About the Program

The Medieval Studies Program at UC Berkeley is an interdisciplinary group that coordinates and sponsors lectures, events, and visiting professorships, promotes scholarly interests common to medievalists of different academic departments, and communicates information of interest among them. The Committee on Medieval Studies offers a concurrent PhD program in which candidates have both a home department and training in the core disciplines of medieval studies. The degree granted is the concurrent PhD in the departmental discipline and medieval studies (e.g., English and medieval studies, history and medieval studies). The concurrent PhD is designed to preserve an established standard of training in a major subject while broadening the student's experience in other aspects of the field. A candidate for the concurrent PhD is expected to fulfill all the PhD requirements of the major field of study.

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Admissions

Admission to the University

Uniform minimum requirements for admission

The following minimum requirements apply to all programs and will be verified by the Graduate Division:

1. A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
2. A minimum grade-point average of B or better (3.0);
3. If the applicant comes from a country or political entity (e.g. Quebec) where English is not the official language, adequate proficiency in English to do graduate work, as evidenced by a TOEFL score of at least 570 on the paper-and-pencil test, 230 on the computer-based test, 90 on the iBT test, or an IELTS Band score of at least 7 (note that individual programs may set higher levels for any of these); and
4. Enough undergraduate training to do graduate work in the given field.

Applicants who already hold a graduate degree

The Graduate Council views academic degrees as evidence of broad research training, not as vocational training certificates; therefore, applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able to take up new subject matter on a serious level without undertaking a graduate program, unless the fields are completely dissimilar.

Programs may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree if the additional degree is in a distinctly different field.

Applicants admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite (even though the applicant already has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study) will be permitted to undertake the second master’s degree, despite the overlap in field.

The Graduate Division will admit students for a second doctoral degree only if they meet the following guidelines:

1. Applicants with doctoral degrees may be admitted for an additional doctoral degree only if that degree program is in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field in which they earned their original degree. For example, a physics PhD could be admitted to a doctoral degree program in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a PhD in statistics.
2. Applicants who hold the PhD degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or professional master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.

Applicants may only apply to one single degree program or one concurrent degree program per admission cycle.

Any applicant who was previously registered at Berkeley as a graduate student, no matter how briefly, must apply for readmission, not admission, even if the new application is to a different program.

Required documents for admissions applications

1. Transcripts:  Upload unofficial transcripts with the application for the departmental initial review. Official transcripts of all college-level work will be required if admitted. Official transcripts must be in sealed envelopes as issued by the school(s) you have attended. Request a current transcript from every post-secondary school that you have attended, including community colleges, summer sessions, and extension programs.
   If you have attended Berkeley, upload unofficial transcript with the application for the departmental initial review. Official transcript with evidence of degree conferral will not be required if admitted.
2. Letters of recommendation: Applicants can request online letters of recommendation through the online application system. Hard copies of recommendation letters must be sent directly to the program, not the Graduate Division.
3. Evidence of English language proficiency: All applicants from countries in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This requirement applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and most European countries. However, applicants who, at the time of application, have already completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with grades of B or better at a U.S. university may submit an official transcript from the U.S. university to fulfill this requirement. The following courses will not fulfill this requirement: 1) courses in English as a Second Language, 2) courses conducted in a language other than English, 3) courses that will be completed after the application is submitted, and 4) courses of a non-academic nature. If applicants have previously been denied admission to Berkeley on the basis of their English language proficiency, they must submit new test scores that meet the current minimum from one of the standardized tests.

Admission to the Program

Graduate students must be accepted for admission to a regular department (e.g., English or History) before applying for a concurrent degree in Medieval Studies.

Doctoral Degree Requirements

Candidates for this Concurrent Degree Program must fulfill the following requirements:

1. Completion of three courses, which must include:
   1. MED ST 200 Introduction to Research Materials and Methods, a four-credit proseminar introducing the disciplinary resources for research on medieval topics and their use in interdisciplinary study.
   2. HISTORY 275, or HISTORY 280 on a solely medieval topic (Other appropriate graduate courses in history may be substituted with the consent of the graduate advisor.) Students whose home department is History must take two courses in category (c), below.
   3. Any course from outside the student’s home department, drawn from the following:

      CLASSIC 241	Course Not Available
      COM LIT 212	Studies in Medieval Literature	4
      ENGLISH 205B	Old English	4
      ENGLISH 211	Chaucer	4
      ENGLISH 212	Readings in Middle English	4
      FRENCH 210A	Studies in Medieval Literature	4
      FRENCH 211A	Reading and Interpretation of Old French Texts	4
      or FRENCH 211B	Course Not Available
      GERMAN 201A	Major Periods in German Literature: Literature of the Middle Ages	4
      GERMAN 205	Studies in Medieval Literature	4
      ITALIAN 210	Course Not Available
      ITALIAN 212	Seminar on Dante	2,4
      MED ST 205	Medieval Manuscripts as Primary Sources	4
      MED ST 250	Seminar in Medieval Culture	2-4
      MUSIC 171B	Course Not Available (when on a medieval topic)
      SCANDIN 201B	Norse Literature	4
      SCANDIN 202	Course Not Available
      SCANDIN 220	Early Scandinavian Literature	4
      SPANISH 213	Course Not Available
      SPANISH 220	Course Not Available
      SPANISH 246	Course Not Available

