Latin American Studies - Structured

This PhD is highly interdisciplinary in nature and is a very attractive option for students interested in continuing in academia as well as those who intend in diversifying and working in Development or NGOs throughout the Americas. Current PhD students are working in the areas of literary studies, gender studies, cinema, detective fiction and cultural studies in Mexican, Chilean, Argentine and Cuban contexts. As part of this programme students will usually have the opportunity to engage in research in different Latin American countries. One of the most exciting elements of the Structured PhD is the plethora of cross-disciplinary modules offered to the student, which serve to consolidate the student’s learning and guide them towards very interesting and innovative interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to their research topic.



Admission to a Structured PhD is at the discretion of the potential supervisor and the Head of discipline; it is based on a proposal from the applicant, following discussion with the staff member whose academic area of interest is most appropriate. Candidates should possess an honours degree in Spanish (Second Class, Grade 1 minimum) and should normally hold an MA in a relevant area.



As part of the doctoral training available on the Structured PhD programme, students avail themselves of a range of interdisciplinary taught modules. The wide menu of available options include modules that:



- are Discipline-Specific in that they augment the student’s existing knowledge in their specialist area, e.g., Latin American Literature I and II



- are Dissertation-Specific in that they supply core skills which are essential to completion of the research project e.g. additional language skills



- acknowledge a student’s professional development, e.g., presentation of a paper at an International Conference



- enhance a student’s employability through generic training, e.g., Careers Workshops, computer literacy.



Each student will be assigned a primary Supervisor(s) and a Graduate Research Committee made up of experienced researchers to plan their programme of study and to provide on-going support to their research.

Candidates should possess an honours degree in Spanish (Second Class, Grade 1 minimum [or equivalent international qualification]) and, in the case of the PhD, should normally hold an MA in a relevant area.

Important: apply by mid-July for September entry



Applications are made online via the NUI Galway Postgraduate Applications System.

Areas of interest

Dr Mel Boland

Linguistics; Latin American literature; translation studies.


Dr Lorraine Kelly

Modern Latin American Literature; Mexican women writers; Contemporary Latin American Studies.


Dr Kate Quinn

Southern Cone literature and politics; history and theory of the detective genre in Spain and Latin America; historical narrative.


Professor Bill Richardson

Spanish language and linguistics; Spanish-English translation; Spanish Second Language Acquisition; deictic reference in Spanish and English; the works of Jorge Luis Borges; the links between language, culture and cognition.


Dr Lorna Shaughnessy

Modern Spanish poetry; Modern Latin American poetry; political writing from Central America; cultural theory and post-colonial literatures; women's movements and popular culture in Central America.