Description:
Subject to the availability of appropriate faculty members, the Department of History is normally prepared to supervise comprehensive examinations in a range of broadly defined geographical and chronologically limited fields, as well as in thematic fields, as suits the student's program. Example of fields recently supervised include: History of Canada since 1867; History of France since 1789; History of Haiti from 1801 to 1986; Labour History. For other fields available, applicants may consult the faculty research pages of the department's website. The major field will be that in which the student’s proposed doctoral thesis falls. Normally students choose at least one field defined in specific geographical terms. Any student may offer one examination in a related discipline when approved by the History Graduate Committee and by the appropriate faculty member and/or program administrator in that discipline. The preparation of a comprehensive field should give students sufficient background to teach at an introductory level and/or do advanced research in the field. Although the requirements may vary from one field to the next, a core reading list of 50 to 100 titles per field is suggested as reasonable. The reading list for a field is be drawn up by the professor in consultation with the student in the context of the reading courses associated with the field taken in the student's first year, and once established, both must agree to any significant changes. The comprehensive examinations consist of take-home examinations in three selected fields, each is completed over a 72-hour period. These written examinations are normally completed within a three-week period. If successful, they are followed by an oral examination, involving all three examiners,normally held within two weeks of the last written comprehensive. The purpose of the oral comprehensive is to allow the doctoral student the opportunity to explain or expand on parts of the written examinations which professors found inadequate or unclear, as well as to allow for more general discussion among the examiners and the student as a group of historians.
Component(s):
Thesis Research