Texas Tech University

Art gallery with projects

J.T. & Margaret Talkington
College of Visual & Performing Arts
Ph.D. in Fine Arts

Ph.D. in Fine Arts

We train public-facing, interdisciplinary scholars and artists

The arts are not silos or ivory towers. They are dynamic practices of give and take. Texas Tech University's unique Fine Arts Doctoral Program (FADP), which leads to a PhD in Fine Arts, encourages students to pursue creative-critical study of the arts as an energetic exchange between multiple disciplines. Our students work both deeply and broadly. They balance focused disciplinary investigation with more integrative research bringing together approaches from the arts, social and natural sciences, and/or humanities. The FADP serves two types of students: 1) those with interdisciplinary scholarly or practice-based research interests, and 2) those with disciplinary research agendas who also want to increase their breadth as educators or administrators in a variety of institutional contexts. Student dissertation projects vary widely—from the creation of a festival of theatre and performance art in shipping containers to evolutionary explanations for music and dance, from an analysis of medieval altarpieces as technologies of virtual reality to a feminist approach to voice-image relations in Iranian film.

 

Some of our students use different disciplinary practices to answer cross-disciplinary questions; others conduct research within a single discipline, but also want the broader knowledge necessary to be a leader in an institution serving diverse needs. Ultimately, interdisciplinarity does not disparage or deny the disciplines, but depends on them for their methods and insights, even as it reorganizes their commitments. The FADP sees interdisciplinarity as a performance of world-making aimed at both current and future cultural institutions. 

Programs by Track

Although the coursework is interdisciplinary, our students are situated within a specific track, making them more legible to hiring committees and facilitating the disciplinary components of the program. 

Track List

Students choose between four tracks: Theatre Arts (concentrations include acting/directing, design, arts administration, playwriting, and history/theory/criticism), Music (concentrations include musicology, music theory, music education, and arts administration), Art, or Interdisciplinary Arts, which allows students to choose two or three concentrations from different Schools or departments across the university. 

 

What Sets Us Apart

Our program, which was started in 1972, prepares students for disciplinary excellence and interdisciplinary innovation. Our students ask big questions—about power dynamics, aesthetic forms, cognitive processes, the diversity of embodied experience, and the ethics of artistic creation—and have a wide variety of methodological tools at their disposal. Student experience is heavily customized to serve individual research interests. 

5 Fine Arts Core Courses - This suite of courses establishes the shared language and collaborative ethos within the FADP:

  - Colloquium in Interdisciplinary Arts (VPA 5301)
  - Arts Histories (VPA 5310)
  - Contemporary Methods in the Arts (VPA 5314)
  - elective in Philosophy (PHIL 5310 or 5314, VPA 5300)
  - elective in Interdisciplinary Arts (VPA 5300)

Curriculum

Includes field-specific coursework to develop student specialization 

Research Interests

Students with additional research interests are encouraged to take other courses at TTU 

Student Research

Supported through the TCVPA's Student Research and Creative Activity Awards (RCAA) 

Teaching Opportunities

Certain undergraduate courses are available with a broad approach to arts scholarship

World-class Faculty

We have world-class faculty who care deeply about student success  

Program Highlights

  • Opportunities for practice-based research
  • Oportunities for place-based education
  • Oportunities for community engagement and advocacy
  • Collaborative approaches to scholarship and arts practice
 
 
 
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Ph.D. in Fine Arts Coordinators

Heather Warren Crow

Heather Warren Crow
Director, Fine Arts Doctoral Program; Coordinator, Interdisciplinary Arts Track

Kevin Chua

Kevin Chua
Coordinator, School of Art Track

David Forrest

David Forrest
Coordinator, School of Music Track

Andrew Gibb

Andrew Gibb
Coordinator, School of Theatre & Dance Track

 

Admissions

Apply Now

Applicants to the FADP Program will apply to the Graduate School.

Students will also choose a specific track within the arts based on interest.

 

Spotlight Success

professor

Andrew Kagumba

Dissertation
Orchestrating Social Competence: On the Transformative Work of Musicking in Two Ugandan NGOs (M-LISADA and Brass for Africa)

Track
Music track, music education concentration

Dissertation Chair
Janice Killian

Lina Kattan

Lina Kattan

Dissertation
The Conflicted Living Beings: The Performative Aspect of Female Bodies' Representations in Saudi Painting and Photography

Track
Art

Dissertation Chair
Jorgelina Orfila

Jared Stanley

Jared Stanley

Dissertation
Working Through Grief: Continuing Bonds in the New Golden Age of Television 

Track
Art

Dissertation Chair
Heather Warren-Crow

professor

Collin Vorbeck

Dissertation
Applying Event Schema Theory to the Evolving Dramaturgies of Dramatic Literature

Track
Theatre track, History/Theory/Criticism and Acting/Directing concentrations

Dissertation Chair
Andrew Gibb