THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

Degree Types: PhD, Certificate

The Department of Communication Studies houses the doctoral programs in Communication Studies (Rhetoric and Public Culture) and Rhetoric, Media, and Publics. The Department is also a key participant in the doctoral programs in Media, Technology and Society and Technology and Social Behavior. The Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric, Media, and Publics is replacing the PhD in Communication Studies (Rhetoric and Public Culture).

A concentration in Rhetoric and Public Culture enables students to explore how texts, images, and other media function as modes of action, with particular regard to those practices that organize public thought, identities, and social relations. Faculty and student research is interdisciplinary and participates in a range of contemporary theoretical discussions, paying special attention to how power and legitimacy are negotiated rhetorically. Program conversations attend carefully to the impact of social differences as organized by particular constructions of race, class, sexuality, gender, locale, and other variables.

Students in this program are also encouraged to participate in TGS’s Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative program. For more information on how you can have a second intellectual “home” outside of your department or program, please visit the Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative page.

Additional resources:

• Department website
• Program handbook(s)

Degree Requirements

The following requirements are in addition to, or further elaborate upon, those requirements outlined in The Graduate School Policy Guide.

PhD

Total Units Required: Students entering with a BA typically take 27 courses. Students entering with an MA typically take 18 courses.

1. Three Required Seminars
   • Proseminar
   • Modes of Cultural Analysis
   • Classical Rhetoric and its Afterlives
2. Additional courses to comprise the student’s full course of study are selected with the assistance of the temporary advisor and then with the dissertation advisor. It is assumed that many of these courses will be taught by core RPC faculty, but others can be taught by faculty in Communication Studies more generally or by faculty from around the university. Students typically take three courses per quarter for a total of nine per academic year.
   
   NOTE: Students without an MA or equivalent degree must complete either a master’s thesis, master’s project, or written examination en route to the PhD.

Other PhD Degree Requirements

• Three qualifying examinations
• Dissertation prospectus
• Oral defense of the dissertation prospectus
• Dissertation
• Oral defense of the dissertation