About the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics
Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics is the home of language and linguistics teaching and research at the University of Cambridge. With more than 800 undergraduate students, approximately 140 MPhil students and 170 PhD students we are one of the largest humanities Faculties in the University and one of the largest languages Faculties nationally.
The Faculty comprises of sections/departments, which cover a range of languages and subject areas, and is also home to Film and Screen Studies. The Faculty regularly tops a number of university and research rankings, and is home to a number of groundbreaking projects and initiatives.
Listed numbers of staff and students are approximate as numbers fluctuate.
6 courses offered in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics
Film and Screen Studies - PhD
The University of Cambridge offers the opportunity to pursue doctoral study in a specifically designated programme in Film and Screen Studies situated in the University's rich interdisciplinary research culture. Students on the programme join the vibrant Centre for Film and Screen and participate in our annual research seminar series. Opportunities to teach undergraduate film studies courses are often made available to PhD students from their second year onwards. Students also take leading roles in organising research events, including an annual postgraduate conference.
Film and Screen Studies by Advanced Study - MPhil
The Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics (MMLL) offers this MPhil as a nine-month full-time programme and introduces students to research skills and specialist knowledge. The programme provides advanced training in the study of the theory and history of film and other screen media in a vibrant interdisciplinary context. The moving image is explored in relation to the development of modern and contemporary culture, as well as the history and theory of other media (literature, music, the visual arts, architecture, and the digital). Students are immersed in a research environment that emphasises work on geopolitics, early cinema, art cinema and the avant-garde, theory, aesthetics, and gender and sexuality.
Film and Screen Studies by thesis - MPhil
This MPhil by Thesis provides an opportunity to study the theory and history of film and other screen media in a vibrant interdisciplinary context. The moving image is explored in relation to the development of modern and contemporary culture, as well as the history and theory of other media (literature, music, the visual arts, architecture, and the digital). Students are immersed in a research environment that emphasises work on geopolitics, early cinema, art cinema and the avant-garde, theory, aesthetics, and gender and sexuality.
The MPhil by Thesis is for students who already have a substantial level of familiarity with the study of film and literary texts in the relevant culture and who already know the area they wish to research for their thesis. To be eligible for consideration, applicants will need an appropriate level of linguistic and/or cultural expertise and a clear idea of the area in which the thesis will be written.
Literature, Culture and Thought - PhD
The PhD in Literature, Culture and Thought supports interdisciplinary projects that by virtue of their design clearly transcend or stand outside any one Section in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics. Existing alongside PhD pathways in French, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Slavonic Studies, and Spanish and Portuguese, this doctoral degree offers an opportunity for students to pursue research projects that at their core traverse conventional disciplinary or linguistic boundaries, but to do so inside the rigorous and supportive environment of MMLL. Our academic community consists of scholars who produce highly specialised research in a variety of literary, intellectual, and cultural traditions, but who also drive such broader fields as critical theory, translation studies, philosophy, visual studies, intellectual history, postcolonial studies, and comparative literature. Students drawn to this PhD will have projects centred in such fields with relevant proposed supervisors, allowing for research in cultural texts and trends across a wide range of language areas beyond English, at least one of which they will be required to study in the original language.
Literature, Culture and Thought (Research) - MPhil
This MPhil provides students with the critical and theoretical tools to enable them to undertake an in-depth study of specific aspects of European literatures and cultures and/or Latin American and Francophone contexts. The core course introduces students to a broad range of critical theory concepts and methods of textual analysis (and, if relevant, palaeography). The course allows for in-depth study of specific cultures and contexts and includes writing a thesis based on original research.
This MPhil by Thesis is for students who already have a substantial level of familiarity with the study of literary texts or other material in the relevant culture, who already know the area they wish to research for their thesis, and who wish to focus their studies in that area for the entire year. To be eligible for consideration, a student will need an appropriate level of linguistic and/or cultural expertise, a clear idea of the field in which the thesis will be written, and a documented record of undertaking long independent research and writing projects.
The MPhil by Thesis is not a more prestigious version of the MPhil by Advanced Study, nor does it better prepare students for PhD study. Students from both the 'Advanced Study' course and 'By Thesis' courses have been accepted into top PhD programmes. The difference between the two courses is simply one of scope and focus, with the 'By Thesis' course involving very circumscribed research and the 'Advanced Study' course establishing a broader foundation for future study and involving more space for exploration.
Literature, Culture and Thought (Taught) - MPhil
This MPhil provides students with the critical and theoretical tools to enable them to undertake an in-depth study of specific aspects of European literatures and cultures and/or Latin American and Francophone contexts. The course introduces students to a broad range of critical theory concepts, allows for in-depth study of specific cultures and contexts, and includes writing a dissertation based on original research.
6 courses also advertised in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics
French - PhD
From the Department of French
The French Section offers PhD supervision in an exceptional range of areas of French and francophone studies. It contains world-leading researchers in the literature, thought, and culture of the Middle Ages, the early modern period, the 19th century, and the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as in cinema and linguistics. There is usually more than one specialist in any given field, which helps to broaden the PhD student's approach to and understanding of their topic. There is a dynamic culture of research seminars, and the postgraduate students themselves run their own seminar and arrange an annual postgraduate conference.
