ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
The First Two Years of the PhD Program
The first two years of graduate study are spent in coursework. Students begin teaching after the second year. Normally, students take sixteen half-courses during the first two years, with the possibility of credit given for previous graduate work done elsewhere.
These half-courses must include:
- Three 200-level courses in the major Romance literature. Note: Students must obtain the formal approval of their advisors before registering for 320-level (Supervised Reading and Research) courses. Only one 320-level course will count toward the sixteen half-courses required for the PhD. However, if a 320-level course is being tailored to satisfy a specific requirement not offered that year, the instructor should provide documentation of this to the graduate coordinator. Students taking 320 courses as requirements may still take an additional 320 course for credit.
- One half-course in the history of the major Romance language or a course deemed equivalent by the section.
- One half-course in the literature of a second Romance language. In order for a course to satisfy the second literature requirement, it must be at the 100-level or higher and taught in the language. Papers may be written either in English or in the target language. Certain other options (e.g., German, Greek, Romance Studies) may be considered in place of this requirement by petition to the Curriculum Committee and with the approval of the student’s advisor.
- Romance Studies 201. RS 201 is a seminar on approaches to literary and cultural theory specifically designed for all the graduate students in RLL. For students entering the program in fall of 2009 or later, it is required. RS 201 is taught collaboratively among the faculty in RLL and other departments. This course offers students an opportunity to discuss literary theory through a range of readings and perspectives, to get to know the faculty of the department, and to learn from their approaches to the study of literature.
- Students specializing in literature before 1800 must demonstrate the ability to read Latin by successful completion (B- or better, or grade of “Satisfactory”) of Harvard Latin A and Latin B, or their equivalents elsewhere. There will be no graduate credit given for these courses. In addition, they must take a third semester of Latin, for which graduate credit will be granted.
- Students specializing in literature after 1800 may substitute another language for the elementary Latin requirement. Similarly, no graduate credit is granted for this coursework. Note: This language cannot be identical to the second Romance language or its substitute.
- Graduate students not pursuing a secondary PhD field will be allowed to take a maximum of four courses outside the department over their first two years; that is, an average of one course per term. Those students who choose to complete a secondary PhD field during the first two years in the program will not be allowed to take courses outside the department other than those taken for the secondary field. In keeping with this policy, secondary field students may not enroll for credit in courses cross-listed with Romance Languages and Literatures. Students pursuing secondary fields must take a minimum of twelve courses in Romance Languages and Literatures.
The First Year
Eight half-courses plus Latin or other language. (See above.)
Upon entering the graduate program, students are evaluated for proficiency in the oral and written use of the major Romance language. Those who require further linguistic training take additional language courses during the first year.
All students are examined at the end of their second term of study in the department. The results of this examination, as well as the student’s performance in courses taken during the first year, will be evaluated by the full section faculty. This evaluation determines whether further coursework will be required for the AM, and in exceptional cases, whether the student should continue in the program. The same examination determines what credit for previous graduate work in other universities the student may present to the registrar for approval. The department will consider accepting credit for a maximum of four half-courses completed at other institutions.
If the examining board so recommends, a student may take all or part of the first-year examination a second time (normally within one year of the first).
A grade of Incomplete (INC) must be converted into a letter grade before the end of the registration period following the one in which the course was taken. Otherwise, it will become permanent unless the student has successfully petitioned the GSAS Dean’s Office for an extension of time.
The Second Year
Eight half-courses, including any credit for graduate work done elsewhere, to be submitted to the registrar with departmental approval following the first year exam. The Department may approve up to four half-courses for credit from previous graduate institutions. Final decisions regarding outside credit rest with the registrar.
Students must make up Incomplete grades in required courses before sitting for general examinations. The department faculty strongly discourages students from taking an Incomplete in a course. The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures adheres strictly to the policies established by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and outlined elsewhere in this handbook, regarding unfinished coursework.
