German Research MPhil/PhD, option of joint PhD with Stuttgart or Humboldt University

Overview

Our current research students work mainly in cultural and historical studies from the Middle Ages to the present day, including literary studies, film and cinema studies; theatre studies; literary and cultural theory; and the history of ideas. In the field of literary and cultural studies, applications are  welcome from students with interests in the study of nation, identity and memory; gender; realism and modernism; the classical tradition; and comparative literature and performance.

The Department's links with European Studies also provide an important focus for research on migrant communities; post-1945 political movements; gender and politics; international relations; European identities and German history.

• Research in French, German and Spanish -  research impact rated 87.5% at ‘world leading (4*) or ‘internationally excellent (3*) and at 100% for ‘world leading (4*) research environment (REF 2021).

• Research income: Over £1m since 2001.

• Current number of academic staff: 11 permanent (all research active).

• Current number of research students: 21.

• Recent publications:
• Béla Balázs: Early Film Theory; 
• The German Tradition of Psychology in Literature and Thought;
• Wenders and Handke: Collaboration, Adaptation, Recomposition
• The German Bestseller in the Nineteenth Century;
• Private Lives and Collective Destinies: Class, Nation and the Volk in Gustav Freytag;
• Crisis and Form in the Later Writing of Ingeborg Bachmann;
• Bridal Quest Epics in Medieval Germany;
• The German Joyce;
• Selbstreferenz in Literatur und Wissenschaft. Kronauer, Grünbein, Maturana, Luhmann;
• Phantom Images: The Figure of the Ghost in the Work of Christa Wolf and Irina Liebmann;
• Fragmented Fatherland. Immigration and Cold War Conflict in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-1980.

• Current research projects: Current PhD students work mainly in: literary studies, film and cinema studies; literary and cultural theory; the history of ideas.

• Joint PhDs available: Exciting opportunities to gain a joint PhD with the University of Stuttgart/Humboldt University Berlin.

To study at King's, it is essential that you can communicate effectively in English and are able to do so in an academic environment. You are usually required to provide certification of your competence in English before starting your studies.

• register on the King's Apply Portal
• complete our online application form