German - PhD
From the Department of German
The German Section is one of the very few departments in the UK that can offer postgraduate supervision in literary and cultural topics across the full historical range from the medieval period to the present day. It also has significant coverage of topics in intellectual, social, and political history and the history of the German language.
Many members of the section also have comparative and interdisciplinary interests, and combinations of German studies with other disciplines are welcomed. The Section has a dynamic research culture, with lecture and seminar series, frequent invited speakers, and a lively postgraduate research seminar.
The Section also has partnerships with the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School (Freie Universität, Berlin) and the German department of the University of Chicago, with joint events and exchanges. It offers generous funding for postgraduate research travel, conference participation, and the organisation by its postgraduate students of research activities and events.
Italian - PhD
From the Department of Italian
The Italian Section in Cambridge has seven full-time faculty members available to supervise doctoral research. Their research interests span a broad range of topics in the Italian peninsula's languages, literatures, visual cultures, and history, from the medieval period to the present day.
Details of individual specialisms can be found on the section's webpages. We have a lively group of doctoral students in the Section working across periods and topics, supported by careful one-on-one supervision and mentoring, in the context of a rich research culture of seminars, symposia, conferences, lectures, and postgraduate training. Visiting scholars and students from other institutions regularly contribute to the Section's research culture. Students are also free to undertake comparative work across languages and national boundaries, supported by the wide range of expertise within the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics and Cambridge as a whole.
Portuguese - PhD
From the Department of Spanish and Portuguese
The Spanish and Portuguese Section offers undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. It is unique in its commitment to exploring the trans-historical and cross-cultural interrelations between all these language areas and their corresponding cultural formations. The research interests of its academic staff thus span a wide range of areas including Medieval and Golden Age Spanish cultures and their consolidation in dialogue with the diverse cultures and faith systems of Africa and the Americas; the literature, art and cinema of Portugal, Brazil and Lusophone Africa; the literature of modern Spain and its relationship with the Enlightenment, colonialism, and modernity; the cinema of the Ibero-American world from early silent film through to its avant-garde, indigenous, popular and transnational dimensions today; and the culture of Catalonia from its rebirth in the Renaixença, through its resistance to Franquismo in literature and film, to its vibrant contemporary artistic, architectural and cinematographic expressions.
The Section also has one of the largest contingents of Latin American specialists in the United Kingdom, whose interests span the poetry, chronicles, and indigenous cultural production of the colonial period; the formation of national cultures in post-Independence Spanish America and Brazil; the experimental literatures of the Spanish American "Boom"; and the literature, cinema, and visual art produced in the interlocking contexts of post-dictatorship, mass urbanisation, narcotráfico and neo-liberal globalisation. The intellectual vitality of the Section is further evidenced by a dynamic research culture of public lectures, section seminars, postgraduate workshops and conferences, all of which add to a close-knit system of postgraduate supervision and mentoring that encourages both individual and collective endeavour within the section.
Slavonic Studies - PhD
From the Department of Slavonic Studies
The Slavonic Studies Section at Cambridge is unique in the United Kingdom for offering postgraduates opportunities in the advanced study of Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, with an emphasis on cultural history from the medieval period to the present day. The intellectual vitality of the Slavonic Studies Section is particularly evident in the fields of medieval Rus culture; early-modern Ukrainian culture; Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian literatures of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries; Slavonic linguistics; nationalism studies; memory studies; film and visual culture; the history of science and medicine; print and media culture; and sensory history. Applications are welcome in any of these areas. Students taking the PhD in Slavonic Studies may focus on a single national or linguistic tradition, or they may pursue comparative research across languages and national boundaries. A dynamic research culture of public lectures, seminars and conferences, together with a close-knit system of supervision and mentoring, encourages individual and collective endeavour.
Spanish - PhD
From the Department of Spanish and Portuguese
The Spanish and Portuguese Section offers undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan. It is unique in its commitment to exploring the trans-historical and cross-cultural interrelations between all these language areas and their corresponding cultural formations. The research interests of its academic staff thus span a wide range of areas including Medieval and Golden Age Spanish cultures and their consolidation in dialogue with the diverse cultures and faith systems of Africa and the 'New World'; the literature, art and cinema of Portugal, Brazil and Lusophone Africa; the literature of modern Spain and its relationship with the Enlightenment, colonialism, and modernity; the cinema of the Ibero-American world from early silent film through to its avant-garde, indigenous, popular, and transnational dimensions today; and the culture of Catalonia from its rebirth in the Renaixença, through its resistance to Franquismo in literature and film, to its vibrant contemporary artistic, architectural and cinematographic expressions.
The Section also has one of the largest contingents of Latin American specialists in the United Kingdom, whose interests span the poetry, chronicles, and indigenous cultural production of the colonial period; the formation of national cultures in post-independence Spanish America and Brazil; the experimental literatures of the Spanish American 'Boom'; and the literature, cinema, and visual art produced in the interlocking contexts of post-dictatorship, mass urbanisation, narcotráfico and neo-liberal globalisation. The intellectual vitality of the Section is further evidenced by a dynamic research culture of public lectures, section seminars, postgraduate workshops and conferences, all of which add to a close-knit system of graduate supervision and mentoring that encourages both individual and collective endeavour within the Section.