ASPECT: An Interdisciplinary Teaching and Research Ph.D. Program
The Ph.D. in Social, Political, Ethical and Cultural Thought (ASPECT) prepares graduate students to undertake problem-centered, multi- and interdisciplinary analysis informed by social, political, ethical and cultural thought. ASPECT is designed to be of particular interest to those seeking a program of study with a framework wider than that of a specialized department. It follows an emerging national trend in interdisciplinary studies in offering training in multidisciplinary subject clusters that purposefully integrate both departmentally- based and program specific courses (see curriculum, below). While the program prepares students to teach the core courses of particular disciplines, their research emphasis is on questions that span concerns articulated in a number of disciplines and whose complexity requires the entire tool kit of knowledge offered by the program. Participating faculty and ASPECT courses come from the core contributing departments of History, Interdisciplinary Studies, Philosophy, and Political Science, as well as from Africana Studies, Area Studies, the Center for Public Administration and Policy, English, Environmental Design and Planning, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Government and International Affairs, an emerging program in Public Humanities, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Urban Affairs and Planning, Religious Studies and Women’s Studies.
ASPECT enables doctoral students to pursue work with faculty on compelling problems at the intersections of theoretically informed research in the humanities, social sciences and cognate professional fields. The program draws upon existing Virginia Tech faculty strength in areas of study that inherently require simultaneous attention to their ethical, cultural, political and social dimensions. Examples of such collaborative work already underway include projects on religion, ethics, and politics; the politics and culture of memory; theoretical approaches to individual and social transformation; democracy and democratic theory; corporate and non-corporate models of globalization and the ethics of community-based development; theorizing power in a post 9/11 world; and the significance of Frankfurt School political, constitutional, and cultural theory. Further emerging research clusters address cultural production and the politics of culture; democracy, science and technology; state sovereignty in historical and regional contexts; comparative ethics in a globalizing, cross-cultural world; historical and contemporary articulations of racialization, gender, and immigration; global civil society and the ethics of place; the political, social, and cultural implications of bio-ethics and bio-power; and historical and contemporary approaches to power and justice. These are investigated in order, first, to uncover the historically conditioned nature of such forces; second, to understand how these forces work; and, third, to develop theoretical and practical alternative paths for changing their outcomes where necessary.
ASPECT Degree Requirements and Rationale
The doctoral program at Virginia Tech is targeted to students who have previously earned an M.A. or equivalent (e.g. JD, MBA, MArch) before pursuing doctoral study. Under the assumption that students accepted into the ASPECT program with a Master's degree or equivalent either from Virginia Tech or elsewhere have received credit for 30 credit hours, they then will undertake a minimum of 60 semester hours of further study, leading to the defense of a Ph.D. The Ph.D. curriculum concentrates on methodological and theoretical issues, as well as on domains where social, political, ethical, and cultural thought are put to work in understanding social and individual transformations in contemporary and historical contexts.
Course requirements for the Ph.D. can ordinarily be completed during two years of residency and entail successful completion of 42 credit hours, leading to the defense of a Ph.D. dissertation proposal and preliminary exams during the fourth semester. Thereafter, dissertation research will be undertaken under the supervision of a multidisciplinary advisory committee and remaining credits may be earned either by taking additional classroom courses or research and dissertation credits.
Students pursuing the ASPCT Ph.D. select a major and a minor concentration chosen from among four areas: 1) social thought, 2) political thought, 3) ethical thought, and 4) cultural thought. Additional ASPECT courses requirements offer education in interdisciplinary theory, methodology, and professional development.
The curriculum stresses student flexibility and originality. It permits a focus on overarching problems by offering training in areas of concentration as well as education in interdisciplinary ways of knowing. Each area of concentration, in turn, is composed of a cluster of multidisciplinary offerings. Students will be prepared to teach introductory and required courses in particular disciplines through their graduate teaching assistantships. However, their Ph.D research will address questions that span a number of different approaches and fields.
