About us

The Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures brings together French, German, Hispanic Studies, Italian and Comparative Literature and Culture.

We offer teaching and research excellence with a commitment to interdisciplinary study.

We aim to broaden your horizons through an in-depth knowledge of foreign languages, and the literatures and cultures that stem from these.

We pride ourselves on being at the centre of a thriving research culture, and can provide supervision across literature, cultural history, film, visual art and philosophy in our four language areas and beyond.

Research facilities and environment

The Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures is a vibrant community of world-class researchers. Our research environment has a basis in our expertise in French, German, Hispanic, Italian and Comparative Studies, and encourages collaboration and exchange across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Our strengths span literature, thought, film and the visual arts from the medieval period to the 21st century. Research themes cover gender, disability, politics and ethics, film, cultural memory and trauma, post-colonialism and globalisation, consumer culture, animal studies and ecocriticism, history of art and visual culture. We also specialise in the work of a wide range of individual authors, poets, philosophers, playwrights and filmmakers.

Assessment

We offer you the opportunity to pursue an original research project supported by world-class supervision.

You will write an 80,000-100,000 dissertation which can be on a wide range of topics.

You will be encouraged to participate fully in the research culture of the School, to attend relevant departmental and School skills-development events and to participate in the department's postgraduate research training scheme, giving you the opportunity to gain teaching experience.

Your future career

In recent years a number of our postgraduates have gone on to successful academic careers in the fields of modern languages, critical theory and film. Alumni have also embarked upon many interesting careers outside academia - in the UK, continental Europe and the United States - including journalism work for NGOs, trade sales, publishing, professional translating, teaching, museum curatorship, creative arts, and librarianship.