June, 2007
The Department of Anthropology offers Masters and Doctoral programs towards the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy, in the fields of socio-cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeological anthropology. There are two paths to the MA. The program for students intending to take a terminal M.A. is described in a separate section. M.A. degrees are also awarded to students as a step toward the Ph.D. Note that the requirements for the M.A. are different in each case.
The Ph.D. Program In Anthropology
GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
Credit Hours: A minimum of 72 credit hours (at least 54 credits of course work and no more than 18 credits of non-topical research) are needed to satisfy the general requirements of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).
Transfer of Credits: Students entering with an M.A. or prior graduate course work should discuss with the Graduate Committee the transferability of previous graduate course work towards the Department's course requirements. Undergraduate courses are not transferable.
Language Requirement: The Department's Ph.D. language requirement consists of a demonstrated competency in two foreign languages, one of which may be the language of your dissertation field research. Competency is understood to mean having passed two years of college language courses within the past six years. Otherwise the ability to read relevant professional literature must be demonstrated in a translation examination. Full bi-lingual mastery of one language may substitute for reading competency in two. A command of intermediate statistics may replace one of the foreign languages.
Advising:
General: New students meet with the faculty-composed Graduate Committee before their first semester, in early November and April of their first year to discuss their progress and course selections and for a final time at the beginning of their third semester. At that point they must announce who will be the chair of their advising committee for the next stages of their career. Students often change their interests as they mature in the program so changing committee composition is accepted and encouraged. This section of this paragraph should now go under the “first year” not the “second year” section of this document.
Language Requirement: Students will consult with the Director of Graduate Studies to determine what steps are to be taken to satisfy the language requirements for the M.A. or Ph.D. degree. Please note that for some University determined summer language program opportunities the first language requirement must be completed by the end of student’s first semester. Therefore students are advised to complete their first language requirement immediately.
Common Courses: Students will take five common courses: Anth701, a survey of the history of anthropology; Anth 702, current trends in anthropological theory; Anth703, anthropological monographs (ethnographies, archaeological reports, and/or linguistic documents); a course in archeological anthropology (Anth708 or Anth781), and a course in linguistic anthropology, Anth740. The first two (701 and 702) must be taken in the first year. Since these courses provide a standard of evaluation across the department’s subdisciplines students are encouraged to complete the other required courses before the end of the second year. In exceptional cases a student may delay one into his or her third year.
Course work: Outside of the common courses, students are encouraged to take classes relevant to their developing topical and areal interests as soon as possible. Students are welcome to take a limited number of relevant graduate courses offered by other departments.
First Year Evaluation: At the end of the first year the status of all first year students will be assessed at a meeting of the entire faculty. In order to facilitate the assessment, instructors of first year students will provide the faculty with an evaluation of each student's work (beyond a letter grade). On the basis of this evaluation by the faculty, students will be encouraged to build upon their strengths and attend to whatever problems they may be having. A student who has failed to show adequate work and progress may be asked to leave the program.
Students expecting to conduct dissertation fieldwork that requires competence in another language should make arrangements for language training to be carried out either during the year in residence at UVA or during the summer between the first and second years and if possible both. Limited funds for the latter are available from the Graduate School.
Completion of Required Courses: Students will take Anth703 and work towards completing remaining common courses and/or distribution requirements. By the beginning of third semester, students are expected to identify an areal focus of interest and to be doing course work or independent studies relevant to that interest.
Advising And the Qualifying Assignment Committee: In the first week of the fall semester, third semester students will meet with members of the graduate committee to discuss plans for study, announce the selection of a committee chair, and identify their areal focus of interest. The chair of the committee will then assume the role of principal advisor. It is the student's responsibility to complete a committee membership form and submit it to the Department Secretary no later than the end of the third semester.
The Qualifying Assignment: This Assignment is designed as a stepping stone toward dissertation proposals and grant applications. The Assignment is required of all students, including those who already have MA degrees from other institutions. Faculty will use the performance on this Assignment, together with a more general assessment of progress toward the degree exhibited in students' coursework, as the basis for their decision whether a student advances to Ph.D. candidacy at the end of the fourth semester. The task asks students to critically review regional and theoretical literatures relevant to their dissertation research, to integrate those literatures, to envision research situations relevant to issues identified in the literature review, and to explore subsidiary issues that such research might present. Although the Assignment should move the student towards a dissertation proposal and a grant application, it is not intended to be a final commitment on the student's part. As students complete their preliminary research, discuss the results with the Qualifying Committee, and refine their projects in appropriate courses it is presumed that their projects will evolve and change, perhaps even radically. (See Appendix A for a more detailed description of the Qualifying Assignment process.)
