Doctoral study in European Languages and Cultures

Our experts approach European study from a variety of perspectives and concentrations. This programme offers you the opportunity to develop a multi-disciplinary approach through European Studies or specialise in a particular culture and language (French, German, Italian or Spanish).

As a doctoral candidate, you'll benefit from financial support for research expenses through PReSS funding; high-calibre supervision practices; and the networks and expertise of our world-class academic researchers.

We welcome PhD research proposals in a range of areas, including:

European Studies

• European cinema and drama
• European integration
• Language, memory and the history of public speech
• The body, gender and visual culture

French

• French cinema
• French literature (including contemporary; medieval; North African and Pacific literature in French; and feminist, post-colonial, poststructuralist and comparative approaches)
• Translation, including audiovisual translation (subtitling)

German

• German connection with New Zealand and the Pacific
• German drama and modern German literature
• Learner autonomy
• Teaching and learning of German as a foreign language (including digital media in language learning)
• The influence of psychoactive substances on literary creativity

Italian

• Cultural, postcolonial and migration studies
• Feminism and gender studies
• Italian literary and technical translation, and film subtitling
• Italian literature and theatre: Middle Ages, Renaissance, modern, contemporary
• Italian popular culture: romance, crime, adventure stories, science fiction, comic books and graphic novels

Spanish

• 19th/20th-century Spanish culture and politics
• Cultural-literacy studies: Mexican, Caribbean, and colonial/post-colonial criticism
• General Hispanic linguistics, Spanish phonetics, phonology, morphology and dialectology
• Spanish and Latin American popular culture: Music and social change, detective fiction, film studies
• Spanish and Latin America women writers and gender studies
• Subaltern studies, indigenous and Amerindian cultures
  

We bring a variety of different perspectives to our research on Europe and specialise in a range of countries, cultures and languages.

Find a supervisor

• "Culture, politics, religion and language in the letters of French Roman Catholic missionaries in 1840 New Zealand: An analysis and translation" | Supervised by Dr Trudy Agar and Dr Vanessa Enriquez Raido
• "Sauerkraut and salt water: The German-Tongan diaspora since 1932" | Supervised by Emeritus Professor James Bade and Associate Professor Damon Salesa
• "Italo Calvino and the Pygmalion paradigm: Fashioning the feminine in I nostri antenati and Gli amori difficili" | Supervised by Professor Bernadette Luciano and Dr Hilary Chung
• "Ibero-American intersections: constructing (trans)national imaginaries in Spain and Latin America, 1898-1938" | Supervised by Professor Christine Arkinstall and Associate Professor Walescka Pino-Ojeda

There are several scholarships you may be eligible for when you decide to pursue your doctoral studies in European Languages and Cultures.

• Faculty of Arts Doctoral scholarships
• University of Auckland Doctoral scholarship

If you would like to find out more about doctoral study in European Studies, French, German, Italian or Spanish, contact our PhD Adviser:

Dr Rumi Sakamoto
Email: r.sakamoto@auckland.ac.nz
Phone: +64 9 923 4600