Iberian and Latin American Studies (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

As people involved in research, our prime concern is with producing top-quality work that in different ways questions the boundaries of the disciplines we work in and seeks to bring new materials, theories and methods into them.

The research programme in Iberian and Latin American studies is both exciting and innovative. The expertise of staff ranges across the field (from Golden Age art to Luso-Brazilian imperial history and culture and the colonial literatures and cultures of Spanish America; from contemporary Spanish and Portuguese cinema and urban studies to Latin American literature, poetry, cinema and museum studies), and the research published by both staff and students is also path-breaking.

We particularly encourage students to engage with current debates, while at the same time providing a solid training in research methodology. There is a fortnightly seminar where we discuss readings in theory and methodologies, a student conference where students give papers, and a thesis-writing workshop. Staff and students also organise reading groups in order to explore particular areas of knowledge. We seek to create a mutually supportive environment, informed by discussion and dialogue.

We offer specialist supervision by experts who publish in their field. Key areas of research interest are: early modern Spanish culture; Golden Age art; Spanish American colonial art and cultural history; Spanish and Latin American fiction; Spanish and Latin American poetry; Spanish urban studies; childhood and youth studies in modern Spain; cultural history of Brazilian tropicality; Portuguese Asian and African colonial history; Modern Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American cultural studies, including film, iconography, gender studies, urban studies, transcultural/subaltern studies, cultural geography, and popular culture. Further core concerns of our work are cultural theory and the critical redefinition of modernity, from the experience of Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

Interdisciplinary research projects are encouraged, and joint supervision can be arranged with other academic departments at Birkbeck. Joint registration with other universities is also possible.

Find out more about studying at Birkbeck and what our students say about us.

The Department of Iberian and Latin American Studies was rated among the top five departments in the UK in the latest Research Assessment Exercise, which reflects world-class research.

We have built up an excellent team of research students, who collaborate through departmental research seminars, and are encouraged to publish and give papers at conferences. There are a number of School of Arts research events which provide research training through the year and a lecture series given by international experts. The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, whose International Director is Slavoj Zizek, offers masterclasses for research students, given by Zizek, Etienne Balibar and other international specialists.

You will have access to computer workstations with email and internet facilities. You will also be offered workshops in research skills and methodologies during your first year of study.

The department hosts the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS), dedicated to collaborative, cross-disciplinary and comparative research on visual cultures. CILAVS includes the Ibero-American Museum of Visual Culture on the Web, which currently displays a large virtual exhibition of objects, artefacts and images from Brazil, Argentina and Chile (1880–1900). This resource is being expanded to other geographical areas, and to photography and film.

CILAVS focuses our strong commitment to research in visual culture, in Renaissance and modern Spain and Portugal and in native, colonial and modern Latin America.

Students are encouraged to participate with articles for, and in the editing of, Dandelion, the School of Arts online journal for research students.

Several members of the department have been involved in the foundation and development of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, which has been actively engaged in redefining Latin American studies.

Birkbeck offers a lively student experience, as well as student support and facilities.

Apart from the process of research supervision and the final examination of the thesis, each student has an annual review in which their progress is assessed. At an appropriate stage in their research, and in consultation with their supervisor, students are interviewed with a view to upgrading from MPhil to PhD. This is usually one year of full-time study and two–three years of part-time study.

If you are considering applying for MPhil/PhD research in any of these areas, you are advised to contact the department about your research plan before making an application.

For information about applying as a research student, read our Guide for Applicants.

• María Paz Balibrea Enríquez, LicFil, MA, PhD: Modern Spanish literature and cultural studies.
• Zoltan Biedermann, LicHist, MA, PhD: Portuguese and Spanish imperial history, with a focus on early modern Asia.
• Carmen T Fracchia, Laurea, PhD: Spanish art history and visual culture.
• Jessamy Harvey, BA, PhD: Modern Spanish cultural studies, with a focus on childhood and youth cultures.
• John Kraniauskas, BA, MA, PhD: Latin American cultural history and theory, literature, film and politics.
• Luciana Martins, BA, MSc, PhD: Luso-Brazilian cultural and historical geography; visual culture.
• Maria Elena Placencia, BA, MA, PhD: (Spanish) sociopragmatics; cross- and intercultural communications; politeness phenomena.
• Professor William Rowe, BA, PhD: Latin American cultural history; poetry and poetics.
• Luis Trindade, BA, MA, PhD: Modern Portuguese and Lusophone history, literature and cultural studies.

The research programme is particularly concerned with developing new theoretical and methodological thinking and the ways this changes the field and objects of study, within Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies. Visual culture and cultural history and critique are special areas of interest.

Research supervision to MPhil and PhD level is offered in all the main areas of Spanish and Latin American culture. Research in Spanish and Latin American studies at Birkbeck focuses on: language and identity: the cultural history of medieval and Islamic Iberia: visual art of Renaissance Spain: native cultures of Latin America: modern Spanish cultural history, film and visual arts: modern Latin American cultural history: Brazilian and Portuguese visual geography: cultural theory: and poetry and poetics.

Current PhD research topics include:

• Cross-cultural histories of tropical botany in Latin America
• Visual and poetic works of the Brazilian and Peruvian neo-avant-garde
• Constructing modernity in 1950s Caracas
• Lisbon in contemporary Portuguese cinema
• How European perceptions of Native Americans later influenced their perceptions of Africans
• Gender and race in the Indian frontier in nineteenth-century Argentina
• Imagined cities in the Dominican Republic: place, race and the quest for 'Lo Dominicano'
• Invisible friends: questioning the representation of the court dwarf in Early Modern Spain
• Visual representations of the Black Legend.

• You can apply at any time during the year and start studying in October, January or April.