The Japan and Korea Department is able to supervise MPhil and PhD degrees by research and thesis in a wide range of cultural and linguistic subjects.

Intending research students should not feel constrained to limit their choice of topics to those indicated against the names of current staff members (postgraduate students have recently been working on a range of topics that include Japanese cinema, Kabuki texts, modern Japanese linguistics and literature, Meiji historical texts, Korean linguistics and literature, Korean colonial and eighteenth century history).

Research undertaken at MPhil and PhD level is based on literary, documentary, and archive material available at SOAS and also gathered during fieldwork in Japan and Korea.

Why study Japanese and Korean Studies at SOAS?

• We are ranked 12th in the UK for Modern Languages (QS World University Rankings 2023)
• Ranked 10th in the UK for East Asian Studies (Complete University Guide 2022)
• We are home to the largest concentration of Japan and Korean specialists outside of Japan and Korea.

All students register in year 1 of the programme as MPhil students. The upgrade from MPhil to PhD takes place at the end of the first academic session for full time students (or at the end of the second academic session for part time students).

All new MPhil/PhD students are provided with a supervisory committee of three members, comprising a main or primary supervisor, and a second and third supervisor. The split in time commitment across the supervisory committee is 60:25:15. In the first year students are expected to meet their main supervisor on a bi-weekly basis for a period of at least one hour.

Graduates from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures develop competencies in intercultural awareness, analysis and communication. Demand for specialists with advanced proficiency in the languages of China, Japan and Korea has significantly increased in recent years, and graduates with these skills are highly sought after by employers.