Curriculum

Study programme

The International Doctorate Program, Practices of pre-modern cultures, global perspectives and future concepts, strives to offer a best-practice model of postgraduate education. This includes a balanced curriculum and innovative teaching methods, as well as the strong involvement of all those participating in the programme, including advisors, international collaborative partners and doctoral candidates.

The curriculum aims to pair an offering of relevant courses for participants with the required freedom necessary for the planning, development and completion of dissertations. The doctoral period is accordingly structured by a study programme, which includes an input and output phase (at most four semesters each) and can be adjusted to the varying needs of each student.

The innovative coupling of the acquisition of philological competencies thanks to the broad range of IT and digital humanities courses on offer, and, especially, the attainment of data literacy skills, is central to the programme’s teaching concept.

Overall, the doctorate school/graduate school seeks to promote the following career goals: doctoral candidates will be prepared for academic as well as non-academic careers, in doing so maximizing prospects of high-quality employment after degree completion. In addition to the required coursework completed by all participants, students fulfill an elective requirement, chosen according to their individual needs and interests.

Curriculum Excerpt and other, supplementary, forms of teaching

1. Compulsory courses:

Kick-off workshop: This one-and-a-half-day workshop held at the start of the first semester serves as an introduction to the overall topic, and also encompasses a discussion of previously-read foundation texts on philology from within the fields of the various subjects involved in the graduate programme.

Foundation courses (2x two hours):

Foundation Course I:
Philological practices (in subject-specific suitable formats). The aim of the course is to provide an in-depth introduction to basic palaeographic, codicological and text-critical ideas, practices and theories. The course can also be taken by students wishing to refresh their existing knowledge of said ideas, practices and theories (weekly, two hours long).

Foundation Course II:
The course provides an introduction to Digital Philologies as a subject and provides participants with basic computational and statistical skills, an overview of the digital methods available, as well as ideas and techniques for the preparation, analysis and evaluation of digital data (weekly, two hours long).
Both foundation courses need to be completed by the end of the first semester (input phase).

Summer Schools:
A three-day summer school will be held in the second and sixth semester. In order to intensively promote the basic skills of PhD candidates, a summer school is planned on the topic of studying manuscripts and their transmission, which will be organised by LMU staff. The topic of the second summer school will be chosen by the PhD candidates themselves. They will also take on the organisation of this.

Lecture series:
During the second year of study (third semester), a lecture series is held (every two weeks) in which doctoral students are required to participate. The lecture series is open to all students and also aims to communicate research results to a wider interested public.

Writing workshop and block reading sessions:

A block session will take place in the sixth semester. This includes a writing workshop, reading sessions, the discussion of primary and secondary literature, and the discussion of the doctoral students' drafts.

Masterclasses:
In the third, fourth and sixth semesters, two lectures are given by international collaboration partners and guests, combined with subsequent four-hour seminars.

Doctoral Conference:
Doctoral candidates are expected to plan a two-day international conference, taking over responsibility for the conference’s thematic content.

Career talks and networking events:

All doctoral students are invited to two one-hour career talks during their four years of doctoral studies, which are designed to provide orientation and advice on academic and non-academic career paths. In addition, we offer a networking event at which representatives from various professional sectors (libraries, publishing houses, journalism, ministries) report on their everyday work and career paths.

Fireside evening:
An evening event is held annually to discuss topics relevant to doctoral students.

2. Compulsory electives:

These courses, lectures and events have been devised to help develop the academic personalities of attending graduate students and to teach them key competencies, as well as to prepare them for careers either within or outside academia (they include writing workshops, a career forum, networking evenings, and a publication forum, amongst other things). Students must attend two of these electives.

Additional academic and professional skills:
Throughout the entire doctoral period, students can use the courses, lectures and events on offer at the graduate school to acquire additional skills and take advantage of opportunities for further training for careers within and outside academia (topics covered include literature management, time management, academic English, voice training, professional fields, preparation for disputations and job application training). In addition, the LMU Research Funding Office can also be used, which regularly provides information on the funding formats offered by third-party funding bodies, as well as providing information on how to acquire said funding.