DEPARTMENT OF MODERN CULTURE AND MEDIA
I. Introduction
III. General Description
of Program
IV. Requirements
-Qualifying Review
and the M.A.
V. Financial
Support and Teaching
-Students Entering with an M.A.
VII. Graduate Student
Travel, Exchange Programs, and Leaves
-Graduate
Student Travel Support
-Traveling Scholar Status and Leaves of Absence
VIII. Facilities and
Offices, Contacts, Important Websites
Welcome to the Ph.D. program
in Modern Culture and Media. This handbook is intended to present a clear set
of guidelines and expectations for the program, to answer some of the most
frequently asked questions before they are asked, and to help students at all
stages plan their individual experience of the program effectively. However, no
such written guide can foresee every programmatic, administrative, or scholarly
detail that might arise. Furthermore, plans of study in the program are
individualized, and distinctive scholarly combinations are possible. So while
this handbook provides a framework, you will also find it useful to consult
actively and consistently and with your faculty advisor, department staff, and
fellow graduate students throughout your time in the program. More generally,
you are urged to engage in regular and collegial conversation with MCM faculty
and graduate students.
It is every student’s
responsibility to be aware of the contents of this handbook, and to consult it
from time to time when questions or problems arise, and/or when preparing for
the next stage of the program. Because MCM faculty and the profession itself
are continually changing, these guidelines may be revised on a regular basis.
When changes have been approved, they will be introduced as quickly as
possible.
Your principal
initial contacts at MCM are the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), the
Department Manager, Susan McNeil, and the Administrative Assistant, Liza
Hebert. Susan McNeil and Liza Hebert are in the Department office. Introduce
yourself to them when you arrive on campus. They will be helping you with the
administrative and bureaucratic niceties of being a graduate student during
your years here, and they know a lot about how the Department and the program
works.
Also, immediately
upon your arrival on campus, let the DGS know that you are in town and schedule
an appointment to discuss your program and any other matters of concern to you
at that point. The DGS will be an important person for you. In addition to
being your first academic advisor, the DGS chairs the department’s faculty
Graduate Committee, which oversees graduate program policy and may be the
decision-making body for any special questions or ambiguities affecting you.
During your time in MCM, the DGS may be involved with you on a number of
important matters, ranging from how you fulfill course and language
requirements to teaching assignments and the makeup of your Preliminary
Examination and dissertation committees.
The Department Graduate Committee is composed of MCM Faculty and one
graduate student representative.
For the 2007-08
academic year, the DGS is Professor Nancy Armstrong.
*Academic/Social: Every university is different, and MCM is a
distinctive program. It may also be that the resources here differ
significantly from those of your undergraduate or M.A.-granting institution. As
you will see below,
you will take 6 of the required 13 courses your first year in the program, and
by the end of the second year (or earlier for those arriving with an M.A.) you
already have to begin thinking about a Preliminary Examination Committee. You
should use your first year as an opportunity to get to know the modes of research
and criticism on offer in MCM, as well as the individual faculty members
practicing them. The best way to do that is to take courses from a variety of
MCM faculty. You may also find that graduate work requires you to change ways
of reading texts, kinds of writing, and the research methods with which you are
already familiar. Consider what kinds of scholarship available in the
Department are especially pertinent to your interests, but also be on the
lookout for unexpected directions that enrich your original concerns.
In early September,
MCM throws a fall party to celebrate the beginning of the new academic year.
You are strongly encouraged to use this and any other opportunity to become
acquainted with faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate students in the
Department. More generally, a truism of doctoral education is that social
scholarship – informal discussion and collaboration with one’s fellow
graduate students – makes a central contribution. Enjoy and benefit from
the presence of your peers.
*General Note on
Courses and “Shopping”: The
approximately two-week-long period between the beginning of classes and the
deadline for course registration without a late fee each term (see the Academic
Calendar) is known colloquially at Brown as the “shopping period.”
