Offering a distinct alternative to existing Ph.D. programs in art history, the program centers on a unique curriculum that places art objects and practices at the center of inquiry, even as it encourages examination of the larger historical, cultural, social, intellectual, and theoretical frameworks within which the category art has been contextualized in the most recent developments in the discipline. The program encompasses the study of both past and present art across a broad range that includes fine arts and media (film, video, photography, new media). The Department of Visual Arts offers a PhD in art history, theory, and criticism with specializations in any of the cultural areas in which faculty do research (VA76) and also a PhD in art history, theory, and criticism with a concentration in art practice, for artists whose work engages in art historical and cultural research (VA77). Offering a distinct alternative to other PhD programs in art history, our program centers on a unique curriculum that treats the study of art past and present-including fine art, media and new media, design and popular culture as part of a broad inquiry into the practices, objects, and discourses that constitute the art world, even as it encourages examination of the larger frameworks-historical, cultural, social, intellectual, and theoretical-within which the category ''art'' has been contextualized in the most recent developments in the discipline. This program is also distinctive in that it is housed within a department that has been for many years one of the nation's leading centers of art practice and graduate education in studio, media, and-most recently-digital media. The offering of the PhD and MFA is based on the department's foundational premise that the production of art and the critical, theoretical, and historical reflection upon it inherently and necessarily participate in a single discursive community. This close integration of art history and art practice is reflected in the inclusion of a concentration in art practice within the PhD in art history, theory, and criticism.