The study of a modern European language develops analytical and critical abilities as well as a high level of linguistic skills.
Philosophy and Modern Languages (PML) brings together some of the most important approaches to understanding language, literature and ideas. The degree is constructed in the belief that the parallel study of these related disciplines significantly enhances your understanding of each, bringing added dimensions of understanding and perspective.
The study of philosophy develops analytical rigour and the ability to criticise and reason logically. It allows you to apply these skills to questions ranging from how we acquire knowledge and form moral judgements to the nature of language, art and literature. Since many works of literature are shaped by the dominant philosophical ideas of their epoch, study of philosophy can illuminate that intellectual background. The study of a modern European language develops analytical and critical abilities as well as a high level of linguistic skills; the study of the literature written in that language contributes to an understanding of many aspects of European culture.
It develops attention to stylistic and terminological detail and rhetorical strategies, and sensitivity to intratextual, cultural and historical context, which are also of great value for the study of philosophy.
The Philosophy Faculty is the largest philosophy department in the UK, and one of the largest in the world, with more than 70 full-time members, admitting more than 500 undergraduates annually to read the various degrees involving philosophy. Many Faculty members have a worldwide reputation, and our library and other facilities are acknowledged as among the best in the country.
Oxford’s Modern Languages Faculty is also one of the largest in the country, with a total intake of more than 300 students a year, including those reading joint degrees. It possesses in the Taylor Library the biggest modern languages research library in the country, together with an undergraduate lending library and a modern and excellently equipped Language Centre. Its Faculty members include many who are internationally renowned for their research work.
Jesus College accepts students for all the languages taught at Oxford, and has Fellows in French and German, Lecturers in Italian, Russian and Spanish, and Lectors in French and German.
The Preliminary Examination is taken after three terms, its philosophical components being the same as for PPE and PPL, but divided over two papers. Students sit a paper in General Philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind) and a further paper in Logic and Moral Philosophy (the latter being studied through engagement with J. S. Mill’s Utilitarianism.)
Those taking the Final School will have to study one historical paper (either Early Modern Philosophy, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, or Plato’s Republic). A considerable number of optional papers are available; including bridge papers in Aesthetics, the Philosophy of Kant, and Post-Kantian Philosophy. It is also possible to specialize to some extent in Linguistic Theory.
The languages most commonly taken are French and German, where there are obvious connections on the philosophical side, but other combinations are possible.
The year abroad
All Modern Languages courses and Joint Schools with Modern Languages last for four years, including a year abroad after the second year. A common pattern is for students to spend their year abroad as Assistants, working in a school in the country of their choice. This offers experience of working in the country, and it is organised through a scheme run by the British Council. Students may also spend the year at a university abroad; this is discussed thoroughly with the tutors in Modern Languages, and students are responsible for making arrangements themselves. Students normally stay in one country throughout the year, but if they are studying two languages, they are advised to spend periods in the country of their other language during vacations.
The College has an exchange scheme with the University of Trier, which accommodates one student a year. All undergraduate members of the College are eligible to apply for this exchange.
Fellows
Professor Caroline Warman
Professor Caroline Warman, Fellow and Tutor in French. She teaches and researches eighteenth and nineteenth-century French literature and thought, and has translated novels and essays from French. She has just finished a book about Enlightenment philosopher Diderot and co-organised a congress on the Enlightenment for 1500 people from all over the world. She teaches French literature and thought and also translation to all years.Professor Katrin Kohl
Professor Katrin Kohl
Professor Katrin Kohl is a Fellow and Tutor in German. She teaches German literature from 1750. Her research focuses on poetry and poetics, and on the theory and practice of metaphor. Currently she is on research leave, leading an interdisciplinary research project on Creative Multilingualism for the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages.
Professor Jean Baccelli
Professor Jean Baccelli is a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy. He teaches Introduction to Logic, General Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Science and Social Science.
Professor Milo Phillips-Brown
Professor Milo Phillips-Brown is a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy. He teaches General Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Ethics, AI Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Logic and Language, Philosophical Logic and Logic.
Lecturers
Dr Ole Hinz
Dr Ole Hinz, is a German Lektor at Jesus College. His research is situated at the intersection of literature, philosophy, and intellectual history, with an emphasis on 20th-century German literature and critical theory.
Ms Hannah Scheithauer
Ms Hannah Scheithauer is a lecturer at Jesus College teaching German Literature since 1730. Her research interests are Modern and contemporary literature in French and German, memory studies, post-Holocaust and postcolonial literature, transnational and comparative literature, Ingeborg Bachmann, Assia Djebar.
Dr Elena Lombardi
Dr Elena Lombardi, a Fellow of Balliol College, is a Lecturer in Italian for Jesus College. Her teaching interests focus on Dante, early Italian poetry, and Medieval Studies.