Traditionally during this period, many Brown students sample a variety of
courses before making a final decision about which ones they (agreement with
“Brown Students”) will commit to for the semester. This can be a useful process
for you, but there are some things to keep in mind. Though faculty members sometimes adjust their syllabi to
account for early-term shoppers, be somewhat cautious about shopping, as
keeping current with extra upper-level classes can be overwhelming, even for the
short, two-week shopping period.
Also, be sure to register for your full load of classes before the
shopping period. Faculty are under
no obligation to enroll shoppers, and many courses are overenrolled in
pre-registration. If you decide to
change a course and the professor agrees to allow you into the class, you can
then change your schedule easily through the standard drop-add process. Finally, discuss any course
changes with your advisor, the DGS, before finalizing them. Brown has a new on-line course
registration system called Banner. You will now use the on-line banner system
to register for courses (http://brown.edu/web/intranet/banner/)
The Graduate
Student Council (GSC) is the primary political and social voice of
graduate students from all departments. The GSC holds various activities and
social events throughout the academic year and the summer.
While Brown is a
lively and active community, Providence itself also has a thriving local arts,
film, and music scene. You are encouraged to explore events and facilities
outside of the Brown community, for example at the Rhode Island School
of Design (RISD), and at local concert, cinema, and gallery spaces
such as AS220
(115 Empire St.), Tazza (250 Westminster St., downtown), the Avon Cinema
(260 Thayer St.), and the Cable Car Cinema and Café (204 S. Main St.)
among others. The Providence Phoenix publishes listings in
the manner of the Village Voice.
Boston, New York, and
Newport, RI are also easily accessible by various forms of public
transportation. See the Massachusetts
Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), Bonanza Bus
Lines, Greyhound,
Amtrak,
and the Rhode
Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) for details.
*Housing: The Brown Office of Rental Facilities maintains
a list of housing opportunities both on and off campus. Other good sources for
housing include the Brown Daily Jolt Housing Forum, Craigslist
Providence, The Providence Journal’s Classifieds Section,
the Providence Phoenix’s Classifieds Section, the Brown
Graduate Student ListServ (subscribe here)
and postings at local cafés such as the Cable Car Cinema and Café (204 S. Main St.),
The Edge (201 Wayland Ave.) on Providence’s East Side, and White Electric
Coffee (711 Westminster St.) on the West Side. The rental market in Providence
can be a challenging one, and choosing among the city’s many diverse
neighborhoods can be difficult. Other graduate students and some faculty can
provide you with useful advice.
The Department of Modern
Culture and Media (MCM) is concerned with the study of media of technical reproduction
whose historical appearance has characterized modernity – film, video,
digital media, photography, sound, and print insofar as it is connected to mass
dissemination. These are not understood in a narrow sense, for a departmental
premise is the centrality of media to all modern and contemporary cultural
practices. Thus, in MCM “media” are conceived in conjunction with modern
cultural and social histories and networks, and vice-versa. The Department is further committed to a
range of modern and contemporary cultural, social and textual theories that
bear on cultural production and reception and their histories.
The Department offers a
graduate program in Modern Culture and Media, which is the main concern of this
handbook. Our graduate program is a Ph.D. program. Doctoral candidates who do not enter the program with an
M.A. earn one on their way to the Ph.D. There is no stand-alone, terminal M.A.
program for those applying to the program from other universities.
The Ph.D. in Modern Culture
and Media is aimed at: (1) Preparing students to engage in rigorous scholarship
and teaching in the theory, history, and critical analysis of one of more
media, in ways that encompass diverse cultural contexts, practices, and
historical periods, within a methodological framework that includes awareness
of modern textual, cultural, and social theory; (2) Preparing students to seek
academic positions in a market that increasingly offers positions to media and
culture specialists both in identifiable media disciplinary units (e.g., Film
Studies, Television Studies, Media Studies, etc.); in units with newer labels
such as Cultural Studies, Visual Studies, Comparative Media, New Media, and so
forth; and also in other kinds of programs which may have expanded concerns
(e.g., certain English, Foreign Language, and Comparative Literature
Departments).
Click here for the Mission
Statement of the Department.
