Application and Admissions Process
Applications for admission and aid should be made through the Graduate School's website. Completed forms should be postmarked by January 15. For inquiries about applications not submitted online, contact the Graduate School Admissions Office, 143 Caldwell Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-2602 (tel: 607-255-5820).
Candidates should take the GRE aptitude tests (verbal, quantitative, and analytical, plus the subject test if available in their main subject) and have their scores sent to Cornell (code 2098; use the subject code of 2999, "Humanities & Arts--Other"). Applicants should also provide three letters of recommendation (one more than required by the Graduate School), all college and graduate school transcripts, and a writing sample of about 20 pages on a topic that best reveals the applicant's scholarly abilities, critical acumen, and suitability for advanced medieval scholarship. The university requires foreign students who are not native speakers of English to pass the TOEFL examination with a score of at least 250 (old online version) or 105 (new online scoring), with the following minimum scores: 20 (Writing), 15 (Listening), 20 (Reading), and 22 (Speaking). Exam results are reported to the Graduate School. Recommendation letters can be submitted online or in hard copy. Transcripts, writing sample, and any recommendation letters not submitted online should be sent directly to the Medieval Studies Program at the address listed below.
Offers of admission (with financial aid) are usually made by April 1. The Field of Medieval Studies admits only students pursuing the Ph.D. Please address all inquiries to the Director,
Medieval Studies Program
259 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-3201
Telephone: 607-255-8545
e-mail: medievalst@cornell.edu.
Please review the Advice for Applicants section below.
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Advice
for Applicants
The Medieval Studies Program at Cornell offers a comparative and/or interdisciplinary doctorate. Each student chooses one major and two minor fields of study. At least one of the minor fields must be in either a different language or a different discipline from the major field.
A literary comparatist's program, for example, might look like this: Major field: Old English Literature; Minor fields: Middle High German Literature and Middle English Literature. An interdisciplinary program might take this form: Major Field: Medieval History; Minor Fields: Medieval English History and Medieval Philosophy. Programs that are both comparative and interdisciplinary are also possible, e.g. Major field: Middle English Literature; Minor fields: Medieval Latin Literature and Medieval Philosophy.
When you apply to our Ph.D. program, we need to know that you possess a good preliminary training in your proposed major field of study. A sound basis in the main languages in which you are likely to work is obviously essential. We are also likely to be impressed by any good indications that you have thought about the comparative and interdisciplinary nature of our degree, and are aware that work towards a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies is not quite the same as a Ph.D. in, say, Philosophy or History or Germanic Philology. We will have different expectations about your course of study and the directions in which we will expect you to branch out. To illustrate this, consider the difference between Medieval Studies with an English emphasis and a specialist English degree. Our program emphasizes the contributions to understanding of context and sensibility that history and archaeology or contemporary literary theory can offer, and will certainly encourage you to read in other medieval literatures, Latin and French especially, but quite possibly Icelandic sagas and Dante too, depending on your needs and interests. In contrast, a specialist English Ph.D. may give you a somewhat greater freedom to pursue English literature more or less strictly defined over a longer period of time.
It will help us if your application gives us a clear indication of the nature of your major interests and what minors might attract you. It is not necessary at the application stage to declare major and minor fields in detail, just to indicate the main direction in which you think you wish to move. We are looking in part for minds open to new scholarly experiences and techniques.
Students in the Medieval Studies Program normally take courses for three years before their A-Exams, though it has sometimes proved possible for exceptionally prepared students to attempt the A-Exam as early as the end of the second year. During this time most students prepare for exams in one major and two minor fields. (Further minors are possible, but naturally entail extra exams.) Literary and linguistic students have to work in several medieval languages. Western historians and philosophers, while they may have less need for medieval vernacular languages, do need to be able to read Latin with some ease. All students need to be able to read at least two and usually three (or more) modern research languages. No medievalist can have too much knowledge of any research language. We require all Western medievalists to have passed the Toronto Medieval Latin Exam at the M.A. level by the end of their third year. All our students must be aware of the need to be able to read the original manuscripts in their field. A Paleography course is therefore the other general requirement prior to the A-Exam. Time is short; preparation important. The better your preparation, the more time you can devote to branching out to new material and to acquiring deeper knowledge in your major field.
