MPhil in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures 2025/26

Lent term 2026 Modules 

Each year, during the summer months before term starts, students are asked to pre-select two modules. The list of modules offered can change from year to year depending on the availability of academic staff. Students are asked for back-up choices just in case modules are under or over-subscribed, but the faculty endeavour to offer first preferences where possible.

Students are advised that, in cases where numbers are very small, a module may be suspended. Where a module does go ahead with a small number of students (typically one or two students), those students can expect a reduction to the relevant contact hours (normally 6 sessions will be reduced to 4). 

Some, but not all, of the modules advertised may be borrowable by students from other Departments/Faculties, subject to availability, course regulations and approval from both sides. Numbers may be limited, and students enrolled on the ELAC MPhil take priority. Queries should be directed to the MMLL Postgraduate Office on postgraduatestudies@mmll.cam.ac.uk.

Please note the below modules may be subject to change.

Interdisciplinary

• ID Cultures: Cultures of the Renaissance (Dr Tim Chesters) 
• ID Gender: Approaches to Gender (Prof Helena Sanson)
• ID Gesture: Gesture, Perception, Event (Prof Catherine Pickstock and Dr Helena Phillips-Robins)
• ID Marginalities: Marginalities in Nineteenth-Century European Culture (Dr Claire White)
• ID Medieval Communities (Prof Miranda Griffin)
• ID City: The Modern City (Prof Andrew Webber)
• ID Post/Decolonial Studies: Critical Dialogues in Post/Decolonial Studies: Key Concepts and Untranslatables (Dr Doyle Calhoun and Prof Charles Forsdick)

French

• FR Contemporary: Articulations of the Real: Modern and Contemporary French and Francophone Culture (Prof Martin Crowley)
• FR Early Modern: Body and Soul: Sensory Connections in the Early Modern Period (Dr John Leigh)
• FR Medieval: Senses of the Text in Medieval France (Not offered in Lent 2026)

German

• GE Modern Culture: Precarious narratives - liveable subjectivities (Dr Charlotte Woodford and Dr Sarah Colvin)​
• GE Modern Thought: Enlightenment and its Critics from Kant to Heidegger (Dr Martin Ruehl)

Greek

• GK Myth: Women and the Subversive Power of Myth (Dr Liana Giannakopoulou) 
• GK Syntactic Change: Syntactic change in Greek through an acquisition perspective (Not available in Lent 2026)

Italian

• IT 20th Century: New Commitments: Literature, Cinema and Culture in Italy, 1960 - present (Prof Robert Gordon)
• IT Body, Gesture, Emotion: Body, Gesture, Emotion: Art and Literature in Italy, 1250-1700 (Not available in Lent 2026)
• IT Medieval: Literature and Knowledge in Late Medieval Italy: Scholars and Poets (Prof Anna Pegoretti)
• IT Women & Writing: Women and Writing in Italy (Prof Helena Sanson) 

Slavonic

• SL 20th Century: Self-Creation in Twentieth-Century Russian and Polish Culture (Prof Stanley Bill)
• SL Nationalism: Literature and Nationalism in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Not available in Lent 2026)

Spanish & Portuguese

• SP Myth and Invention: Myth and Invention: Medieval and Early Modern Iberian and Latin American Culture (Prof. R Cacho)

Spanish & Portuguese / Latin American 

• SP LA Cinema: The Politics of Representation in Latin American Visual Culture (Prof Maite Conde)
• SP LA Literature: Present Pasts, Pasts Present: Reflections on Literature and History in Latin American writing (Dr Rory O'Bryen)
• SP Myth and Invention: Myth and Invention: Medieval and Early Modern Iberian and Latin American Culture (Prof Louise Haywood)
• SP Race and Ethnicity: Race and Ethnicity in the Iberian World

Codes used above: 

ID = Interdisciplinary; FR = French; GE = German; GK = Greek; IT = Italian; SL = Slavonic; SP = Spanish & Portuguese; SP LA = Spanish & Portuguese/Latin American