About Research Degrees (mphil/phd) In South East Asian Studies in SOAS University of London

The South East Asia Section of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at SOAS offers the widest coverage in Europe of research and teaching related to the languages and cultures of the principal countries of South East Asia. Its primary commitment is to the four languages Burmese, Indonesian/Malay, Thai and Vietnamese, and their literatures, cinemas and associated cultures. REF 2014 submissions by members of the Department included significant and paradigm-shifting monographs, edited collections, journal articles and book chapters in cinema and gender, literary criticism, cultural history and postcolonial studies. It is a flourishing and friendly Department with close links to recent alumni.

The research interests of the Department’s members include: classical Malay literature; modern literature in Malay, Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese; Islam in South East Asia; language pedagogy; phonetics; gender studies; oral literature and folklore; cinema in South East Asia; and translation. These interests are increasingly reflected in the kind of work that is undertaken by the Department’s current doctoral researchers.