      (In addition to the courses listed, any graduate-level course in the relevant departments whose content is wholly medieval may, with the permission of the graduate advisors, be counted toward this requirement.)
2. Advanced competence in Latin, as demonstrated either through a special examination administered by the Medieval Studies program or through coursework (two upper-division or graduate-level courses in Latin literature, one of which must be LATIN 140 Medieval Latin, LATIN 155A Readings in Medieval Latin or LATIN 155B Course Not Available, or CLASSIC 241 Course Not Available). The Latin proficiency exams that are offered by some departments may not be used to fulfill this requirement.
3. Reading proficiency in a medieval form of a modern European language outside the major field of study, either through examination administered by the Medieval Studies program or through coursework (an upper-division or graduate-level literature course; ordinarily drawn from the following:

   CELTIC 105B	Course Not Available
   CELTIC 146A	Medieval Welsh Language and Literature	4
   or CELTIC 146B	Medieval Welsh Language and Literature
   ENGLISH 105B	Course Not Available
   ENGLISH 111	Chaucer	4
   ENGLISH 112	Middle English Literature	4
   ENGLISH 205B	Old English	4
   ENGLISH 211	Chaucer	4
   ENGLISH 212	Readings in Middle English	4
   FRENCH 112A	Medieval Literature	4
   or FRENCH 112B	Medieval Literature
   FRENCH 114A	Late Medieval Literature	4
   or FRENCH 114B	Course Not Available
   FRENCH 210A	Studies in Medieval Literature	4
   or FRENCH 210B	Course Not Available
   FRENCH 211A	Reading and Interpretation of Old French Texts	4
   GERMAN 105	Middle High German for Undergraduates	3
   GERMAN 201A	Major Periods in German Literature: Literature of the Middle Ages	4
   GERMAN 205	Studies in Medieval Literature	4
   GERMAN 273	Gothic	4
   GERMAN 276	Old High German	4
   GERMAN 280	North Sea Germanic	4
   GERMAN 282	Old Saxon	4
   ITALIAN 109	Dante's Commedia (in Italian)	4
   ITALIAN 110	Literature and Culture of the 13th and 14th Centuries	4
   ITALIAN 210	Course Not Available
   ITALIAN 212	Seminar on Dante	2,4
   SCANDIN 201B	Norse Literature	4
   SCANDIN 202	Course Not Available
   SCANDIN 220	Early Scandinavian Literature	4
   SPANISH 220	Course Not Available
   CATALAN 285	Course Not Available

   With the permission of the Graduate Advisor, other courses in these languages offering readings exclusively in the medieval vernacular may be accepted. Also with the permission of the Graduate Advisor, courses in non-European medieval languages, such as medieval Hebrew or Arabic, or in eastern European languages typically outside the range of Latin medieval studies, such as Old Church Slavonic, may be accepted.
4. Working proficiency in manuscript studies (paleography, diplomatic, or codicology), as demonstrated through coursework (appropriate upper-division or graduate-level course at Berkeley or appropriate graduate-level course or workshop elsewhere) or through presentation of an extended research paper making substantial and original use of such skills. (When appropriate to the student’s program research and with the consent of the Graduate Advisor, a related area of competence in the material sources of medieval studies, such as epigraphy or medieval archeology, may be substituted.)
5. A field statement of 30-50pp, to be completed and approved 30 days before the Qualifying Examination, which situates the major area of interest in an interdisciplinary setting. This is not a prospectus setting out the specific plan of research for a dissertation, but a broader and more preliminary contextualizing essay, placing the present state and resources of the student’s home discipline in relation to those other disciplines of medieval studies of which the student will need to have a sophisticated apprehension in order to conceive such a plan of research. This statement will be evaluated by the student’s advisor and the Medieval Studies representative to the examination committee (see [6], below) or another faculty member designated by the Graduate Director.
6. A special committee for the PhD qualifying examination. A representative of Medieval Studies must serve on the PhD orals examination committee. In the event of a failure on either the field statement or the Medieval Studies portion of the qualifying exam, the candidate may revise the field statement retake the Medieval Studies portion of the orals in accordance with the policies of the Graduate Division, Policies and Procedures F.2.7.
7. Regular participation in the Medieval Studies Colloquium, and one presentation of dissertation-work in progress to that Colloquium.

Courses

Medieval Studies