Entry requirements

Applicants for this course should have achieved a UK High II.i Honours Degree.

If your degree is not from the UK, please check International Qualifications to find the equivalent in your country.

High II.i or a first at BA level from a UK university or equivalent.

Knowledge of Japanese, Chinese, and/or Korean (modern and/or premodern) is by no means required, however applicants with prior knowledge of one or more East Asian languages are also welcome to apply.

Months of entry

September

Course content

The primary aim of the programme is to develop a rigorous and innovative understanding of popular culture in East Asia from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the present.

The Educational Aims of the course are:

To give students training in research skills and methodologies in the field of popular culture;
To develop students' expertise in relevant aspects of East Asian popular culture across Greater China, Korea and Japan;
To guide students in the critical investigation of a wealth of primary sources that are available in English translation;
To expose students to materials that have yet to be translated in English;
To give students the opportunity to carry out independent and original research under bespoke and close supervision.

At the end of the MPhil programme, students will be expected to have:

acquired the ability to read and interpret primary sources in translation;
acquired a good knowledge of the general scholarship on East Asian Popular Culture;
acquired an in-depth knowledge of the secondary literature relevant to the subject of their dissertation;
developed the ability to formulate original research questions and to produce a well-constructed argument to answer them, in the form of an independent piece of research based on the use of primary and secondary sources;
acquired the skills to use library and internet resources independently; and
developed a peer network and the ability to give constructive feedback.