The Cultural Studies Department at Trent University now extends its groundbreaking approach to the field with its new Ph.D. program, the first free-standing Ph.D. in Cultural Studies program in Canada. The program provides students with the freedom to pursue their field of interest within a context of interdisciplinary integration.
Program Overview
Perhaps the most significant feature of the Cultural Studies Ph.D. program is that it offers students an intensive and rigorous intellectual environment, in which they constantly discuss, present, and revise their ideas in light of an ongoing and regular interaction with faculty and peers in the program (through core seminars, individual consultations, and other events), as well as through academic conferences and journal publication.
Objectives of the program
Graduates of the Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Trent will have:
- critical and comprehensive knowledge of the divergent intellectual traditions active in cultural studies;
- deep and comprehensive knowledge of their own special field inside the domain of cultural studies, which will prepare them for appointments not only in a variety of Cultural Studies departments, but also in a variety of academic units besides those specifically called “cultural studies,” including Art, Film, Theatre, Literature, Media, Philosophy, Music, and History Departments, and a range of emergent interdisciplinary programs;
- experience in the dissemination of their work to peers, including oral examinations and presentations inside the framework of the Cultural Studies Ph. D., presentations at scholarly conferences, and submissions to scholarly journals;
- established ability to design and follow through programs of original research which can result in publications that make serious contributions to knowledge;
- teaching experience in the core courses of the undergraduate program.
These objectives will be achieved through a combination of intense core seminars, independent research, teaching and research assistantships, and the completion of a thesis comprising three scholarly projects deemed publishable by the students’ supervisory committees.