Between the second and third year every student is expected to conduct some kind of preliminary dissertation research. Often this will follow from the results of the Qualifying Assignment. Course selection for the third year should then follow from what was learned during this formal or informal summer research.
Methodology SequenceThose planning to do funded dissertation research work are advised to take the Ethnographic Data Analysis and Writing (Anth705) and the Grant Writing Seminar (Anth706) courses in the fifth and sixth semesters. Those socio-cultural anthropologists who have done preliminary summer research are expected to take these courses upon their return.
Dissertation Proposal: Prior to the end of the third year (sixth semester) a student will, under the supervision of his or her committee, prepare a dissertation proposal. The proposal will outline a research project and be supplied with a bibliography covering the geographic and topical literature relevant to the proposal. The student will defend the research proposal in a public examination conducted by the members of the dissertation committee.
A copy of the research proposal including an abstract will be deposited in the Department Office and made available for public perusal at least two weeks before the examination and a notice of the place and time of the dissertation proposal defense will be posted in the Department at least two weeks prior to the defense.
Dissertation Research and Writing: The student will pursue dissertation research. After completion of the research and under the supervision and guidance of the dissertation committee, the student will write the dissertation.
Time to Degree: Once students have completed their course work, it is expected that they will: maintain a full and functioning committee; maintain regular contact (at least once a semester) with their committee members; and make steady progress toward completion of their proposal defense, research, and dissertation. If students have not maintained regular contact with their committee and made steady progress, they will be regarded as inactive and, after review of their situation by the faculty, they may be asked to leave the program. Students who are inactive for more than 2 years will be automatically dropped from the program.
Leave of Absence: Students who have not completed course work and students who have not yet defended a dissertation proposal and who wish to take leave from the Department of Anthropology will need to apply by letter addressed to the Director of Graduate Studies. The faculty will consider the application for leave at its May evaluation meetings. The faculty will grant leave to students only for periods not exceeding one year (two semesters). Approval of leave will only be given to students who are in good standing in the program, and show good cause for taking leave.
A student may apply to renew a leave of absence for periods not exceeding one year. Such renewals are subject to the approval of the faculty at the May evaluation meeting. A student applying for renewal of a leave of absence must be in good standing in the program, show good cause for renewal, and have maintained regular contact (at least once a semester) with his or her committee members. Students may not be on leave for more than 3 years without being automatically dropped from the program.
Language Requirement: The second part of the Ph.D. language requirement will be satisfied before the dissertation defense. The Chair of the Departmental Language Committee must certify that the language requirements for the Ph.D. have been satisfied.
Dissertation Defense: On completion of the dissertation and with the permission of a majority of the dissertation committee, the student will defend the dissertation in a public examination conducted by the members of the dissertation committee and a member of the University's Graduate Faculty from outside the Department of Anthropology. The latter serves as the representative of the Dean of the Graduate School.
To be eligible to defend the dissertation, a student must have satisfied all of the other Ph.D. requirements. A copy of the dissertation will be deposited in the Department Office and made available for public perusal at least one month before the examination and a notice of the place and time of the dissertation defense will be posted with a title, abstract, and committee listing in the Department at least one month prior to the defense.
At the defense, a vote of the committee will determine (1) if the student has passed the dissertation defense and (2) whether or not the dissertation is acceptable. If revisions are required, the committee will advise the student on what needs to be done. The student will provide the department with a bound copy of the approved dissertation.
The M.A. Program In Anthropology
Course Requirements: Students who plan to terminate with an M.A. will take the first two common courses (Anth701 and Anth702), and satisfy the residency requirement of GSAS (30 hours of credit). There is no distribution requirement since the purpose of the M.A. thesis is to concentrate on a particular piece of research, rather than achieve a comprehensive command of the fields of anthropology.
Language Requirement: M.A. students will demonstrate competency in one living foreign language to satisfy the Department's M.A. language requirement. (Statistics will not be accepted in lieu of a foreign language.)
M.A. Thesis: Candidates who take this path to the M.A. will form a thesis committee comprised of at least two members of the Department's graduate faculty and will, under their supervision and guidance, write a thesis based on original research.
Thesis Defense: The M.A. thesis is to be completed no later than the end of the second year in residence. On completion, the student will defend the thesis in a public examination conducted by the student's thesis committee. A final copy of the thesis will be placed in the Department Office and made available for public perusal at least two weeks prior to the examination. A notice of the time and place of the defense will be posted in the Department at least two weeks prior to the examination.