Graduate students in Romance Languages and Literatures may commit to writing a maximum of three article-length research papers per term. Students assigned such papers in 100-level courses should petition for an alternate assignment, such as an examination, a series of smaller papers, etc. Students should consult the Graduate Coordinator regarding administrative procedures for this.
Master of Arts (AM)
Normally, students do not enroll in the graduate program for the sole purpose of obtaining a master’s degree, and there is no AM program separate from the PhD. However, faculty may decide to confer a terminal AM on students who will not be completing requirements for the PhD. Upon fulfilling the AM requirements, students should submit an application for the master’s degree, which is not conferred automatically.
To be eligible for the AM degree, students must complete one year of residency, eight half-courses, the Latin requirement (or other relevant language), and the first-year examination, as described in the First-Year section.
Successful completion of all AM academic requirements is a prerequisite for the PhD program.
Students who have not met all the academic requirements for the AM degree may not hold appointments as teaching fellows.
Teaching
Teaching is guaranteed to graduate students in their third and fourth years provided they have met the necessary requirements. Possible teaching assignments include a section of an undergraduate language course or a discussion section of a literature course taught by a professor. Teaching opportunities in the Core program and in other departments may sometimes be available as well. Harvard provides its teaching fellows with state-of-the-art classroom resources, a training program, and feedback from permanent faculty members. Such ample teaching opportunities reflect a departmental philosophy of preparing strong candidates for the academic job market. Linguistics 200, to be taken at the beginning of the first year of teaching, is a requirement for all graduate students but does not count as one of the sixteen courses toward the doctorate. Graduate students with previous teaching experience who have already taken a course in pedagogy through another graduate degree program may petition to be exempt from Linguistics 200. To do so, they must submit a dossier including the syllabus, and papers or projects completed for the course. After considering the dossier, the Director of Language Programs and the DGS will choose one of three options: a) exemption from the Linguistics 200 requirement; b) completion of some of the work for the course as an independent project in addition to the sixteen courses required for the PhD; or c) enrollment in Linguistics 200.
Advising
While specific procedures may vary from section to section, the general procedure for advising is as follows:
- In the first year of graduate study, all students are assigned a faculty advisor in their stated specialty.
- This faculty advisor may work with the student until the end of their general examinations, and beyond.
- However, a student may change advisors at any point through a formal application process, provided the student obtains the agreement of the newly selected advisor.
- After the PhD general examination, the dissertation director serves as the student’s advisor, in consultation with the other members of the dissertation committee.
- Conflicts between a student and his or her advisor are ordinarily resolved through discussion with the DGS or the department chair.
PhD General Examinations
Students must complete the general exam by the end of the third year of graduate studies.
The PhD general examination consists of both written and oral parts. A substantial part of the general exam is to be administered in the target language. In the case of unsatisfactory performance, the student may, if the examining board so recommends, take all or part of the PhD examination a second time (normally within six months of the first). Failure to perform satisfactorily on a second attempt will result in automatic withdrawal from the graduate program.
French and Francophone literatures and Italian literatures. Through a combination of coursework, seminars, and individual study, candidates are expected to acquire a general familiarity with the major figures, works, and trends in the history of French and Francophone or Italian literature from the earliest texts to the present day. This competence is tested in the general examination.
Hispanic literatures. All graduate students are expected to demonstrate basic knowledge in six different areas of Hispanic literary culture, understood amply*: 1) Medieval Spanish; 2) Golden Age Spanish; 3) Modern Peninsular (18th-21st centuries); 4) Colonial Latin American; 5) 19th century Latin American; 6) Contemporary Latin American. To that end, students will complete written and oral examinations in at least three of the areas (divided into one major and at least two minor areas). Students may satisfy the three remaining areas by substituting pertinent graduate-level courses in Spanish for the exams. Any course in Spanish at the 200-level may be counted as a substitution, pending the approval of the instructor. The course needs to treat a subject in direct relation to the area in order to be deemed an appropriate substitute. In exceptional cases, and with the approval of the course head in consultation with the head of the Spanish section and the DGS, a course in Spanish at the 100-level may be counted as a substitution.