Below are some guidelines to our faculty's expectations about language (and other) preparation for study in a variety of the major fields that we offer. These are guidelines, desiderata, rather than inflexible rules. But they are significant, e.g. it is not realistic to apply to study western medieval history in our program, if you have studied no Latin, and have only one modern research language, or to apply to do work in Old and Middle English, if you have never read any Middle English or taken any medieval coursework in college.
Last, but not least: we would like to see a writing-sample on a medieval topic, if at all possible, either one 20-page paper, or chapter, or two shorter papers. Choose samples that display you at your best; even better if these demonstrate your control of relevant skills, such as close reading of texts or the deployment of evidence.
Preparation
for Major Fields in Medieval Studies
Medieval Archaeology: Applicants intending to major in Late Antique or Medieval Archaeology will typically have majored in history or archaeology as undergraduates with a significant amount of courses on Late Antiquity and/or the Middle Ages. The knowledge of Latin is strongly recommended for students who wish to work on a dissertation topic involving the West. At least one modern language (French, German or Italian) is required at the time of application. It is generally recommended that students with a major in Medieval Archaeology do a minor in Late Antique or Medieval History, plus a second minor in Ancient History or Archaeology. For more information on Cornell Archaeology, please see the webpage for the University's Intercollege Program in Archaeology.
Middle English: Significant
ME training, and at least preliminary training in OE, Latin, or other
European medieval languages.
Old English: Significant
OE training, and at least preliminary training in Latin, ME, and
perhaps other Germanic languages.
Medieval French: Applicants intending to major in medieval French literature should have majored in French as undergraduates and be willing, for career purposes, to minor in some non-medieval area of French Studies. They could, for example, combine the French Renaissance with the Middle Ages. Since they will need to acquire facility in reading both Latin and German, they would be well-advised to begin studying at least one of these languages before entering graduate school. We will do our best to provide French specialists with an opportunity to teach a French language course in addition to First-Year Writing Seminars involving medieval French texts in translation.
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Middle High German: Applicants
intending to major in Middle High German should ideally have had
a course in MHG or medieval literature in English or Modern German
(it not being always possible to study MHG at an undergraduate institution).
In addition to acquiring Latin during graduate school they should
also be prepared to study another medieval language and literature,
usually Old French or Old Icelandic. Given the broad teaching demands
often placed on professors in German departments, prospective majors
in MHG should also be willing to minor in some area of modern German
Studies.
Students wishing to minor in MHG usually find that a year of college German
or a 1-2 semester reading course in German gives them adequate
preparation for taking Middle High German.
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Medieval History: At time of application,
Latin is, of course, essential for all Western Medievalists but
also at least one modern European language (French, German, and/or
Italian) is required for historians, plus the willingness to tackle
any medieval vernaculars that might prove necessary for research
(e.g. Old French or Old English).
It
is generally recommended that students with a major in Medieval
History do a minor field in either Ancient History, Renaissance
History, or English History, plus a second minor in another medieval
field (a language, literature, archaeology, art history, music,
or philosophy).
Students with a major field in medieval history will eventually teach their own First-Year Writing Seminars through Medieval Studies, but every attempt is also made to ensure that they have a chance to T.A. for one of the medieval history lecture courses taught in the History Department.
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to Fields List
Medieval Islamic History: At time of application,
two or more years of Arabic is desirable, in addition to at least
one modern European language (French, German, or Italian).
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Medieval History of Art: Significant background in study of medieval art, with evidence of research capabilities and interdisciplinary interests. Advanced level in reading comprehension (and, preferably, speaking ability) in at least one relevant modern European language, preferably two. At least intermediate proficiency in Latin, Biblical Hebrew and/or Arabic.
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Medieval Italian: Applicants intending to major in medieval Italian literature should have a good command of Italian upon entering the program (i.e., good enough to be able to do course work conducted in Italian). They should be willing, for career purposes, to minor in a non-medieval area of Italian, such as the Italian Renaissance, or the 20th century. Since they will need to acquire facility in reading both Latin and French, they would be well-advised to begin studying at least one of these languages before entering graduate school. We will do our best to provide Italian specialists with an opportunity to teach an Italian language course in addition to First-Year Writing Seminars involving medieval Italian texts in translation.
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Medieval Latin: Medieval Latinists are most often domiciled in either Classics or English Departments, less commonly in Comparative Literature or other interdisciplinary programs. Students proposing to specialize in Medieval Latin should thus normally have a solid grounding in both classical languages, and it will be advisable to plan on developing a strong secondary expertise in Old and Middle English and/or other medieval vernaculars during graduate work. In addition to medieval languages, we will expect you to acquire a good reading knowledge of French and German, plus any other modern languages relevant to your research (most commonly Italian and Spanish).