The program is unique in offering a curriculum that fosters research and teaching that communicates on the basis of theory across the enabling limits that frequently result in disciplinary divides between units in the social sciences, humanities, and professional schools. The program promises to place in tandem bodies of thought and their research applications that have frequently cast divisions along fault line of political theory vs. cultural studies, social theory vs. ethical thought, etc. It is the modest ambition of the ASPECT curriculum, by contrast, to foster a research and teaching program that enables Ph.D. students to pursue appropriate course work and research commensurate with the complexities of the issues they aim to investigate.
The ASPECT curriculum consists of four kinds of classroom courses: 1) All candidates will take 12 credit hours of core ASPT courses (ASPT 6004, ASPT 6104, ASPT 6204, and ASPT 6904); 2) 21 credit hours selected from ASPECT cross listed departmental offerings (six of the latter are brand new courses expressly designed to support program goals), 3) six credit hours in social science or humanistic research methods; and, 4) three credit hours in pedagogical practices (GRAD 5114). Catalog descriptions of the new ASPECT and ASPECT cross-listed courses are assembled in Appendix G. All students are required to identify a major and minor field (one each selected from the four concentration areas). The 21 credit hours mentioned in (2), are selected to fulfill the major and the minor areas of concentration, with 12 credit hours in the major and 9 credit hours in the minor area. No more than 9 credit hours can be taken in one department in fulfillment of the major area, no more than 6 from one department in the minor area. Enrollment in ASPT 6004, 6104 and 6904 is reserved for funded and unfunded ASPECT students. However other courses will include students from ASPECT and from other graduate degree programs. In unusual circumstances, a student may petition the director to allow a course not currently approved for the ASPECT curriculum to count towards either the major or minor area.
ASPECT PhD Core Requirements (12 credit hours)
Each course listed here and below counts for three credit hours
ASPT 6004 Interdisciplinary Approaches in Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought
ASPT 6104 Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Methodology
ASPT 6204 Interdisciplinary Frameworks in Social, Political, Ethical, and Political Thought
ASPT 6904 ASPECT Professional Development
METHODOLOGY (6 credit hours)
Theory informed reflection on methodological issues spanning the social and human sciences is central to ASPECT Ph.D. research. In addition to taking ASPT 6104, Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Methodology, Ph.D. students are therefore required to take no less than six credit hours of methodology courses selected from the following list.
HIST/FLL/GEOG 5024 Area Studies Methods
HIST 5104 Historical Methods
PSCI 5115 Research Methods
PSCI 5116 Research Methods II
PSCI 5124 Advanced Research Issues
HIST 5134 Research Methods for Historians
AFST 5234 Research Methods in Africana Studies
GIA 5464 Qualitative Methods n a Globalizing World
PHIL 5505 Symbolic Logic
WS 5984 Alternative Research Methodologies
SOC 6204 Survey Design
SOC 6214 Qualitative Methods
ASPECT Pedagogy* (3 credit hours)
Ph.D. students who serve as Teaching Assistants are required to take GRAD 5114, Pedagogical Practices. They may further elect to earn a Pedagogy Certificate, offered through the Graduate School, during their residence at Virginia Tech.
ASPECT PhD Course Concentrations** (12 credit hours in major field, 9 credit hours in minor field)
Students in the different ASPECT concentrations will select courses from the following lists. Each includes courses appropriate to that concentration but drawn from a variety of departments and disciplines so that each concentration will reflect the interdisciplinarity that is a hallmark of the ASPECT degree.
