MPhil applications for 2025/6 are now open. The application deadline to be considered for funding is 3 December 2024.
The Chinese Studies taught MPhil programme is an intense one-year research course with substantial taught elements primarily designed for students who intend to go on to do a PhD in Chinese Studies or related fields at the University of Cambridge or elsewhere.
The course is designed for highly-motivated future researchers who have a substantial undergraduate background in Chinese Studies or related fields but need more exposure to topic-specific or discipline-based analytical frameworks and more intense training in primary source language(s) and research skills.
You will already have good reading skills in the Chinese language, which you will be given the opportunity, if necessary, to enhance during your degree. All Chinese Studies MPhil students should also have the ability to use Chinese-language primary sources and related scholarly literature for their research. If you are not a native English speaker, you will also be expected to have an excellent command of the English language, evidenced by appropriate English-language test scores.
For specifics on how to apply, requirements, fees and finance, please see the University Postgraduate Admissions pages for this course
The course entails:
- A required, core module, Asia in Theory, in which the Chinese studies team introduces theoretical and methodological approaches across pre-modern and modern Chinese Studies
- two optional modules providing specialist training relating to modern and contemporary studies; these will include topics relating eg to history, literature, social anthropology, linguistics and international relations
- a 15,000-word research dissertation on a topic of your choice
Further details of the course elements.
In some cases, it is possible to combine options from the Modern and Pre-Modern Chinese pathways.
Before you apply, we encourage you to contact us to discuss your research interests. Please see the list of Faculty members below. For more general queries about the degree course please contact the Postgraduate Administrator. If possible, please attach a draft research proposal for your MPhil dissertation when contacting us. The proposal should usually be fewer than 1,500 words in length and can later be submitted as part of your formal application.
The course provides an excellent foundation for doctoral research for those interested in continuing their academic careers. Postgraduates have also found employment in a wide range of fields including commerce, international relations, development and charity work, media, the cultural sector and education.
Faculty Members with Research Interests in Modern Chinese Studies
I am happy to supervise postgraduate research students in the areas of Chinese religious and ritual life; social and cultural change in modern/contemporary China; Chinese environmentalism(s); the local state; urban renewal; China and the overseas Chinese and other topics relating to social anthropology of contemporary China.
I supervise students for both MPhil and PhD research on a wide range of topics. Current and past students have worked on topics including: the financing of the local state through land sales; the PRC’s bilingual policies for minority nationalities; political factors in the pricing of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy in contemporary China; economic development and religion in a Shanxi Catholic village; overseas Chinese students' luxury consumption; urban re-development and city branding; the rise of vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan; court practices in contemporary urban China; Chinese-language schools and the re-sinicisation of the Sino-Thai; self-portraits in contemporary Chinese avant-garde art; neighbourhood dance groups and contested urban spaces; Haier in India; migrant workers' protests; the development of heritage culture in a local town in Shandong; the registration of householder Daoist priests; the late Qing government's policies towards the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia; mainland Chinese immigrants in a new town in the New Territories of Hong Kong; the culture of wine drinking and connoisseurship in contemporary urban China; Hui Muslim cultural practices and identity in China; civil society and popular bloggers; the contemporary Chinese painter LIU Ye; Chinese foodways in the era of the internet; Tibetan Buddhism amongst the Han; the worship of the Yellow Emperor in contemporary China; money and popular religion in north China; goddess cults in southeast coastal China; Buddhist clerics in Wuhan during the early PRC period; temple cults in Malaysia; the formation of the 'education sphere' (教育界) in China in the early 20th century; name-changing practices amongst the Sino-Thai; etc.
I will be on sabbatical leave during the 2025-26 academic year and will not take on new MPhil students for that year. However, I will still consider PhD applications for 2025 entry.
I am interested in supervising MPhil Students in Modern Chinese History with projects related to my research expertise.
Unconstrained by most disciplinary boundaries and with broad interests, I have supervised and worked with PhD students in politics, sociology, development studies, law, history, and area studies. I am eager to work with exceptional graduate students seeking to take on big challenges and substantively important topics, ready to spend significant energy and time extracting and gathering original data at close range, and aspiring to develop and deploy new concepts, theories, and ideas to shake and remake the field.
Dr Inwood is happy to supervise students in topics relating to her research on modern and contemporary Chinese literature, culture and media.
Prof van de Ven is happy to supervise graduate students in a range of topics relating to modern Chinese history. He is interested in the history of war, the history of the Chinese Communist Party, and economic and political history.
Prof van de Ven is not currently taking any MPhil students.
