phd history brown

Graduate Programs

History of art and architecture.

Students in the Department of History of Art and Architecture are able to study in a wide array of areas including ancient, medieval, early modern (Renaissance, 17th and 18th centuries), modern, contemporary, East Asian, African and Latin American art and architecture, and history of photography.

The department's faculty consists of historians of the major periods of Western, African and East Asian art and architecture, representing a broad spectrum of the discipline's methodologies and specialties. Courses offered at Harvard and the nearby Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) may be taken for credit free of charge by history of art students with the approval of the department.

Additional Resources

Access to the holdings of the RISD Museum and the library of the Rhode Island School of Design, adjacent to the Brown campus; use of the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World for students interested in antiquity; collections of the Bell Gallery, the John Hay Library, and the John Carter Brown Library; an extensive slide library housed in the List Art Center; and electronic visual resources in development.

Application Information

Application requirements, gre subject:.

Not required

GRE General:

Writing sample:, dates/deadlines, application deadline, completion requirements.

Fulfillment of the AM requirement above, general examination (written and oral), dissertation colloquium, and dissertation.

Alumni Careers

Contact and Location

Department of history of art and architecture, mailing address.

• Program Faculty
• Program Handbook
• Graduate School Handbook

Department of History

Phd students by interest.

• American Studies

Ph.D. Program

• Graduate Study

The primary goal of the Ph.D. program in American Studies is to train students to become knowledgeable, engaged, and productive scholars and public humanists.

The Ph.D. program in American Studies is aimed at students interested in careers in college and university teaching, though it also provides excellent training for jobs in cultural or non-profit institutions that require a doctorate.

The Ph.D. program includes:

• Coursework including two required courses
• Preliminary Examinations in three fields
• Teaching as a Teaching Assistant and Teaching Fellow
• Dissertation Proposal
• Dissertation

Most of our Ph.D. students include faculty from outside the department on their preliminary exam committees and on their dissertation committees.

The Graduate Student Handbook lays out in detail the requirements, timelines, and components of the doctoral graduate program in American Studies. It also contains information on departmental and university resources for graduate students.

Download the Handbook

Plain Text Version

Career Options

We train students for faculty positions, for academic administration, and for jobs in various research, curatorial, and digital humanities positions in universities and in cultural organizations, museums, and other public-facing institutions.

We are committed to comprehensive training with broader career paths in mind, and we have expanded our efforts to train and place students in both “traditional” and “non-traditional” positions. Doing so, we work to help students negotiate the pressures that commitments to family and location can place on their professional lives.

We encourage our doctoral students to consider the bigger picture – personal circumstances, individual professional desires – when preparing for the job market. Our Ph.D. students have done well by being flexible and broadly prepared.

Meet our Ph.D. alumni

Theatre Arts & Performance Studies

Ph.d. program.

The Ph.D. Program in Theatre and Performance Studies at Brown University offers a rigorous environment for pursuing doctoral research.

Taking a broad-spectrum approach to the histories, theories, and methods of theatre and performance studies from a global perspective, the Ph.D. program trains doctoral students to use performance as an analytical lens to explore the labor of mimesis in the social.

Cross-currents

Brown’s environment is alive with the intersections of performance practice and theory: Ph.D. students benefit from formal and informal cross-currents with:

• Brown’s acclaimed  MFA Playwriting Program
• Brown/Trinity MFA Programs in Acting and Directing  (offered in consortium with the Tony Award winning  Trinity Repertory Company ),
• Brown Arts Institute
• Rhode Island School of Design (RISD )

Brown’s  libraries  provide exceptional special collections for performance-related research, including:

• Harris Collection of American Drama and Poetry
• Smith Collection of Conjuring, Magicana, and Popular Entertainment
• Albert-Bernard Shaw Collection

Open Graduate Education Program

Our students take full advantage of Brown’s unique interdisciplinary opportunities—including the  Open Graduate Education Program , which enables doctoral students to apply to pursue a Master’s degree in a secondary field of study at Brown—and gain teaching experience through a variety of opportunities in and beyond the department.

How to Apply

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Applications are due   January 4, 2024   and must be submitted via the Graduate School’s Online Application portal . You can find detailed instructions about the application process and components on the Graduate Website.  For other questions refer to The Graduate School’s application FAQ .

