The Italian Section offers many possibilities to study all aspects of Italian culture, history, literature, language and linguistics at both MPhil and PhD levels, and warmly welcomes informal inquiries or applications from anyone interested in pursuing postgraduate studies in Italian. Prof Abigail Brundin (Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture) made a short video for Postgraduate Search in which she introduces postgraduate studies at Cambridge. Please click on the image below to see the interview.
Research Areas
At present, the section offers teaching and research supervision in the following areas:
- The Medieval Period: Literature: Dr Webb; Visual Culture: Dr Webb; Religious Culture: Dr Webb.
- The Renaissance: Literature: Prof Brundin Prof Sanson; Art: Prof Brundin; Print culture, Religion: Prof Brundin; Women's history and the Questione della Lingua: Prof Sanson.
- The Early Modern Period: print culture, religious culture and women writers: Prof Brundin; women writers/women translators/women’s history 16th-19th century: Prof Sanson.
- The Modern Period: Literature, cultural and intellectual history: Dr Antonello, Prof Gordon ; Italian cinema: Prof Gordon, Dr Rhodes ; Philosophy: Dr Antonello; Visual Culture: Dr Antonello.
- Language and Linguistics: Dialectology and historical linguistics: Prof Ledgeway ; Syntactic theory and comparative Romance linguistics: Prof Ledgeway ; The Questione della Lingua: Prof Sanson.
The section also has a number of affiliated lecturers and post-doctoral researchers working in these and other area.
Entry Requirements, Applications and Funding
For information on applying, please see the Faculty website.
All formal applications must be made through the central Postgraduate Admissions Office. Before applying, applicants are strongly encouraged to contact directly one of the members of staff working in their proposed area or, for general inquiries and for those interested in other fields not mentioned above, to contact the Postgraduate Coordinator (Professor Helena Sanson). The Italian Section does not necessarily expect potential applicants to have detailed plans about their proposed area of study, and is more than happy to discuss general inquiries and receive indications of interest. Applicants wishing to study for a PhD who do not yet have a Masters degree of equivalent are normally advised to begin by studying for an MPhil before applying for the PhD.
At present, the section participates in three MPhil programmes, which offer Italian pathways: MPhil in Literature, Culture and Thought, the MPhil in Linguistics and Language Sciences and the MPhil in Film and Screen Studies. Applicants for an MPhil may possibly be called for a formal interview, but are in any case more than welcome to come to Cambridge (if they wish) to discuss their plans informally with a member of staff in their area. Applicants for the PhD will normally be interviewed by members of the section in the Lent Term (January to March) before the academic year in which they wish to begin their postgraduate studies. This interview will seek to establish not only the suitability of the candidate, but the most appropriate procedure for supervision, training and library work.
For guidance on the costs of postgraduate courses at the University of Cambridge, click here. There are several possible routes to finding funding for MPhil or PhD research in Italian at Cambridge. The section has recently been successful in being awarded AHRC grants for PhD research and in some years has had its own dedicated studentships for advanced research in Italian. Details of how to apply for these and other funding routes can be found here.
Useful links
- Faculty postgraduate Studies home page
- General information about costs and funding
- Funding your course at MMLL
- Entry requirements
- Part-time research degrees
See also:
