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Graduates of the PhD program serve as faculty of colleges, universities, and seminaries, in churches, and as leaders of nonprofit organizations. They represent the next generation of thinkers whose ideas are vital for the flourishing of church and society.
The PhD program requires two years of coursework, comprehensive examinations on a range of subjects in the third year, and a dissertation of approximately 200 pages, which is typically completed in the fourth and fifth years.
The PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Politics is an integrative course of study in theology and its associated disciplines. Taking interdisciplinarity into account, our PhD program presupposes that these disciplines cannot ultimately be separated from each other in Christian theological and ethical understandings. Students may elect their own focus or area of concentration. For example, students who choose to focus on constructive or systematic theology and ethics might pursue the study of selected classical and contemporary theological figures, texts, methods, and constructions, with attention to their grounding in the broad stream of the Christian tradition. They might focus particularly on biblical, Patristic, or Reformation trajectories that take seriously the issues raised in the modern and contemporary eras. A significant dimension of this engagement might pivot on the awareness of how theology contributes to moral deliberation, political discourse, and ethical praxis. Other students might choose to focus on Christian ethics. They might study a philosophical, social-theoretical, or theological school of thought with respect to ethics such as virtue ethics, womanist ethics, postcolonialism, or queer theory. They might also study a specific social or political issue such as gender, race and class relations, war and peace, ecology, or faith and political democracy, while interrogating related contextual, historical, conceptual, and theological issues. Comprehensive exams are designed with the interrelatedness of theology, ethics, and politics in mind, reinforcing the importance of attending to the methods and discourses within each discipline. This doctoral program offers rigorous and flexible academic training that enables students to gain subject-matter expertise and pursue impactful scholarship through a highly integrative and interdisciplinary approach.
While fulfilling the two modern language requirements, the student enters a two-year period of full-time resident study. During this residence period, the student will be required to successfully complete a minimum of eight doctoral seminars or their equivalent. Four courses must be taken as seminars in the Theology Department. The remaining four required courses can also be departmental seminars, or they might be a combination of Princeton University graduate level-courses, independent studies, PhD seminars in other departments, or MDiv courses with PhD-level writing assignments negotiated with the professor of the course.
The following restrictions apply:
Students will take four comprehensive exams in their third year of study. The comprehensive exams are taken as students transition out of coursework and into research within their own subfield and teaching within a broader range of specializations and competencies. They are a key site for student growth and faculty mentoring. The exams are designed to help the student and the faculty assess the student’s progress in their program of study. They help identify the strengths and weaknesses in the student’s work and preparation to date. And, most importantly, they contribute to the student’s scholarly and intellectual formation. They help prepare the student to take the next steps: write a dissertation, contribute to a discipline, and begin a teaching vocation.
The topic areas, format, and content of the exams will be determined by the student’s residence committee and examiners in conversation with the student. The exams will be geared to the student’s interests, disciplinary obligations, and scholarly identity/location. Some exams will help the student acquire broad acquaintance with the scholarly traditions and conversations within their chosen subfield. Other exams will allow the student to focus on specific questions or controversies. At least one exam should address content related to a possible dissertation topic or question.
Formats. The exams may take the following formats:
At least three different formats must be used across the four exams. Only one exam may be a course research and design proposal.
The student will submit a dissertation proposal to their dissertation committee after completing their comprehensive exams in the Fall of their third year (Spring semester deadline). The proposal should identify the topic or problematic that the dissertation will address; specify what the student wants to say about that topic, the claim or point of view that the student hopes to defend; spell out the approach the student will take (textual or conceptual analysis, history of doctrine, genealogy, comparative, ethnographic, and so on); sketch the overall argument; and identify the significant contribution that the dissertation will make. Some dissertation committee chairs will require a tentative chapter outline. After a student’s proposal has been approved, they will be able to officially start writing, meeting with their dissertation chair a minimum of twice each semester.
