Studying English at Southampton means choosing your own path through the rich history and flourishing contemporary life of English literature.

Our broad range of innovative modules, each designed and taught by specialist scholars, will allow you to pursue your own interests whilst guiding you towards an holistic understanding of your discipline and equipping you with the intellectual tools you will need for life beyond university.

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Film Studies traces the development of film making, from its 19th century origins to the digital age.

Combining elements from traditional art forms, films shape our contemporary social and cultural identities. We believe that popular genres are as important as art cinema, and that film transcends borders. This vision is reflected in our modules, where you will encounter King Kong and the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business, Lord of the Rings and contemporary Japanese animation, silent movies and documentaries.

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Modern Languages and Linguistics at Southampton is ranked in the top 5 for research, according to the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014). Our undergraduate students benefit from research-led teaching delivered by experts in the field.

Our unique seven-stage language learning programme is based on your level of language proficiency rather than your year of study, enabling you to make rapid progress in your chosen language. You will have a broad range of options to choose from in your second and final year, and a year abroad in your third year.

Our BA Modern Languages allows you to study 3 modern foreign languages, one from scratch.

Most of our BA programmes can also be taken as MLang Integrated Masters degrees, allowing you to explore your chosen language(s) in greater depth, and gain a postgraduate qualification at the end of your 4 years.

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Study an extremely flexible degree programme, with a huge breadth of historical topics not commonly taught in British universities.

Study a vast range of histories, over time, across the globe and using different approaches in our BA History. The group project gives you a chance to conduct research as part of a team and present to the public, and your dissertation will focus on a specific area of history that interests you.

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Linguistics explores the many different facets of language, from the physical properties of the sound waves in speech, to the social context of conversations.

Our BA English Language and Linguistics explores the structure of English, how it varies across speakers, how it develops and how it is used by speakers and users around the world, and is taught by leading academics in the fields of English Language, Linguistics, Global Englishes and language acquisition. Linguistics options are also available as joint honours courses with one or two modern foreign languages.

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Modern languages at Southampton is consistently ranked in the top five in the UK by the Guardian University Guide.

For full details, see our website.

In our BA Spanish, you will experience the rich diversity of Spanish cultures, develop your language skills and increase your understanding of the cultures, languages and history of Spain and Latin America. You will spend your year abroad in the Spanish-speaking country. 

BA Spanish and Portuguese

BA Politics and Spanish/Portuguese and Latin American Studies

BSc Management Sciences and Spanish

Integrated Masters in Languages (MLang)

The MLang leads to a full masters award and offers you the same choice and flexibility as the BA programmes, including a full year abroad. It also has the same funding options:

Spanish
Spanish and Latin American Studies
Spanish Linguistic Studies
Spanish and Portuguese
The Spanish-speaking World
French and Portuguese
French and Spanish
French and Spanish Linguistic Studies
German and Spanish
German and Spanish Linguistic Studies

Our highly skilled and committed language teachers promote rapid and effective language learning and you will receive stimulating and engaging teaching in the areas of linguistics, history, culture and society.

Our flexible BA German course enables you to specialise in a particular field or spread your interests. During your year abroad, you will choose between being a language assistant in a school, studying at an Erasmus partner university such as Hamburg, Frankfurt, Vienna or Potsdam, or working in an approved job.

Combined honours programmes

BA German and History

BA German and Music

BA German and Philosophy

BA German and Spanish

BSc Management Sciences and German

BA Politics and German

Our Integrated Masters in Languages (MLang) leads to a full masters award and offers you the same choice and flexibility as the BA programmes, including a full year abroad. It also has the same funding options.

German

German and Spanish

German and Spanish Linguistic Studies

French and German

French and German Linguistic Studies 

Our courses are taught by world-class academics with an exceptional breadth of interests.

In the most recent Research Excellence Framework, we ranked 4th in the UK for the proportion of publications which were world-leading or internationally excellent.

