Tibetan and Himalayan Studies MPhil
About
During full term students will typically attend around seven or eight hours per week of face-to-face classes, lectures or tutorials. Students will be expected to come to these well-prepared through self-directed study and reading. Academic articles and books will be assigned for general background on the region, and there will be weekly lectures on various aspects of Tibetan history and civilisation as well as lectures on Buddhism in the first and second terms. Selected topics will be treated in more detail in a set of eight essays/tutorials, which will be scheduled in the first year. Throughout the course, attendance at lectures by visiting scholars will be strongly recommended.
Students will be encouraged to use the long summer vacation between the first and second year to attend a summer school abroad or visit Tibetan-speaking communities in Tibet or in South Asia to develop language skills, and to begin work on their dissertation.
Teaching takes place through language classes, lectures, seminars and tutorials.
Graduates of the MPhil in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies often wish to continue onto the DPhil, and from there move on to postdoctoral academic positions, research projects in Tibetan studies, or Buddhist translation projects. While academic research is a typical career path, many graduates have also pursued careers in related fields, including research and writing, charities and NGOs, education, film making, and creative industries.
Assessment
There will be a qualifying exam at the end of the first year. The assessments for the final exams consist of an extended essay, a dissertation, and four written examination papers. Dissertations are to be submitted early in the third term of the second year. Final exams covering language, set texts, history and civilisation are then held at the end of the second year.
Further Information
Tibetan and Himalayan Studies is collaborating closely with the Tibetan & Himalayan Studies Centre at Wolfson College (https://thsc.web.ox.ac.uk/).
Please click here to access recordings of the Tibetan Graduates Studies Seminar (TGSS), a weekly series of colloquia and guest lectures at the Faculy of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Grants and student funding in Tibetan & Himalayan Studies are also available at Wolfson College; see https://thsc.web.ox.ac.uk/ for further information.
Teaching Staff
Course director
Teaching staff
Resources for study
Libraries and museums
You will have access to the Nizami Ganjavi Library at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. In addition to this, you may find useful the Bodleian Asian and Middle Eastern Collections and the Eastern Art library. The Bodleian Library hosts a collection of Tibetan manuscripts and block prints that can be used for study and research.
Wolfson College is home to an interdisciplinary research group in Tibetan and Himalayan studies (https://thsc.web.ox.ac.uk/). The library of Wolfson College also has a collection of books relevant to Tibetan and Himalayan studies.
The Eastern Art department of the Ashmolean Museum contains collections encompassing art from the Islamic world, the Indian subcontinent, South-East Asia, China, Japan and Korea, and including ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, paintings, prints, textiles and other arts. The collections as a whole outstrip those of any other university museum. The Indian and Himalayan collections are of international importance and particularly strong in sculpture.
The Pitt Rivers Museum holds important collections of ethnographic material from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal and Sri Lanka which can be seen on display in the museum as well as in the reserve collection. The Pitt Rivers also hosts the 'Tibet Album', a unique online resource with early photographs from Tibet.
Faculty resources
Students have access to the University's centrally provided electronic resources, the Faculty's IT Officer, and other bibliographic, archive or material sources as appropriate to the topic. There is a computing room for the use of graduate students in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, as well as a common room where tea and coffee are available and staff and students can meet.
Oxford colleges
Oxford’s colleges provide support, facilities and membership of a friendly and stimulating academic community. All colleges provide library and IT facilities, welfare support, and sports and social events. Although your academic studies will be directed by the faculty, colleges can be a valuable source of support. Please check the application guide for information about colleges.
How to apply
Improving access to graduate study
The Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies is taking part in initiatives to improve the selection procedure for graduate applications, to ensure that all candidates are evaluated fairly.
Socio-economic data (where it has been provided in the application form) will be used as part of an initiative to contextualise applications at the different stages of the selection process.
FAQs
Can I submit one 4,000 word piece of written work instead of two 2,000 word pieces?
Not for our courses. We ask for two pieces which will show a range of ability rather than two highly similar pieces and you may find it useful to check the criteria your written work will be assessed for when choosing your samples. Your samples can be extracts from longer pieces of work and if this is the case, please indicate this on a cover page, or at the beginning of each piece of work.
Where can I find out about funding available for applicants?
Your best guide to funding opportunities will always be the University's admissions webpages. We recommend that you use the Fees, funding and scholarship search which is a useful tool for finding any funding that you may be eligible to apply for.
If you submit your application by the January deadline you will automatically be considered for the majority of Oxford scholarships. There’s no separate scholarship application process or extra supporting documentation required for funding. Based on the information supplied in your graduate application, you will be automatically considered for scholarships where you meet the eligibility criteria with most scholarships using academic merit and/or potential as the basis on which award decisions are made.
However, please note, in addition to submitting an application form for your chosen course, the scholarships listed on the following page also require an additional application to be considered for them.
