Graduate Program
An Overview
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Graduate Program An Overview |
From Professor Jindrich Toman
Chair, Department of Slavic Languages and
Literatures
To Prospective Graduate Students:
I am delighted to welcome you to the website of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. Let me take this opportunity to provide you with some information about our graduate program and its recent expansions.
Our graduate program provides for three main tracks culminating in the Ph.D.:
Students are generally admitted to one of these tracks. The M.A. degree is earned in progress to the Ph.D.
Russian literature has traditionally been one of our focuses. In Fall 2001, Professor Olga Maiorova, of the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU, Moscow), joined the Department. With the addition of this preeminent specialist in Russian prose of the second half of the 19th century, our faculty provides a full range of coverage of Russian literature from the 18th century to the present: Professor Andreas Schönle specializes in the late 18th century and early 19th century, including Romanticism, Professor Olga Maiorova will offer courses in the second part of the 19th century, Professor Omry Ronen covers the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and, finally Professor Michael Makin teaches in the area of the 20th century, including contemporary literature. These colleagues also offer other courses, including literary and cultural theory, thus defining the very solid backbone of the graduate program.
Besides a strong and well-established focus on Russian literature and culture, the department boasts major strengths in Polish and Czech studies. The former area is covered by Professor Bogdana Carpenter, while my specialty is Czech culture and literature. Both fields enjoy significant support from Professor Herbert Eagle, who focuses on East European film and film theory. These programs generate a broad range of satellite activities, including the annual Czech Workshop and the yearly Copernicus Lecture in Polish studies.
Our current expansion plans include the area of cultural studies as defined broadly. With the Program in Judaic Studies we are delighted to announce a joint position in Jewish-Slavic cultural contacts. We foresee that this addition will allow the Department to continue our development in the areas of comparative and interdisciplinary research.
You may well be aware that the Department also has a strong tradition in Slavic linguistics. We continue to be active in this area and we have recently enhanced our offerings by placing particular emphasis on Russian language teaching. This area now includes courses in applied linguistics, specifically language pedagogy, offered by the nationally renowned specialist in language pedagogy, Professor Snejana Tempest. The Department has also developed a new line in its graduate program, dual doctoral degrees in Slavic Linguistics and General Linguistics. In doing so, the Department is formally recognizing the relevance of linguistic education beyond the traditional confines of Slavistics. The new program is administered jointly with The University of Michigan's Department of Linguistics, in which future students will take some of their courses. The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures will continue to provide a broad spectrum of courses in Slavic subjects and languages, in addition to which the Linguistics Department will contribute the areas of its particular strength—phonetics/phonology, sociolinguistics, formal linguistics, and language acquisition.
We will be able to provide funding for new graduate students in different forms and at different levels. In general, teaching assistantships in Russian will be offered as part of multi-year funding packages, and a limited number of fellowships for students with a GRE score over 2100 will also be available. A fellowship is available for a graduate student specializing in Czech studies. Other sources of funding, such as the government-sponsored Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship program for U.S. citizens and permanent residents, will be available on a competitive basis and you are encouraged to apply at the same time as you are applying for admission. In later stages of their graduate career, students are eligible for a number of sources of support. Although many of these funds are awarded on a competitive basis, I should emphasize that our students have over the years been exceptionally successful in winning FLAS, Fulbright, Fulbright-Hayes, and other grants, including grants for travel abroad. We are committed to providing comprehensive funding to our students and we automatically consider all accepted students for funding.
A useful source of information is The Slavic Scene, a departmental information bulletin. The most recent issue is sent out with application packets, and will soon be available on our website.
The Department has long been known for a breadth of courses few universities can match, as well as for its strong ties with other units across the University. In this connection, I am pleased to mention our close affiliation with the Center for Russian and East European Studies, a leading U.S. Department of Education-designated National Resource Center, where graduate students can meet professors and students from other fields and take part in stimulating interdisciplinary activities. I am confident that from among the Department and our associates you will easily find prominent scholars whose expertise will fit your interest.
If you have questions about the Department, don’t hesitate to contact me or our student services assistant, Sylvia Suttor.
Sincerely,
Jindrich Toman, Chair
P.S. To be considered for funding, the application deadline for the 2004-2005 academic year is December 17, 2003.
The Slavic Department offers graduate training in Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, and Czech languages and literatures, leading to the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures. Students specialize in literature or linguistics, and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, with the Department of Linguistics, has introduced a Joint Ph.D. Degree Program.
The Department aims at a broad and balanced education in the field of Slavistics. It does so, first, by offering more courses on more subjects than most of the peer departments; second, by providing a curriculum of courses that are interconnected and explore a broad variety of topics in order to build a solid foundation in the intellectual history of the area; and, third, by emphasizing the study of non-Russian Slavic languages and literatures. This broad orientation makes ours a genuinely Slavic department capable of responding to recent political developments in Eastern Europe that have upgraded the status of non-Russian cultures.
Most students specialize in Russian and pursue a secondary interest in another Slavic area. However, the Department strives to accommodate students wishing to earn a Ph.D. in non-Russian Slavic languages and literatures. The extensive course offerings at the University of Michigan frequently make such arrangements possible.
Literature students take classes in pre-19th-century, 19th-century, and 20th-century Russian literature, thus acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of the literature from its beginnings to the present. During their second year they prepare for Qualifying Exams on two of these three periods, thus beginning a process of specialization that leads ultimately to the dissertation.
In addition, the graduate program requires literature students to demonstrate knowledge of a second Slavic language equivalent to two years of coursework and to fulfill two course requirements in a second Slavic literature. Students are also expected to take a course on Old Church Slavic and an introduction to Slavic literature.
Linguistic students are required to demonstrate proficiency in a South Slavic and a West Slavic language in addition to Russian. With recent changes in a number of leading departments in this country, the Department emerges as particularly strong in the area of Slavic linguistics. The linguists on the faculty provide a broad perspective on the study of Slavic languages, ranging from historical reconstruction and language standardization to modern syntactic theories.
Second-year linguistics students take Qualifying Exams on Slavic linguistics, Old Church Slavic, the history of the Russian language and contemporary Russian.
The graduate program emphasizes the importance of Russian language proficiency and offers various opportunities for students to enhance their Russian language skills. An obligatory course on the methodology of language teaching prepares students to become successful language instructors and strengthens their competitiveness on the academic job market.
Over the years the faculty has created a unique institutional culture that emphasizes the presence of faculty on campus and a hospitable climate for informal academic contact between faculty and students. General availability of faculty to students is a rule and the role of graduate advisors is highly valued. The Department is committed to a fundamental association of teaching and research, as exemplified by the University of Michigan's Research Partnership program which brings individual faculty and individual students into small research teams on specific topics.
A validation of the broad coverage of the Department's program came from the Czech President Václav Havel in January 1991. Through his Adviser Sasa Vondra he voiced "recognition of the work of the Department...which has been for many years one of the prominent world institutions dealing with the study of the culture of Central Europe."
Students applying for the joint degree program must also request and submit an application to the Department of Linguistics, University of Michigan, 1076 Frieze Building, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285, email: linguistics@umich.edu, Tel.: (734) 764-0353. The Rackham Graduate School requires applications for each program, but charges only one application fee
Students are generally admitted to one of three tracks in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. The requirements for each track are listed separately as: literature, linguistics, or a joint linguistics degree program with the Department of Linguistics.
Financial Aid: Some possible sources of funding include:
Updated 11/11/03
