Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (October/November 2021). 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 MPhil in Modern Languages is designed to allow those who have a high level of attainment in a foreign language, and have studied literature to a degree level, to undertake more advanced work. The course is suitable either if you wish to proceed to a research degree or if you wish to spend only two years at Oxford. The MPhil in Modern Languages allows you to undertake advanced work in one or more languages and literatures, and as part of our dedicated comparative pathway. The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages is one of the largest centres of its kind in the world and has consistently come first in the QS rankings of Modern Languages departments. You will join a research community spanning medieval studies, early modern literature and culture, through to modern and contemporary literature, film, and cultural history. Areas of particular interest that span our different languages and period specialisms include Performance and Voice, Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies, Gender and Diversity, Ecology and Environmental Humanities, Cognitive Literary Studies, Medical Humanities and Life Writing, and Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. The degree has three components: 1. Three special subject options. Courses are offered across different language strands and specialisms, subject to the availability of the relevant supervisors in any particular year. Popular language-specific options include: Women’s Writing in Medieval Germany, Problems in Dante Interpretation, Francophone Literature, Realism and Its Alternatives in Spanish American Narrative, Latin American Cinema, Lusophone Women Writers, Contemporary Brazilian Fiction, Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian Literature, Modern Greek Literature in Comparative Frames, Literature and Culture of the Berlin Republic, and Conscience and Consciousness in French and Francophone Literature. You may also study cross-linguistic comparative options including European Enlightenment, Cultural Studies, Contesting Colonialisms, and Rethinking Subjectivity: Technology, Ecology, Critique, and Fictions. Full listings and further details of courses can be found on the Faculty's website. 2. A theoretical or methodological component. Students can undertake one of the following courses: Spaces of Comparison, Key Questions in Critical Thought, History of Ideas in Germany from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries, or Palaeography, History of the Book and Digital Humanities. 3. A dissertation. If you wish to proceed to a research degree, the MPhil will allow you to work towards the identification of a precise thesis subject and to gather research materials. This degree is also suitable if you do not wish to proceed to a research degree, as it will enable you to build upon your undergraduate studies and to reflect on the methods of literary and cultural analysis. You may choose to pursue a single language or study two literatures (including English) comparatively. You may also follow programmes in European Enlightenment, cultural studies, or medieval literatures. Teaching The emphasis in the MPhil course is on self-directed learning. The course provides a general framework within which students are encouraged, in conversation with the Faculty, to develop their own programmes of study.