DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Our PhD in Performance Studies is designed for students to familiarize themselves with the epistemic and methodological traditions of Euro-American, Asian, and Philippine theatre, oral studies, rhetoric and performance scholarship, as well as to identify specific trajectories of individual research projects.

We are also envisioning to produce interdisciplinary research projects across the wide spectrum of speech, theatre and performance studies.

The program situates the term “performance” in a broad spectrum of definitions. First, performance may refer to highly aestheticized, stylized, and amplified modes of communicative practice that a society takes in, harnesses, realizes, and ultimately passes on across time and space.

Second, performance is any embodied and multi-sensual social practice involving a repertoire of gestures and behaviors that people reiterate, reinvent, recombine, and reconfigure in specific contexts.

Third, performance pertains to reiterated modes of exertion, enactment, and intervention in the world that serve purposes such as the transmission of social knowledge, the construction and reconstruction of self-identity, the commemoration or intensification of memory, and the edification and reformation of the world at large, among others.

CURRICULUM CHECKLIST

LIST OF COURSES

As a PhD in Performance Studies student, you are expected to contribute to the existing knowledge in the arts and humanities and even in the social sciences through independent research works on performance, particularly Philippine performance practices. You are expected to critically examine theories by questioning their totalizing and generalizing tendencies and to provide alternative ways of perceiving the ontology of culture through the examination of it as performance. Most importantly, you are envisioned to push for the location of the Philippines in the wide arena of performance research.

The goals of the program are the following:

Examine the complexity of performance as an important theoretical and methodological lens in various disciplines of the humanities (art studies, theatre studies, literature), social sciences (history, anthropology, sociology) and the fine arts (music, dance, visual arts)
Conceive performance as a way of explaining different realities in the world
Reflect the usefulness of performance in articulating alternative models for the understanding of sociocultural concepts such as nation, gender, identity, to name a few;
and engage in conversations about performance using the location of the Philippines in the wide arena of performance discourse.

What we do in the program:

Illustrate how performance may be used as an important theoretical lens in various disciplines of the humanities, social sciences, and the fine arts
Engage in multimodal and interdisciplinary research using performance as a methodological lens
Construct alternative theoretical and methodological lenses in thinking about performance
Formulate new theories about performance based on engagement in various performance activities

Interested applicants may navigate the guides below.

FOR FILIPINO APPLICANTS

FOR FOREIGN APPLICANTS

FOR DUAL CITIZENS

For Filipino applicants whose entry degrees are from foreign universities, requirements vary. Please check this link for more information.

Requirements must be submitted in-person at the Graduate Studies Office. For inquiries or concerns, please send an email to Ms. Queenie Andales at graduatestudies.application@gmail.com.

Program Structure

Courses for the PhD in Performance Studies rest on the strengths and expertise of the department’s current crop of faculty whose academic and intellectual trainings are in Theatre Arts/Studies, Performance Studies, Dance Studies, Heritage Studies, Communication Studies, Comparative Literature, Public Administration, Anthropology, and Philippine Studies.

Students enrolled in the program must complete a total of 42 units consisting of 12 units of Core Courses, 12 units of Perf. Stud. Elective Courses, 6 units of Cognates, Comprehensive Examination, and 12 units of Dissertation

The Core Courses refer to the subset of major courses common to all students of a particular program. In the program, the 12 units of Core Courses are foundational courses on perspectives, key concepts, theories and methods in performance studies. The core courses – namely, Perf. Stud. 301 Perspectives in Performance Studies, Perf. Stud. 302 Performance in Contexts, Perf. Stud. 303 Methods in Performance Studies – intend to introduce potential students in the theoretical, historical, and methodological fundamentals of performance studies. This triad is crucial in providing a common knowledge and vocabulary that will hopefully assist students in crafting their own projects in Performance Studies 399 Research.

Performance Studies Elective Courses refer to courses a student can choose from the list of Perf. Stud. courses identified as electives. In the program, students will have the option to choose four (4) of the available elective courses in consultation of the program adviser. The elective courses are envisioned to substantiate the literature of the chosen research area or focus of the students. The suggested elective courses, meanwhile, seek to relate performance to a range of concerns: from history and society, to gender and sexuality, to culture and politics, to the self and everyday life, to narratives and rhetorical performances, to technological developments and infrastructures. These courses are designed to be conceptual or thematic in approach, so that they may flexibly incorporate and address issues, problems, and concerns that serve the purpose of the courses, the needs of students, and the specialization of the faculty teaching a subject.

Cognates are courses outside of but related to the discipline or field, with minimum number of required units. These courses aim to complement or enrich the core and elective courses. Students may take Cognate Courses (any 300-level course or equivalent) from the following programs: anthropology, art studies, Asian studies, comparative literature, education, Filipino, film, history, media studies, panitikan ng Pilipinas, philosophy, sociology, women’s studies, among others.

Each student must also satisfactorily complete the Comprehensive Examination. The purpose of the Comprehensive Examination is to ensure that the student has a sufficient background of knowledge needed to proceed towards the PhD degree. Successful completion of the Comprehensive Examination marks a student’s transition to the independent research phase of his/her postgraduate education including dissertation proposal defense and Perf. Stud. 400.