Dissertation Pre-Proposal Seminar

MUSI 41519 Dissertation Pre-Proposal Seminar

The Dissertation Pre-Proposal Seminar (DPPS) is a yearlong course required of all first- and second-year students in the Department of Music. The DPPS provides Ph.D. students in all sub-disciplines—history/theory, ethnomusicology, and composition—with methods and approaches to guide them in the early stages of preparing for the dissertations or, in the case of composers, their minor-field papers. In the course of the year, students will read and examine dissertations and the proposals that led to them. Students develop a fuller understanding of what kinds of research can be helpful in the first and second years, for example, whether short-term visits to archives or ethnographic work might assist them in identifying the empirical materials they will use. At various times during the year, we workshop some of the written work that students prepare as the subjects of their dissertations become clearer. The DPPS leads directly into the Dissertation Proposal Seminar (MUSI 41500), which students take in the third year of their Ph.D. studies. The dissertation seminar sequence in the Music Department concludes with the Dissertation Chapter Seminar (MUSI 41520), taken by students in their fourth and fifth years.