Postgraduate Study

There are plenty of reasons to take a postgraduate degree in Modern Languages at Royal Holloway.

• Pursue in-depth, directed research through your dissertation while being supported by one-to-one supervision, regular feedback and other departmental support.
• Follow a taught course with your peers on theories of literature and visual culture.
• Immerse yourself in the energetic research environments of both our School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
• Soak up libraries, seminars, symposia – including the regular postgraduate work-in-progress seminars – and our annual postgraduate colloquium.
• Take advantage of professional and research development training both on campus and at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies.
• London’s unparalleled facilities, such as the British Library, Senate House Library and the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, are within easy proximity.
• Choose to live in or out: on or close to the leafy campus at Royal Holloway or opt for the Intercollegiate University of London halls of residence in Central London.

The School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Royal Holloway offers a range of exciting possibilities to students interested in postgraduate study.

Our Masters by Research is a flexible programme that allows you to undertake in-depth study (both full- and part-time) on key areas of literature, visual or cultural studies or comparative topics. We offer a tailor-made research-focused taught module, which will equip you with an array of theoretical and historical approaches to the study of literature, art and culture. This will enable you to articulate, refine and persistently test your own approach to your chosen topic within this broader theoretical and methodological framework.

What it involves

The core of the MA by Research is a 25,000 word dissertation, giving you the scope to explore your area of interest in real depth, to develop sophisticated critical and analytical research and writing skills. It often gives you the chance to test or try out an area of study in preparation for doctoral study.

Support

As well as specialist one-to-one tuition for the duration of the MA by Research you’ll have access to skills training and enjoy the additional support of a dedicated Research Advisor. You’ll also have access to all of our facilities and postgraduate support.

What’s more, Royal Holloway is ideally situated for the libraries, talks and facilities that London has to offer, including the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies (which hosts training courses, lectures and talks).

Applying

We consider applications from students in any areas of French, German, Hispanic Studies, Italian Studies or comparative topics. The latter may include comparisons between the literature, film and culture of different language areas including texts in translation, subject to expertise to the School. It may also include comparative topics such as adaptation, reception, interpretation, performance, place and displacement or creative transfer. 

For more information about the research interests of staff in the School click here| or consult staff profiles|.

Examples of current and recent research

• Carmen Laforet: The ideals of femininity
• Metapoetics in the Poetry of Federico García Lorca
• Family Relationships in the Fiction of Marguerite Duras
• Representations of Japan in Francophone Fiction
• To what extent was the rebellion portrayed within women's Dada and Surrealist art a rebellion against gender norms?
• Fictional Representations of the Holocaust
• Cuban photo-textualities and Visual Culture
• Language and Philosophy in Hamann, Herder, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein
• Representations of Work in the Culture of the Weimar Republic
• Ethics and Aesthetics in the Literary Representation of the Holocaust in Recent German-language and English-language Novels
• The Figure of the German Soldier in Twentieth-Century German Literature and Society with Particular Reference to the Work of Erich Maria Remarque
• Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the Former GDR: Relating to the Past in Post-Reunification Germany.

We are able to offer all kinds of possibilities to students interested in doctoral study at Royal Holloway and consider applications for MPhil/PhD research in any of the subject fields and research specialisms covered within the School.

These include many aspects of French, German, Hispanic and Italian Studies. We also welcome applications from those interested in comparative topics, which may include comparisons between the literature, film or culture of different language areas (including texts in translation), subject to the availability of expertise among our staff. 

Other comparative topics may include adaptation, reception, interpretation, performance, place and displacement or creative transfer. Click here| for more information about the research interests of researchers in the School.

Support

As well as specialist one-to-one tuition for the duration of the MA by Research you’ll have access to skills training and enjoy the additional support of a dedicated Research Advisor. You’ll also have access to all of our facilities and postgraduate support.

What’s more, Royal Holloway is ideally situated for the libraries, talks and facilities that London has to offer, including the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies (which hosts training courses, lectures and talks).