There are three major stages
to your work in the program: 1) Preparation for Candidacy, which includes
Coursework, the Qualifying Review and fulfilling the Foreign Language
Requirement; 2) Advancement to Candidacy, which includes the Preliminary
Examination and writing an approved Dissertation Proposal; and 3) Writing the
dissertation in completion of the degree.
1. At least 13 courses taken while a graduate student
are required of doctoral students. One media production course may count toward
this total. Plans of study are individualized. You will choose courses in
consultation with your DGS, based on your scholarly and teaching interests. At
Brown, 2000-level courses are designated
as graduate courses, while 1000-level
courses are designated as upper-level undergraduate courses that may also be
taken for graduate credit. Courses numbered below 1000 may not count for
graduate credit or towards the degree. It is also possible to organize
individual and group independent study projects with MCM faculty, but of course
this depends on the availability of individual faculty, the constraints on
their time, and their interests. The rubric MCM 2980: Independent Reading
and Research in Modern Culture and Media
is reserved for such projects.
2. Students entering the program with a B.A. in hand
normally take 6 courses in the first year, 4 courses in the second year, and 3
courses in the third year. Students entering the program with an M.A. take
courses at the same rate as those entering with a B.A. However, after arriving
on campus such students may apply to accelerate their coursework. In such cases
they may complete their coursework as early as the end of the fourth semester.
3. Among these 13 courses, students are required to
take at least one graduate level
course (i.e., course number 2000 or higher) offered by MCM in each of the following three areas:
*Theory
(a course in theories of textuality,
subjectivity, culture, the social and/or a specific medium in relation to any
of these.) Normally fulfilled by one of the following: MCM 2100, MCM 2110, MCM
2120.
*Textual
Analysis (a course that addresses a
single medium or genre conceived as a textual object, a mode of cultural production,
or a form.) Normally fulfilled by one of the following: MCM 2300, MCM 2310.
*Historical/Cultural
Locations (a course that assists
students in understanding how the production, circulation, and reception of
media forms operate within and across specific social contexts, periods,
geocultural sites, and/or communities.) Normally fulfilled by one of the
following: MCM 2500, MCM 2510.
First year students will
receive an evaluation of their work from the DGS after their first and second
semesters. All other students will receive an annual evaluation of their
progress toward the degree.
Upon
successful completion of 8 courses (6 for those entering with an M.A.),
students will be subject to a qualifying review, administered by a Qualifying
Review Committee of three faculty on the Department Graduate Committee. The Qualifying Review Committee is
formed by the Director of Graduate Studies. It will consist of the Director of Graduate Studies, one
Graduate Committee member with research and/or teaching specialities overlap
with those of the students, and one Graduate Committee member with other
research and/or teaching specialities.
The Qualifying Reivew Committee will review the student's progress,
reports by instructors, and a sample of work submitted by the student (normally
a seminar paper). It will then meet with the student for 90 minutes, which will
give the student the opportunity to communicate with the committee.
The
substance of this meeting will be both retrospective and prospective:
retrospective in that the meeting will include discussion of your work at Brown
to this point and how you see yourself in the program, and prospective in that
it will include discussion of your future directions. The latter will include
discussions of possibilities for the establishment of Preliminary Examination
fields.
The Qualifying Review
Committee will then make one of the following decisions for students who
entered the program with a B.A.:
(a) award of an M.A. and a determination that the student may proceed
towards advanced candidacy; or (b) award of a terminal M.A.
Students
are required to demonstrate reading and research competency in one foreign language. Additional languages may be required
of individual students based on their research interests. This requirement may
be met by one of the following methods:
1)
Passing a translation exam
administered by MCM faculty or qualified faculty in other departments.
2) Earning a grade of B or better in a 1000-level or
higher course offered by a foreign language department, for which the professor
attests that teaching and reading assignments were preponderantly in that
language. (This course will count towards the 13 required courses only if its
content coheres with the student’s scholarly interests.)
3) Passing a graduate level reading course offered by a
Foreign Language Department.
