Classics and Ancient History - Postgraduate Research Opportunities

We offer promising candidates the opportunity to carry out research in a range of areas across the disciplines of Classics and Ancient History, including Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Egyptology as well as Byzantine Studies, the Ottoman Empire and the study of Modern Greek:

Classics and Ancient History PhD/MA by Research (On-Campus or by Distance Learning)

Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies PhD/MA by Research (On-Campus or by Distance Learning)

Subject to programme requirements, you can also learn or improve your knowledge of Classical and Byzantine Greek, Latin, Greek and Ancient Egyptian.

Times Higher Education ranked the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology among the top five Russell Group departments of Classics for its performance in the latest Research Excellence Framework exercise.

The MA by Research programme requires you to prepare a dissertation of up to 40,000 words on a topic of your choice, for which an academic staff member will provide expert supervision.

The PhD – the most advanced research degree – leads to a dissertation of up to 80,000 words on a subject of your choice and under the expert supervision of an academic member of staff.

You can study an MA by Research or PhD programme on campus or by distance learning. Please note that if you are studying with us by distance learning, there is a compulsory annual visit to campus (every two years for part-time PhD students).

Research interests of staff include:

The scope of our research is distinctively wide, encompassing all periods of classical antiquity up to and beyond the end of the Roman Empire, to all the major civilisations of the ancient Mediterranean and explores their after-effects in more recent periods.

• Byzantine, Ottoman and modern Greek studies
• Egyptology, Cuneiform and Ancient Near Eastern studies
• Heritage
• History, literature and culture of Classical and Hellenistic Greece
• History, literature and culture of the Late Republic and Early Empire
• History of rhetoric
• Inter-state religion in the Ancient World
• Prehistoric and early historic Europe
• Reception of the Ancient World
• Religion and ritual
• Urbanism and the ancient city
• Wetland archaeology and environments of Northwest Europe

For full research interests of staff, please read our staff profiles or visit the research interest tab on each programme's course page.