Programme description

Our PhD Japanese Studies programme will enable you to carry out a piece of significant, original research at a department that focuses on modern and contemporary Japan.

Japanese Studies was established at Manchester in 2007, and has quickly grown a large undergraduate programme with a small but expanding graduate cluster attached.

We offer supervision of postgraduate research projects connected to the broader issues of gender, education, religion, society and history.

In particular, we offer specialist supervision on mass culture, subcultural formations and cultural production, contemporary and modern religious organisations and movements, modern medical and educational and cultural history, and gender and women in culture, medicine, reproduction, and society.

Anthropological, sociological, textual and gender and cultural studies approaches are supported. There is a focus on cross-disciplinary research and co-supervision linking research in Japanese Studies with other disciplines.

Teaching and learning

The PhD is the major postgraduate research degree. It involves three years of full-time study or six years of part-time study and the preparation of a thesis of not more than 80,000 words that makes a significant contribution to knowledge.

A satisfactory PhD topic is one that a suitably qualified and properly supervised student can bring to completion within the permitted timeframe.

Please note that all PhD students are required to undertake research training as part of their PhD programme.

Coursework and assessment

Your research will normally be supervised by two members of staff at the University. Your supervisors will most likely be members of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, but if your research requires it, we may arrange for supervision by someone outside the School.

Supervisory arrangements at Manchester are governed by a Code of Practice which is available on the University's website.

Career opportunities

Many of PhD graduates in Modern Languages and Translation and Interpreting Studies have gone on to academic positions at leading universities in the UK, Europe, USA, East Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Our graduates have been also successful with receiving prestigious postdoctoral fellowships, including the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship.