The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington invites applications to its M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Slavic Literature and Slavic Linguistics starting in Fall, 2025.
We seek students who have had at least four years of Russian language training and other related coursework (although those with less will still be considered). Students who took the maximum number of years of any of the other Slavic languages offered at their undergraduate institution, or have comparable training or other relevant background in other Slavic languages and literatures are also invited to apply.
Please note: our PhD program aims for a more immediately research-focused five-year degree, in which students in their second year prepare a PhD reading list of primary and secondary sources, with an annotated bibliography of these materials to follow in the second and third years. In the third quarter of the third year students take two written exams closely related to their field of study. In the fall of their fourth year students compose a dissertation prospectus; that same quarter students take their oral exam, which covers the annotated bibliography and the prospectus. They then have the rest of year four as well as year five to finish the dissertation.
With the goal of preparing our students for a changing job market, please further note, we encourage our PhD candidates to complete one of several Graduate Certificates, which will require at least 15 credits with an interdisciplinary focus approved by the student’s faculty advisor. Six of the credits taken as part of a graduate certificate curriculum can count as electives credit for the PhD program.
Our department teaches a rich variety of Slavic languages, including Russian, Polish, Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian, Slovenian, Ukrainian and occasionally Bulgarian, Czech and Rumanian. A selective list of our faculty’s concentrations includes Russian, Czech and former Yugoslav Literature and Film; Post-Soviet, Russian-Jewish, and General Cultural Studies (including Visual Arts, Gender, Ethnicity, Nationalism, Philosophy, Disability, Death & Dying, Critical Animal Studies, Environmental Humanities and Religion); Diachronic and Synchronic Linguistics (including syntax, semantics and pragmatics in a cross-cultural perspective).
We invite you to consult http://depts.washington.edu/slavweb/people/faculty-staff/ for a list of our faculty and their research interests.
The UW Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures prides itself on close ties with the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (CEREAS) on campus, as well as with other related departments and programs (History, Political Science, Jewish Studies, Film Studies, Disability Studies, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, Near Eastern Literatures and Cultures, Scandinavian Studies, Comparative History of Ideas, the Simpson Center for the Humanities), which enhance our ability to carry out research and teaching missions in the broad area of Slavic, Eurasian, and post-Soviet Studies. As noted, students may earn a number of graduate certificates, in fields such as Second and Foreign Language Teaching, Public Scholarship, etc.
The UW Libraries is home to one of the nation’s outstanding Slavic studies research collections, which numbers over a half million items and supports advanced work in Russian, Czech, Polish, BCS, Slovenian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian languages, literatures and cultures. Each year we acquire over 6,000 newly published books, media materials, and other items from and about the Slavic and Eastern European world. Items from our collection of more than 1,600 Slavic and Eastern European feature films are available to students on one-week loan. Libraries staff work closely with both faculty and graduate students in the Slavic Department to ensure that UW is acquiring material that supports their research and teaching.
The UW Slavic Department offers a warm and collegial setting for graduate students to grow and develop their skills. Students have a chance to share their research and practice conference talks at our monthly Graduate Student Colloquia and present their work at the annual REECAS Northwest Conferences and other venues. We work hard, through mentorship, opportunities for professional development, as well as coursework, to equip our graduate students with the skills and training they will need to excel in their chosen field.
To learn more about the opportunities and resources at the University of Washington, please visit http://www.grad.washington.edu/.
For more information, please visit https://slavic.washington.edu/graduate-admissions. Please apply by this year’s application deadline, December 15.
For additional details and clarifications contact Professor José Alaniz, Graduate Program Coordinator, at jos23@u.washington.edu.