SLAV-PHD - Slavic Languages and Literatures (PhD)
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Program Overview
Stanford Slavic PhD graduate program aims at training future scholars and teachers of Slavic languages and literatures. Students specialize in literature and cultural studies of the area of the former Russian Empire/Soviet Union or Eastern Europe, combining a core curriculum with independent research early in their graduate career.
Students begin with courses leading to a series of qualifying exams in the core literary tradition and defense of the qualifying paper, then progress to articulating an individuated program which leads to an exam in a related field, and, finally, to the defense of dissertation prospectus and to writing the dissertation.
Stanford Slavic PhD graduate program welcomes students with interdisciplinary interests. Slavic students may pursue an official PhD minor in Film, Folklore, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, History, Art History, Anthropology, etc., as well as develop individually designed areas of specialization. The Slavic Department works in collaboration with the programs of the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and with the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
Minimum Units in the Program
Minimum University Units
Degree Requirements
Students may select coursework to suit their individual program of study. All coursework must be selected in consultation with the Department Director or principal advisor. Students are held responsible for all areas covered by the general examinations regardless of whether they have registered for the department’s offerings in a given field. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that before taking their examinations, students complete seminar-level work directly related to the following broad areas:
Slavic poetry
The Russian novel
20th-century Slavic literature
19th-century Slavic literature
18th-century Slavic literature
Medieval Rus’ Literature
A monograph course on a prominent Russian or Slavic author
Theory of literature relevant to the major field
The candidate must have demonstrated commitment to graduate studies by completing a minimum of 21 content courses (not counting summer quarter) with a grade point average (GPA) of 3.3 or better to complete the degree program requirements. These must include 14 seminars in the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department. Unless they have taken such courses elsewhere, students must take the departmental course on medieval literature, 18th-century literature, and Old Church Slavonic.
We highly recommend that students take DLCL302. For those who are particularly interested in language teaching, we also recommend DLCL303.
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Administered to all entering graduate students, this test determines whether the student’s Russian language proficiency falls below the department’s standard of Advanced Low on the OPI test. Students who fail must complete appropriate courses in the first year of graduate study. Courses required to meet Russian language proficiency are not counted toward the coursework requirement of the Ph.D. degree.
During study, students must develop substantial expertise in a field contiguous to the area of specialization. A candidate may elect to complete a Ph.D.minor or, in consultation with the graduate advisor, develop a particular focus in a related field, preferably no later than the second quarter of enrollment.
Related Field
A student must complete a sequence of basic courses in a chosen discipline outside the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. In consultation with the Department Director, students may choose between one of the following options:
A sequence of three courses in another literature
Three basic courses in comparative literature.
A sequence of three courses in another department
Minor—Students electing a minor must fulfill the Ph.D. minor requirements established by that department. Students considering minors should consult with the Department Director or their advisor, and the Chair or Director of Graduate Studies of the minor department. Students must complete all requirements for the Minor before going to Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) status.
The Comprehensive Exam covers the history of Slavic literature and culture from the medieval period through the twenty-first century and is divided into seven chronological sections. Two of these (medieval and the 18th-century Slavic literature) are taken in the end of the courses offered in Spring of each year, two - early in autumn quarter of year two, and the remainder are taken in the autumn quarter of year three (preferably a day or two before the beginning of academic instruction), one of which is the oral exam in the related field in Russian (for students who are not native speakers of Russian).
The candidate must submit a complete draft of a Qualifying Paper approved by the dissertation advisor by the end of May of their second-year studies. The Qualifying Paper represents a complete article-length research paper (6,000-9,000 words). The deadline for the qualifying paper approval is the eighth week of the sixth quarter of registration. Failure to meet these requirements results in dismissal from the Ph.D. program. See GAP 5.6.1 Dismissal for Academic and Professional Reasons for more information. Following dismissal, the student who has fulfilled all of the M.A. requirements may be allowed to take the M.A. written examination on the history of Slavic literature. If successful, the student is then awarded the terminal M.A. degree. In exceptional cases, the written examination requirement may be waived at the discretion of the Department Director.
Teaching is core to our program’s academic and professional training of Ph.D. students. As such, all students must complete three quarters of language teaching in their second year in the program as part of their degree requirements. An additional two quarters of teaching in language and/or literature are required to further pedagogical and professional skills. Teaching assignments will be determined in consultation with the Department Director and based on departmental and Language Center needs. Typically, students teach more than the required number of courses.
A student who does not complete the five-quarter teaching requirement fails to meet academic requirements and is thus not making satisfactory academic progress.
Admission to candidacy is an important decision by the department based on the department faculty’s overall assessment of a student’s ability to complete the Ph.D. program. In the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, students are expected to follow department qualifying procedures and apply for candidacy by the end of the second year in residence. In reviewing a student for admission to candidacy, the faculty considers a student’s academic progress, including but not limited to:
Advanced language proficiency
Performance in courses and completion of required coursework
Performance on departmental examinations and milestones
Successful completion of teaching assistantships
Completion of at least three units of work with each of Stanford Slavic faculty members
Students applying to candidacy must provide for their annual review a writing sample corresponding to a paper completed for a course taken at Stanford.
Candidacy is determined by faculty vote in May or June. Failure to be admitted to candidacy results in the student’s dismissal from the Ph.D. program.
Following the departmental examinations, a candidate must pass a University Oral Examination consisting of a defense of a doctoral dissertation prospectus and covering:
content relevant to the study area
the rationale for the proposed investigation
the strategy to be employed in the dissertation research.
The University Oral Exam is expected to be scheduled no later than the beginning of autumn quarter of year four. It is the student's responsibility to schedule the exam in consultation with the Department Director.
The dissertation may take different formats. The dissertation should be a substantial piece of comprehensive and original research. The standard format in our field is a
monograph comprising five chapters, including the introduction and dissertation, but successful students may propose strong, research-based projects such as edited translations, digital humanities-based analyses, or other formats. In consultation with their advisor, students may elect to submit as a dissertation a collection of 3-4 published, or publishable, articles, together with an introduction.
A candidate must demonstrate reading knowledge of French or German, or any other foreign language useful for the student’s area of concentration, by passing written examinations or receiving a grade of A- or better in a qualifying class with consent of the Department Director. The reading examination in one of these languages must be passed by the end of the first year of study. The reading examination in the second language must be passed by the end of the second year of study.