Requirements Leading To The M.A. And Admission To Candidacy For The Ph.D.
The requirements leading to an M.A. and Admission to Candidacy for the Ph.D. include three major components: course work (including common course requirements), committee work, and the Qualifying Assignment. Each of these components is central to the faculty's evaluation of a student's progress through the graduate program.
Several assumptions guide the development of these requirements: (1) that this combination of course work, committee work, and the Qualifying Assignment should not only foster a broad familiarity with the discipline but also foster the development of the student's own research interests and the expertise necessary to carry out that research; (2) that students can best explore the history of the discipline and the many issues central to it by working intensively with instructors and colleagues in the context of courses and not by cramming for exams; (3) that, aside from course work, the development of a student's research interests should take place in the context of an on-going productive relationship with the members of the student's committee; (4) that the Qualifying Assignment is a useful exercise, in part, to the extent that it models two of the professional activities, writing and presenting papers, that will be central to the future career of the student.
Course Work:
Students will successfully complete 24 semester hours of course credits (for
the M.A.) as well as the balance of subsequent courses taken (beyond the 24
semester hours) in the first two years. All commons course requirements will
be satisfied, and all incompletes completed, by the end of the fourth semester.
Committee Work:
In the first week of their third semester, students will meet with the Graduate
Advising Committee to discuss the formation of their committees. In consultation
with the Graduate Advising Committee, each student will choose a Chair and,
together with the Chair, choose the remaining two members of the committee.
The full committee should be formed by pre-registration time for the next semester
(roughly early November) and will be responsible for meeting with the student
to plan his or her subsequent coursework and qualifying assignment. It is the
responsibility of the student to complete a committee membership form, which
should be given to department administrator. Students and committee members
will work together closely in choosing a topic for the Qualifying Assignment
(no later than the first week of the fourth semester), identifying the relevant
literature, developing drafts, presenting the paper publicly, and making revisions
for the final draft. The committee chosen for the Qualifying Assignment may
continue on as the Ph.D. dissertation committee, or it may be reconfigured for
the dissertation research.
Qualifying Assignment:
This Assignment is designed as a stepping stone toward the dissertation proposal
and grant applications. The Assignment is required of all students, including
those who already have MA degrees from other institutions. This task asks students
to critically review regional and theoretical literatures relevant to their
dissertation research, to integrate those literatures, to envision research
situations relevant to issues identified in the literature review, and to explore
subsidiary issues that such research might present. The Assignment is not to
produce either a dissertation proposal or a grant application in its own right,
and the plan is not a final commitment on the student's part. As students complete
their preliminary research, discuss the results with the Qualifying Committee,
and refine the project in appropriate courses it is presumed that the project
will evolve and change - perhaps even radically. Faculty will use performance
on this Assignment, together with a more general assessment of progress toward
the degree exhibited in students' coursework, as the basis for their decision
whether a student advances to Ph.D. candidacy at the end of the fourth semester.
To further these goals, students are required to have arranged with a faculty
member to chair their Qualifying Committee by the time of their advising by
the Graduate Committee in November of their third semester, and to have a full
committee of chair and two members in place by the start of the fourth semester.
Students are free to alter their committees as they move from the qualifying
Assignment to the proposal and Ph. D research and writing stage, but they will
need to have a committee in place at all times after the third semester.
The recommended format for the Assignment is as follows:
1. Introductory Abstract
(Maximum one page)
This must be short summary of the full document, with brief mention of the content
of each area, and including a summary statement of the projected research question.
Most students will find it best to write this section only after all of the
other sections have been completed.
2. Critical review of the relevant thematic literature
(Recommended maximum of eight double-spaced pages)
To prepare to write this section, students must become familiar with the literature
on the chosen topic, theme, or theoretical approach. It is understood that it
will not be possible to master the literature at this stage. Instead, locate
the most important or influential works, and describe what made them so. As
a general guide the student should imagine that he or she is to teach an undergraduate
course on a body of theoretically or thematically related material. What books
or articles would be most important, and why? If you wish to depart from established
canons, explain why you think other works are more insightful. There is no fixed
number of sources that need be included. Some may be worth a paragraph; others
can be grouped together in the same paragraph. What is important is critical
discussion that is selective, recognizes that different perspectives are possible,
and develops a position with regard to those alternatives.
