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To study our Cultural Studies options you will need to apply for the MSt or MPhil in Modern Languages and if you are offered a place, select your special subjects accordingly. Standard MSt in Modern Languages requirements apply: students need to show proof of degree-level linguistic ability in at least one European language outside English, commensurate with advanced literary study and an interest for literary and cultural theory. Applicants should note that not all options will run in all years, and some course content might change.

Faculty members participating may include:

Convenors: Prof Dimitris Papanikolaou, Prof Guido Bonsaver, Prof Ben Morgan.

Core Seminar

This mandatory core seminar, entitled ‘Studying Culture’, is taken in Michaelmas term and aims to give students a grounding in some important methodological and thematic issues associated with Cultural Studies. Possible sessions of the core course might include topics such as:

  • Studying the everyday
  • Studying the City
  • Censorship and Culture
  • The culture industry/ the case of popular culture
  • Uses of cinema
  • Written and Visual Narratives in Contemporary Culture
  • Gender performances and popular culture 1 (Case study: Camp)
  • Modernism and Popular Culture

Special Subjects

For their second Special Subject in Cultural Studies, graduates will be able to study one relevant topic in greater depth during Hilary term, and can be shaped in a language specific or comparative context. Please note that students can only undertake the second option in Cultural Studies if they have first completed the core seminar in Michaelmas Term, and should contact the course convenors in advance to discuss this option. An indicative list of Special Subjects regularly offered includes (but is not confined to):

  • European Cinema and Literature
  • German cinema
  • German cultural history in the 20th century
  • Coming to terms with the past: the culture of memory in post-war Germany
  • Cinema and politics in contemporary Italy
  • Fascist culture
  • Literature and film adaptation in Italian culture
  • Foucault and the history of science
  • New Queer cinema
  • Cinema and migration
  • Popular music and literature
  • Greek cinema and social change
  • The national idea in Russia
  • Cultural outsiders

Students interested in Cultural Studies are strongly advised to also consider the other language-specific cultural options on offer as their second special subject.