Iberian and Latin American Studies (MPhil / PhD)

OUR RESEARCH CULTURE

We have built up an excellent team of research students who collaborate through departmental research seminars and are encouraged to publish and give papers at conferences. There are a number of School of Arts research events, which provide research training through the year, and a lecture series given by international experts. The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, whose International Director is Slavoj Žižek, offers masterclasses for research students, given by Žižek, Etienne Balibar and other international specialists.

The Department hosts the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS), dedicated to collaborative, cross-disciplinary and comparative research on visual cultures. CILAVS includes the Ibero-American Museum of Visual Culture on the Web, which currently displays a large virtual exhibition of objects, artefacts and images from Brazil, Argentina and Chile (1880-1900). This resource is being expanded to other geographical areas, and to photography and film. CILAVS focuses our strong commitment to research in visual culture, in Renaissance and modern Spain and Portugal and in native, colonial and modern Latin America.

We offer specialist supervision by experts who publish in their field. Key areas of research interest are: early modern Spanish culture; Golden Age art; Spanish American colonial art and cultural history; Spanish and Latin American fiction; Spanish and Latin American poetry; Spanish urban studies; childhood and youth studies in modern Spain; cultural history of Brazilian tropicality;

Portuguese Asian and African colonial history; modern Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American cultural studies, including film, iconography, gender studies, urban studies, transcultural/subaltern studies, cultural geography and popular culture. Further core concerns of our work are cultural theory and the critical redefinition of modernity, from the experience of Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

Interdisciplinary research projects are encouraged, and joint supervision can be arranged with other academic departments at Birkbeck.

You will be encouraged to participate with articles for, and in the editing of, Dandelion, the School of Arts online journal for research students.

Several members of the Department have been involved in the foundation and development of the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, which has been actively engaged in redefining Latin American studies.

You will have access to computer workstations with email and internet facilities. You will also be offered workshops in research skills and methodologies during your first year of study.

We particularly encourage students to engage with current debates, while at the same time providing a solid training in research methodology. There is a fortnightly seminar where we discuss readings in theory and methodologies, a student conference where students give papers, and a thesis-writing workshop. Staff and students also organise reading groups in order to explore particular areas of knowledge. We seek to create a mutually supportive environment, informed by discussion and dialogue.

You are expected to participate in the Department's research events, including attending lectures, research skills sessions and other classes/workshops as appropriate.

Find out more about our vibrant research culture.