The PhD program in the Division of Art History prepares graduate students to advance the discipline through university-level teaching, curatorial work in museums, and academic scholarship. Our internationally recognized Art History faculty is committed to supporting and mentoring doctoral students in a wide range of areas, including Arts of Asia, Arts of the Americas, Medieval and Early Modern Art in Europe and the Mediterranean, and Modern and Contemporary Art in a Global Context.
Before entering the PhD program, students must have completed a master’s degree in art history. We typically enroll a cohort of two PhD students annually. Our doctoral students receive competitive recruitment packages offering five years of financial support through scholarships, fellowships, and teaching assistantships.
Degree Structure
The PhD program is designed to equip students with the intellectual tools and professional experience necessary to make substantial, original scholarly contributions to the discipline of Art History. Doctoral students must complete multiple years of coursework, demonstrate proficiency in two languages, and pass general examinations in three fields before advancing to candidacy for the doctoral degree. The latter stage of the program is devoted to dissertation research and writing. Throughout the degree program, students gain valuable pedagogical experience through Teaching Assistantships. Time to degree completion varies, from a minimum of five years to an average of eight years.
Degree Requirements
Coursework
Graduate students devote the first two to three years of the program to completing required coursework in Art History and other complementary disciplines. Coursework allows graduate students to deepen their knowledge in their area of specialization while also providing a solid foundation in art history’s methods, critical approaches, and various subfields. Typically, students enroll in 10-15 credits, equivalent to 1-3 courses, each quarter.
The program for the PhD degree in art history requires a minimum of 90 credits, including a minimum of 60 credits of graduate-level coursework beyond the master's degree.
At least 30 credits must be in graduate-level art history seminars or courses outside the division approved by the student’s primary advisor. A maximum of 20 credits in numerically graded upper-division non-art history courses may be approved.
Students must complete at least 10 credits in areas outside those to be tested by the General Examination. Additionally, a student must take at least 30 credits of ART H 800 (Dissertation) in at least three different quarters.
Language Proficiency
Across different fields of art historical specialization, languages are recognized as important research tools, offering access to sources and objects and enabling cultural and cross-cultural study, collaboration, and dialogue more broadly.
Graduate students are required to demonstrate proficiency in two languages; for fulfillment of the language requirement, we accept ancient, Indigenous, and modern languages.
The specific languages required for your course of study will be determined at the start of the program in consultation with your faculty supervisor and the Graduate Program Coordinator. In some cases, English may be an appropriate choice. In keeping with the aims and ideals of a globalizing discipline, a student’s first language is not a factor in determining the languages relevant to the course of study.
The language requirement may be satisfied by passing departmental examinations, by completing the third quarter of the second year of the language as a graduate student at UW with a minimum grade of 3.0, or by taking graduate-level coursework conducted in the target language with a minimum grade of 3.0.
For Indigenous languages, the method of instruction and assessment will be worked out on an individual basis depending on the availability of university or other institutional coursework and/or community-centered learning.
To ensure timely progress and to facilitate preparation for the General Examination, students are strongly encouraged to demonstrate proficiency in one of the two languages during their first year in the program and to fulfill the requirement for the second language by the end of their second year.
Art History Language Exam Protocol
Departmental language examinations are supervised and graded by faculty in the relevant research area or by faculty with particular expertise in the language in question. Exams last one hour and are evaluated as pass/fail, taking both speed and accuracy into account.
Students will have one hour to translate a 1-2 page excerpt from an art historical book or article, with the aid of a paper dictionary. The examiner and the student’s advisor should select a text of an appropriate length and difficulty, i.e., one that can be largely translated within an hour working at moderate speed. Students may use a word processor on a wifi-disabled computer to record the translation. If students cannot finish translating the entire text in the time available, they should read the remainder of the selected text and write a brief summary of their understanding of its principal contentions.
Failing grades reflect serious misunderstandings of the text, or a clear inability to translate effectively. Students who fail the examination may retake it with a different text at a time negotiated between the student, the examiner, the student’s advisor(s), and the GPC.
General Examination
All PhD students in the Division of Art History must pass a PhD General Examination to advance to candidacy. Each student completes three written exams, the areas of which the student and committee define in consultation, followed by one oral examination. One of the written exams can relate broadly to the student’s area of interest for the dissertation and another to the student’s more general field of study. The third should be based in another field, adjacent to or separate from the student’s field of specialization as determined most useful by the student and committee.
The product of a written exam may take various forms, but it must always be a well-structured, appropriately cited piece of writing that displays the student’s knowledge in a given field. The written exam could take the format of a traditional essay, or another format, such as a syllabus with rationale, decided in advance by the student and examining committee member. At least one of the three written exams must be in a traditional essay format.
General Examination Supervisory Committee Students prepare for their General Exams during a period of directed reading supervised by a supervisory committee that includes a minimum of three examiners and a Graduate School Representative. At least two of the examining faculty must come from Art History, and the third may be from Art History or another unit. Students are responsible for constituting their supervisory committee in consultation with their primary adviser.