For each minor field exam, students prepare a reading list of no more than twenty works: a minimum of ten literary texts and up to ten more items, which could include works of criticism, theory, films, paintings, photographs, architecture, etc. For major field exams, the reading list should not exceed eighty works: a minimum of fifty literary works and up to thirty more items, which, again, could include works of criticism, theory, films, paintings, photographs, architecture, etc. While creating their reading lists for both the minor and major field exams, students, with guidance from their committee, will draft two or three questions. For the major field exam, one of the questions should be related to the dissertation topic. The written portions of the major and minor field exams are both to be completed on a take home basis within 48 hours of receipt.
Hispanic literature with a minor in Portuguese. Candidates for a degree in this specialty must prove oral and written proficiency in the Portuguese language. They must complete a minimum of eighteen half-courses (instead of the standard sixteen). These are to be distributed as follows: fourteen courses in or related to Spanish literature, including the required course of history of the language; four courses in Portuguese. At least two of those four should be graduate seminars (200-level); the other two may be advanced undergraduate courses (100-level). Candidates are required to complete a general reading list of twenty-four Portuguese texts. Reading lists of Hispanic texts will remain the same for all students. The general examination will include an additional two-hour component of Portuguese. The dissertation topic must address significant issues from both Hispanic and Portuguese literature.
Other programs in one Romance literature with a minor in a second may be arranged in consultation with the DGS and advisors in both languages, generally following the model of the Portuguese minor.
Portuguese and Brazilian literatures. Candidates for this degree are expected to acquire a detailed knowledge of four fields: Medieval and Renaissance Portuguese literatures; Colonial Brazilian literature; Portuguese literature from the eighteenth century to the present; Contemporary Brazilian literature.
Students specialize in one of the above fields.
Competence in the chosen field of specialization and in two other selected fields will be tested in the general examination. Requirements for the fourth field can be met by taking one course in this field before the examination.
Students of Portuguese and Brazilian literatures are required to complete one half-course at the 100- or 200-level in Spanish, in addition to the required course in the literature of a second language.
Dual Track in Romance Languages and Literatures
The Program
The Dual Track in Romance Languages offers highly-qualified students a PhD in two Romance languages and literatures, exploring the two fields more in depth than a major/minor program allows them to do. Students pursuing the Dual Track should have equal command of the two languages and literatures, and have a sufficiently clear idea of their fields of interest to design an appropriate, consistent, and feasible individualized course of study that explores various intellectual paths and establishes links across languages. Criteria for admission include language proficiency and strong cultural and literary foundations in each of the languages and literatures chosen. Candidates must explain their intellectual reasons for combining two languages and define the areas of interests they wish to explore in their course of study. Current single-track students may switch to the Dual Track upon approval of the section head of each of the two languages they wish to combine, and of the Director of Graduate Studies. The same criteria used for external candidates apply to current students (proficiency, foundation, and an intellectual focus). Conversely, a student admitted in the Dual Track may switch to a single track if it appears that this is not the best plan of graduate study for him or her.
REQUIRED COURSES
1. Eighteen courses (that is, two more than in the single track), to be completed in two years. The course distribution between the two languages should be fairly balanced, e.g.: 9:9 or 8:10, and may include Romance Studies courses. (It must include Romance Studies 201.) Students may take a maximum of two courses outside of the Department.
2. Students must satisfy mandatory course requirements in each of their two languages.
ADVISING
Each dual-track student has one faculty advisor in each language. Advisors are designated prior to enrollment, according to the student's chosen field and stated interests. Students may change advisors later on after discussion with their respective section head. Advisors are in charge of supervising the plan of studies and of organizing the General Examinations.
EXAMINATIONS
First Year Examinations
At the end of their first year, dual-track students take the usual first-year examination in each of their languages.
