Current postgraduates
From August 2008, the graduate programmes of the departments of philosophy at St Andrews and Stirling are now fully merged. All philosophy graduate students at either St Andrews or Stirling are now students in this combined graduate Programme.
The joint graduate programme is overseen by a Joint Committee – made up of three academics from each of the two participating departments.
For 2009/10, the SASP programme is administered at St Andrews and the director for 2009/10 is Professor John Skorupski. The deputy director, and coordinator in Stirling, is Dr Philip Ebert.
The MLitt Programme
The MLitt programme is administered and mainly taught at St Andrews, in Edgecliffe. Note however that in Martinmas semester (i.e. the first, or Autumn, semester) two modules will be taught at Department of Philosophy at Stirling.
The MLitt Director for 2009/10 will be Professor Jessica Brown. She is there to hear about and discuss any academic or personal questions, problems, or concerns you may have about your work and welfare at St Andrews. The Stirling MLitt co-ordinator is Dr Philip Ebert.
Mrs Mary Whitaker is the administrator for the SASP programme. She will help you with practical inquiries and arrange meetings with teaching staff when necessary. Mary is in the main Philosophy office in Room G09, Edgecliffe.
The University year is divided into two semesters. These are officially know as Martinmas (September to January) and Candlemas (February to June). They are also sometimes referred to as Semesters One and Two, or as Autumn and Spring.
Philosophy Meetings and Seminars
The St Andrews Philosophy Club meets several times each semester, usually on Wednesday afternoons, for papers by visiting speakers. Stirling holds its visiting-speaker seminars on Thursday afternoons. St Andrews also has a weekly seminar run by and for the research students, meeting Friday afternoons, to which everyone is welcome. Arché runs a variety of informal seminars and discussion groups. And each year there are additional philosophy events of interest to graduate students, such as conferences and special lectures featuring visiting and internal speakers. You are warmly encouraged to attend any of these events. The programmes for all of them are advertised in the departments and/or on the Philosophy web-site.
There is also an MLitt Seminar, which runs weekly in Candlemas Semester as part of the MLitt Programme.
On a more informal note: one weekend a year there is a reading party for postgraduate students and staff. The reading party bases itself on one or another country retreat in beautiful surroundings: a fine opportunity for walking and seeing Scotland, with the give and take of philosophy in the evenings. This year, the reading party will take place on the weekend of October 16th to 19th. There will be no classes at Stirling on Monday 19th October.
Information and booklets
More information for current postgraduates can also be found on the SASP website, and in the MLitt Student Handbook 2009/10. You should also download the Logbook for Research Students.