This means that whether you want to know more about Nietzsche, or to engage with Ethics, the Philosophy of Maths, or Aesthetics, you'll be able choose from a wide range of options and enjoy high quality teaching which draws upon our cutting-edge research.

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Avenue Campus is home to most subjects in Humanities. Very close to Southampton Common, we are just a few minutes' walk from Highfield Campus.

Most Music programmes are held in Building 2 on Highfield Campus.

Our degrees are some of the most highly regarded humanities courses in the country, offering a firm foundation for a successful career in a multitude of industries.

At Humanities we are fascinated by people and their activities and achievements over the centuries, from prehistory to the modern day. We are known for our ground-breaking and internationally significant education and research across our disciplines, most of which are ranked in the top ten in the UK.

University of Southampton proves its world-leading research status

The University of Southampton has reaffirmed its position as one of the leading research universities, following publication of the latest national assessment of research (Thursday 18 December), with some key successes for Humanities. Highlights from the results of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 for the Faculty include:

• Music is ranked as the best in the country on the basis of the volume and quality of its research.
• History and Modern Languages are ranked in the top five nationally (the latter’s submission included research contributed by Film).

Elsewhere, Archaeology (submitted in the same Unit of Assessment as Geography) had 73 per cent of its published research rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, placing it in the top ten of all archaeology departments in the UK.

In English, 76 per cent of its research was rated world-leading or internationally excellent (and the submission included research contributed by Film), while Philosophy was ranked in the top 10 of all philosophy departments in the UK for its research outputs.

We offer a broad and imaginative programme with an interdisciplinary emphasis, drawing on the most recent developments in literary studies.

MA Jane Austen
​Our new MA in Jane Austen is an interdisciplinary programme for the study of Jane Austen’s culture, work, reception, and the implications of her continuing and increasing popularity in the modern day.

MA Creative Writing
Our lively programme focuses on the craft of fiction, scriptwriting, poetry and writing for children through weekly writing workshops and literature seminars which engage in a close study of contemporary writing.

MA English Literary Studies
The programme comprises a wide range of topics and approaches, enabling students to practise textual, cultural and theoretical modes of analysis important to advanced research in English and the humanities. Choose from the following pathways - Eighteenth Century, Nineteeth Century, Twentieth Century and Contemporary, or Postcolonial and World Literature. 

MA Medieval and Renaissance Culture
This interdisciplinary MA will equip you to carry out independent research while exploring broad themes and questions in medieval and renaissance culture. You will be taught by specialist staff from disciplines including music, literature, history and archaeology.

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Perhaps more than any other discipline, Film demands theoretical awareness, critical skills and historical knowledge drawn from a wide range of fields in order to study what is arguably the dominant cultural form, and one that now spans three centuries.

MA Film Studies
This programme offers students a high level of understanding of film studies as well as being the ideal preparation for doctoral research. It covers an in depth discussion of the most influential theories and methodologies in the field and provides an introduction to the latest debates and concerns, including issues arising from cinema’s textual properties and questions regarding the medium’s wider social impact.

MA Film and Cultural Management
This programme provides a framework through which the contemporary cultural sector can be understood and analysed, focusing on how cultural management affects the visual media. Areas covered may include film festival organisation, specialist film programming, film policy, film exhibition, marketing and audience development, and the role of private and public film agencies.

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Postgraduate students at Southampton benefit from our lively research culture, which incorporates a series of major international conferences and a range of distinct seminar programmes.

Our MA History allows you to deepen your knowledge across the breadth of history or in a specific period, guided by academics whose research interests range from the ancient world to contemporary global history, from East to West, across topics as diverse as the buildings of the Roman Empire, the clothing of the Tudor and Stuart courts and natural disasters in modern China. We also offer the MA Jewish History and Culture, delivered by the Parkes Institute, a leading centre of Jewish/non-Jewish relations.

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Modern Languages and Linguistics has a thriving research community and is home to several internationally renowned research centres covering French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies, and linguistics with particular focus on literature, culture, society, politics, history, anthropology and transnational studies.

