The Ph.D. in Performance Studies is a four to five year program. In the first two years of study, students develop an understanding of performance by drawing from a range of regular course offerings in the field to identify, explore, and define a field or fields of research. Students are required to complete four core courses out of nine. Each individual program is then built from seminar and/or practice as research courses, as well as independent or group studies. The four courses consist of PFS 200, and three of the four offered PFS 265 A, B, C, or D. Each quarter there are a variety of PFS 265s offered apart from core 265s that will satisfy the requirements. Students are required to complete four core courses out of five in performance studies, and one colloquium course. Each individual program is then built from seminar and/or practice as research courses, as well as independent or group studies, developing one or more of the four strands of the program: Comparative Medias, Embodiments, Cultures/Ecologies, and History/Text. A wide range of affiliated faculty offer courses throughout the HArCS faculty, and Designated Emphases are available in Studies in Performance & Practice, African American & African Studies, Critical Theory, Feminist Theory & Research, Native American Studies, Religious Studies, Science & Technology Studies, and Writing, Rhetoric & Composition Studies. Students are required to complete a minimum of 60 units before taking the qualifying examination. No more than 12 units may be taken below the graduate level unless specifically approved by the Ph.D. graduate program advisor.
The DE in Science & Technology Studies offers graduate students in PhD programs the opportunity to augment their studies with an understanding of the variety of methods and theoretical approaches of STS. Any PhD student in good standing is eligible to enroll. In particular, those students whose topic of research includes an aspect of the interactions of science, technology and society will greatly benefit from the wealth of case studies of other interactions collected in the STS literature, and from the focus in STS on the relevance of understanding the ways in which the practices of scientists and engineers and the travel of facts and technologies are intricately social and themselves an inseparable part of the impacts of science and technology. The curriculum is flexible with courses being offered across many disciplines. Students are able to choose courses from the DE offerings to widen their range of approaches and enable cross-training as interdisciplinary scholars. DE students will benefit from the thriving community of STS scholars on campus, the STS colloquia series, and may attend the annual STS Summer Retreat.
