Ph.D. Programs

History of Art (M.A./Ph.D.)

The Department of History of Art offers a two-stage integrated master’s and doctoral program (MA/PhD) in preparation for college teaching, writing, and specialized curatorial careers. Students are not admitted to work for a terminal MA degree, though students may apply for the MA after meeting Stage I requirements toward the PhD. Students work closely with faculty in courses, seminars, and on independent research projects to develop independent thought and a thorough knowledge of the field and its critical methods. Cross-disciplinary work in Berkeley’s distinguished...

Medieval Studies (Concurrent Ph.D.)

The Committee on Medieval Studies offers a Concurrent Ph.D. in which candidates belong to a home department while also receiving training in the core disciplines of Medieval Studies. Applicants should apply to their intended home department (e.g. English) for admission to graduate study. Once accepted and enrolled in the home department, the student may then apply for admission to the Medieval Studies Concurrent Ph.D. program. The degree granted will be the Ph.D. in "X and Medieval Studies" (e.g. French and Medieval Studies, History and Medieval Studies, etc.)....

South and Southeast Asian Studies (Ph.D.)

This program offers emphases in the following languages and literatures: Burmese, Thai, Hindi, Urdu, Indonesian, Sanskrit, Tamil, Tibetan, and Khmer. Literature is understood in the widest sense to include not only creative writing and cultural expression in the various genres but also sources concerning religion, philosophy, history, and the fine and performing arts. The analysis of cultural expression is also understood to include attention to social, anthropological, economic, and political contexts.

Learn...

German (Ph.D.)

Our distinguished graduate program in German is both comprehensive and innovative, dedicated to German literature and linguistics, language and culture, but also to media, film, intellectual history, and theoretical approaches that reach beyond disciplinary boundaries.

We offer a broad range of research seminars that reflect the interests of our diverse faculty and most recent developments in the field. The topics of our courses range from Medieval literature to 21st century literature; from the...

French (Ph.D.)

The French Department’s doctoral program reflects the interdisciplinary priorities that have long defined the pursuit of knowledge here at Berkeley. We are committed not only to providing students strong coverage of the field of French and francophone literature and culture, but also to doing so through the critical application of innovative methodologies, and by continually bringing French studies into productive dialogue with developments in parallel disciplines. Our faculty’s interests are both historically and methodologically diverse; their strengths are complemented by a...

Film & Media (Ph.D.)

Students in the Film & Media Ph.D. are encouraged to situate moving images within the larger theoretical and analytical frameworks of a range of other disciplines. They integrate the traditions of History, Law, Literature, Religion and Political Theory to the newer disciplines of Film Studies and Digital Media, applying the tools of Post-Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, New Historicism, Frankfurt School, Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Post-Colonialism and Deconstruction. Many combine their degree study with a campus Designated Emphasis (graduate “minor”) in New Media, in Critical Theory...

English (Ph.D.)

The Berkeley English Department offers a wide-ranging Ph.D. program, engaging in all historical periods of British and American literature, Anglophone literature, and critical and cultural theory. The program aims to assure that students gain a broad knowledge of literature in English as well as the highly-developed skills in scholarship and criticism necessary to do solid and innovative work in their chosen specialized fields.

Please note that the department does not offer a Master’s Degree program or a degree program in Creative Writing. Students can, however...

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...