Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish and Portuguese

The Ph.D. program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese explores the dynamic fields of Latin American, Luso-Brazilian, Latinx, and Iberian studies in all their rich and diverse linguistic, literary, and cultural traditions, and adopting multiple intellectual approaches. The Ph.D. program encourages students to engage with related disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including African American Studies, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Film and Media Studies, History of Art, Medieval Studies, Philosophy, and Early Modern Studies (formerly Renaissance Studies), as well as emerging multidisciplinary fields such as Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Digital Humanities. The program is typically five or six years long. The first two years are devoted to course work and the fulfillment of the two language requirements, the third year, to the Qualifying Examination and the preparation of the Dissertation Prospectus, the fourth and fifth (or fourth through sixth) years, to the writing of the dissertation. The student participates in the Teaching and Pedagogy Program during years two through four, taking the required course in modern languages pedagogy in the second year, and teaching one course per semester in the department's basic language sequence during the third and fourth years. Assisting in literature courses is offered as available. No teaching is done during the two years of course work or during the dissertation fellowship year.

A master's degree is not required to apply for a Ph.D. at Yale, although some programs give preference to applicants with post-baccalaureate training. Consult your program of interest directly for information on how it evaluates applications.
A statement of academic purpose. You will find the prompt for the statement of purpose in our Application Question FAQs.
A list of all the prior colleges or universities you have attended, accompanied by unofficial transcripts from each school. Unofficial transcripts should be uploaded with your application. Official or paper transcripts are not needed at this time.
Three letters of recommendation. Enter the names of your recommenders directly in the application, and they will receive a link to upload a letter on your behalf.