Cultural Studies Study Guide 2025/26
What you can study
The study of human cultures has never been as crucial as it is today, in our globalised and networked world. At the School of Modern Languages, we are passionate about the study of culture – particularly the literature, film, societies and shifting worldviews of the non-Anglophone Western world and its cultural relationship with the Global South.
You can find units on:
- literature and poetry
- cinema and visual culture
- gender, sexuality, and queer studies
- postcolonialism
Many of the units are comparative (MODL units), enabling you to study more than one culture at a time.
Pre-requisites
At UK universities, students specialise from their first year and rarely take units outside their degree subject. This means that:
- Year 1 units are suitable for all students.
- Year 2 units require some university study in a relevant discipline.
- Year 3 units require a strong background in a relevant discipline.
- Masters-level units require three years of study in the discipline.
Feature units
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Contemporary European Cinema - MODL10009 (TB1)
Comparative British & Continental European cinema, exploring diverse topics from the low-budget Cornish thriller, to Asian-British comedy and the James Bond blockbuster in IMAX.
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Introduction to Visual Cultures: from Bristol to the World - MODL10019 (TB2)
Get to know the city of Bristol through weekly guided and self-guided field trips around the city to see visual culture and theory in action.
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City Futures: Migration, Citizenship, and Planetary Change - UNIV10005 (TB2)
What does it mean to be a Global Citizen? To be part of a global community? These are the kinds of questions you’ll explore in this unit.
Literature and Culture
Year 1
Pre-requisites: suitable for all students
Teaching Block 1
- Approaches to Poetry - ENGL10026
- Comparative Literature: What is it and how can we practise it? – MODL10016
- Critical Issues - ENGL10017
- French Cultures in Context – FREN10030
- German Literature and Film: Genres, Texts, Contexts - GERM10035
- Medieval and Renaissance Italy – ITAL10034
- The Making of the Hispanic World – HISP10021
- Understanding Russia: Literature & Visual Culture – RUSS10042
Teaching Block 2
- City Futures: Migration, Citizenship, and Planetary Change – UNIV10005
- Introduction to Visual Cultures: from Bristol to the World – MODL10019
- Representations of Francophone Cultures – FREN10013
- Understanding Russia: History & Identity – RUSS10041
Year 2
Pre-requisites: some university study in a relevant discipline (including History, Literature etc).
Teaching Block 1
- Barcelona: Culture and Representations - HISP20117
- Dante’s Inferno - ITAL20047
- Destination Italy: Cultural Responses to Migration - ITAL20032
- Latin America in the Twentieth Century: A People’s History - HISP20119
- Russian Orthodox Culture - RUSS20044
- The Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel - RUSS20069
Teaching Block 2
Year 3
Pre-requisites: strong background of study in a relevant discipline and familiarity with the region for non-MODL units (e.g. France, Italy, Russia etc).
Teaching Block 1
- Aesthetics of Revolution and Resistance: 21st-Century Images of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean - FREN30106
- Exiles and Migrants in German Literature - GERM30058
- Latin American Digital and Visual Cultures: Identity and Resistance - HISP30092
- Les Misérables: Readings and Receptions - FREN30030
- Me, Myself, and I: The Essais of Michel de Montaigne - FREN30114
- Russia and the World, 1991–present - RUSS30083. This unit involves readings in Russian so requires a degree of proficiency in the language
- War and Peace: Tolstoy’s Ethics in a European Context - MODL30042
Teaching Block 2
- Dante: Purgatorio and Paradiso - ITAL30059
- Dostoevsky - RUSS30073
- Dress and Identity in Russia through the Ages - RUSS30086
- Institutions and Anti-Institutions in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s - ITAL30055
- Intermedia Encounters in 20th Century American Art - HISP30110
- Visibility Matters: Identity, Diversity, and Power in the Cultural Marketplace - GERM30081
Masters-level units
The following units are suitable for students currently completing postgraduate studies at their home university. Students can take a maximum of one Masters-level unit per semester, and each request is considered on a case-by-case basis due to their advanced nature.
Teaching Block 1
- Comparative Literature: Debates, Contexts, Methods - MODLM0076
- Contemporary Global Chinese Literature and Visual Arts - MODLM0050
- Cultural Encounters - MODLM0002
- The Rise of the Novel in the 19th Century - MODLM2035
- Theories of Visual Culture: Comparison across Time, Space, and Media - MODLM0075
- Theorising Violence: Colonialism and Anticolonial Cultural Politics - MODLM0074
Teaching Block 2
Cinema
Year 1
Pre-requisites: suitable for all students.
Teaching Block 1
- Contemporary European Cinema – MODL10009
- German Literature and Film: Genres, Texts, Contexts - GERM10035
- Understanding Russia: Literature & Visual Culture – RUSS10042
Teaching Block 2
- Classics of European Cinema – MODL10010
- Introduction to Visual Cultures: from Bristol to the World – MODL10019
Year 2
Pre-requisites: suitable for all students.
Teaching Block 1
- British & Irish Film and Television - FATV20037. The unit catalogue is currently being updated. It shows Teaching Block 2, but the Department has confirmed its running in Teaching Block 1 and this will be amended soon.
- World Cinema: from national to transnational - MODL23016
Teaching Block 2
Year 3
Pre-requisites: requires some background of study in film/cinema.
Teaching Block 1
Teaching Block 2
You may also be interested in:
Application queries
Contact the Centre for Study Abroad inbound team if you have any queries about the application process for the study abroad programmes:
Phone: +44 117 39 40207
Email: cfsa-inbound@bristol.ac.uk
What you can study at Bristol
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Study Guides
Study Guides are updated every April for the following academic year.