PhD in Slavonic Studies

University of Cambridge

The Slavonic Studies Section at Cambridge is unique in the United Kingdom for offering postgraduates opportunities in the advanced study of Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, with an emphasis on cultural history from the medieval period to the present day. The intellectual vitality of the Section is evident in its thriving research areas: medieval Rus culture early-modern Ukrainian culture, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian literary and cultural studies of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries cinema studies nationalism studies memory studies visual culture the history of science and medicine print and media culture sensory history and Slavonic linguistics. Students taking the PhD in Slavonic Studies may focus on a single national or linguistic tradition or pursue comparative research across languages and national boundaries. A dynamic research culture of public lectures, seminars and conferences, together with a close-knit system of supervision and mentoring, encourages individual and collective endeavour. The Slavonic Studies Section is part of the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, which has a Postgraduate Centre with computing, study, seminar, and social areas. It maintains extensive library resources, which include the Catherine Cooke Collection of Soviet visual materials. Postgraduate students at Cambridge benefit from a rich, diverse research culture, both within the Slavonic Studies section and across the University as a whole. The Slavonic Studies Section also works in close collaboration with the Cambridge Committee for Central and European and Eurasian Studies (CamCCEEES) and the Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CRASSH). In British universities, the PhD (Doctorate of Philosophy) is traditionally awarded solely on the basis of a thesis, a substantial piece of writing in English that reports original research into a closely defined area of enquiry. The completion of the PhD thesis is generally expected to take three to four years, and most funding is based on this assumption. It's also possible to take a part-time route through research degrees, and the expected timeframe would be four to seven years. During your research, the student will have the opportunity to work closely with a Supervisor who is a specialist in the candidate's research area. In addition to the Supervisor, the candidate will normally also be able to draw on the help and support of one further academic advisor and consult other academics working in related fields. The student might reasonably expect to see their Supervisor fortnightly or at least three times per term. In addition to providing specialist supervision, the Faculty runs a programme of professional training for the benefit of all research students. The programme includes seminars and workshops on library resources, giving conference papers, publishing, applications and interviews, teaching skills, specialist linguistics training, and film-making. The School of Arts and Humanities runs a central programme covering a range of topics from PhD skills training to language training and writing and editing skills. If you wish, you are likely to be given the opportunity to gain experience in small-group teaching from Colleges. There may also be opportunities to gain some experience in language teaching in the Faculty.