Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in History of Art and Architecture

Brown's Ph.D. program in the History of Art and Architecture offers professional training in the history of art and architecture and more broadly, the history of visual and material culture and the built environment. Our graduates have gone on to hold positions in museums and academic departments throughout the nation and abroad. The faculty publishes and directs dissertations that range widely in terms of time, place, media, and methodology. The Department has ties with Departments such as Modern Culture and Media, History, English, and Italian Studies and also with the Pembroke Center, the Cogut Center for the Humanities, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, East Asian Studies, Medieval Studies, Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, Urban Studies, the John Nicholas Brown Center, and the Rhode Island School of Design. The first two years of the doctoral program are devoted to course work, the fulfillment of the foreign language requirements, and the completion of a qualifying paper. Students should be ready to take their general examinations in their third year, and then proceed to the production of a dissertation prospectus. The remaining time in the program is given to researching and writing the dissertation, a project that is expected to involve original research and to demonstrate potential to become a book or series of articles. The following sections of the website are designed to give prospective students a sense of the program and its requirements, and to help students in the program to plan their path towards the Ph.D. We also include practical information to make your time at Brown as successful and rewarding as possible.