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  • Reflections on Hispania’s Annual Dissertation List
  • David Knutson

Hispania has featured an annual list of doctoral dissertations in literature and linguistics in Spanish and Portuguese for decades. The dissertation list indicates content focus and the number of students completing doctorates. The list provides information about the history of our profession and may shed light on the current and future trends in doctoral studies in Spanish and Portuguese. Recently, members of the AATSP Board of Directors discussed the creation of an online searchable database of dissertations, and the first step towards this goal took place in the September 2015 issue of Hispania (98.3), when the 2014 list of dissertations was published on Hispania’s Open Access page on the AATSP website (see www.aatsp.org) instead of appearing in the journal in the September issue, as was the custom. To this point, there had been very few changes in the practice of gathering and reporting dissertation information for the AATSP. There is a consensus around the profession that gathering this information is helpful for both beginning and senior scholars in our field. At the same time, there are questions about the true scope and reach of the list because there are no objective data on its completeness and accuracy. Nonetheless, departments in universities that offer PhD degrees in Spanish and Portuguese continue to submit reports on their dissertations year after year.

The first list of theses dealing with Hispano-American literature appeared in Hispania in May of 1935. Sturgis E. Leavitt compiled a report that detailed theses year-by-year dating back to 1915, including titles for both Masters and Doctoral degrees. Leavitt stated two purposes to the list: “to give some indication of the interest” and “to aid others who may turn to this field” (169). Leavitt proposed that registering a thesis topic in Hispania should create a clearing house that would prevent duplication: “with so wide a field before one, it seems hardly advisable to follow far in the footsteps of another,” as he noted that one case of repetition had already been resolved (169). Thereafter, the “News and Notes” column of the October 1935 edition advised:

Each year after the Master’s degree has been awarded, the author, title of thesis, and college should be published in HISPANIA. When the Ph.D. thesis has been actually begun, the author, title, college, and adviser should be ‘registered’ in the same place; and later, when the degree has been conferred, the item without the adviser’s name should appear again.

(334; format in original)

Leavitt continued the yearly task of compiling the thesis lists until 1944, and L. Lomas Barrett (one of Leavitt’s former students) became the list compiler in 1945. In 1950, Barrett began to include titles of only PhD dissertations, stating, “it seems of dubious value to devote space to publicizing M.A. theses unless they represent genuine research” (119). William J. Smither assumed responsibility for the annual list in 1951, and a series of AATSP members have maintained the lists to this day. [End Page 200]

The question of completeness has weighed on the compilers since the first publication. In the 1930s, Leavitt wondered if his request for thesis reports was reaching all of the relevant departments. Smither may have sounded a little more accusatory in 1956, writing, “Response from the questionnaires may be regarded as average, replies having come from 37 of the 45 universities usually active in the Hispanic field. None of the very large departments is unrepresented, but certainly the purposes of the lists can best be filled by completeness” (195). Claude L. Hulet recognizes certain limitations in 1965: “Chairmen of departments that give PhD degrees in the fields mentioned, but who were not contacted in the most recent survey, are urged to communicate with the compiler” (263). It would be easy to update the language to repeat this request today.

The current compiler makes no effort to tabulate participation the 89 departments in the United States and in Canada on the current mailing list the annual reminder to submit their data. It appears that the compilers long ago gave up attempting to include data from universities in other countries. Today...

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