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General Description | Advising | Comprehensive Examinations | Language | Dissertation | Master of Arts | Appendix
Theology, Ethics, and Culture at the University of Virginia includes studies of the theological, philosophical, ethical, and cultural traditions that continue to inform religious thought and practice. The area is committed to understanding religious reflection and expression historically, critically, and constructively.

Faculty in Religious Studies enjoy a variety of interests that contribute to three fields of concentration in Theology, Ethics, and Culture: theological and philosophical studies, religion and culture, and religious ethics. In course work, comprehensive examinations, and dissertation research, students concentrate in one of these fields, while exploring other fields in TEC and throughout the department and university. Each field of concentration within TEC periodically describes general topics that suggest the foci of TEC courses and comprehensive exams. (These general topics are always subject to revision by the faculty.)

  1. Religious, Theological, and Philosophical Studies seeks, on one hand, to train students to understand and contribute to the interplay of philosophical thought and religious expression; and, on the other hand, to train students to understand and contribute to the theological and philosophical analysis, interpretation, and constructive understanding of problems raised by the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary study of religion. Courses and comprehensive examinations are offered in the following general topics:

    1. Ancient to Medieval
    2. Medieval Through Modern
    3. Modern Through Contemporary
    4. Topics and Thinkers

  2. Religious Ethics comprises the study of ethical theory, issues, and methods both within and independent of religious traditions and systems of thought. Courses and comprehensive examinations are offered in:

    1. Christian, Jewish, and Islamic ethics (historical and contemporary);
    2. Applied Ethics (e.g., biomedical or political)
    3. Philosophical Ethics

  3. Religion and Culture encourages students to explore interrelationships between cultural creation (including the arts and forms of interpretation and criticism) and religious life, practice, and thought.  Emphases are on narrative literature, poetry, drama (as well as other arts on occasion) and on the interpretation of religion as an aspect of culture. Courses and comprehensive exams are currently offered in:

    1. Cultural History and Theology of Culture
    2. Literature, Criticism, Philosophical and Theological Aesthetics
    3. Interpretation Theory
    4. Religion and the Social Sciences
    5. Religion and Material Culture
    6. Literary Interpretation and Adaptation of Scripture

Whichever of the three fields students choose to concentrate in, they are expected to take courses in other fields and departments, such as Philosophy, History, English, French, German, Classics, and other departments concerned with the history of culture and thought.  Courses in Philosophy, Politics, and in the schools of Law and Business may be appropriate for students whose focus is in Ethics.  Students must meet the minimal course requirements for degrees in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and in the Department of Religious Studies. For TEC students, it is suggested that at least half of the courses be from fields in Theology, Ethics, and Culture.  Courses selection must be done in close consultation with the student's advisor.

General Description | Advising | Comprehensive Examinations | Language | Dissertation | Master of Arts | Appendix

Advising:

Upon entrance into Theology, Ethics, and Culture, the student will be assigned or will select an appropriate advisor from the TEC faculty, for purposes of advising course selection, monitoring the fulfillment of program requirements, and plotting the student's progress toward comprehensive exams. In all these matters, the student should consult with other faculty members as well. The student may request a new advisor as the shape of his or her program becomes clear.

When the time comes to write a dissertation proposal (see below), the student must select a dissertation director and put together a dissertation committee. The committee will normally consist of at least three faculty members from TEC and, whenever appropriate, other faculty members from the department and university.

General Description | Advising | Comprehensive Examinations | Language | Dissertation | Master of Arts | Appendix

Comprehensive Examinations:

Each student in Theology, Ethics, and Culture, near the completion of course work, will submit to his or her advisor a written proposal for preparing and taking comprehensive exams. The proposal must be approved by the advisor and examining committee. Students will sit for at least five (six-hour) comprehensive examinations on the general topics pertaining to the fields of concentration in TEC. Normally students will take not more than six exams. (A description of the exam proposal is appended below.)

At least three exams will be in the student's field of concentration and at least one exam from either or both of the remaining TEC fields.

Students may also be examined in topics from the areas of Historical Studies in Judaism and Christianity or from the History of Religions as part of their TEC comprehensive exams, upon consultation with their advisors and appropriate faculty members in these areas. Students are also encouraged, and may be required when appropriate, to include faculty of other departments on their examining committees.