Students must come up with a schedule for meeting with each examining faculty member, and obtain the faculty member’s approval on the schedule.
The student must meet with the examining faculty members to fill out a Student/Faculty Memorandum of Understanding and email a copy to the Graduate Program Coordinator and the student’s doctoral adviser(s), a minimum of eight weeks before the exam date.
The student must work with each examining faculty member to develop a reading list appropriate to the exam field. The reading lists must be finalized four weeks in advance of the written exam start date, with no items added or subtracted after that date.
Scheduling
Each written exam is scheduled separately in consultation with the examining faculty member, but the student should also work in concert with their primary adviser(s) to strategize about the overall schedule and how closely the exams are spaced. The final written exam must be completed at least two weeks before the oral exam.
General Examination Protocol
Barring special accommodations, the student will have a 72-hour window to complete each exam. The examining faculty member will send a written prompt to the student, the rest of the supervisory committee, and the Graduate Adviser on the School’s Advising team at the start of the 72-hour window. It should reflect the guidelines developed in the Student/Faculty MoU. The student will email the exam in a Word document format back to the same group of people at the end of the 72-hour window. Their work should reflect the guidelines developed in the Student/Faculty MoU.
The examining faculty member will read the exam within ten days to determine whether it is a pass. If they determine the exam is not a pass, they will contact the student’s doctoral adviser, the GPC, and the other committee members within that ten-day window.
Following the written exams, the student will meet with their entire supervisory committee at the scheduled time to conduct the oral exams. The oral exams provide an opportunity to discuss the writtens and also to discuss concepts and plans pertinent to the dissertation. This conversation is intended to help shape the student’s writing of their prospectus, which will be the next phase of work on the dissertation following a successful set of exams. Finally, the Graduate Adviser will file the status of the exams with the Graduate School.
General Examination Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Performance
In accordance with the Graduate School’s policies, a student must satisfactorily pass all qualifying examination questions in order to advance to candidacy. The supervisory committee may allow minor deficiencies to be corrected and decide what course of action to recommend to the Dean in case of poor performance. If a student fails one or more of these exams, they will be placed on probation, but will be permitted the opportunity to constitute a new committee and take a new set of exams. These would occur after an appropriate time for additional study, as agreed upon by the student’s advisor and committee in consultation with the Graduate Program Coordinator and the chair of Art History. The student would be bound by the schedule and terms stipulated by the Supervisory Committee and would ordinarily be expected to complete the new exams during the next quarter of enrollment. Specific dates and conditions for completion would be issued once the enrollment period is confirmed. Students are only permitted to retake exams one time. If a student fails these new exams, they will not be allowed to continue in the Art History program. Read Graduate School policies for general examinations and memo about academic performance and progress.
Candidacy
Following successful completion of the General Examination, and after all Graduate School requirements for the degree except the dissertation and Final Examination have been satisfied, the student will be admitted to formal candidacy for the doctoral degree.
Dissertation
The dissertation is the culminating product of the Art History PhD program. It represents a significant scholarly contribution to knowledge in the discipline and may take one or more years to complete.
Dissertation Supervisory Committee
After advancing to candidacy, students consult with their primary advisers to assemble a Dissertation Supervisory Committee. The Dissertation Supervisory Committee is comprised of a minimum of four members, who must include a minimum of two current members of the Art History graduate faculty (including the faculty advisor) and a Graduate School Representative. It may include the same members as the General Examination Supervisory Committee or may be slightly revised to accommodate fields of expertise necessary for the student’s dissertation work.
Dissertation Proposal
The Dissertation Supervisory Committee must approve the written dissertation proposal before a student may register for dissertation credits (Art H 800).
Dissertation Writing
Following the General Examination and after the Supervisory Committee has approved a written dissertation proposal, 30 credits of ART H 800 must be taken in preparation for and defense of the dissertation. This may necessitate registration in absentia for one or more quarters. It is the responsibility of the student to check with the Graduate School, the UW Libraries Copyright office, Proquest, and any other guidelines on fair use practices, permissions, and inclusion of images.
Final Examination/Oral Defense
A complete draft of the dissertation approved by the chair must be delivered to each member of the Supervisory Committee at least 30 days before the Final Examination date. The Final Examination will be oral and will cover the subject of the dissertation and the student’s research. Per UW Graduate School policy, student exams must have four committee members present — including the Chair, GSR and at least one graduate faculty member. If a member(s) needs to participate in an exam but cannot be physically present, the Graduate School allows for video conferences if certain requirements are met. If the Final Examination is satisfactory, the Supervising Committee must certify this to the Graduate School by the last day of the quarter in which the degree is to be conferred. The graduate student should arrange for electronic filing of the dissertation, including obtaining the warrant and receiving approval forms well in advance of the defense.
Satisfactory Progress Requirements
Students in the PhD Program in Art History must maintain satisfactory performance and progress toward completion of their degree program to continue graduate study and research at the University of Washington. Graduate students engage in quarterly progress reviews with their advisor and receive an annual progress evaluation from the art history faculty to ensure they continue to meet all UW Graduate School satisfactory progress requirements.