Social Thought and Theory (12 credit hours if major field, 9 credit hours if minor field)
AFST 5314 Theories in Africana Studies
HIST 5114 U. S. to 1877
HIST 5124 U. S. Since 1877
GEOG 5014 Geographic Theory & Research
GEOG 5564 Contemporary Thought in Human Geography
PHIL 6014 Special Topics in Philosophy
SOC 5024 Power in Institutions
SOC 5104 History of Sociological Thought
SOC 5114 Contemporary Sociological Theory
SOC 5654 The Global Division of Labor
HIST 5934 Gender in U.S. History
STS 6524 Critical Approaches to Science & Technology
STS 6614 Advanced Topics in Technology Studies
STS 6664 Advanced Topics in Science & Technology Policy
STS 6674 Advanced Topics in Alternate Perspectives on Science, Technology & Medicine
STS 6824 Normative Structuring of Science & Technology
STS/HIST 5205, 5206 Main Themes in The History of Science & Technology
UAP 5394 Nature, Society & The Global Economy
WS 5914 Feminist Theory
Political Thought and Theory (12 credit hours if major field, 9 credit hours if minor field)
AFST 5984 Political Consciousness and Agency: Minority Responses to Oppression
GEOG/GIA 5424 Topics in Political Geography
HIST 5524 Emergence of the Pacific Century
HIST 5534 Imperialism, Nationalism, & Decolonization
IDST/REL 5134 Islamic Political Thought
HIST 5214/ASPT 6214 Topics in Global History
PAPA 6014 Public Administration Theory
PHIL 6324 Advanced Topics in Ethics & Political Philosophy
PSCI/GIA 5214 Contemporary Political Theory
PSCI/GIA 5224 Alternative Perspectives in Political Theory
PSCI 5244/ASPT 6244 Constitutionalism in Theory and Practice
PSCI 5464/ASPT 6464 Critical Security Studies
PSCI/GIA 5444 International Politics
PSCI/GIA 5514 Global Security
UAP 5104 Urban & Regional Development Theory
HIST 5144 The Transatlantic World
Ethical Thought and Theory (12 credit hours if major field, 9 credit hours if minor field)
HIST 5694 American Environmental History
HIST 6234 Advanced Topics in Modern Science, Technology and Medicine
HIST 5914 Race and Slavery in Comparative Perspective
PAPA 6414 Normative Foundations of Public Administration
PAPA 6454 Advanced Topics in Ethics & The Public Sector
PAPA 6494 Capstone Seminar in Ethics & The Public Sector
PHIL 5204 Topics in the History of Philosophy
PHIL 5324 Contemporary Metaethics
PHIL 5334 Ethics
PHIL 5344 History of Ethics
PHIL 6204 Advanced Topics in the History of Philosophy
PSCI/GIA/UAP 5364 Public Ecology
STS 5444 Issues in Bioethics
SOC/STS 6824 Normative Structuring of Science & Technology
UAP 5364 Non-Governmental Organizations in International Development
Cultural Thought and Theory (12 credit hours if major field, 9 credit hours if minor field)
ARCH 5134 Topics in Architecture History and Theory
ARCH 5614 Theory of Urban Form
ENGL 5024 Critical Theory
ENGL 5064 Topics in Language
ENGL 5314 Genre Studies
ENGL 5354 Comparative Studies in Literature
ENGL 5454 Studies in Theory
ENGL 5544 Current Topics in Literary Study
ENGL 5664 Rhetoric of Science and Technology
ENGL 6334 Rhetoric in Society
ENGL 6514 Studies in Rhetoric
ENGL 6524 Theories of Written Communication
FL 5334 Topics in Foreign Language Cinema
FR 5344 Writing in the Francophone World
FR 5404 Topics in French Studies
HIST 5414/ASPT 5414 Topics in Cultural History and Theory
HIST 5504 Modern European History
IDST 5014 The Liberal Arts in a Global Context 1
IDST 5015 The Liberal Arts in a Global Context 2
IDST/REL 5124 Religion and Modernity in the West
PSCI/GIA 5504 Discourse Analysis
PSCI/GIA 5554 Culture, Politics & Society in Network Environments
PSCI/GIA 5574 Arts, Culture, & Civil Society
PSCI/GIA/UAP/PAPA 5374 E-Governance
SPAN 5234 Spanish-American Institutions and Concepts
SPAN 5344 Hispanic Literature and the Representation of History
STS 6534 Cultural Studies of Science, Technology, & Medicine
Additional ASPECT Curriculum Offerings***
ASPT 5974 Independent Study
ASPT 7994 Research and Dissertation
*Required of all students who intend to pursue a teaching career and/or who serve as Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs). Students with other career interests may substitute another course from the minor concentration.
