Modern Languages: Combined Language Studies (MA / MRes / Postgraduate Diploma / Postgraduate Certificate) - 2012/2013 entry

This programme enables you to study the culture of more than one language area at postgraduate level. According to the pathway chosen, you will develop an advanced understanding of multiple dimensions of German and/or French political and social history and culture, including literature, film and the visual arts, mainly of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

All modules aim to give you the opportunity to develop and practise the interpretational skills required for the advanced study of literature, film and history, and to develop your abilities to think analytically and work independently.

• Allows you to combine German and French studies at an advanced level.
• Interdisciplinary nature means you can study social and political history, thought, literature, film and visual culture, and explore the interactions between these various fields.
• Develop the interpretive skills appropriate to the study of these different disciplines.
• Multidisciplinary research expertise provides a flexible choice of dissertation topic.
• The MA provides a recognised stand-alone qualification or acts as an excellent stepping stone to further research.

• MA: core module; three option modules; research training course (10 weeks); dissertation (15,000 words).
• MRes: core module; one option module; research training course; dissertation (30,000 words).
• PgDip: core module; three option modules; research training course.
• PgCert: core module; one option module; research training course.

Core module

A 20-week module focusing mainly on the cultures of the French- and German-speaking nations in the twentieth century. It is structured around four key dates, each of which represents a moment of political, social and cultural upheaval. It aims to allow you to:

• investigate the cultural significance of these dates in France, Germany and beyond within the broader context of historical developments in the twentieth century
• examine cultural artefacts which relate to these dates, exploring the connections between political and social context and cultural production
• explore aspects of French and German history and culture from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives
• gain knowledge of and practical experience in using a variety of theories and approaches to French and German culture and history
• gain knowledge of and practical experience in the critical analysis of a variety of different textual types (such as film, literature and historical documents).

Option modules

The 10-week option modules allow for a specialised focus on the cultures you are studying. The list of modules includes:

• Crisis and Disorientation in the Post-War German Novel
• Forty Years of a Divided Germany
• German Thought since 1848
• The City in German Literature
• The German Bildungsroman
• Word and Image: Questions of Intermediality in Modern German Culture
• Autocracy and Democracy in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century German History
• Transgression in German Expressionist Cinema
• Ideology and Innovation in Post-war German Cinema
• Time, Memory and the Novel
• Negotiating Gender 
• Film, Melodrama and the Family 
• Urban Spaces in Modern Cultures
• Exhibiting the Pain of Others: Museums, Violence and Memory
• Nostalgia in the Museum
• Comparative Decolonisation: The End of the European Colonial Empires
• The French Fantastic in Literature and Film
• Histoires du Cinema
• Representations of ‘Race’ and Racism in French and Francophone Culture
• Reinventing the Family in Contemporary French Film
• Algeria: From Colony to Post-Colony 
• Evil in Nineteenth-Century French Thought and Literature 
• France from Popular Front to Liberation
• French Documentary Cinema
• Sex and Sexualities in Modern French Literature and Film
• Adapting the Eighteenth-Century French Novel: Text, Illustration, Film
• Time, Memory and the Novel 
• Negotiating Gender 
• Film, Melodrama and the Novel 
• Urban Spaces in Modern Cultures
• Exhibiting the Pain of Others: Museums, Violence and Memory 
• Notions of the Public Intellectual in France.

The department runs a series of research events for its postgraduates, which MA students are encouraged to attend.

If you are interested in further research, we offer PhD/MPhil programmes in French and German.

Graduates go on to careers in international organisations or businesses, in translating or teaching, and as researchers or journalists.

• We encourage you to apply as early as possible: enrolment is possible from May.
• Interviews, by arrangement, are held throughout the academic year.
• Candidates are normally asked to complete an admissions test.