History Doctoral Programs in the United States and Canada

Alberta, Univ. of

Department Web Site

Areas of Specialization:

Europe, Britain, Canada, Asia, U.S.

Program Description

The Department of History Classics at the University of Alberta provides a wide coverage of history, ancient history, classical literature and classical archaeology, both geographically and topically. The general fields in the department at present are:
Classics: Ancient History; Classical Archaeology; and Classics Literature
History: Africa; Asia; Britain and British Empire; Canada; China; Humanities Computing; India; Islamic Studies; West Asia; Latin America; Medicine, North Africa, Science and Technology; Medieval History; Japan; Eastern Europe and Russia; Western Europe; United States; History of Religion; and Women's History.

Special Programs or Resources

The University of Alberta Libraries houses a collection of some ten million volumes in addition to microform and manuscript material for historical and philological research. The Library holdings and special collections in History are extremely strong. Some of the areas of major strength are America; Britain; Canada; China; Eastern Europe and Russian history; Modern Europe; Medieval and Early Modern Europe and Legal History. The Bruce Peel Special Collections Library contains many rare or expensive items, including numerous early editions of Classical texts. The Library holdings in Classics are notably strong in several important areas, including Greek and Latin authors, patristic texts, epigraphy, numismatics, Greek and Roman religion, the archaeology of Roman Italy, Italian topography, and Roman Africa.
The History and Classics Department has several travel grants to assist with archival research and conferences.

Financial Aid

The Department of History and Classics annually appoints a number of Graduate Research and Teaching Assistants at stipends from about $4,000 to about $16,000, for services requiring three to twelve hours per week for eight months of the year (this work usually consists of marking as a teaching assistant or serving a faculty member as a research assistant). Partial appointments on a prorated basis may also be made. At the time of application, prospective graduate students should indicate whether they wish to be considered for an assistantship, but no appointment will be offered to any student until the student is formally admitted to graduate studies.
PhD students are normally funded for four years, and it is the regular policy of the Department to grant a full assistantship to all PhD students who do not have external funding through scholarships, although students may decline such grants in part or full if circumstances dictate. For PhD students, renewal of assistantship from year to year depends on satisfactory academic progress.

Degree Requirements

Every student entering the PhD program is admitted initially as a Provisional Candidate. A Provisional Candidate must take and pass five or six senior level (*3) courses such as two methodological/theological/comparatives courses; prepare for comprehensive and candidacy examinations; submit a thesis proposal of ten to twenty double-spaced pages (including bibliography), based on some preliminary research.
Upon admission to formal candidacy, the student must register with the Department's Graduate Committee the subject of the thesis, as approved by the candidacy examining committee. The thesis, to be written under the direction of the student's supervisor, must represent the result of original historical research and constitute a genuine contribution to knowledge. In format, it must meet the standards laid down by the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. The text of the thesis should normally be between 250 and 400 pages in length.

University Information:

Department Demographics:

Faculty Mix:
	Full Professor	19
	Associate Professor	14
	Assistant Professor	4
	Instructor/Lecturer
	Joint Appointment	9
	Emeritus Faculty	26
	Part-time faculty	10

Relative Size based on Number of Full-time Faculty: [Explain]

Number of Graduate Students in Program (Fall 2005): 79
(Graduate student counts include those enrolled in terminal Master's degree program)

Proportion of Full-Time Graduate Students:

New Graduate Students Entering Program, Fall 2004: 20

Relative Size Based on Graduate Student Enrollment (2002–04): [Explain]

 

Other Information

     Current Dissertations in Progress

     PhDs Conferred by Department