Psychosocial Studies

Entry Requirements

The entry requirement for this MPhil/PhD Psychosocial Studies is a good master’s degree in a relevant subject in the humanities or social sciences, although we will consider an application from someone who has a first- or good second-class honours degree in one of these subjects.

You will also need to submit a detailed outline of your research proposal, specifying its significance and originality.

• What are the English language requirements?

  If English is not your first language or you have not previously studied in English, our usual requirement is the equivalent of an International English Language Testing System (IELTS Academic Test) score of 6.5, with not less than 6.0 in each of the sub-tests.

  If you don't meet the minimum English language requirements, please contact us or see our international study skills page for more details about how we can help.

  Visit the International section of our website to find out more about our English language entry requirements and relevant requirements by country.

• What are the visa and funding requirements?

  If you are not from the UK and you do not already have residency here, you may need to apply for a visa.

  The visa you apply for varies according to the length of your course:

  • Courses of more than six months' duration: Student visa
  • Courses of less than six months' duration: Standard Visitor visa

  International students who require a Student visa should apply to study on our courses full-time as these qualify for Student visa sponsorship. If you are living in the UK on a Student visa, you will not be eligible to enrol to study part-time courses at Birkbeck (with the exception of some modules).

  As a Student visa student, you should also apply to study on campus only, as online and flexible options of study  (if they are available for your course) may affect the conditions of your visa.

  For full information, read our visa information for international students page.

  Please also visit the international section of our website to find out more about relevant visa and funding requirements by country.

  Please note students receiving US Federal Aid are only able to apply for in-person, on-campus programmes which will have no elements of online study.

Fees

Our Research Culture

Birkbeck is at the geographical centre of London’s research library complex, a short distance from the British Library, the University of London Library, the Warburg Institute, the Institute of Historical Research and the Wellcome Institute. All our research students are supported by close individual supervision, occurring once a month, supplemented by research seminars in which all psychosocial studies doctoral students are invited to participate.

We currently offer two doctoral seminars, one run by Professor Lynne Segal (PhD Research Seminar) and one by Dr Margarita Palacios (Critical Theory Doctoral Seminar).

In addition, you are encouraged to attend training in research methodologies organised by the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research (BISR). Our provision and that of the BISR is complemented by the work of Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality (BiGS), the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, the Centre for Law and the Humanities and the London Critical Theory Summer School.

Overall, with its long and successful experience in the supervision of both full-time and part-time research students, Birkbeck remains an outstanding choice for doctoral research.

We actively promote interactive graduate life, with multiple resources for fostering a rich postgraduate community at Birkbeck.

Recent research topics include:

• Dimensions of belonging: rethinking retention for mature part-time undergraduates in English higher education
• Unpalatable truths: how does society cope?
• Moments of Russianness: locating national identification in discourse
• Negotiating gay Chinese subjectivities - shame, dilemmas and conflicts
• The dead mother complex and addiction
• Homonationalism, (critical) whiteness and neoliberal multiculturalism in Britain
• Towards a theory of the psychodynamics of literary reading
• Dream construction, deconstruction: what a re-reading of Freud on dreams can tell us about the structure of the unconscious and its relationship to deconstruction
• Psychosis, writing and the social bond: psychopathography as social critique
• The phallus and its discontents
• Constitutive ambiguities: collective memory and subjectivity in Trabzon, Turkey
• On sideways beyond a communist future: on Adorno, the communist utopia and post-communist art in Poland
• Just-is: contingency, desire and temporality
• Doctor Who and gay identity
• The queer act of breastfeeding: a psychosocial inquiry into meaning-making in the representations of breastfeeding in visual culture
• Women and gender violence in Italy
• The monster within: between the onset and resolution of the oedipal crisis
• From indignation to collective action: subjectivity, critique and resistance in a Greek context
• Cannibalism and colonialism in psychoanalysis
• The notion of time in Jacques Lacan's theory.

Read more about our vibrant research culture.

