The M.Phil. in Modern South Asian Studies combines the intensive study of one or more South Asian languages, with a wide range of optional subjects. These include the history of South Asia from the early modern period to the present, social anthropology, politics, literature, religious traditions, literatures, the history of medicine, gender and the body, and material culture. Students may choose between the following languages for intensive study: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Brajbhasha, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Persian, and Nepali. The course is appropriate both for students who have no experience in these languages, and those who already have some expertise.

Oxford offers outstanding facilities for this course. Students and staff in Oriental Studies work closely with other Faculties and Departments in the University where South Asia is studied. Students will be able to draw on Oxford’s wealth of archival, library and material culture collections. Teaching will take the form of lectures, language classes and the small-group tutorials which are a distinctive feature of tuition in Oxford. In the second year of the course, students tackle a major dissertation subject, in which they have the opportunity to use the language skills gained over the course of the first year.

Students graduating from the course will have gained significant linguistic competence, skills in writing, analysis and interpretation, and particular expertise in their own chosen topics of study. For those going on to doctoral work, the course provides an in-depth introduction to the languages and culture of the region, and to the different intellectual disciplines through which these may be studied. For students taking the M.Phil as a final degree, these skills offer important advantages in a wide range of other professional career settings, particularly in view of South Asia’s rapidly growing economic and political importance in the present day.

Colleges accepting for this course are: Balliol, Kellogg, Linacre, Magdalen, Merton, St Antony’s, St Catherine’s, St Cross, St Hugh’s, Trinity, Wadham, Wolfson.

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