Fine Arts, Ph.D. with a Track in Interdisciplinary Arts

The College of Visual & Performing Arts participates with the faculties in art, music, theatre & dance, and philosophy in an interdisciplinary program leading to the Doctor of Philosophy with a major in Fine Arts. Students engage a core curriculum of 15 hours that emphasizes interdisciplinarity among the arts: four required courses include a colloquium that explores disciplinary formation and types of interdisciplinary engagement; arts histories; arts in a contemporary context; and philosophical aesthetics. An additional approved topics or aesthetics course completes a student’s core program. Work within this track involves an individualized curriculum that allows the candidate to pursue a professional goal relating to personal competencies and culminates in a dissertation.

The doctoral degree program with major in Fine Arts requires a minimum of 60 semester hours; the residence requirement is fulfilled by satisfactory completion of 18 semester hours of graduate coursework during one 12-month period. Additional details appear in the introductory catalog section to the Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts.

Concentrations. The Interdisciplinary Arts track allows students to work within two or three disciplinary concentrations. The primary concentration will be situated in one of the TCVPA’s three Schools but will not be limited to the concentrations currently offered as part of that School’s FADP tracks. The second (and third, if chosen) concentration can be an additional arts discipline housed within the TCVPA, or can be a non-arts discipline with which the TCVPA has an agreement relative to this degree track. The Qualifying Exam for this track will involve multiple parts: the VPA Core Exam as well as exams in each of the major fields.