Course summary

Research drives the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Royal Holloway. Staff in the School, who all contribute to the teaching in one of the four language areas in which we offer degree-level studies and to the collaborative, interdisciplinary courses in Comparative Literature and Film Studies, are also active researchers with national and international reputations. Recent publications, all produced in a research environment that encourages collaboration and exchange across traditional disciplinary boundaries, have included numerous original monographs, groundbreaking biographies, widely disseminated articles in peer-reviewed journals, edited and co-edited volumes and yearbooks, and accessible introductions to key fields of study. Our research encompasses areas as varied as literary studies and critical theory, film, history, philosophy, visual and performing arts, and linguistics. We are active in national and international subject associations and learned societies, and frequently speak at, contribute to and help to organise seminars, academic conferences and public symposia around the world. Our strengths were recently confirmed by the results of the Research Assessment Exercise of 2008. Expertise in the department includes: Spanish literature (including Golden Age) and film, popular culture and the visual arts in Spain and Latin America; a range of contemporary critical perspectives, including feminism and gender theory; lesbian and gay theory; psychoanalysis; sociology and the new historicisms.