As of 2006, the Standing Committee on the PhD in History and East Asian Languages is no longer accepting applications to the HEAL program. Interested students should please consult the entry for the PhD in History and East Asian Languages under the listing for the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations.

The First Two Years Courses

• A minimum of two years of full-time study (sixteen half-courses or equivalent) is required. Students working toward this degree are all required, at an early stage, to submit a plan showing the fields of study proposed by the students and their preparation in these fields.
• In history, each student must do honors work in two half-year seminars.

Language Requirement

• Credit for either 1) four full courses in Chinese language and two-and-one-half courses in Japanese, or 2) four full courses in Japanese and two-and-one-half courses in Chinese, or 3) their equivalent. In special circumstances and by special permission, other East Asian languages such as Korean, Mongolian, Manchu, or Vietnamese may be substituted for Chinese or Japanese.
• All language requirements must be satisfied at least one month before the general examination can be taken.

Advising

• When applying, students often make quite explicit statements regarding their research interests and the faculty with whom they wish to work. Based on this information, students are assigned an advisor with whom they consult from the point  of initial enrollment. The advisor must approve the student’s plans of study in the first four terms, and is often the chair of both the general examination and dissertation committees. Effecting a change of advisors typically involves conversations with both the new advisor and the original advisor. Once an agreement has been reached, the graduate coordinator should be informed.

General Examination

• The student must pass a two-hour oral general examination in at least three fields, ordinarily chosen from those listed among the requirements for the PhD in History (see “Higher Degrees in History”).
• One of these fields must be in Western history and one must be pre-modern history.
• In some cases, fulfilling these requirements may entail taking a fourth field.
• The student usually takes the general examination at the end of the second year, but no later than the end of the third year.

Dissertation

• The dissertation must be in a field of East Asian history and must demonstrate the candidate’s capacity to do original research work, utilizing one or more of the East Asian languages. This dissertation must be submitted in triplicate by September 1 for the degree in November, by December 1 for the degree in March, or by April 1 for the degree in June. The final manuscript must conform to the requirements described in The Form of the PhD Dissertation (www.gsas.harvard.edu/current_students/form_of_the_phd_dissertation.php).