French PhD

Programme overview

PhD: a research project undertaken across three years (full-time, plus a writing up period), culminating in an 80,000 word thesis. As well as having the option to audit taught units, there may be the potential for PhD students to teach units themselves from their second year of study onwards.

The Department of French is committed to research innovation and excellence in major aspects of French studies. The department has particular strengths in the medieval, early modern period, visual-textual relations, 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century literature, screen and stage adaptations, cultural history and politics. We collaborate extensively with other departments, especially in the fields of visual and literary cultures, conflict and culture, medieval studies, English and comparative literature, and the Centre for the Study of Colonial and Postcolonial Societies.

Each research student is assigned to an academic who works in their proposed area of research or related field, and benefits from the input of a second supervisor who may be from another department, depending on the interdisciplinary nature of the project.

The department is a regional centre for the Group for War and Culture Studies and members of the department are active in a wide range of Faculty of Arts research clusters. A number of our staff are editors of leading journals and active in subject associations. Postgraduate students can benefit from an exchange agreement with the Ecole Normale Supérieure (rue d'Ulm), or take an exchange lecturer post at the Université de Bordeaux III.

Research students lead the organisation of a postgraduate seminar series in literary and visual landscapes, and an initiative to edit postgraduate creative writing.

This research degree is also available via distance learning.

Careers

A large number of graduates from this programme develop careers in higher education or work on high-level research projects in the field of French studies; some graduates take up careers in translation or writing for international newspapers.