About PhD Program,
Brown’s Ph.D. program in Musicology and Ethnomusicology allows students to study music of any kind from several perspectives, within a richly interdisciplinary environment.
The program’s distinctively flexible curriculum permits students to sample liberally from departmental graduate seminars, and also encourages them to explore course offerings in other academic units. Students begin learning about the methods and materials of music studies with core seminars in ethnomusicology and historiography, while creating individually tailored programs of further study that suit their scholarly and professional needs. This might mean developing fluency in textual analysis, ethnography, historiography, critical theory and science and technology studies, all of which fall within the program’s inclusive approach to the study of music and sound.
The smaller size of the program facilitates close mentoring relationships with the faculty, allowing students to receive guidance about their research from scholars with a variety of interests and approaches. Recent dissertations have explored such diverse matters as Afrocentric consciousness in Brazilian capoeira, carnival performance in mixed-race South African communities, Scandinavian white nationalism and Turkish intellectual property law. Faculty interests and seminar offerings range across fields like critical organology, ecocriticism, improvisation studies, intellectual property, sound studies, technoculture and transnationalism. Students also have the option of taking courses within the music department’s outstanding Ph.D. program in Music and Multimedia Composition, of developing performing skills in several ensembles, and of engaging with campus entities like the Cogut Institute for the Humanities or the Brown Arts Initiative. A Brown doctoral degree in musicology and ethnomusicology leads to a career in college and university teaching, or to a position in applied work outside the academy.
PhD Program Degree Eligibility with GPA,
All of the eight courses required for the A.M.; three courses from MUSC2080 or 2090; a half–credit writing seminar, focused on preparation for qualifying exams; additional elective courses (for a total of at least 18 course credits over three years of A.M./Ph.D. coursework); written and oral comprehensive examinations; dissertation.
PhD Funding Coverage,
Brown offers five years of guaranteed support in the form of a full tuition scholarship, health benefits, and a cash stipend that is competitive with that offered by other top-tier programs.
Summer support is funded for four years, over and above the academic-year stipend. Ph.D students in the music department hold a Fellowship in the first year of study, with no TA or proctorship obligations. During three of the remaining four years they hold either Teaching Assistantships or Proctorships. In the remaining year they hold a Dissertation Fellowship. There is some flexibility as to when to use up the final year of fellowship. Some people use it to fund dissertation research in the fourth year of study; others obtain external grants for that research and defer the fellowship for dissertation write-up time at Brown. (In other words, external funding does not replace Brown funding: students who win one year’s worth of external support still receive a full five years of funding from Brown, on top of that year of external support). Graduate Teaching Assistantships and Proctorships in music normally require up to twenty hours of work per week during the school year.
Application Requirement,
Applicants should provide a scholarly writing sample of ca. 20-25 pages. You may submit two shorter writing samples that total ca. 20-25 pages, if you feel that they demonstrate more effectively your skills in scholarly analysis. For example, you may prefer to submit undergraduate seminar papers on two different topics in music and/or other humanities and social sciences disciplines. The writing samples should demonstrate your ability to engage with scholarly literature and frame a clear argument.
Application Deadline,
Dec 15, 2024
Application Fee,
Application fee is $75, non-refundable
