Italian, PhD

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian

PhD students train to become researchers in the field of Italian Studies, Mediterranean Studies and a variety of related fields. After two years of coursework to complete and refine their research projects, doctoral students conduct original research and prepare for a professional life in the academic or in fields that require specialized and developed research skills (NGOs, Think tanks, government agencies, etcetera).

For Italy, globalization as a modern process is neither the beginning nor the end of the story. Italy has always been situated in a complex space, often best understood transnationally, post-nationally, and in a variety of cosmopolitan contexts, from Europe to the Mediterranean.

The graduate program in Italian Studies is committed to the interdisciplinary study of Italian literature and culture. Our faculty work on areas ranging from literature and cinema to medieval and early modern culture to history and critical theory. Recent and current graduate students working in Italian have written on topics ranging from the literature of extracomunitari in Italy, Dante's body in the context of pilgrimage texts, the acquisition of verb morphology, to postmodernism and detective fiction. Prospective graduate students should know that they will receive a training appropriate for an ever-more interdisciplinary profession, and that they will have the resources of a major university, ranging from the European Union Center to the largest public university library in the world, containing world-famous Dante, Tasso, and Italian Renaissance Plays collections. 

In order to encourage innovative work that crosses disciplinary boundaries, the graduate program in Italian Studies requires students to pass exams on not only their dissertation topic and period, as well as a contiguous period, but also an outside field or chronological period. As a result, we strongly encourage students, while acquiring a solid foundation in Italian culture, to work outside the program during their stay here, particularly in those programs that offer graduate minors and certificates, such as the Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory, the Unit for Cinema Studies,  the Medieval Studies Program and the program in Gender & Women’s Studies. Italian at Illinois also has a strong connection with the Program in Comparative Literature, and the department of French and Italian encourages all graduate students to explore the many opportunities of collaboration within the Francophone and Italophone areas. Doctoral students in Italian are eligible to pursue a Certificate in Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE).

We recognize that financial support is a crucial aspect of a graduate career, and we are committed to providing our continuing students with fellowships and teaching opportunities. All of our graduate students in Italian have received Graduate Teaching Assistantships, which include tuition and partial fee waivers. Before completing their degrees, our students have the opportunity to teach in their content area, in addition to language courses.

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian

Areas of specialization offered in Italian are literary and cultural studies, Italian linguistics, and Romance linguistics.

For additional details and requirements refer to the department's guidelines for graduate students and the Graduate College Handbook.

Coursework selected in consultation with advisor
Language Requirement: Students in all programs except SLATE must demonstrate reading proficiency in two languages besides the foreign language of specialization (not including English).
ITAL 599Thesis Research32
Total Hours64

Other Requirements

Other requirements may overlap
Minimum 500-level Hours Required Overall: 16
Masters Degree Required for Admission to PhD? Yes
Qualifying Exam Required No
Preliminary Exam Required Yes
Final Exam/Dissertation Defense Required Yes
Dissertation Deposit Required Yes
Minimum GPA: 3.0

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian

  1. Language: mastery of spoken and written Italian in all its registers; mastery of academic English, particularly in writing, but also spoken; ability to summarize and explain major issues in language teaching and learning.
  2. Critical Theory: demonstrates ability to synthesize knowledge of major fields of theoretical inquiry current in the discipline, such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, feminism / queer studies, post-colonialism, biopolitics, environmental humanities and ecocriticism, and others. Ability to identify current trends and issues in critical theory of interest to the field, as well as capacity to critically evaluate different theoretical approaches, and defend one’s own approach.
  3. Italian Studies: demonstrates an ability to evaluate the field of Italian Studies, assess the major issues of concern within the field, and evaluate different approaches to those issues. 
  4. Teaching: ability to teach Italian language at all levels, as well as a wide range of literary and cultural topics; to design syllabi, exams, written assignments, and lectures. Ability to identify and assess successful classroom strategies; familiarity with current trends in pedagogy for literature and culture. 
  5. The Profession: mastery of professional skills, including ability to formulate academic talks, generate syllabi, rewrite seminar papers as articles, construct book reviews and fellowship applications; preparation for academic job market in literary and cultural studies and other allied fields, including ability to identify successful strategies and evaluate different types of institutions and their teaching and research needs. 

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian

Department of French and Italian

Head of Department: Eleonora Stoppino
Director of Graduate Studies: Aurore Mroz
2090 Foreign Languages Building, 707 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801
(217) 333-2020
french-italian@illinois.edu

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences website

Admissions

Overview of Italian Admissions & Requirements
Graduate College Admissions & Requirements