Each of the comprehensive examinations will be based on topics and reading lists the student is responsible for designing, in close consultation with and with the approval of his or her advisor and examining committee. Normally, the topics and reading lists should be submitted to the advisor for final approval at least three months prior to taking the exams.

General Description | Advising | Comprehensive Examinations | Language | Dissertation | Master of Arts | Appendix

Language Requirements:

All doctoral students are required to meet the Religious Studies department's general language requirement: reading competence in two modern languages, normally German and French. Other modern languages may be substituted, if the TEC faculty deem it appropriate to the student's mastery of modern scholarship in the chosen dissertation area. This requirement must be met before comprehensive exams are taken. In addition, students may also be required to show competence in other languages (modern or classical) pertaining to their dissertation; this requirement should be met by the time they submit a dissertation proposal.

Students concentrating in Theology and Philosophical Studies are expected to have had, or take,at least two semesters of college level classical Greek, Latin, or Biblical Hebrew in any combination (e.g., two semesters of Greek, or one semester of Greek and one of Hebrew, etc.).

General Description | Advising | Comprehensive Examinations | Language | Dissertation | Master of Arts | Appendix

Doctoral Dissertation:

After successful completion of the Ph.D. comprehensive examinations, the student will prepare a dissertation proposal. Formally, the proposal should include a succinct statement of the thesis to be investigated and the methods the dissertation will employ, a discussion of the significance of the thesis in relation to existing literature, an outline of the questions to be investigated with reference to the thesis, and a selected bibliography.

After defending the proposal before the student's dissertation committee, and after receiving the committee's direction and approval, the student may proceed to write the dissertation and thereafter defend it orally.

General Description | Advising | Comprehensive Examinations | Language | Dissertation | Master of Arts | Appendix

Master of Arts:

 Candidates for the Master of Arts in Theology, Ethics, and Culture must meet the general course requirements for the M.A. in Religious Studies. As with doctoral students, each will select or be assigned an advisor to assist in their progress through the program, to the point that M.A. comprehensive examinations are taken or a Masters thesis director is chosen. Students electing to write a Masters thesis must take eight courses (24 hours), at least four of which should be from TEC areas. Thereafter, they will sit for an oral examination of their thesis. Students electing to write comprehensive M.A. exams must take ten courses, at least five of which must be from TEC areas. All M.A. students must pass the French or German reading exam; another modern language may be substituted if deemed appropriate for thesis research purposes. Competence in additional languages pertaining to the thesis may be required as well. Doctoral students may receive the M.A. degree upon completing their Ph.D. comprehensive examinations; no thesis is then required.

General Description | Advising | Comprehensive Examinations | Language | Dissertation | Master of Arts | Appendix

Appendix:


The Comprehensive Exam Proposal
The Comprehensive Exam Proposal is a document that guides both the student and the student's examining committee through the process of preparing for and taking comprehensive exams. The Proposal is written by the students in consultation with members of his or her examining committee, and the final form of this Proposal must be approved by the student's advisor at least three months before the exams are to be taken.

The Proposal will indicate:

a. Which exams will be taken. --The exams are to be selected from those general topics listed for Theological and Philosophical Studies (PT), Religion and Culture, and Religious Ethics.
b. Which faculty members will prepare what specific parts of the exams. --Together with the Advisor, these members constitute the students Examining Committee.
c. The materials for which the student will be held responsible, along with a brief rationale for their selection, divided by examination topics. --Normally this part of the Proposal will take the form of a Comprehensive Reading List. The various parts of this list (corresponding to the areas in which the student is being examined) are to be approved provisionally by the various faculty members preparing the exams, before the Proposal is finally approved by the Advisor.
d. Formats for administering each exam. --These formats concern matters such as closed or open resources, kinds of revisions permitted, etc., and are to be provisionally approved by the faculty members submitting questions, before the Proposal is finally approved by the Advisor.

The Advisor will discuss the Proposal with the student and consult with the proposed Examining Committee. If satisfied that the Proposal is in order, the Advisor approves the Proposal and makes sure the student provides all Examining Committee members with final copies of the Proposal, including the Comprehensive Reading List.

The Advisor will then determine the date and times for the exams, will later solicit questions from the Examining Committee, and will then see that the exams are administered to the student in accordance with the Proposal and departmental policies.

Revised January 1999