Summer Foreign
Language reading courses are offered by Brown for graduate students. You should
satisfy the foreign language requirement as early as possible in your program.
In no case will a student be allowed to take the Preliminary Exam without
satisfying this requirement.
A
minimum of two years of teaching experience is also required for the degree.
See the section on teaching
below.
Virtually
all doctoral programs require some form of a general examination after the
completion of a student’s coursework. This is the point of the Preliminary
Examination. It is a culminating moment in your studies. It asks you to
demonstrate conceptual as well as bibliographical control over a range of
scholarly interests and areas in which you plan to research and teach. In the
lead-up to the exam, you help to identify those areas. In that sense, it is a
moment where you formulate an intellectual self-definition.
Students
entering the program with a B.A. normally take the Preliminary Examination at the end of the sixth semester,
and students entering the program with an M.A. usually take it at the end of
the fourth semester. Successful completion of this exam authorizes the
candidate to proceed with the dissertation proposal.
It
is important not to delay arrangements and preparations for the Preliminary
Examination. Since plans of study are individualized in MCM, much of the
responsibility for this devolves upon the student. You should begin thinking
about Preliminary exam areas before taking your Qualifying Review. As soon as
possible after the Qualifying Review, you should establish a faculty exam committee
and start working on these areas with its members, beginning with fine-tuning
definitions of the fields and finalizing bibliography.
Note
that all course requirements, the Foreign Language requirement, and of course
the Qualifying Review must be successfully completed before the Preliminary
Examination may be taken.
There are three phases to
preparation and completion of the exam:
(1) Defining the exam fields and constituting a Preliminary Examination
committee; (2) Preparing and providing materials for the exam in consultation
with the committee; and (3) Taking the exam.
1.
Defining the fields and constituting a committee: By the
end of the second year for those entering the program with a B.A. or the end of
the first year for those entering with an M.A., you will have to define three
fields for the preliminary exam in consultation with an advisor. You will also
constitute a committee of at least three faculty members, all of whom must be
MCM or MCM-affiliated, and designate a chairperson of the committee. It is the
student's responsibility to approach prospective faculty and ask if they are
willing to serve on the committee. It is also the student’s responsibility to
make arrangements to work with committee members to prepare for the exam.
Taken together, the fields should
delimit academic area(s) in which the student is preparing to teach, as well
the scholarly context(s) for the student's projected research. The configuration of the fields for all
students will be as follows:
*Field 1: in the history and theory of a medium.
*Field
2: in modern cultural theory.
*Field
3: an elective field which is designed to provide a comparative
perspective.
2.
Materials provided by the student: Before
the Preliminary Exam, the student will produce:
*Three
Field Lists, one for each field, of approximately 40 key scholarly books, or the
equivalent composed of articles and chapters. In addition, the core
bibliographies of Fields 1 and 3 will include a comparable body of pertinent
media texts. All of these texts will be chosen in consultation with committee
members and the final lists must be approved by the committee chairperson.
*A Fields
Essay of 20-25 pages, written in
consultation with the committee. This essay should articulate a broad but
knowledgeable understanding of the scholarly area(s) in which the student plans
to teach and write. It should explain the coherence and/or the conjunctions of
the three fields as a focus in relation to established academic fields. It
should be specific about the materials that constitute that coherence
generically and historically. It should indicate key current arguments and
problematics that structure scholarly debate in that area. It should broadly
indicate the kinds of research questions and scholarly discussions in which the
student is preparing to intervene. In sum, this essay constitutes a kind of
intellectual and professional self-definition at the conclusion of your
coursework and as you look forward to your first large-scale scholarly work,
the dissertation.
A
file of Field Lists and Fields Essays from previous Preliminary Examinations is
kept in the MCM Department office. It is available for you to consult as you
prepare for your exam.
3.
The Exam: The Preliminary Examination
is a 3-hour oral exam. It begins
from and circulates around, but is not limited to, the Fields Essay and the
core field bibliographies. It will probe the student's understanding of his or
her fields and debates within them. The purpose of the exam will be to
establish both the breadth and the depth of the students' competence and
knowledgeability in areas where she or he plans to teach and do research. Upon
completion of the exam, the committee will come to one of the following
determinations: (a) Pass; or (b)
directed to retake the exam. Students may retake the exam once.
