Performance Studies Degree Requirements

DEGREE REQUIREMENT OVERVIEW

The Ph.D. in Performance Studies is a four to five year program. In the first two years of study, students develop an understanding of performance by drawing from a range of regular course offerings in the field to identify, explore, and define a field or fields of research. Students are required to complete four core courses out of nine. Each individual program is then built from seminar and/or practice as research courses, as well as independent or group studies.

The four courses consist of PFS 200, and three of the four offered PFS 265 A, B, C, or D. Each quarter there are a variety of PFS 265s offered apart from core 265s that will satisfy the requirements. For a clearer understanding of what is offered, please look at the Courses page for a complete list of core courses and participatory elective courses offered by quarter. PFS 299 is an additional independent study course students may take with a given instructors if there is a need or interest in exploring fields of study not available in the regular rotating catalog. PFS 299 can be utilized throughout a student’s academic career. Please note that PFS 299 requires the consent of the instructor and has a variable unit load.

UNIT REQUIREMENT

Students are required to complete a minimum of 60 units before taking the qualifying examination (QE). Units must be comprised of a core required courses as well as elective courses offered by departments and professors that participate in the Performance Studies graduate group. For a list of core courses and electives offered by quarter, please see the Courses page.

LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT

All students are required to have a good reading knowledge of a language other than English; ideally, this language should be one relevant to the field of dissertation research. This requirement should be passed by the end of the second year of study, and must be passed before the student will be approved to take qualifying examination. Students passing the language requirement with course work taken at another institution must demonstrate that this course work is sufficiently recent to demonstrate a useful working knowledge of the language. No more than 12 units may be taken below the graduate level unless specifically approved by the PhD graduate program adviser.