General Examinations (Effective Fall, 2011)
1. Reading Lists
List A: Literary Canon. A list of major works from the whole historical range of each literature (approximately 100 works; 50 from each literature.) The list will be established following each section's specifications and with the help of the advisors.
List B: Area of specialization. A list of approximately 50 texts that relate to the student's specific area of interest (be it period, theme or genre) in both fields, plus 10 to 20 theoretical and critical works that are highly pertinent to this special area.
Lists A and B should not duplicate one another.
2. Structure and Timeline:
The exam will be carried out in two sessions and is to be completed no later than the end of exam period in the Spring of the 3rd year.
a. Session 1 General Knowledge (100 texts total)
Time: Students will take two separate examinations (one in each field), preferably during the fall term of their third year. If one exam is set in the spring term, it must be at least one month before the examination of session 2.
Content: The materials on List A. (Students should be able to deploy theoretical knowledge acquired from List B.)
Structure: Each section will structure its exam according to its own rules.
b. Session 2 Area of Specialization and Comparative Approach (120 texts total)
Time: To be taken at the end of the second semester of the 3rd year
Content: List B.
Committee: To include three professors, one from each of the two sections of the dual track. The third may come from within Romance languages and Literatures or from outside the department.
Structure: This will be an oral examination, to be completed in around 3 hours and with three parts (order to be determined). Two parts (30 – 45 mins/part) will be in each of the target languages, testing the readings of List B and the student's (broad) area of specialization. The third part of the examination (1 hour) will be conducted in English. The student will prepare, based on the extensive bibliography of List B, a conference-style paper that will be delivered to the committee. The paper will bring together the two tracks and treat a topic that is related to a more specific area of interest within the student's field of specialization (this could be related to the student's dissertation topic, though is by no means limited to it). A discussion based on the paper as well as the books on list B will follow.
DISSERTATION
The dissertation should be deeply informed by issues pertinent to both literatures.
Double Doctorate in Italian Studies and Renaissance Culture
This program, introduced in 2009, allows students to complete both a doctorate in Italian Studies at Harvard University and a doctorate in Renaissance Culture at the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento (INSR) in Florence, Italy, within a period of five to six years. After successful dissertation defense, Harvard awards students a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures, while the INSR grants a “Diploma di perfezionamento in civiltà dell’Umanesimo e del Rinascimento.” The INSR Diploma is legally equivalent to a doctorate awarded by an Italian university.
Dissertation
A student chooses a topic for the dissertation in consultation with the advisor. Normally, the dissertation must be completed by the end of the seventh year of graduate studies.
Students have six weeks following formal written notification of their general examination grade in which to constitute their dissertation committee. In order to maintain eligibility for dissertation research fellowships at GSAS and elsewhere, students must obtain prospectus approval within six months of the date on which they receive notice of a passing generals grade.
Ordinarily, two members of the committee represent the student’s major language and field; a third may come from another language or discipline.
Two of the committee members must come from Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Visiting Professors with renewable appointments may serve on dissertation committees, but may not chair them. Note: The Dissertation Acceptance Certificate must be signed by no fewer than three dissertation readers.
A student who has not met degree requirements by established deadlines may, with departmental endorsement, be granted an extension for up to one year with the status of “grace” and remain eligible for financial aid during that period. At the end of the grace period, the student must have rectified the deficiency and be in compliance with all other established criteria in order to be considered making satisfactory progress. Ordinarily, only one such period of grace will be granted a student during graduate studies. Further extensions may be granted in exceptional cases, after thorough consideration of individual circumstances.
The dissertation may be written in English or in the appropriate Romance language. The final manuscript must conform to the requirements described in The Form of the PhD Dissertation. PhD candidates are required to make a public oral presentation of the dissertation, followed by a question-and-answer period, before filing it with the registrar.
Dual Track dissertation should be deeply informed by issues pertinent to both literatures.
Please see the description of a secondary field in Romance Languages and Literatures at the end of Chapter 6.