Japanese Studies (MPhil)

专业详情

The MPhil in Japanese Studies is designed as a two-year, six-term taught programme that comprises advanced research training focusing on developing language skills and on deepening your understanding of contemporary Japan.

It acts either as a foundation for those intending to seek employment working in Japan or with Japan, or as a preparation for further research on Japan on a doctoral programme at Oxford or elsewhere. It is taught by full-time members of the Nissan (within the Oxford School of Global Area Studies) and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and all the courses are designed for master’s-level students.

The department does not teach Japanese for beginners but rather aims to develop your existing language skill to the level at which you can use it to conduct research about Japan. The department’s courses aim to take you from a minimum of JLPT Level 3 up to and beyond Level 1.

There are eight components to the MPhil degree.

In the first year, you will take:

• a core course on research methods
• two courses about Japan chosen from the following options (please note that not all options may be offered every year):
  • Modern Transnational History of Japan
  • Japanese Linguistics (The History and Structure of Japanese)(There are prerequisites to study this option)
  • Modern Japanese Literature
  • Texts in Modern Japanese Literature
  • Japanese Politics: Domestic Institutions and International Relations
  • Economy and Business of Japan
  • Japanese Social Anthropology
  • Sociology of Japanese Society
  • Classical Japanese Literature
  • Classical Japanese Language (There are prerequisites to study this option)
  • Texts in Japanese Linguistics (There are prerequisites to study this option)
  • Classical Japanese Texts (There are prerequisites to study this option)
• the Japanese language course (or a further course about Japan if you have native-speaker language competence).

In the second year of the course, you will go on to take:

• one or more courses on research methods in the appropriate department
• one course about Japan
• the advanced Japanese language course or a further course about Japan
• a thesis of 30,000 words.

All the courses about Japan have been designed for students at the graduate level and most students will be on the Japanese studies programme. Some courses may also be taken by students who are studying elsewhere in the university – for example, the course on Japanese politics is an option for both Japanese studies students and students on the MPhil in Politics (Comparative Government).