PhD East Asian Studies: The University of Manchester

Course description

East Asian Studies at Manchester comprises Chinese Studies and Japanese Studies. It has fifteen academic staff led by Professors Ian Reader (Japanese Studies) and Hong Liu (Chinese Studies), and language teaching teams in Chinese and Japanese. Besides PhD programmes of study in Chinese Studies and in Japanese Studies for those who specifically focus on one or other of these cultural areas, East Asian Studies offers the scope for PhDs that focus on the East Asian region, broadly defined (including South-East Asia, especially when related to areas and cultures which use Chinese writing characters), that either transcend specific cultural boundaries or that seek to utilize the academic specialism and guidance of scholars in East Asian Studies to engage with academic topics within the region.

In such contexts East Asian Studies staff can offer postgraduate supervision in a variety of areas related to religion, education, popular culture, art, history, gender studies, identity formation, literature, social dynamics, social and business networks, and medical history and policy, either in terms of specific East Asian cultures or as such topics range across national and cultural boundaries within the wider East Asian context.

Entry requirements

Academic entry qualification overview: Successful completion of a Masters course, or its overseas equivalent, with an element of research training, is a prerequisite for entry to a PhD. A research proposal must be included with the formal application.

English language: Students whose first language is not English require an overall IELTS score of 7.0 with 7.0 in the writing component or a TOEFL score of 600 (paper-based test), 250 (computer-based test) or 100 (internet-based test).