If you come here and elect to specialize in Medieval Latin, we will try to ensure that you get a chance to teach Beginning Latin (through Classics) in addition to teaching the First-Year Writing Seminars available through Medieval Studies. You are also likely to have the chance to teach Latin at the 300-level.
At time of application we are looking for candidates with an excellent reading knowledge of Latin and a working knowledge of at least one or two of the modern languages. Please include in your application a detailed account of your previous work in Latin. If you have any questions, please contact Carin Ruff
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Medieval Musicology: Coming Soon Return to Fields List
Medieval Philosophy: Useful preparation for graduate-level work in medieval philosophy would include undergraduate work in ancient philosophy and in philosophy generally (not just the history of philosophy).
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Medieval Slavic: At
present medieval Slavic is available only as a minor, not a major
field. Students who wish to do medieval Slavic as a minor field
should already have a thorough knowledge of modern Russian or another
modern Slavic language. Before the end of their studies they will
need to know Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian, as well as modern
languages for research purposes (French and German). It is unlikely
that a student could learn all four of these while working on another
major at Cornell, so some of them should have been studied previously.
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Advice
on Choosing a Special Committee Chair
Before you can start advanced graduate work at Cornell in earnest, you
must have a faculty advisor (a Special Committee Chair) who agrees
to supervise your work and who will eventually be the primary supervisor
of your dissertation. The advisor must be a member of the graduate
faculty of the Medieval Studies Program and there must be mutual
agreement on the advising arrangement and eventually on the dissertation
topic. The advisor-student relationship will be one of the most
important for your career. You can change advisors midstream in
Graduate School, but doing so after the second year can be difficult,
time consuming, and emotionally costly.
If you are a student who is considering applying to the Field of Medieval Studies
at Cornell in order to work in an area where there is only one faculty member,
you will wish to think seriously now about who your Special Committee Chair
would be, since in effect you would be choosing that person as an advisor even
before you arrive at Cornell.
In
order to make the best possible choice of advisor, we recommend
that you meet with the faculty members with whom you might work
and that you talk with the students in the Program about the attributes
of the various advisors. Assume nothing and ask everything about
the faculty. Some things you can ask the faculty member directly;
others you should try to ascertain from the senior students. Look
up and read some of the publications of your potential advisors.
Remember, also, that the faculty members will have their own questions
about you, and that this is a two-way street.
You
should expect to make trade-offs and compromises in selecting an
advisor. For example, many students naturally wish to work with
the most famous faculty members, but it is important to remember
that these are sometimes also the busiest advisors, who have the
least time for their students. It might be wise to work with an
advisor who is more demanding of his/her students if that advisor's
students are better prepared and get better jobs than those of
another faculty member. The only inviolable rule is that you should
always work with an advisor who is expert in the area of research
or scholarship that you intend to pursue.
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Funding
To enable students to accept
our offer of admission, the Graduate School and the field of Medieval
Studies strive to guarantee five years of full support. At
least four semesters of this support come in the form of annual
fellowships: one
in the first-year and a final
one when students are completing the dissertation in their fifth
year. While
on fellowship, students receive an award of full
tuition, given in recognition of their excellent preparation and
promise as graduate students. In
addition, the field guarantees at least four years of summer
support at the going rate.
Support in other years comes from teaching assistantships,
which entail working not more than twenty hours a week and provide
both a tuition fellowship and a stipend at whatever the current
rate may be. The
Cornell student health insurance plan provides annual coverage which remains
in place even if students should cease to be enrolled as graduates.
Individuals who leave the university or are not funded by the university
during the spring semester must pay the health insurance premium
for that period. The student activity
fee (about $60 per year) is not covered.
All guarantees of support are, of course, contingent upon satisfactory academic performance (as determined by the field of Medieval Studies) and satisfactory performance as a teacher. We also expect our students to apply, as appropriate, for funding from external sources (our students have been quite successful in these endeavors). The Javits Fellowship, for example, is available to first-year graduate students, and provides up to four years of funding. For additional information, see http://www.ed.gov/programs/jacobjavits/index.html.
If and when you decide to apply to our
program, you might also consider
applying for one of the $17,500 Mellon Fellowships in Humanistic Studies to
fund your first year's study here and get you off to an extra good start.
Further details on this can be found at the page for The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in Humanistic Studies.
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