After passing the
preliminary examination, the candidate proceeds to the dissertation proposal.
She or he forms a dissertation committee,
produces a dissertation proposal, en route to writing the dissertation and
finishing the degree.
It
is the student's responsibility to approach prospective faculty and ask if they
are willing to serve on the committee.
When the candidate constitutes a dissertation committee, she or he
designates one committee member as the dissertation director. The dissertation committee normally
consists of three faculty, at least two of whom must be MCM or MCM-affiliated
faculty. (In some cases, a candidate may request an additional faculty member
– even, in exceptional cases, one from another university – when it
is necessary to cover unusual interests or fields pertinent to the
dissertation.) The dissertation committee is often the same as the Preliminary
Examination committee, but this is not required.
The candidate then
writes a dissertation proposal in consultation with committee members. The
dissertation proposal will indicate the problem(s) or issue(s) as well as the
objects of study of concern of the work, the scholarly context and bibliography
within which it positions itself, and the organization and structure of the
study.
The dissertation is
generally a book-length study. It
must be an original contribution to its fields of concern and meet the highest
standards of scholarly competence.
Even if you have a firm idea about your dissertation topic, do not
assume that you can write the proposal quickly and gain fast approval of your
committee. This is probably the first time you have worked on a project of this
scale, and your committee will want to ensure that your proposal has
intellectual and scholarly depth, range, and significance. It will also be concerned that your
conception of the project is practical and doable in a reasonable amount of
time.
When
the candidate and the dissertation director believe the proposal is ready, the
committee will hold a dissertation proposal meeting with the candidate. The
committee will either approve the proposal or recommend revisions. A file copy
of the final approved proposal, with a cover sheet signed by all members of the
committee, will be provided by the student to the Director of Graduate Studies.
(A file of previous dissertation proposals is kept in the MCM Department
office. It is available for you to consult.)
During work on the
dissertation, continued regular consultation with committee members is highly
advisable. It is especially crucial that the candidate keep the dissertation director
informed of the state of the work. MCM does not require a formal dissertation
defense, so all committee members must independently approve the final draft in
order to complete the degree.
The candidate should
be conversant with Graduate School guidelines for dissertations. These include
regulations governing the format of the final draft as well as administrative
matters that are the responsibility of the candidate. See the Graduate School’s page of rules and regulations
for details.
The
Department only admits doctoral students it can support. While decisions about
who to support are those of the Department, the funding actually comes from the
Graduate School. Therefore, Graduate School regulations and budgeting govern
the administration of this support.
MCM doctoral students
are typically awarded a five-year financial support package that consists of a
first-year fellowship including tuition and a September-May living stipend
(with no teaching responsibilities), followed by four years of teaching
assistantships, which includes tuition and September-May stipend (for the
Graduate School’s explanation of the relation of graduate student support to
tuition requirements, click here). Sometimes candidates do not finish
the dissertation until the sixth year. When they need it, the Department will
seek support for sixth-year students from the Graduate School. To strengthen
their case for sixth year funding, graduate students must demonstrate that they
are making steady progress in completing the dissertation. The Graduate School
will also look favorably upon the applications of those who have sought and
received outside funding.
In
addition to the first year fellowship and teaching assistantships, advanced
graduate students are eligible for dissertation fellowships, which include
tuition and stipend for one or two semesters while working on the dissertation.
Formally speaking, dissertation fellowships are granted by the Graduate School.
However, application is made to the Department, and then the Department makes a
recommendation for the funding to the Graduate School. No one is eligible
for a dissertation fellowship until his or her dissertation proposal is
approved. This will require some
foresight and planning on your part since applications for dissertation
fellowships are due to the Department at the beginning of the second semester
of the academic year preceding the year for which you are applying. In order to
be considered for a dissertation fellowship in their fifth year, graduate
students must submit a dissertation proposal by February 15 of their fourth
year (eighth semester.)
