Modern Languages and Cultures MA | PG Certificate | PG Diploma

Course description

This MA helps you develop a deeper understanding of your chosen languages and associated cultures.

Working with nationally and internationally recognised experts, you can focus on a single discipline (eg French Studies) or undertake an interdisciplinary programme across two or more languages and cultures. You can engage with topics such as translation theory, intersectionality, sociolinguistics and environmental studies, as well as literature, linguistics, cultural studies, history, visual and film studies, politics, society, migration, and postcolonial or gender studies.

The programme is ideal for students with a background in French and Francophone studies, Germanic studies (German and Dutch), Hispanic and Lusophone studies (Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese; Latin America), Luxembourgish studies, or Russian and Slavonic studies (Russian and Czech; the former USSR).

This MA is also designed to prepare you for doctoral study. You’ll build knowledge in your chosen specialist field through your choice of modules and your dissertation topic, which could be the foundation for a PhD project. We’ll give you guidance on how to construct a PhD proposal and apply for scholarship funding.

Modules

This course is highly flexible, with a variety of ways to develop your interests. Here are some examples of what you might study:

• The Francophone World: French literature from the 17th to 21st century; French film studies; the cultural history of France during World War II; gender studies in contemporary French society; post-colonial francophone studies; Haiti and its history
• The Hispanic and Lusophone world (including Spain, Portugal, Catalonia, Latin America): the history of the Spanish language; Spanish cultural history and literature from the 19th century; gender, identity, space and place in the Hispanic world; adaptations and transformations of Spanish literature; political culture in the Hispanic world; popular music in the Hispanic world; the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship in cultural memory; civilisation and barbarism in Latin America; the idea of the Modern in Latin American fiction; Barcelona: culture of the city; cultural crosscurrents in the Lusophone world
• The Germanic world (including Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg): Modern German thought; twentieth-century German fiction and drama; the birth of consumerism and creativity in Germany and Britain; women’s literature and history in Germany; migration, multiculturalism and community in Dutch literature
• The Russian and Slavonic world: Reading the Russian Revolution; Dostoevsky; the Bakhtin circle and aspects of Russian cultural theory; contemporary Russian society; Russian history and society through film; politics and culture in the USSR 1917-38

There are a wide range of possibilities for comparative and interdisciplinary work. For example, you could undertake study on literary movements with French and Spanish specialists and complement that with work on Bakhtinian theory with a Russianist.

Duration

• 1 year full-time
• 2 years part-time

Assessment

Learning and assessment methods include extended essays or individual projects, individual or small-group oral presentations, organisation of a research event and a dissertation, depending on the module studied.

Your career

This MA will help you extend and deepen your knowledge of culture and language. It is an ideal route into PhD study, giving you a solid foundation from which to develop your doctoral research..

You’ll have the opportunity to build on your specialist knowledge through optional modules and your dissertation, which may serve as the foundation for a PhD project. We’ll give you advice and guidance on how to construct a PhD proposal and how to apply for scholarship funding.