Chinese Studies PhD

The Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies welcome suitable applicants for admission to the Register of Graduate Studies to do research in Chinese Studies for the PhD Degree. Applicants must have a good first degree or equivalent, and must propose a topic of research for which supervision by a Teaching Officer of the Faculty is practicable. They must have a strong foundation in the Chinese language, and if their proposed topic of research is in an aspect of traditional China, they must also have experience of classical Chinese. Knowledge of Japanese is also essential for scholarly research in many aspects of Chinese Studies, and it is desirable that applicants should have at least elementary Japanese. Applicants whose native language is not English are required to demonstrate proficiency in English. Applications are made to the Board of Graduate Studies, and passed to the Degree Committee of the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, which makes recommendations to the Board of Graduate Studies.

The proposed topic of research is the central element in any application, and an application is strengthened if a topic is clearly described. The Teaching Officers in Chinese welcome inquiries and will be glad to enter into correspondence about proposed research.

The PhD Degree involves writing a thesis which should not exceed 80,000 words exclusive of footnotes and bibliography but subject to an overall word limit of 100,000 words exclusive of bibliography and meeting a residence requirement, of not less than six terms at Cambridge. A graduate student is allocated a Supervisor, with whom he or she meets regularly to discuss his or her research programme in detail. The first year of research is regarded as probationary, and at the end of it candidates take a PhD Progress Examination. This usually consists of two submissions, the first an account of the topic of research in the context of secondary scholarship relating to it, and the second an exercise in the sort of research that will ultimately form part of the PhD thesis itself. The PhD Progress Examination may also contain a test of ability in translating Japanese scholarly writing relevant to a research student's topic. If the first year's submission is assessed as satisfactory, the Degree Committee will recommend registration for the PhD Degree.

The second and third years are spent in research and writing. Graduate students also participate in the seminars and reading classes organised in the Faculty. If there are opportunities to do so, they may also help in the teaching of undergraduates, through the tutorial system. Recently graduates have benefited from the Erasmus scheme, through which it is possible, with financial support, to attend courses in aspects of Chinese Studies at certain European centres of Sinology or to visit them for longer periods of study.

Examples of topics that PhD students are currently researching into include: the demographic changes in Changping xian, near Beijing in the 1980s; the Five Dynasties period text Tang zhi yan and the examination culture of the late Tang; Tang dynasty fu; the British presence in Wuhan, 1912-1928; militarization in the Jinchaji Base Area; the question of Manchuria and Chinese nationalism.

In the past two decades, numbers of Cambridge PhD theses have formed the bases for important books. The Hsi-yu chi : A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth Century Chinese Novel (Cambridge, 1970), by Glen Dudbridge; Land and Lineage in China : A Study of T'ung-ch'eng Country, Anhwei in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties (Cambridge, 1979) by Hilary J Beattie, and Coal Mining in China's Economy and Society, 1895-1937, by Tim Wright (Cambridge, 1984) are examples.