their research.
Dissertation Review
• During the period that a student is working on the dissertation, the student will have a primary advisor and a dissertation committee. Each term the student will consult with and report to the dissertation committee, which will in turn report to the committee on graduate studies as to the progress toward completion of the dissertation. While the student's principal advisor will ordinarily become the primary advisor and the prospectus committee will ordinarily become the dissertation committee, a student, in consultation with the DGS, may choose other faculty members. The dissertation committee must consist of a primary advisor and at least two others, at least one of whom must be a member of the discipline of the primary field. The primary advisor is the chair of the dissertation committee and must be a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In addition, at least one other member of the dissertation committee must be a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
• Upon approval of the dissertation by the dissertation committee, the department, student, and the dissertation committee will agree upon a date for the dissertation defense. Completion of the dissertation is ordinarily expected by the end of the sixth year.
• The dissertation defense is an oral examination open to any member of the university at which the dissertation committee leads in questioning the candidate on his or her work. Upon completion of the oral examination, the members of the graduate committee will consult with the dissertation committee and vote as to whether the candidate should be recommended for the PhD degree in African and African American Studies and whether the candidate passed with distinction.
Satisfactory Progress
• The faculty monitors each student's progress year by year. During the period between admission to candidacy and submission of the dissertation, the dissertation committee is asked whether the candidate is making satisfactory progress and has to certify in writing when the candidate has completed two draft chapters.
Summary of Requirements
14 courses, at least eight in the primary field.
African and African American Studies 301, 302, 218, 241, and one graduate seminar in African or African
American Literature (or equivalent courses with approval of the DGS).
All courses required for an AM in the primary field.
Completion of one research paper of publishable quality (may be completed through AAAS 391).
Language requirements as specified.
B+ average at the end of each year (and any other requirements of the primary field).
No more than one Incomplete outstanding at any given time.
Oral exam for admission to candidacy.
Teaching experience.
Prospectus exam.
Dissertation completion.
Dissertation defense.
Additional information is available from:
Kathleen Cloutier
Graduate and Undergraduate Program Officer
Barker Center, Room 232
Phone: 617.384.7767
Fax: 617.496.2871
Email: cloutier@fas.harvard.edu
Online submission is encouraged.
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Byerly Hall, 2nd floor
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
African and African American Studies as a Secondary Field
Students enrolled in a PhD program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, including Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Economics, English, Government, History, History of Art and Architecture, History of American Civilization, History of Science, Music, Philosophy, Sociology, and Religion may achieve formal recognition for completing a secondary field in African and African American Studies. Graduate students who choose African and African American Studies as a secondary field will benefit from learning how to do interdisciplinary work on the basis of the substantial body of scholarly writing on African and African American social, cultural, economic and political life and history. The Department also encourages comparative work on African, African American, and diasporic topics.
Graduate students must meet the following requirements in order to have the secondary field officially recorded on their transcript.
Coursework
* Completion of four graduate-level courses in African and African American Studies with honors grades of B+ or above.
Demonstrating Mastery in the Secondary Field
* Successful completion of a research paper demonstrating mastery in the field of African and African American Studies is also required. Ordinarily this is the most successful graduate term paper written for one of the four African and African American Studies courses.
Record-keeping
* Students interested in declaring a secondary field in African and African American Studies should submit to the Director of Graduate Studies evidence of their successful participation in four appropriate graduate courses in the Department of African and African American Studies as well as the research paper. Once they obtain the approval of the DGS they and the registrar will receive certification of successful completion of secondary field requirements.