Classics (MPhil / PhD)

OUR RESEARCH CULTURE

We are located just five minutes' walk from the British Museum and 10 minutes from the British Library. Other nearby specialist centres of research include the Institute of Classical Studies and the Institute of Historical Research (both located next door to Birkbeck), the Institute of Archaeology and the Warburg Institute. All four institutes offer regular seminars on research areas covered by the Department.

Study resources also include a regular work-in-progress seminar for research students and staff, and various courses on ancillary skills, including how to read medieval and early modern documents, how to locate sources in various fields, languages and computing. The Department also offers PhD thesis-writing workshops and methodological masterclasses, in which historians discuss how they produce their work and overcome particular challenges. Increasingly Birkbeck is funding student-organised conferences and sponsoring special courses that teach non-English languages for reading and research. Research students also have access to events offered by the Bloomsbury Postgraduate Skills Network, which includes UCL, King’s College London, LSE and SOAS, among others.

Besides over 30 regular research seminars at the Institute of Historical Research, there are also numerous specialist lectures and talks at neighbouring institutions during term-time.

Student-run website Birkbeck History Research Students' Forum contains information about conferences and events, job opportunities, etc.

Through our international links, it is now possible for Birkbeck PhD Classics students to visit the following partner institutions: Columbia University, USA; Queen's University, Canada; Università di Pisa, University of Verona and European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy (one-term exchange). Research students from these institutions may also spend six months studying at Birkbeck.