** Depending upon course instructor, individual courses may fit more than one concentration area, but may not count more than once toward fulfilling the credit hour requirements. Acceptance into another concentration on the PhD plan of study must be approved prior to enrollment by the Director of ASPECT.
***ASPT 5974 may count toward fulfilling either the major or minor area of concentration; ASPT 7994 will be taken following defense of the Ph.D. proposal and the preliminary exams.
NB. As is a well instituted practice at Virginia Tech, Ph.D. students who enroll in 5000 level are expected to undertake and are responsible for doctoral level assignments for the course.
Other Requirements
A language requirement is an integral part of this degree program, and students will be expected to have demonstrated reading proficiency in a secondary language (e.g. Russian, French, German, Spanish) prior to admission. Students who have not acquired such proficiency will be conditionally accepted with the expectation that they develop such skills prior to their doctoral proposal defense. The ability to read foreign language documents, whether in archives, organizational materials, on-line sites, or scholarly journals is important for the dissertation research ASPECT will foster. Each doctoral student's advisory committee can also set additional language or methodology expectations, appropriate to the dissertation topic, once the student's advisory committee is established.
Progress and Completion Requirements.
A student must make satisfactory progress toward the degree to remain in the program. Satisfactory progress is defined as meeting program requirements during the time periods specified. In addition to completing the credit hours specified above, a student must complete the following requirements to receive the doctoral degree:
Student Advisory Committee
Upon admission to the program, the Director of ASPECT, in consultation with the Graduate Committee, will assign each student a temporary major advisor. Ph.D students will select an Advisory Committee no later than following completion of 24 credit hours of instruction; for full time students, this will occur at the end of their first year of study; part time students will earn credit hours and compose their committees on variable timelines. In composing the Advisory Committee, a student will first select the major advisor, who can either be the originally assigned temporary advisor or another faculty member. Any full-time tenured faculty member affiliated with ASPECT, holding the appropriate terminal degree, and approved by the Graduate School may serve as a major advisor.
A student's Advisory Committee will additionally consist of at least three other faculty members, no more than one of whom may be in the same department as the major advisor. Should the course of study warrant it, one member of the Advisory Committee, but not the major advisor, can be drawn from outside the ranks of ASPECT faculty. One of the advisors will have competency in the student's secondary area of concentration. The composition of the Advisory Committee must be approved by the ASPECT director.
Plan of Study
By the end of the first year, a student must submit a Plan of Study to the student's Advisory Committee. The Plan of Study will list which classes will be taken to satisfy the course requirements for the doctoral program and the semester in which the courses will be taken. After the Advisory Committee approves the Plan of Study, the student must submit the Plan to the ASPECT Director for approval. The Graduate School will have final approval. Any courses listed on the Plan of Study will become a part of the requirements for the doctoral degree.
Students must complete each course on the Plan of Study with a minimum grade of B- and must maintain a minimum GPA of 3.40 to remain in good standing.
Residency Requirement
Consistent with Virginia Tech policy, full time students must complete at least two consecutive semester of full time enrollment at the Virginia Tech Blacksburg campus. Ordinarily, full time students will spend at least two academic years (two times 24 credit hours) in residence on the Blacksburg campus.
Attainment of ABD Status
Once a student's advisory committee has been determined, the student may begin work toward the attainment of ABD (all but dissertation) status in the program by preparing a dissertation proposal at preliminary exams.
ASPECT students may sequence their examination and dissertation proposal in the order deemed most appropriate by the advisory committee and the program director.
Preliminary Examination
These ex-chamber exams are an opportunity for the student to undertake substantial writing in response to three questions that synthesize a student's research interest: One question addresses the candidate's major area of concentration (i.e. political, social, cultural, ethical), another the secondary area of concentration, and the third, the substantive area of research likely to be proposed by the Dissertation proposal. The Advisory Committee will compose the specific questions based on a list of readings in each of the three areas submitted by the student. A student will have three days to answer each question, with a page limit of 25 pages per question.