Dr Daniela Omlor
Dr Daniela Omlor, Fellow in Spanish at Lincoln College, also looks after Jesus students. Her research focuses on contemporary Spanish literature, with a particular emphasis on memory, trauma and exile. Her first book examined the role of memory and self-representation in the works of Jorge Semprún. Currently, she is exploring the interaction between memory and fiction in recent novels by Javier Cercas, Javier Marías and Antonio Muñoz Molina and others, in order to investigate how the recovery of historical memory in Spanish novels increasingly extends beyond the Spanish Civil War.
Dr Nick Mayhew
Dr Nick Mayhew is a lecturer in Russian at Jesus College. His research focuses on gender, sexuality and religion in Russian literature and culture, with a particular focus on religious discourses of sexual deviance.
The deadline to submit your application for undergraduate study via UCAS is 16 October (please note that this date is usually 15 October, except where this date falls on a weekend). Please refer to the University’s webpages for detailed information on how to apply.
Places available at Jesus College
In a total College entry of about 100 undergraduates, 9-10 are offered places in a typical year to read Modern Languages and related joint schools.
Academic requirements
Academic requirements for this subject can be found here.
Selection Criteria
The specific selection criteria are given on the the Faculty of Philosophy and Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages websites.
Admissions tests
All candidates must take the Modern Languages Admissions Tests (MLAT) as part of their application. Separate registration for the test is required and it is the responsibility of the candidate to ensure that they are registered by the deadline of 29 September 2023.
Candidates will need to take two sections of the MLAT: one for their chosen language, and one for Philosophy, see here for further details.
We strongly recommend making the arrangements in plenty of time before the deadline. Everything you need to know, including how to register and guidance on how to prepare, can be found can be found here.
Written work
Candidates are required to submit marked pieces of recent school or college work: one piece in each of the languages they are currently studying, plus one piece written in English (perhaps on literature, or history, or some other subject you are studying at school or college) to show how you construct an argument and express your ideas in English.
The piece of written work submitted in English may also be seen by philosophy tutors, so it should show your capacity for reasoned argument and clear writing; a good length would be between 1000 and 2000 words. Most candidates will not be studying philosophy, so there is no expectation that it will be on a philosophical topic.
The deadline to submit all written work is 10 November 2023. Further information on the written work requirements can be viewed here.
Interviews
Candidates will have an interview lasting approximately 30 minutes with our Modern Languages tutors, with an additional interview with the lecturer in the language applied for if not French or German. Interviews will be mainly in English, but will include a brief conversation in the language offered if it is being studied to A-level. We aim to encourage candidates to do themselves justice at interview, and we will ask them about their course rather than expect them to have done a certain type of course. We expect candidates to be motivated to do a course with a focus on literature, but do not assume that they will have studied literature formally. There will be a separate interview for Philosophy.
Deferred Entry
Please refer to the Departmental website for subject-specific advice.
The Tutors have no objection in principle to offering a place to a candidate who wishes to defer entry for a year, provided this intention is made known at the outset. You must apply for deferred entry at the time of application to Oxford: you cannot change your mind after an offer has been made.
You should be aware that applicants who are offered places for deferred entry will generally be among the very strongest of the cohort for their subject, and the College limits its offers of deferred places in order not to disadvantage candidates applying in the following year. In some cases, an applicant for deferred entry may be offered a place for non-deferred entry instead.
Joint Schools
Modern Languages can studied as a single discipline and is also available as a joint course as follows:
- Classics and Modern Languages
- English and Modern Languages
- European and Middle Eastern Languages
- History and Modern Languages
- Modern Languages and Linguistics
Philosophy cannot be studied as a single discipline for a degree, but it is available as a joint course as follows:
Philosophy Graduate students will find themselves members of a large graduate community, together with others with shared interests who are at an equivalent stage in their intellectual development. The following degrees are offered at postgraduate level:
- BPhil or DPhil in Philosophy
- MSt in Ancient Philosophy
- MSt in Philosophy of Physics
- MSt in Practical Ethics
Oxford has a large, varied, and active teaching and research community in Modern Languages. There are over ninety members of the Faculty, with research interests spread across the full chronological range of the languages and into most areas of linguistics and literary study. The College welcomes applicants for
the following degrees:
- MSt or MPhil Modern Languages
- DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages
- MSt Women’s Studies
PML graduates enter a wide range of careers, including academic teaching and research, commerce, banking and financial services, journalism and communications. Knowledge of a modern language opens up opportunities for careers abroad or with international organisations.
Please use the links below for further information:
- The University of Oxford undergraduate admissions
- Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
- Faculty of Philosophy
- Suggested subject resources
If you are contemplating a course involving Philosophy, or wondering whether such a course would suit you, you might wish to read some of the following:
- Thomas Nagel What Does It All Mean? (Oxford)
- Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford)
- M Hollis Invitation to Philosophy (Blackwell)
- Nigel Warburton Philosophy: The Basics (Routledge)
- Julia Driver Ethics: the Fundamentals (Blackwell)
- Simon Blackburn Think (Oxford)
- Roger Scruton An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy (Duckworth)
If you have any questions about entrance requirements, or about applying to study at Jesus College, please contact the Admissions Officer:
Email: admissions.officer@jesus.ox.ac.uk
Web: www.jesus.ox.ac.uk