PhD Russian and East European Studies

Programme description

Our PhD Russian and East European Studies programme will enable you to carry out a piece of significant, original research under the supervision of our academics.

Staff in Russian and East European Studies conduct research of an interdisciplinary nature across a broad range of subjects, including:

• 19th and 20th-century literature and intellectual history;
• Soviet and post-Soviet cinema and the media;
• gender studies;
• memory studies;
• nationalism and ethnic politics historically and in the post-communist period;
• post-communist transition in East Central Europe.

The discipline of Russian and East European Studies constitutes a core group of the Cross-Disciplinary Russian and Eurasian Studies Network, which facilitates collaboration in research and postgraduate teaching and supervision among relevant members of staff across the Faculty of Humanities at Manchester.

Our staff's externally-funded current research projects include:

Reframing Russia for the Global Mediasphere: From Cold War to Information War (AHRC);
Russian Nationalism and the Ukraine Crisis: The Impact of Nationalist Actors on Russian Foreign Policy (The European Commission);
Self-Sustained Civil Society in Eastern (and Western) Europe (the British Academy).

A focal point for our research activity is a regular research seminar, which features a mix of internal and external speakers, and promotes debate between staff and postgraduates across the full spectrum of their research interests.

The Russian language and culture are also a significant focus of research undertaken by the Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Communities consortium. Funded through the AHRC Open World Research Initiative and led by a Russian specialist at Manchester, the consortium aims to investigate the central role languages play in relation to key contemporary issues such as social cohesion, migration, business and diplomacy.

Teaching and learning

The PhD is the major postgraduate research degree. It involves three years of full-time study or six years of part-time study and the preparation of a thesis of not more than 80,000 words that makes a significant contribution to knowledge.

Career opportunities

Many of PhD graduates in Modern Languages and Translation and Interpreting Studies have gone on to academic positions at leading universities in the UK, Europe, USA, East Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Our graduates have been also successful with receiving prestigious postdoctoral fellowships, including the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The interdisciplinarity nature of PhD programmes in Modern Languages and Cultures and Translation and Interpreting Studies prepares our graduates successfully to apply to a wide range of academic posts. In addition to those in European and Middle Eastern Languages and Translation/Interpreting, our graduates have been appointed to permanent academic positions in Film Studies; History; Journalism and Political Communication; and Sociology.

A satisfactory PhD topic is one that a suitably qualified and properly supervised student can bring to completion within the permitted timeframe.

Please note that all PhD students are required to undertake research training as part of their PhD programme.

Students require Bachelors (Honours) degree at 2:1 level or above (or its international equivalent) in a related subject; and a UK Master's degree with an overall average of 65% or higher, with a minimum of 65% in the dissertation and with no mark below 55% (or its international equivalent) in a related subject.