Interdisciplinary Humanities, Ph.D.

Program Description

ih.ucmerced.edu
Contact: ssha.grad@ucmerced.edu; ssha-grad.ucmerced.edu/meet-our-team

Interdisciplinary Humanities (IH) is a comparative humanistic program applying analytical and theoretical approaches to the study of societies and cultures in relation to power and difference, examining social practices and cultural expressions across time and space. An Interdisciplinary Humanities education is comprehensive, and also may include disciplinary specialization within integrative concepts and methods that enrich all cultural research. The program exposes students to many humanities professions and prepares students to engage the public in scholarly activities.

Our faculty come from disciplinary traditions in American Studies, Anthropology, Art history, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Ethnomusicology, Geography, Heritage Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, and Writing Studies. Using skills and concepts from these traditions, we offer an analytical approach to studying the long history of exchange and interplay between times, places, events, and cultural expressions.

The Interdisciplinary Humanities Graduate program offers courses of study leading to either a Masters of Arts (M.A.) or Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree. Both M.A. and Ph.D. students pursue a course of study with both required courses and electives that provide broad context and specialized knowledge. This scholarship engages a variety of methods, ranging from ethnographic fieldwork, narrative, hermeneutics, qualitative and quantitative analysis, to curation. Thus, the program offers a unique framework in which the core disciplines of scholarly study in the humanities together provide an understanding of how similar issues and topics are addressed in multiple fields. 

Program Learning Outcomes

All IHGG students share a set of Program Learning Outcomes, but the program sets distinct Standards of Mastery for M.A. and Ph.D. students. M.A. students learn the methods and practices by which knowledge is created in the humanities and are able to communicate about the content and methods of the humanities in many organizational and institutional settings.  Ph.D. students combine and extend multiple research practices, apply them to novel topics, and produce new insights about the humanities. 

Upon graduating, we expect students to:

1. Become proficient in selected theories and research methods appropriate to the study of the humanities.
2. Understand and apply both disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to humanities research.
3. Achieve domain expertise in a particular disciplinary or interdisciplinary field of the humanities.
4. Demonstrate proficiency in research, analysis, and critique in the humanities through exams, papers, and theses.
5. Display commitment to the research ethics and professional standards of the humanities and to the particular field of expertise.

Ph.D. Program Learning Outcomes

The standards of mastery for the Ph.D. are:

• Create scholarly and creative works that use multiple and diverse methods for communicating about the content and methods of the humanities with any audience.
• Identify original topics in a humanities field and demonstrate proficiency in combining, modifying, expanding and critiquing existing research methods and theories in order to address them in an imaginative way.