SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

The Department, along with the School’s two other Asian Studies departments, received a ‘5’ rating in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. The research interests of the Department’s members include: classical Malay literature; modern literature in Malay, Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese; Islam in South East Asia; language pedagogy; phonetics; gender studies; oral literature and folklore; cinema in South East Asia; and translation. These interests are increasingly reflected in the kind of work that is undertaken by the Department’s research students.

The research training offered by the Department has been enhanced in recent years by the introduction of interdepartmental research seminars organised by the School’s language and culture departments.

These degrees require students to conduct supervised research. The Department provides supervision for both full-time and part-time students for research in a wide range of South East Asian languages and literatures. Theses completed in recent years have included topics in traditional Lao literature, contemporary Thai fiction, the syntax of spoken Mon, the shadow play in Bali, Malay oral literature, schoolbooks in colonial Burma, pre-Angkor Cambodia, political literature in Vietnam, etc.

Under the regulations of the University of London all research students register initially for an MPhil: they may transfer to PhD after completing one year, if they wish and subject to approval by the School, which requires evidence that the student's work is achieving the standard required.

The minimum duration for full-time students is two years for the MPhil and three years for the PhD. Part-time students normally take twice as long to complete their studies. When their research is completed, students submit a thesis to the examiners, and then attend a viva voce examination.

Applicants for postgraduate degrees must have a good command of the language of their field of study, and should normally have a good first degree in the appropriate subject, but students with other qualifications and experience may also be eligible, and mature students are particularly welcome. If necessary for the development of their chosen subject, students will be expected to have or acquire an adequate reading knowledge of Dutch and/or French. All potential applicants are strongly advised to consult the Department before they apply.

Some Recent Research Theses

• Janit Feangfu-(Ir)resistibly modern : the construction of modern Thai identities in Thai literature during the Cold War era, 1958-1976
• Nicole Caroline Garsten -A political reading of home and family in English language Singaporean
  novels (1972-2002) 
• Sarah Hicks – Syair Selindung Delima: a literary and philological study
• Atit Pongpanit-The bitter–sweet portrayals of expressing and maintaining “non-normative” genders and sexualities in Thai mainstream cinema from1980 to 2010 
• Montira Rato – Peasants and the countryside in post–1974 Vietnamese literature
• Soison Sakolrak – Thai literary transformation: an analytical study of the modernisation of Lilit Phra Lor

Academic Staff and Their Research Areas

Dr Rachel Harrison BA PHD(LONDON)
Head of Department
Modern literary, cultural, film and gender studies with reference to Thailand; literary criticism and South East Asian Literatures in a comparative context; Western cinema set in South East Asia

Dr Dana Healy PHD(PRAGUE)
Admissions Tutor
Vietnamese language and literature, language teaching; folk literature, modern poetry, theatre, art

Dr Ben Murtagh BA MA(LONDON) PHD (LONDON)
Traditional Malay and modern Indonesian literature; history of Indonesia; film in Indonesia and Malaysia; gender and sexuality in Indonesia

Dr David A Smyth BA PHD(LONDON)
The Thai novel; Thai literary historiography; Thai language; modern Thai history; language teaching

Dr Justin Watkins BA(LEEDS) MA PHD(LONDON)
Burmese language and literature; Khmer language; Mon-khmer and Tibeto-Burman languages; phonetics; computer lexicography.