Cultural, Social and Political Thought, Ph.D.

The Cultural, Social, and Political Thought major in the Ph.D. program is interdisciplinary in nature and is based on a cohort learning model that fosters an environment of interdisciplinary engagement and exchange, research, peer mentoring, collaboration among a small group of students, within a team-based learning experience.  The overall academic aims of the program are to emphasize social, cultural, and political thought and to inculcate the intellectual and practical tools needed to work successfully with community partners and agencies to facilitate social change.  Students graduating from the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought major are trained experts, who demonstrate a mosiac of professional skills (e.g., teaching, peer reviews, presentations, critical thinking, etc.) and research competencies. Graduates are capable of producing novel, relevant, and rigorous research that make significant and substantive contributions to interdisciplinary knowledge.

The Cultural, Social, and Political Thought major is thesis-based and requires students to complete 9.0 to 18.0 credit hours of graduate semester courses and a thesis.  This program is highly theoretical and interdisciplinary in nature and intended to ground students in a body of cognate critical theories and methodologies.  Across disciplinary boundaries, the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought major emphasizes the critical engagement of ideas and their manifestation in shifting cultural, social, and political contexts. 

The program’s key learning outcomes are:

• Comprehensive expertise and advanced understanding of theoretical frameworks related to cultural, social and political thought such as Feminism, Poststructuralism, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism, and Critical Theory.
• Comprehensive expertise and advanced substantive knowledge in interdisciplinary area of cultural, social and political thought. Research topics are not constrained, but are likely to include such problems, issues, and concepts as gender, race, class, disability, sexuality, equality, citizenship, justice, power and resistance.
• Comprehensive expertise and advanced understanding of relevant methodology and method pertinent to cultural, social and political thought, such as Historical Materialism, and mastery of applicable methods, such as Discourse Analysis, Ethnography, and Interviewing.
• Comprehensive expertise and advanced ability to propose, design, present, and disseminate original and relevant research in the interdisciplinary area of cultural, social and political thought.

Prospective students seeking supervisors should contact the School of Graduate Studies.

The Ph.D. program is administered centrally by the School of Graduate Studies rather than by individual departments or Faculties.