Examples of current and recent research

• The Acousmatic Spectator in the work of Jean-Luc Godard
• Screening Suffering: Trauma, Ethics and Spectatorship in Contemporary French Cinema
• History and Education in Fascist Italy
• The Act of Naming in the Poetry of Yves Bonnefoy
• Food and Thought, Words and Images: A Comparative Study
• Cultural Memory and the Trevi Fountain
• Burne-Jones and the Italian Renaissance
• Antonioni as Multi-Media Artist
• Writing at Tipping Points: A Comparative Study of Zola and Houellebecq
• The Development of the Italian giallo
• German-Soviet Relations and Inter-War Film
• Otherness in German Cinema of the Weimar Republic
• Fascist Foreign Policy in the Newsreels of Luce
• The Themes of History, Memory, Law and Ethics in Didier Daeninckx's Meurtres pour Mémoire, Bernhard Schlink and Walter Popp's Selbs Justiz and Gerhard Roth's Der See
• Rewriting Myths: The Figure of Penelope in Italian Literature
• Art, Femicide and Space in Contemporary Mexico
• Telling Memory: Narrative and the Trauma of Fascism in the Contemporary Spanish Novel.

Albertine Fox

PhD candidate in French

"My PhD focuses on the role of the listener, the acousmatic condition and on the interactions of sound, image and the body in the post-79 cinema and video work of the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.

I chose to return to Royal Holloway to do my PhD following the fantastic experience I’d already had at the university. After completing my BA in French with Music, I remained at the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures to pursue an MA by Research in French cinema. 

Now, as a PhD student, the high level of supervision, support and feedback has been extremely impressive. The exciting opportunities to teach, present work-in-progress to peers, take part in graduate presentation days and to attend seminars in the School, covering a wide range of topics, have also made a very positive impact on my doctoral research.

In addition, I've found that the sense of community and friendly environment in the department has made it very easy to get to know other students researching similar or very different subject areas from mine. The research environment on campus for students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is endlessly stimulating, with numerous chances on offer to get involved in interdisciplinary discussion. Since the campus is located within easy reach of Central London, I've also been able to attend seminars at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, Senate House and other London institutions.

I would definitely recommend Royal Holloway and the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures to anyone considering postgraduate study!"

Dr James Clifford Kent

Former PhD student at Royal Holloway

"Following a long adventure in Modern Languages at Royal Holloway, I completed my postgraduate study – Masters by Research and PhD degrees – in 2011 and graduated in 2012. I look back on my time with the School with a great sense of pride – the entire duration representing a period of my academic life, which was crucial to my development as an academic.

I relished the opportunity to work alongside, and be supervised by, leading academics in my own field of study, many of whom proved to be as supportive as they were knowledgeable. This environment offered me a platform to be more adventurous in both my research and teaching, and to date I have taught at various institutions across the UK, including Royal Holloway, and abroad at the Universidad de la Habana, Cuba. This year, I have joined the Modern Languages department at the University of Chester.  

My current courses consist of Latin American, film, photography and visual culture studies pertaining to both Spain and Hispano-America. Whilst these are expansive fields of study, film and photography continue to be my real passions and both of these mediums have combined to form the basis of my research to date. I am currently teaching on a range of Spanish undergraduate modules and I’m on the teaching team for the MA in European Languages and Cultures.

My current research project involves a re-thinking of the modes and processes of photographers working in the documentary-style in the early 20th century, with a special focus on the American photographer Walker Evans, his photographs of Havana from 1933 and the notion of picture making as a form of psychogeography. This research will form the basis for the article in progress entitled ‘Walker Evans: Pyschogeography & The City in Havana, 1933’. Additionally, a second article, ‘Louder than War: Havana & The Music Film in a Post-Special Period Cuba’, explores the inscription, production and consumption of various imaginaries that link to the representations of Cuba in the 2000s.

This research will form the basis for the article in-progress entitled: ‘Walker Evans: Psychogeography & The City in Havana, 1933’. Additionally, a second article, ‘Louder than war: Havana & the Music Film in a Post-Special Period Cuba’, explores the inscription, production and consumption of various imaginaries that link to the representations of Cuba in the 2000s."

Every year we offer a wide range of scholarships to support our postgraduate students. These include the  Masters 3+ 1 scholarships|, which are available to students in receipt of a standard bursary in their final year at Royal Holloway.

Other recent scholarships include Masters by Research fee waivers and for PhD students the Crosslands|, College Research| and Santander Scholarship in Hispanic Studies|, to name just a few. 

The current round of applications for entry in 2013 has closed, with details of deadlines for 2014 entry forthcoming (usually March).

Matched funding

When students can obtain 50 per cent of the value of a Reid scholarship| from an external funding partner, we will consider applications to offer matched funding to make up the full value of a scholarship.

Overseas partnership

We will consider a fee reduction where students are funded by overseas governments or a similar national organisation.

Note: You should have applied to Royal Holloway and had your application accepted in advance of the deadline.

For more information on postgraduate study in the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures please contact the Director of Graduate Studies Dr Sarah Wright|.