Chinese Studies and History BA (Hons)

Lancaster University

Lancaster’s joint Chinese Studies and History degree is taught by the Department of Languages and Cultures in conjunction with the Department of History. This degree includes an international placement in Year 3.

Your Chinese Studies programme gives you the opportunity to acquire high-level language skills while gaining a thorough understanding of the country’s historical, cultural, social and political background in a global context. Chinese may be studied at either beginner or advanced level. You will learn language and culture in innovative and engaging ways. For example, students learn the Chinese language in its social and cultural context by participating in a wide range of activities through the Chinese Friendship Project. Recent activities have included a day trip to Manchester Chinatown, Chinese Food Corner, Chinese Film Night, Chinese festival celebration, and more.

In History, you will develop your critical abilities studying modules in British, European and American world history.

Your first year comprises an exploration of the Chinese language and its cultural context as well as the core history module, From Medieval to Modern: History and Historians. Alongside this, you can choose your third subject for first year from the History module, People, Places, and the Past or from a list of courses provided to you.

Building on your language skills in Year 2, you will have the opportunity to study the culture, politics and history of the Chinese-speaking world in more depth in the core module, Shaping Contemporary China: Moments and Movements. You can also select a module that is international in scope and promotes comparative understanding at a global level, such as Society on Screen: The Language of Film. You will combine these with the core module, Making History: Contexts, Sources and Publics and select options such as The Cold War in Europe.

Spending your third year - the International Placement Year - abroad in a Chinese-speaking country gives you the opportunity to develop your language proficiency while deepening your intercultural sensitivity. You can study at a partner institution or conduct a work placement.

In your final year, you will consolidate your Chinese language skills and study specialist culture and comparative modules, such as Masculinities and Modernities in China and Mirrors across the Media. You will also select history modules such as Partisans and Collaborators: World War II in Occupied Europe or The Shock of the New - Modernity and Modernism in American Culture, 1877-1919. You will also have the opportunity to combine your interests in both subjects in a longer, supervised project.

Beginners Languages

Studying a language from beginners level is somewhat intense in nature so we only allow students to study one language from beginners level. Please bear this in mind when looking at our first year module options. If you apply to study a degree with a language from beginners level, your optional modules will only include higher level languages and modules in other subject areas.