Graduate
students may also apply for proctorships and fellowships offered by various
units within the University, but in most cases it is advisable to gain support
from MCM whenever it is available.
The Graduate School
encourages candidates who have possible sources of support from outside the
university. Those who come with outside support or who attain it while at Brown
must make the Department and Graduate School aware of it. It may result in
modification of the terms of funding from the Graduate School; however, you
should end up better off than when you started. It is the policy of the Graduate School that the candidate
should not be penalized for obtaining outside support. See the Director of
Graduate Studies if any of this pertains to your situation.
Graduate Students are
also entitled to various forms of travel support for research and conferences.
Click here
for more information.
Many
graduate students are awarded three years of summer funding as part of the
letter offering admission. This summer support may be used at any point during
your funded career at Brown.
Teaching is considered a vital part of doctoral
education in this program. Experiences of candidates in MCM as well as formal
studies conducted across the university by the Graduate School suggest that
teaching is an important component of intellectual development and personal
satisfaction for Brown graduate students. It is also of benefit on the academic
job market.
A
minimum of two years’ teaching is required for the degree. In practice, most
financial aid packages involve more teaching than this. Normally, doctoral
students do not teach during their 1st year. They usually serve as
teaching assistants during their 2nd and 3rd years. In subsequent
years, much of their support is also likely to take the form of teaching assistantships, depending on
the type of funding made available to students and the Department by the
Graduate School. The Department tries to provide opportunities for candidates to
teach in areas related to their specific interests, but the need to cover
courses or broaden the graduate student's teaching experience may affect
assignments.
Many
of the teaching assistantships are
in undergraduate core courses. These include MCM 0100: Screens and
Projections: Modern Media Cultures, MCM 0150: Text/Media/Culture: Readings in Theory, MCM 0230: Digital
Media, MCM 0240: Introduction to the Study of Television, MCM 0250: Visuality and Visual Theories, MCM0260:
Cinematic Coding and Narrativity, and
MCM1110: Theory of the Sign. Sometimes
large enrollments make T.A.’s necessary in other courses such as MCM 1200:
Special Topics in Modern Culture and Media.
MCM graduate students will most often have
their first teaching experience in MCM 0150, whose subject matter makes it an
excellent conceptual introduction to teaching in MCM fields. Being a teaching
assistant generally entails conducting discussion sections and grading. You may
also be asked to give a lecture, in order to broaden your own teaching
experience. It is the general practice in MCM for faculty to conduct weekly
conferences with their teaching assistants, covering pedagogical goals,
objectives, and strategies, course materials, and grading.
The
Department also tries to provide all doctoral candidates with the opportunity
to teach a course of their own, normally under the rubric of MCM 0900: Sophomore Seminars. This ideally occurs in the 4th year of study, but may
be later. Since MCM 0900 is a seminar, its subject matter varies with the
instructor. You will choose your course topic in conjunction with your advisor,
though undergraduate curricular constraints may also have to be considered (for
example, a similar or identical course might be planned by a faculty
member.) Candidates are strongly
encouraged to design a course related to their dissertation area, and to
consult with their advisor and other appropriate faculty when designing the
course. The course must be approved by the Department, and then the
undergraduate College through the College Curriculum Committee (the CCC). Plan
ahead. The CCC requires a formal application, which should be made the year
before the course is to be taught so that it can be listed in the on-line
Banner System. It is best to
consult with the Director of Graduate Studies and the Department Administrator
about these procedures early in your third year.
The Department and the
Graduate School consider five years to be the optimum period for completion of
all Ph.D. requirements. It is also recognized, however, that for some students
an additional year might be necessary. As noted above, financial support in the
form of fellowships, proctorships, and teaching assistantships is usually not
guaranteed for a sixth year. When a sixth year is necessary to complete the
dissertation, a candidate will have to apply for an extra year’s support.
Assuming the candidate is making good progress towards completion, the
Department will try to support such applications. Candidates should also look
into any possibilities for external funding.