Modern Languages (Italian and Persian) and Ancient History

Combining Italian, Persian and ancient history creates an unusually rich and cross-cultural educational experience, bringing together two living European and Middle Eastern languages with the historical scholarship of the ancient world. Italian connects you to Renaissance culture, contemporary European society and one of the great literary traditions of the Western world. Persian opens the door to a language and literary heritage of extraordinary depth, carrying centuries of poetry, philosophy and prose from Iran and the broader Persian-speaking world.

Ancient history provides the scholarly methods and historical frameworks to understand the civilisations of Greece and Rome that have so profoundly shaped both the European and the wider Mediterranean world that Italian and Persian literature engage with.

At the University of St Andrews this four-year MA (Hons) programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to develop Italian or Persian in an immersive context. You will build high-level proficiency in Italian and engage seriously with Persian, while simultaneously developing the ancient historical skills of working with primary sources, evaluating evidence and constructing well-grounded arguments about the past. The combination is intellectually demanding but produces a genuinely unusual set of capabilities, combining two traditions of language and culture with the analytical rigour of historical scholarship.

Graduates of this combination are distinctive in the graduate market, with a profile that is relevant to academic research in the humanities, cultural institutions and museums with classical or Middle Eastern collections, translation and interpreting, journalism with international scope, heritage and archival work, cultural diplomacy and education. The depth of cross-cultural understanding the programme develops is particularly valuable in roles that connect different intellectual traditions. Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in classics, ancient history, Italian, Persian, comparative literature or area studies, using the breadth of their undergraduate preparation as a foundation for specialist academic or professional work.