About the Program

The PhD in Performance Studies provides an interdisciplinary and individually-crafted curriculum directed at advanced studies in the literatures, performances, cultural contexts, and theories of performance throughout the world. The PhD program is administered by an interdisciplinary graduate group composed of faculty from a wide range of related departments. Students in the PhD program in performance studies conduct research in a diverse array of interdisciplinary methodologies, on projects spanning the fields of theater, dance, and performance studies. ⁶

Visit Graduate Group Website

Admissions

Admission to the University

Minimum Requirements for Admission

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

1. A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
2. A 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 90 on the iBT test, 570 on the paper-and-pencil test, 230 on the computer-based test, or an IELTS Band score of at least 7 (note that individual programs may set higher levels for any of these); and
4. Sufficient undergraduate training to do graduate work in the given field.

Applicants Who Already Hold a Graduate Degree

The Graduate Council views academic degrees not as vocational training certificates but as evidence of broad training in research methods, independent study, and articulation of learning. Therefore, applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able to pursue new subject matter at an advanced level without need to enroll in a related or similar graduate program.

Programs may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree only 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 apply only 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 Applications

1. Transcripts:  Applicants may upload unofficial transcripts with your application for the departmental initial review. If the applicant is admitted, then official transcripts of all college-level work will be required. Admitted applicants must request a current transcript from every post-secondary school attended, including community colleges, summer sessions, and extension programs. Official transcripts must be in sealed envelopes as issued by the school(s) attended. 
   If you have attended Berkeley, upload your unofficial transcript with your application for the departmental initial review. If you are admitted, an official transcript with evidence of degree conferral will not be required.
2. Letters of recommendation: Applicants may 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 or political entities in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This 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, most European countries, and Quebec (Canada). 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 US university may submit an official transcript from the US 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.

Where to Apply

Visit the Berkeley Graduate Division application page . 

Admission to the Program

The graduate group admissions committee seeks applicants with qualities that will enable them to succeed in an intensive interdisciplinary program: creativity and analytical skills, practical experience, individual initiative, and intellectual rigor. Priority will be given to applicants whose research interests dovetail well with current faculty resources. Candidates holding a bachelor’s or master’s degree in theater, literature, performance studies, dance, or any appropriate humanities-related field are eligible to apply for admissions. The graduate group is particularly interested in applicants who have already formulated a specific focus of interest, including professional theater or dance practitioners who demonstrate a capacity for and training in advanced scholarly study. Please see the graduate group webpage for additional admission information . 

As part of the application, you will be asked to submit the following:

1. All college transcripts
2. Three letters of recommendation
3. 
GRE scores (less than 5 years old) & TOEFL scores (if applicable)
4. Resume/CV

5. Personal Statement

6. Statement of Purpose

7. Critical Writing Sample (15-20 pages)

Doctoral Degree Requirements

Normative Time Requirements

Normative Time to Advancement

Normative time to advancement is three years.

Normative Time in Candidacy

Normative time in candidacy is three years.

Total Normative Time

Total normative time is six years.

Time to Advancement

Curriculum

The following is a breakdown of requirements to be fulfilled during the student’s first five semesters of study. All courses must be taken for letter grades.  For additional information, please see the graduate group Program of Study

Pedagogy Courses

To prepare for appointment as a graduate student instructor (GSI), students are required to take a 300-level pedagogy course for reading and composition. Students normally fulfill this requirement by taking COLWRIT 375 in the fall semester of the first year (this course is not usually offered in the spring). While taking COLWRIT 375 during the first semester as a GSI is allowed, we have found it to be much more valuable to complete the course in advance of teaching for the first time. For those first-year students who have stipend support for their second year (and therefore won’t teach until the third year), the pedagogy course may be taken during the fall semester of the second year. Also, GSIs for TDPS enroll each semester in THEATER 300 with their teaching supervisor.

Foreign Language

Pass a language exam, usually in the fall semester of the first year, or take the needed upper division language class.

QE

Students sit their qualifying exams in their sixth semester before proceeding to the dissertation.

Time in Candidacy

For additional information, please see the graduate group Program of Study

Prospectus

During the dissertation phase, students are expected to submit a copy of their dissertation prospectus (by the end of the seventh semester).

Fifth Year Presentation

Students give a public presentation of their research in the ninth semester.

Dissertation

Students are expected to complete their dissertations within the normative time frame (i.e., 12 semesters from the start of the program).

Courses

Performance Studies

Faculty

Core Faculty

Professors

Catherine M. Cole, Professor. Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. Northwestern University. African Studies; Gender Studies; Disability Studies; Ethnography; Human Rights and Transitional Justice.
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Mark Griffith, Professor. Departments of Classics and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. Cambridge University; Classical drama and performance; Greek and Latin literature.
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Shannon Jackson, Professor. Departments of Rhetoric and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. Northwestern University; Performance Studies; Contemporary theater; American cultural history and Performance Historiography; Adaptation.
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Trinh Minh-ha, Professor. Department of Women’s Studies; Feminist Theory; Film Theory and production; Comparative Literary and Art Theory; Cultural Politics; Third World Arts and Politics.
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Miryam Sas, Professor. Departments of Comparative Literature and Film Studies; PhD. Yale University; 20th century poetry; Japanese Experimental Theater and Dance; Memory and Trauma; Mass Media and Cultural Studies; Film.
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Mary Ann Smart, Professor. Department of Music; PhD. Cornell University; 19th century opera; women in opera; feminist approaches to opera; the role of gesture in opera.
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Associate Professors

