MSt, MPhil at Oxford

[hildewijch]

I have been looking through the descriptions of the M.St. and M.Phil in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at Oxford, as well as the M.St. in Medieval Studies vs. Medieval History, and frankly I'm a bit confused by all the differences. I am interested in Jewish-Christian relations in Late Antiquity and continuing my Syriac, Greek, and/or Latin language skills, but I am having a hard time figuring out what degrees would suit my interests best...

[maeisenb]

Hildewijch-

It all depends on how you see yourself and with whom you want to work. The unusual part of it is that there are so many more options in the UK for things to do, rather than the US where basically everything is aligned in either the history or the classics departments and you have very few late antique or medievalists at all (usually one per department if any). Oxford is basically one of the few places - if literally the only - that has so many choices and thus they do tend to overlap a bit.

In England, medieval studies tends to be much more toward the high and late medieval periods plus Anglo-Saxon England in a much more literary and art world. Medieval history will depend on what the actual department there has, but overall England tends to go later and be more England heavy focused in their medieval history (they love Anglo Saxon England and the Angevins). I would guess that you would want to look at who does exactly what, but given your interest in Syriac I think most of the people doing that tend to be in the Late Antique group, rather than the pure medievalists. (I have met one woman who does Syriac work in the Late Antique and Byzantine Studies program there actually.) Especially if you want to study Jewish-Christian relations anywhere in the east that would be where you want to go. The other question is: do you consider yourself a Byzantinist? That would bring up a number of other people to work with that are different as well.

Hope that helps a bit...

[hildewijch]

Thank you maeisenb, that is helpful. I forgot to mention that I'm also interested in broader questions of women's spiritually throughout Christian history, so I have an additional interest in the writings of medieval nuns and beguines, primarily from Germany and the Low Countires - I can't tell if the medieval department is so strong in that, though there are some scholars who do related research in the German/ModLang department, it seems. As you mentioned, the proliferation of options is part of the problem, espeically for someone who is used to doing more of a mix of Late Antique and medieval, like I am.

Is there any real advantage to doing an M.Phil over an M.St if I am mostly interested in building upon my coursework and language skills?

[maeisenb]

Ahh, that would make the situation a bit more complicated then and I don't know as much about who does women's spirituality, especially in northern Europe, at Oxford. In the end, I think it really depends on how you want to position yourself if you are going to eventually do a PhD. In the US it makes a much larger difference, since doing Jewish-Christian relations in the East would place you in anything like religious studies, Jewish history, history or even a classics program depending on where you are applying. While the women's spirituality topic would limit you to more traditional history or religious studies programs - although again I think it's what you see yourself as. So for example, I see myself as a medieval historian first rather than a classicist or late antique historian, but then again the entire thing is fairly arbitrary, subjective, and really just the background from where you were first taught in many ways.

As for the M.Phil vs. the M.St, the latter would seem better if you are more interested in coursework or especially language skills, since there would be more emphasis on those. Although as each department is quite different, I would definitely shoot someone an email and lay out where you are and such to see what they say. An M.Phil overall is a very Oxford/Cambridge degree, which is not to say that it's not a great program and a great degree, but if you are planning on doing a PhD afterward anyway but want to beef up other things, seems like it might not be the way to go, especially if you aren't 100% sure on a particular area you would want to do an M.Phil dissertation on as of right now.