European Studies: Cultures, Societies & Languages

Programme Structure

This programme is composed of :

• A core course taught over a ten-week teaching period from September to December
• Topic courses taken over a ten-week teaching period from January to April
• Specialist Options taken over one or two semesters
• A dissertation written during the final phase of the course, from April till September
• An optional language course taken over either one or two semesters

Core Course:
The Core Course in semester 1, Questions & Readings, Europe and Beyond, introduces you to the social and cultural theoretical context within which your studies will based. It explores central issues and themes in approach and methodology.

Topic courses:
Topic Courses vary year to year, but normally include the areas of Visual Cutlure, European and Latin American Cinema, Reading the New Europe and Text Cultures. These explore the theories and themes of the core course in greater depth. Other option course offered within in the SMLC and wider include such courses as Narratives of Illness, Gender and Text in Slavonic Cultures, the Mass Media of Communist and Post-Communist Europe. 

Specialist Options:
The Specialist Options consist of  Directed Study, a choice which provides you with a robust but flexible structure capable of accommodating varied interests and competencies of students, and the Portfolio Option, an alternative choice to the Directed Study option, consisting of three 2,000-word essays in a particular field of knowledge.

Language:
You may take an optional language course in a language relevant to your prospective research focus for either one or two semesters, including, from beginners' level, Catalan, Czech, Estonian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish; or classical or medieval languages such as Latin, Old French, Old Icelandic.

Dissertation:
The dissertation is a compulsory element of the programme and is your chance to pursue your specialist interest and demonstrate your writing skills and powers of research which have been developed during the year. It will consist of 15,000 words and you will develop it with the advice and guidance of your supervisor. Submission will be in September.

Teaching:
Teaching will consist of a mixture of seminars, workshops, auditing of existing Honours courses and one-to-one consultation. You will also have the opportunity to attend GSHA core study skills courses in the Graduate School of Arts and Humanities.