Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2024). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas. The MSc in Modern Middle Eastern Studies is a twelve-month, taught master's course, offered jointly by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) while the MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies is a two-year (six-term) course intended for students from all social science and humanities backgrounds. MSc The MSc in Modern Middle Eastern Studies is a twelve-month, taught master's course, offered jointly by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA). The MSc in Modern Middle Eastern Studies offers research training for students already familiar with the Middle East region and its languages. The course provides a common foundation in the methods and disciplines relevant to the study of the Middle East. It provides intensive training in several fields of knowledge based on a combination of lectures, tutorials and essay writing. This will allow you to develop research and writing skills with training in appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches, through supervision of a dissertation on a subject of your choice. The MSc teaches both qualitative and quantitative methodologies through assessed work. To complement your studies, the Middle East Centre (MEC) serves as both the University's Middle East Studies centre and as a Centre of St Antony’s College. It hosts a weekly seminar, and an annual lecture - The George Antonius Annual Lecture in trinity (summer) term. The course offers two tracks: a language and a non-language one. MPhil The MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies is a two-year (six-term) course intended for students from all social science and humanities backgrounds. The course provides intensive training in a Middle Eastern language, training in research methods and topics relevant to the study of the Middle East. The MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies accepts students who are complete beginners in a Middle Eastern language (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Turkish). The course also accommodates students in Turkish and Arabic at an advanced level as well as Arabic at an intermediate level. If you already have research-level proficiency in one of these languages you will be required to take a different language. Intensive language training takes place through all six terms of the course. This training takes place in classes and language laboratories. In addition to language training, in the first term you are expected to attend the weekly MPhil Qualitative Research Methods for Modern Middle Eastern Studies lecture and seminar. In addition to the lecture, this seminar is an interactive forum in which you are expected to present arguments and to respond to the lecture, associated readings, and each other’s formative essays, which are a crucial element of teaching, but do not count toward the student's final marks. In addition to Qualitative Research Methods, you will be encouraged to attend other lectures and seminars offered by the teaching staff during the first term. You will complete and submit a take-home written assignment based on the Qualitative Research Methods Seminar after the end of the first term which will form the first of two elements of your Qualifying Examination. The second element of the Qualifying Examination is a language qualifying examination taken at the end of the first year (first three terms) of the course. For the full description, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas