PhD in Italian

University of Cambridge

The Italian Section in Cambridge has seven full-time faculty members available to supervise doctoral research. Their research interests span a broad range of topics in the Italian peninsula's languages, literatures, visual cultures, and history, from the medieval period to the present day. Details of individual specialisms can be found on the Section's webpages. We have a lively group of doctoral students in the section working across periods and topics, supported by careful one-on-one supervision and mentoring, in the context of a rich research culture of seminars, symposia, conferences, lectures, and postgraduate training. Visiting scholars and students from other institutions regularly contribute to the Section's research culture. Students are also free to undertake comparative work across languages and national boundaries, supported by the wide range of expertise within the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics and Cambridge as a whole. 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.

Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics