Spanish/Latin American Studies

The PhD must be based upon original investigation and demonstrate mature scholarship and critical judgment as well as familiarity with the tools and methods of research. It should be a worthwhile contribution to knowledge in the student's special field. Students are advised to familiarize themselves thoroughly with the various Graduate School rules governing the format and deadlines for the dissertation.

Once past the Preliminary Exam, the student should focus as quickly as possible on a probable dissertation area and begin conferring with a faculty member likely to direct the dissertation. Together, they will recommend to the DGS the three other members of the dissertation committee, one of whom must be from outside the program area (i.e., from a related field). The composition of the committee must be approved by the Graduate School on a form available from the DGS.

Once the Committee is formed, the students will work with three of the four faculty members compiling a bibliography for three interrelated topics framing the dissertation topic. Suppose that a student would like to work on the reception of Galdós novels. He/she will: a) compile a bibliography of the major novels by Galdós plus a secondary bibliography; b) compile a bibliography on a general area relevant to the main topic (for instance, the socio-cultural history of Spain in the nineteenth century; or, if the student is more interested in the novel as a genre, the second area could be nineteenth century novel); c) compile a bibliography well organized around a relevant theoretical topic (in the case in point, reader response criticism and/or aesthetic reception, for example, would be appropriate).

When these three bibliographies have been approved by the members of the committee, the student will write three statements, one for each topic and bibliography, describing the rationale for the bibliography selected for each topic, indicating the main issues he or she plans to treat in the dissertation.

The Committee, now in possession of the bibliographies and of the student's statements, will organize the written portion of the PhDDE. The three committee members who collaborated with the student in formulating the bibliographies will devise two or three questions for each of the three bibliographical areas. The student will answer one of these questions for each area. The organization of the exam will be as follows: 1) The student will pick up the first set of questions from the DGS Secretary; 2) one week later, the student will hand in the written essay answering one of the first set of questions and will at that time pick up the second set, for which she or he will again have one week to write an essay on one of the questions. The same mechanism will be applied for the third set of questions.

After the three questions (one per topic) have been completed, the student will then have one week to write the Prospectus. Students should be aware that the three written essays just completed should lead naturally to the Dissertation Prospectus. The Prospectus is not an essay in which a question has to be answered, but a project for future research. During the week following the completion of the prospectus, a 2 hour oral examination will take place and will be conducted by the members of the PhD committee. The oral examination will consist of a scholarly conversation about the three written essays and the prospectus and will last about two hours. The total duration the PhDDE Examination will be six weeks: three weeks to answer one question per topic or area, one week to complete the prospectus, one week for the committee to read these items, and the final and sixth week, to take the oral examination. Two weeks prior to this period, the student must submit their bibliography to the exam committee.

Prospectus

The Prospectus should be a précis that raises a series of questions and it should suggest how the dissertation may be structured around topics and chapters. This should be a concise, 10-15 page statement of the problems, methods and organization plans for the dissertation, accompanied by a bibliography sufficiently ample (a selected bibliography based on the three already prepared) to indicate the directions of the research. More specifically, the Prospectus should address the following issues:

1) Specific Issues to be explored. Outline the issues to be explored. State the significance of those issues. Specify the relationship of your research to other research in the field and identify the gaps that the proposed thesis is intended to fill by relating the specific aims of the thesis to previous work in the field. Briefly describe the most significant previous work in relation to the issues you are going to explore.

2) Approach, Methods, Techniques. Describe the special aims of your thesis and the theoretical perspectives from which you will address the issues you are supposed to investigate, the existing but unsolved questions, or the questions you yourself will be asking. State why the proposed methodology is particularly appropriate for your investigation.

3) Basic texts selection according to parts or chapters of the dissertation. Briefly outline which basic texts or documents are that you will be studying and how they will be organized in your thesis into chapters or parts.

4) Limitations/Pitfalls. Indicate the potential or possible limitations and pitfalls to the approaches and methods you are proposing as well as the difficulties presented by the issues you propose to investigate.

5) Thesis time table; travel (if needed). Indicate how your time will be organized to complete the different stages of your thesis research and writing. If your thesis requires you to conduct research outside of Duke University, provide details and justification. Indicate whether you have competence in the foreign languages needed for using the primary and secondary material that will be used in the project.

Timetable

Students will be expected to have developed bibliographies acceptable to their PhDDE Committee by the beginning of April of the third year (sixth semester) of graduate studies. The actual writing of the three essays and the prospectus, as well as the oral portion of the exam, will take place during the final two months of the third year or at the beginning of the following fall semester.

Outcomes of the PhD Dissertation Examination

The committee either allows the student to continue on toward the dissertation or informs the student of areas that need further preparation and sets any conditions necessary to assure that the student completes the additional required preparation.