Slavonic Languages and Cultures MPhil (Research)

The breadth of Slavonic Languages and Cultures provision at Glasgow is unique within Scotland and encompasses the languages, history, society and culture of Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic. Established in 1917, Russian was augmented soon after WWII by Czech and Polish Studies, which now form part of a vibrant research culture within the School of Modern Languages and Cultures.

OVERVIEW

Slavonic Studies at Glasgow belongs to a thriving School of Modern Languages and Cultures, with a lively research environment and postgraduate community. The Language Resources Library, with its wide range of resources and up-to-date equipment, houses a major collection of contemporary and classic Central East European cinema, while the Main Library holdings in the Slavonic and Eastern European area (some 80000 volumes), and a Special Collection that includes early translations of the Bible into Czech, Polish and Russian and a unique set of Trotsky items, make it one of the richest resources in the western world. Our research and teaching collaborations with colleagues within SMLC as well as from across the Colleges of Arts (History, History of Arts) and Social Sciences (Central and East European Studies, Education, and Politics) provide our research students with a potentially unique competence in the area. Members of staff co-edit two of the leading journals in the field, Slavonica and Avtobiografiia, and hold key roles in international and national research and subject-area networks.

We would welcome proposals from any area of Slavonic Studies, but particular research strengths include:

• Czech and Polish media
• Censorship in communist and post-communist Central Europe
• Czech cinema since 1989
• Polish drama ‘written outside the nation’
• Memory studies (particularly Polish/Jewish relations)
• Gulag literature and writing
• Samizdat
• Auto/biographical studies
• Post-1945 Czech identity and travel writing
• The theatre of Chekhov in Spain
• Russo-Hispanic cultural and literary relations.

Thesis length: 30,000-40,000 words (including references and bibliography).

A Master of Philosophy (Research) requires you to undertake a postgraduate course of special study and research that represents a distinct contribution to knowledge.