We offer two Masters degrees in Applied Linguistics, one focused on Language Teaching and the other Research Methodology.

Our MA English Language Teaching can be studied for one year on campus, or over two and a half years as an online distance-learning programme.

The MA ELT/TESOL Studies provides a focused route for recent graduates wishing to develop their understanding of the theory and practice of English language teaching in order to start their career as English language professionals. We also offer the MA Global Englishes and the MA Transnational Studies.

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Philosophers at Southampton explore fundamental concepts and profound questions, while developing the analytical and problem solving skills that will be invaluable for your future career.

MA Philosophy
Combining a thorough grounding in philosophy at postgraduate level with an exceptional range of options, the MA Philosophy offers a unique opportunity for advanced work in the subject. Whether you are simply intending to build on your undergraduate studies or planning to pursue advanced research, this programme has been designed to meet your needs. The range of specialised modules reflects the broad spectrum of research interests represented by our philosophers. Following core modules devoted to central philosophical issues, you can choose from the wide range of specialised modules listed below, as well as write a dissertation on a topic of your choosing.

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English at Southampton offers great opportunities for postgraduate research. We can offer expertise in all literary periods from the medieval to the present day.

Good supervision is the heart of our commitment to providing excellent doctoral research programmes. In English at Southampton, you'll have a supervisory team tailored to your research project's specific needs, drawn from our large and diverse body of research active staff, who are at the forefront of developments in their fields.  Interdisciplinary study is a special strength of Humanities, and English staff and students are active in a number of research centres and cross-disciplinary and collaborative projects; we particularly welcome applications in these areas.

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We welcome enquiries on any topic in film and television. We provide excellent research resources locally, and national archives and libraries in London are easily accessible.

The study of film and audiovisual culture is an endlessly fascinating subject that provides a wealth of insight into the human condition, ways of thinking and the manner in which societies and the world have developed over the last Century and a quarter. Our PhD programme allows students to immerse themselves in questions posed by film as art, industry and way of life.

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Become an expert in your chosen field of research and explore history on a global scale. Develop your own understanding and work with specialists in this field.

Studying history can help us define a path for our future society; it helps us to discover where we came from and how our civilisation evolved.

Staff have strong interests in gender history, the history of identities, and the study of history and memory of migration, and offer supervision in a range of subject areas, including interdisciplinary research projects with Humanities colleagues.

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Modern Languages and linguistics at Southampton is an internationally recognised centre of research excellence.

We offer PhD supervision in a wide range of areas across language, culture and society, including linguistics and English Language Teaching.

Our reputation attracts the very best academic talent in their chosen field, meaning that our postgraduate supervisors are highly experienced and are engaged in the most innovative research. Humanities at Southampton is a multi-disciplinary grouping of Archaeology, English, Film, History, Modern Languages, Music and Philosophy.

Together these present our postgraduate students with a wealth of possibilities for interdisciplinary study and research especially in conceptual, cultural, linguistics and literary approaches, and in the study of society in the past and present.

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As a PhD student at Southampton, you will be part of a vibrant research culture with a strong and growing postgraduate community at its heart.

We have a long-established international reputation for our work in the History of Philosophy, especially 19th century German philosophy; in analytic aesthetics; and in the thought of Wittgenstein.

More recently, the department has become known for world-leading work in epistemology and ethics. We also have strengths in metaphysics, and the philosophies of mind and language.

You can find out more about our main overlapping areas of research on our Research pages and more about our staff on our Staff pages.

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Explore ancient worlds from ancient Egypt to the rise of Islam in the Middle East; from the shores of Roman Britain to the pre-Colombian Americas.

Ancient History at Southampton allows you to take an interdisciplinary approach to ancient worlds, drawing on experts in history, archaeology, film, literature and philosophy. Learn Latin or Ancient Greek; look at how the ancient world is reimagined through the ages; dive down to the sea bed, or study ancient ideas about the heavens.

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