Material Culture & Public Humanities

This 30-credit cross-disciplinary degree has two interrelated emphases, material culture and public humanities, and prepares students for a wide range of careers in museums, historical societies, archives, and community-building organizations.  

We take material culture to mean those tangible things--objects, landscapes, bodies-- that humans have shaped to their use; our studies examine these things from critical, theoretical, and historical perspectives, viewing them as expressions of cultural logics and political struggles.

We take the humanities-- including the disciplines of anthropology, art history, history, literature, and music-- to refer to the study of how people make meaning out of the world. Public humanities, for us, entails the project of partnering humanities scholars with those actors who produce knowledge and remake the world outside the university  

The curriculum entails a minimum of 30-credits of graduate courses.  We recommend that students enter the program in the fall semester. The deadline for applications for fall semester is February 15 to receive consideration for a funding (tuition and stipend) as a Graduate Assistant (GA) or Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA). 

For more information about the MCPH MA Program, please visit our website: https://www.mcph.liberalarts.vt.edu , and feel free to contact the co-directors: Drs. Aaron Ansell ([email protected]) and Michelle Moseley ([email protected]). 

What You'll Need

Transcripts

Include a scanned copy of your college transcripts with your online application, then arrange for an official copy to be sent to us after you receive an offer of admission.

Letters of Recommendation

Check to see whether your department requires letters of recommendation from references. If so, you can include the letter writers' email addresses in your online application, or have the people you ask to write those lettes send paper copies directly to your program’s department.

Graduate School Testing Requirements

The Graduate School does not require entrance tests, but check to see whether your department requires you to submit GRE, GMAT, or subject test scores with your application. If so, have the testing agency send official scores to Virginia Tech Graduate School, code 5859. 

International students may be required to submit TOEFL scores. 

Application Fees

Degree-seeking students must include a $75 fee with their application, though check to see if you qualify for a waiver or reduced fee. All application fees are non-refundable.

Refund procedure

All application fees are non-refundable.