Brandi Wilkins Catanese, Associate Professor. Departments of African American Studies and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. Stanford University; African-American Drama and Theater.
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Abigail De Kosnik, Associate Professor. Berkeley Center for New Media and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. Northwestern University; Technology and Performance; Artistic Appropriation and Remix; Ethnicity, Gender, and Digital Culture; Cultural Studies; Subcultures and Fan Cultures; Marxism and Post-Structuralism.
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SanSan Kwan, Associate Professor. Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies: PhD. New York University; Critical Dance Studies; Transnational Asian American Studies; Cultural Geography; Theories of Space and Kinesthesia, Interculturalism, Modern Dance, Ballet, and Yoga.
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Peter Glazer, Associate Professor. Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. Northwestern University; Directing; Adaptation; Performance Theory; 20th century American Theater; Commemorative Performance.
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Laura E. Pérez, Associate Professor. Department of Ethnic Studies; PhD. Harvard University; Post-1965 U.S. Latina/o Visual, Performance, and Literary Arts; Feminist, “Minority,” Post-Colonial, and Cultural Studies theories.
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Juana Maria Rodriguez, Associate Professor. Gender and Women’s Studies; PhD. UC Berkeley; Queer Theory and Cultural Activism; Latin@ Popular Cultures; Performance Studies; Critical Race Theory; Sex and Sexuality Studies; Technology and Media Arts.
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Shannon Steen, Associate Professor and Head Graduate Adviser. Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. Stanford University; performance and critical race studies (especially the intersection of African and Asian American histories), American Studies, globalization and American urban development, and post/modernisms.
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Sophie Volpp, Associate Professor. Departments of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Cultures; PhD. Harvard University; classical Chinese performance, Chinese literature of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, history of performance, gender theory, the history of sexuality, and the representation of material culture.
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Alexei Yurchak, Associate Professor. Department of Anthropology; PhD. Duke University; theories of discourse, power and performance, the politics of aesthetics, irony and ideology, contemporary media, Russian informal art, Soviet state socialism and postsocialism, cities and urban space.
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Assistant Professors

Angela Marino,  Assistant Professor. Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD., New York University; politics and performance in the Americas; Latino American performance and dramatic literature; popular fiesta and carnival theory.
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Affiliated Faculty

Affiliated Professors

Charles Briggs, Alan Dundes Distinguished Professor in Folklore. Department of Anthropology; PhD. University of Chicago; performing the diseased body and its therapeutic intervention, biomedical and vernacular; theorizing relations between narrative and violence; mediatization and its reified objects; creating modern subjects by creating their “traditional” Others.
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Judith Butler, Professor. Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature; PhD. Yale University; Performance and Identity.
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Dru Dougherty, Professor. Department of Spanish and Portuguese; PhD. Harvard University; Spanish drama, especially of the early 20th century.
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Joe Goode, Professor. Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; BFA, Virginia Commonwealth University; choreography and interdisciplinary performance.
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Jocelyne Guilbault, Professor. Department of Music; PhD. University of Michigan; Ethnomusicology; Caribbean Musics (popular and traditional); Creolization; Power; Cultural Politics; Nationalism; Diaspora.
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Andrew Jones, Professor. Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures; PhD. UC Berkeley; Children’s Literature; Chinese Popular Music; East Asian Languages and Cultures; Literary Translation; Media Technology; Modern Chinese Fiction; Sonic Culture.
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Anton Kaes, Professor. Department of German and Film Studies; PhD. Stanford University; modern German theater (Expressionism, Brecht; and the theater of the 1920s); postmodernist theater and film; the relationship between theater and film; theory of film, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies.
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John Lie, Professor. Department of Sociology; Chair, Center for Korean Studies; PhD. Harvard University; social theory, political economy, Korean diaspora.
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Susan Schweik, Professor. Department of English; PhD. Yale University; Disability Studies; Poetry; 20th-Century American Literature; 19th-Century American literature; Cultural Studies; Gender & Sexuality Studies; Race and Ethnicity.
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Affiliated Associate Professors

Paola Bacchetta, Associate Professor. Department of Gender & Women’s Studies; PhD. in Sociology from The Sorbonne, Paris; transnational feminist and queer theories; inseparabilities of gender, sexuality, “race”-racism,postcoloniality; Hindu nationalism; global political conflict; feminist and queer of color, and right wing, movement discourses and practices in the U.S., India  and France; transnational feminist and queer alliances.
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Saba Mahmood, Associate Professor. Department of Anthropology; PhD. Stanford University; Anthropology of Subject Formation, Liberalism, and Secular Modernity; Feminist and Poststructuralist Theory; Religion and Politics; Islam, the Middle East, and South Asia.
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Emeritus Faculty

Vasudha Dalmia, Professor. Department of South and South East Asian Studies; PhD. Jawaharlal Nehru University; Hindi Drama and other Indian Theater traditions; Brecht.
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Mel Gordon, Professor. Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies; PhD. New York University; Modern and Contemporary European Theater; Popular entertainment.
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Linda Williams, Professor. Departments of Film Studies and Rhetoric; PhD. University of Colorado; Popular Moving-Image Genres (Pornography, Melodrama, and “Body Genres” of all sorts); Eastern and Western Forms of Melodrama; Film Theory.
Faculty Profile