Graduate Programs

Comparative Literature (Ph.D.)

Our graduate program is recognized as one of the leading Comparative Literature programs in the country. The Department is a vibrant place for the research and study of literatures and cultures in an interdisciplinary framework, from transnational and cross‐cultural perspectives. Our faculty and graduate students develop new historical and theoretical frameworks, and rethink those we have inherited, opening new perspectives on social and cultural forms and relations.

Comparative Literature provides students with tools for engaging, analyzing, and interpreting texts; and for writing...

Buddhist Studies (Ph.D.)

The Berkeley Group in Buddhist Studies offers an interdisciplinary program of study and research leading to a Ph.D. degree in Buddhist Studies. The Group, which cooperates closely with the Departments of South and Southeast Asian Studies (SSEAS), and of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC), emphasizes the study of Buddhism in its many forms within its Asian historical and cultural context.

The ability to read and analyze Buddhist texts in their original languages is an indispensable skill for research in the field. Accordingly, the study of classical Asian...

Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology (Ph.D.)

The Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology (AHMA) offers a PhD program for students committed to the study of the greater Mediterranean world in antiquity, from the North Atlantic to Central Asia, and from southern Central Europe to northern Africa. AHMA students work with literary, archaeological, epigraphic, papyrological, and numismatic evidence to advance our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean.

More than twenty faculty from a wide array of departments at UC Berkeley contribute to AHMA: Anthropology, Classics, History, History of Art, Middle...

Classical Archaeology (Ph.D.)

Students advancing from the MA Program may count any coursework completed in this program toward the satisfaction of any of the course requirements in the PhD Program (including courses that may satisfy the ancient language requirements and the methodology requirement) except for the required two archaeology seminars in the primary culture area and one required archaeology seminar in the secondary culture area. Students entering the PhD Program directly can petition the GA to accept equivalent courses completed at another institution towards the satisfaction of these same requirements....

Classics (Ph.D.)

The program of studies which leads to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics at Berkeley is designed to give a thorough preparation in the fundamentals of classical scholarship while encouraging the pursuit of intellectual enquiry and the development of original research according to the capacity and interests of the individual student. The examination and course requirements which every student must satisfy before being advanced to candidacy to write a dissertation are intended to ensure attainment, up to at least the minimum level essential for a Classical scholar, of specific...

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Designated Emphasis

The Designated Emphasis program was developed to accommodate some of the many students who conduct graduate-level research in gender and/or sexuality related topics on the Berkeley campus. Administered by the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies and its affiliated faculty, the DEWGS provides its students with certification as well as with a context for the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and development of research.

Applicants will be selected according to their academic qualifications, the appropriateness of their interests to the program’s teaching resources, and the...

Indigenous Language Revitalization Designated Emphasis

Graduate students in any Berkeley PhD program may apply to join the Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization, which is supervised by the Graduate Group in Indigenous Language Revitalization (and housed administratively in the Department of Linguistics). A Designated Emphasis(link is external) is like a graduate minor. For more information, see the following pages:

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European Studies Designated Emphasis

The Designated Emphasis (D.E.) in European Studies provides curricular and research resources for graduate students who want to concentrate on European Studies within their respective disciplines and have their work formally recognized in their degree designation. Launched in 2016 and administered by the Graduate Group in European Studies, in cooperation with the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES), the D.E. helps advance Berkeley’s position as one of the nation’s leading centers of European Studies, and facilitates graduate research in and cooperation with...

New Media Designated Emphasis

The Berkeley Center for New Media is a cross-disciplinary research and teaching program that offers its own graduate courses, recommends related courses, and encourages research collaborations to enhance the intellectual community of UC Berkeley scholars interested in new media.

BCNM’s Designated Emphasis (D.E.) program is for selected UC Berkeley Ph.D. students from any Berkeley home department with research interests in new media. It is supplemental to the Ph.D. program in the regular departments, and provides enhanced skills in analyzing and/or designing future media with an...

Study of Religion Designated Emphasis

The Designated Emphasis in the Study of Religion (DESR) supports graduate training in Religious Studies and in the Theory of the Study of Religion, promotes graduate research on topics related to religion, and brings together a cross-disciplinary faculty Group in the Study of Religion.

Recognizing that many Berkeley students across the Humanities and Social Sciences are already deeply engaged in the study of religious phenomena, the DESR creates a space where those students may come together and focus on the history and theory of how others have approached such phenomena. Since...