The program has three final requirements.  In their junior year, students will take part in an ECS-related excursion, and participate in the visit of the program’s annual Faber lecturer.  Please see our list of recent excursions. All juniors vote on the choice of the venue. The trip is typically scheduled for a Saturday or Sunday morning, and ends with a group lunch in New York City.    For the annual Faber Lecture, juniors will have a lunchtime discussion with the speaker on a topic related to the lecture.  Please see our list of recent Faber Lectures.

 

In their senior year, ECS students participate in a thesis writers’ colloquium. Although they write their thesis under the direction of their home departments, throughout the early spring they will meet together one evening a week, over supper, to address common problems of research, conceptualization, organization, and writing.  Each student will submit a chapter to the group for feedback and discussion four days in advance of the weekly meeting.   Though most ECS students address European topics in their theses, this is not a requirement of the program; for the purposes of the workshop, certificate students from the sciences or engineering may substitute a paper written for a 300-level ECS course for circulation and discussion. The thesis writers’ colloquium is supervised by the director of the program. Please see our list of recent winners of the ECS Asher Hinds Thesis Prize.

“I highly recommend the Program in European Cultural Studies thesis colloquium, and thus the certificate program as a whole, to anyone whose interests lie in this area; the requirement that I submit a chapter for examination by my peers in February turned out to be quite helpful, if only because it meant that I had to have at least one chapter written by February!” – Jacob T. Denz ‘11