3. Critical review of the relevant regional literature
(Recommended maximum of eight double-spaced pages)
The second section deals with the review of the literature on the geographical
region or regions where the student plans to work. Follow the general guidelines
suggested above. What books and articles should be used and why? What lines
of research have so far been most active in this region, and why? Consider,
for example, a course on African political systems, rather than sacred kings.
There is an overlap in the topics, but not all sacred kings are or were in Africa,
nor are all African polities kingdoms. Once again, the crucial thing is to remember
that we are looking for a critical discussion.
4. Plan for integrating regional and thematic literatures, and framing the
question
(Recommended maximum of five double-spaced page)
The objective of this section is to think through the connections between regional
and thematic literatures. What fruitful intersections are there? What troubling
disjunctures? At the end of this section, make an attempt in one page or less
to state a research question. Finding this question is an essential step in
preparing grant applications and a dissertation proposal, and experience shows
that it is not an easy one. The question needs to be interesting enough to motivate
the project and attract the attention of committee members and grant reviewers.
Enough data must exist to show that the question can be asked and that the question
is appropriate to the chosen location; but not enough exists yet to answer the
question. This justifies doing new research. To draw out the significance of
the research question, consider how answering it will contribute to present
understandings given the regional and theoretical orientation. Finally, since
the research question will dictate methodology, consider the steps necessary
to learn what needs to be known in order to answer the question.
5. Sketch of research situation
(Recommended maximum of five double-spaced pages)
This section asks the student to think forward to the sort of research situations
he/she may encounter. If the student has not yet visited the planned site(s)
of the research, this may involve some conjecture. The regional literature will
provide clues, and a little forethought will be a useful preliminary to the
experience itself. As appropriate to the student's subdiscipline, the student
needs to assess what is known about the site(s) where the research will be conducted.
For example, what sort of community or location is it in? What is the language
situation, and how will the student be prepared for it? Why is this the right
place to answer the research question posed in the previous section? It is understood
that the student may not be in a position to specify the research methodology
in detail at this stage, but this section is designed to help the student make
progress towards that goal. A student planning to invoke participant observation
as a method must spell out what that means at the site of the research.
6. Subsidiary themes
(Recommended maximum of three double-spaced pages)
A well-conceived project may consider additional themes that are conceptually
and methodologically subordinate or nested within the main research question.
This section considers what some of those themes might be. As projects develop,
new themes appear, draw emphasis, and sometimes even take over as the main theme
of the project. In this section consider what they might be, so that possible
changes in emphasis are foreseen.
7. References cited
(No page limit, but should include only sources discussed in the body of the
paper. The number of sources cited is not a criterion of success)
Public presentation and timing of the Assignment
The presentation of the Assignment will last sixty minutes. The student is
allowed fifteen minutes to introduce the project, addressing in an informal
way the reasons why he or she was attracted to this particular region and approach.
For the remaining 45 minutes, the student will respond to constructive questions
from faculty and graduate students. Questioners will be limited to one follow-up
on each question, before ceding the floor. Students should be able to defend
their choices of themes, research sites, and literature; to clarify their plans;
and to respond to suggestions for additions, alternatives, and implications.
Presentations will occur as close as is feasible to the end of the spring semester,
so as to give students as much time to prepare as possible. At the end of the
presentation, faculty will take about thirty minutes to discuss among themselves
where the student stands, and the student's committee will pass on that assessment
to him/her. Our objective is to give feedback from the entire faculty that will
facilitate the preparation of grant applications and a dissertation proposal
in the following year.
End of Second Year Evaluation:
The general faculty will decide whether to award an M.A. and whether to admit
the student to candidacy for the Ph.D. based upon their evaluation of the entire
range of the student's course work, the committee work, and the Qualifying Assignment.
If the faculty should decide not to admit the student to candidacy for the Ph.D.
there are three possibilities: (1) the student may be allowed to file for the
M.A. degree, (2) the student may be asked to complete a thesis for a terminal
M.A., or (3) the student may be asked to leave the program.
Students may file for an M.A. upon successful completion of 24 semester hours of course work (including the common course requirements) and the Qualifying Assignment, as well as demonstration of competence in one foreign language.
Summary Outline of Deadlines:
|
First week of third semester |
Chair of committee selected |
|
Fourth semester (Nov.) advising time |
Full committee formed |
|
First week of fourth semester |
Paper topic selected |
|
First Monday after Spring Break |
First draft of paper due to committee |
|
One week before presentation |
Abstract posted and draft distributed to all faculty |
|
Last day of classes |
Final draft of paper on file in the department |