Our Ph.D. students complete their coursework in their first year, selecting from a wide array of graduate-only seminars focused on diverse regional and thematic topics. All Ph.D. students take a mandatory course that offers an opportunity to engage in lively debates about field-defining and cutting-edge scholarship, to learn about the historian鈥檚 craft, and to participate in workshops on research, writing, and publishing. Students focus on defining and planning their own research early in the second year and present their research proposals for approval to their committee members, who remain involved in their projects over the four to five years it takes our students to complete their degrees. Several of our past doctoral students hold academic appointments in universities, prestigious post-doctoral fellowships, and museums and archives in Canada and around the world. Others seek out careers in government, media, education and business. Many of our PhD students publish their theses as highly-regarded books. We strive to provide our graduate students with training in research and writing that enables them to excel in these multiple career paths.
Degree Completion Requirements
Doctoral candidates in History must satisfy requirements in the following areas:
- Two session length courses and required course (Hist 901), taken in the Fall/Winter terms of the first year of the programme
- Field requirements (1 major and 2 minor - one minor field is normally carried over from the MA degree)
- Thesis proposal and qualifying exam
- Defence of a doctoral dissertation
- Reading proficiency in a second language
Course Work
The purpose of the course work in the candidate's major field is to introduce the candidate to the major historical writings and debates in the area covered, prepare them to teach and undertake original research in that area, and provide a context for the broad-ranging historiographical and interpretative portion of their thesis proposal. The purpose of the course work in the minor is to add breadth to the candidate's training, either to strengthen and widen the framework for the dissertation, to prepare for future teaching or to broaden knowledge of methodology and historiography.
At the time of pre-registration in the summer, after consulting with the thesis supervisor and Graduate Chair, students shall provide the Graduate Office with a list of their intended seminars. Upon arrival in September, they shall obtain the approval of their instructors, potential thesis supervisor, and the Graduate Chair for their entire programme (courses and major and minor fields). Normally the thesis is written in a major field. Students are encouraged to take graduate courses from a range of faculty members. No member of the faculty shall be responsible for more than two one-term graduate seminars or graded readings courses (for a total of 1.0) in a candidate鈥檚 Ph.D. programme. A minimum final grade of B+ (3.3) in all primary courses is required. Failure to fulfil this requirement will result in the student being asked to withdraw from the programme.
Graded reading courses can be taken in exceptional circumstances and only if no existing graduate seminar in the field is offered. Request for a graded reading course requires approval by the Graduate Chair, the supervisor and the instructor of the reading course.
History 901
All doctoral students are required to take History 901. This seminar introduces Ph.D. candidates in the 皇冠体育's Department of History to a selection of theories and methods that have shaped the contemporary discipline of history. The purpose of the course is threefold:
- to expose doctoral students to an array of approaches to history and debates about the practice of history, which, it is hoped, will help them to situate their thesis work in broader theoretical and methodological contexts;
- to provide students with a foundational vocabulary and conceptual resources for the field of history;
- to encourage the development of intellectual community among the Ph.D. candidates. Toward these ends, course readings encompass a wide range of different theories, methods, and examples of historical scholarship drawn from the department's three major 鈥榗lusters' (Canada/North America; world; Europe). Individual weeks' readings will usually include one or two theoretical or methodological pieces alongside one or two examples of historical scholarship that incorporate the theory or method in question. This course is taught as a Pass/Fail graded course. All course assignments will be graded using the normal scale, but the final grade will be calculated as P or F, while expecting a rigorous and high standard of performance for a passing grade.
Royal Military College
Students may also take graduate courses offered at the Royal Military College. Offerings vary from year to year and interested students should consult both History departments well in advance. Note: Normally students taking courses at RMC must take, or must have taken, two other regular history courses in the 皇冠体育's History Department, either as part of a three-course M.A. program or as one of three Ph.D. courses. The cooperative 皇冠体育's/RMC programme permits students to take a course at either institution without payment of extra fees.
Instructors are asked to arrange their courses so that each student will have completed by mid-October sufficient written work to provide an objective standard upon which to judge his/her progress. The purpose of this regulation is to assist instructors and the department fellowships committee in the writing of references for scholarship applications which are usually due mid-October and also so that students may have an indication of their standing to date in each course.
All graduate instructors shall report to the Graduate Chair on the progress of students enrolled in their courses by the end of the first term of enrolment. The Graduate Committee may judge it appropriate to recommend to the School of Graduate Studies that a student withdraw, if it is thought that he/she is not capable of showing improvement in the second term.
Incomplete Work
The deadline for completion of incomplete work in any graduate course is 15 August of the year following initial registration in the course. Individual exceptions can be made to this rule only on the explicit permission of the Graduate Committee following appeal by the student to the Graduate Committee. If a student has not completed all requirements for a course the year following initial registration, then that student must sign a contract with his/her instructor that specifies exactly when those requirements are to be completed. A student may not register in the second or subsequent year of his/her graduate programme with an incomplete mark unless the Graduate Committee has ruled that an extension be granted.
Language Requirements
Ph.D. students are required to demonstrate proficiency in an additional language.
Students can choose in which language to satisfy this requirement but are expected to consult their supervisor(s) and to choose a language appropriate to their program of study. The test will consist of a passage of about 40-50 lines of a basic historical text to be translated into literary English in two hours, with the aid of a dictionary. The standard expected is that the translator must prove that he/she understands the passage for purposes of historical research, i.e. minor mistakes/infelicities will be tolerated (within reason), but major misunderstandings will not. This test is marked on a PASS/FAIL basis.
Normally a language examination is scheduled every November (a second language examination is normally offered in the spring), and all incoming PhD students