Finding a Supervisor

A critical factor when applying for postgraduate study in psychosocial studies is the correlation between the applicant’s intellectual and research interests and those of one or more potential supervisors.

Find out more about the research interests of our academic staff:

• Margarita Aragon, PhD: sociological theorising of racism and its imbrications with gender and disability.
• Professor Lisa Baraitser, BSc, MA, PhD: psychoanalytic and psychosocial theory; feminist theory; affect theory; motherhood and the maternal; ethics of care; philosophy of time.
• Ben Gidley, BA, MA, PhD: urban ethnography, lived experience of diversity, comparative urbanism, diasporic belonding; antisemitism, particularly in relation to other forms of racialisation; Anglo-Jewish history and sociology, Jewish/non-Jewish relations; urban social movements; fascism and anti-fascism; South and East London.
• Kerry Harman, BA, MCom, PhD: learning in and through everyday/night work practices; democratic academic research practices; sensory ways of knowing.
• Amber Jacobs, BA, MA, PhD: feminist theories, psychoanalysis, gender and sexualities, the post-human, film and visual culture, digital technologies, feminist philosophy; post-Lacanian feminist and Queer theorists; ancient Greek myth and tragedy literature, culture and theory; writing and sexual difference; theories and constructions of the maternal.
• Brendan McGeever, BA, PgD, MSc, PhD: racism and racialization; antisemitism; nationalism; class; Marxism; the former Soviet Union; contemporary Russia.
• Yasmeen Narayan, BA, MA, PhD: histories of 'race' and racism; postcoloniality and psychoanalysis; urban multiculture; criminalisation and imprisonment, addiction, 'sexuality' and ethnography.
• Margarita Palacios, PhD: politics, culture and psychoanalytic theory; social theory and continental philosophy; studies on violence and 'otherness'; language, power and knowledge; cultural sociology and social change; Latin America.
• Professor Silvia Posocco, BA, MSc, PhD: transnational gender and sexuality studies and theories; social anthropology, social theory and cultural analysis; violence and conflict; the state and the law; secrecy, sociality, subjectivity; transnational adoption circuits, documents and archives; ethnography; Latin America, Guatemala, London.
• Professor Irene Bruna Seu, MA, PhD: psychosocial inquiry into moral apathy in response to human rights abuses; psychoanalytic and social psychological contributions to the understanding of oppression, race, discrimination, identity and helping behaviour; social constructions of femininity and gender; discourse analysis and social constructionism.

How to Apply

Follow these steps to apply to an MPhil/PhD research degree at Birkbeck:

1. Check that you meet the entry requirements, including English language requirements, as described on this page. 
2. Find a potential supervisor for your MPhil/PhD research. Check the ‘Find a Supervisor’ area on this page or search our staff directory.
3. Contact the academic member of staff - or the department they teach in - for an informal discussion about your research interests and to establish if they are willing and able to supervise your research. They may ask you for a 200-word summary of your proposed research project. (Please note: finding a potential supervisor does not guarantee admission to the research degree, as this decision is made using your whole application.) Find out more about the supervisory relationship and how your supervisor will support your research. 
   
   If you cannot find an appropriate academic, then email the programme director, Silvia Posocco, for advice and help. You may find it helpful anyway to make contact with Silvia before you submit your application.
   
4. Draft a research proposal. This needs to demonstrate your knowledge of the field, the specific research questions you wish to pursue, and how your ideas will lead to the creation of new knowledge and understanding. Find out more about writing a research proposal.
5. Apply directly to Birkbeck, using the online application link on this page. All research students are initially registered on an MPhil and then upgrade to a PhD after making sufficient progress. 

Find out more about the application process, writing a research proposal and the timeframe. 

What are the application deadlines?

You must submit a detailed outline of your research proposal, specifying its significance and originality.

You can apply at any time during the year. Entry for the programme is October of each year.

If you wish to apply for funding, you will need to apply by certain deadlines. Consult the websites of relevant bodies for details.