The preliminary exam serves two purposes. First, it is the final formal setting to determine whether a student is prepared to undertake independent scholarly research. Second, it permits students to get a head start in writing what could become draft chapters of the dissertation and receiving advice from their committee members. Qualifying Exams will normally be written during the semester in which all formal course requirements have been met. If more than two members of the Advisory Committee provide an unsatisfactory grade on the exam, a student will be permitted to take the exam a second time. Should that not result in a satisfactory result, the student will be dropped from the program.
Dissertation Proposal
The proposal may be submitted as soon as the semester in which formal course requirements will be fulfilled. The proposal will outline the specifics of the proposed research, including objectives, review of relevant literatures, methodologies and analysis, significance of the proposed research in relationship to existing scholarship, and relevance to ASPECT's scholarly mission. A student's Advisory Committee will then meet formally with the student to approve the proposal. Should the proposal not be approved, a student may resubmit the proposal a second time. Should the second meeting not conclude with the approval of the proposal, the student will normally be dropped from the program.
Progress Report
Each April following successful passage of the qualifying exams, students will submit a progress report to their Advisory Committee. The purpose of these progress reports is to enable the Advisory Committee to evaluate research progress and, as needed, to provide the student with suggestions for modifications or additions to the research.
Teaching Experience
All doctoral students awarded a GTA are ordinarily required to use this opportunity to gain teaching experience. Additionally, students are encouraged to avail themselves of pedagogical offerings sponsored by the Graduate School in order to deepen their pedagogical education. Beginning students will normally serve as Teaching Assistants in one of the four core departments, while students who have earned 24 credit hours in the doctoral program may be assigned by the director to teach independent undergraduate courses. In either case, students who expect to seek employment in a particular discipline will be encouraged to gain teaching experience there. ASPECT Ph.D. students are eligible to serve as T.A.s in the following departments or programs: History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Interdisciplinary Studies (including Women's Studies, Religious Studies, Humanities, and Appalachian Studies). A unique feature of the program is that ASPECT students may gain teaching experience in more than one discipline during their studies at Virginia Tech, should they have such interests.
Dissertation
A doctoral student must complete a dissertation based on original research. ASPECT's program design is uniquely situated to promote that desideratum. The dissertation should describe the nature and significance of the research problem with respect to social, political, ethical, and cultural thought, the relevant literature, methodologies or modes of analysis employed, and conclusions.
Application for Degree
During the final semester, the candidate must electronically submit the Application for Degree (AFD). Once this has been filed, the Progress to Degree Checklist must be completed. The checklist requires completion of the Final Exam Scheduling form at least two weeks prior to your desired defense date.
Final Examination
After completing the final draft of the dissertation, a student will submit it to all members of her/his Advisory Committee for review. After the committee has reviewed the dissertation, a student must make an oral defense of it before the Advisory Committee in a public setting open to any interested faculty and students. The oral defense constitutes the final examination. No more than one member of the Advisory Committee may assign a failing grade to the oral defense for the candidate to pass. A student must complete all changes to the written dissertation requested by members of the Advisory Committee, as the major advisor summarizes them.
Electronic Thesis/Dissertation Submission
Once all changes to the written dissertation requested by members of the Advisory Committee are completed, the candidate submits the Electronic Dissertation Approval Form with original signatures and any applicable supporting documentation for the ETD.
Awarding of Degree
Once the criteria above have been met, the student will be awarded the doctoral degree at the next regularly scheduled University graduation ceremony.
Learning Outcomes
Graduates of the Ph.D. program will have an advanced level of knowledge about a particular problem in social, political, ethical, and cultural thought and the contributions that have been made in solving it from a variety of disciplines, fields, and perspectives. They will be able to undertake original and creative, theoretically-informed research based on development of an interdisciplinary set of analytic skills. They will know how to work with various kinds of print and non-print objects of analysis as well as the methodologies required to interrelate them. They will be able to apply for grants, prepare and publish research findings, and contribute to the planning of research venues such as graduate conferences and workshops. They can be expected, with these accomplishments, to apply these skills to related or new projects. Furthermore, graduates who intend to pursue a postsecondary teaching career will be prepared to teach core courses in the departments or disciplines most related to their research interests.
Plan of Study Forms