Application requirements.

• A statement of purpose (also called a personal statement, generally 2-3 pages) that should address your current academic research interests, why you wish to pursue a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies, and how you see your work benefiting from the broader context of the department and Brown as a whole. The most successful personal statements make a compelling case for why your research would best be served by our program given the current composition of our faculty and the resources that are available at Brown. 
• An academic writing sample (10- 25 pages). This is an especially  important element of the application, so be sure to submit an example of your strongest scholarly writing to date. 
• Three letters of recommendation. 
• Transcripts from all academic institutions where you have previously studied (graduate and undergraduate).

International applicants whose native language is not English must also submit an official Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or International English Language Testing System (IELTS) score. 

• The GRE is no longer required in order to apply for the Ph.D. Program in Theatre and Performance Studies at Brown.

Financial Aid

Brown guarantees 6 years of funding for all admitted Ph.D. students, which includes full tuition remission, a generous living stipend, and health insurance. This financial support applies to both domestic and international students admitted to our doctoral program. Funding is provided through a combination of fellowships (two years) and teaching/research assistantships (four years). Our students have also been very successful in securing funding for their studies, as needed, through external and internal fellowships and grants. Further details about financial support is available through Brown’s Graduate School website  and the  Graduate Student Funding and Support website .

Frequently Asked Questions

Students in our Ph.D. program have many opportunities to gain teaching experience during their time at Brown. Typically students in their second year serve as Teaching Assistants for undergraduate courses in the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. More advanced students can develop and teach their own classes. Our students find additional opportunities to hone their pedagogical skills through Brown's  Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning ,  Summer@Brown , the  Brown/Wheaton Faculty Fellows Program , and elsewhere.

As an intentionally small program with an emphasis on intensive mentorship and advising, we accept a cohort of approximately 2 to 3 students per year. Most of our Ph.D. students complete the degree within 5 to 7 years.

We welcome applicants who are interested in all aspects of theatre and performance studies research. The best way to learn about the range of research topics and methods that are being pursued in our program is by looking through the profiles of our  current faculty  and  Ph.D. students .

Yes. We accept students who have obtained Bachelor's degrees as well as students who have previously completed an MA or MFA. Depending on the field of study and with the approval of our graduate faculty, students may receive credit toward the Ph.D. degree for previous graduate coursework completed at other institutions.

Graduates of our PhD program have achieved a stellar placement rate into academic positions. Many have gone on to become leaders in the field, holding tenured or tenure-track positions at Yale, Tufts, NYU, UCLA, Washington University-St. Louis, Colgate, Emerson, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Rhode Island, among other institutions. A  recent national study of Theatre and Performance Studies graduate programs  showed that Brown was the top program in terms of placement, with 100% of our graduates holding tenure-track positions.

Please do not email the department with technical questions or requests to troubleshoot your online application submission. For questions about the application process (including how to submit TOEFL scores, Letters of Recommendation, and other technical matters), please contact the Graduate School directly at  a [email protected] .

Patricia Ybarra

Program handbooks.

• TAPS Doctoral Program Handbook (PDF)
• All TAPS Graduate Handbooks

Recent News

Phd student şeyda nur yıldırım published in theatre research international vol. 38, no. 3 (2023)., taps at the american society for theatre research conference, phd candidate marlon jiménez oviedo published in global performance studies.

History of Art and Architecture

Phd student dominic bate to teach pre-college course.

PhD Student Dominic Bate to Teach Brown Pre-college Course titled, "The Grand Tour: Art and Travel in Eighteenth-Century Italy and Beyond"

By the eighteenth century, Italy had become a magnet for tourists from Northern Europe, especially Britain. Many of these visitors hoped to be “improved” by the peninsula’s warm climate and artistic riches, but they also expected to be entertained. From gambling parties to hikes up volcanoes, some of the entertainments on offer were considered even more exciting for being fraught with danger. By studying various travel experiences, we will explore how travelers’ understandings of both themselves and others were dramatically transformed. The course will begin by considering who travelled to Italy in the eighteenth century, how they got there, and where they went. While the majority of tourists were wealthy young men, women also made the journey, as did numerous other individuals who accompanied them as tutors and guides, many of whom were artists and clerics. We will look at the different routes they took, as well as the destinations they reached, including Venice, Rome, and Naples.