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History and Modern Languages

History and Modern Languages (HML) at Cambridge is a joint degree that gives you the opportunity to combine the study of languages, culture, and history.

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Course overview

The History and Modern Languages (HML) course lasts four years. When you apply, you can choose to study a language from scratch (ab initio) or post-A Level or equivalent.

First year students take core language papers (including writing, translation, and oral skills), and a paper exploring cultural topics in your chosen language. On the historical side, you also take two history papers chosen from a broad variety covering different periods of European and world history and political thought. In second year, you continue to develop your language skills through further core papers, and combine these with a) a paper chosen from a wide range of literary, historical, cultural, or linguistic topics in your language area, b) a history paper, and c) a further specialist paper from either subject.

Your third year is spent abroad, either studying or working, and you will also work on a project relating to the culture, thought, history, or politics of your language area. Having spent the year immersed in your language, you then have an oral examination when you return from your year abroad. In your fourth and final year, you take five papers: two core language papers, a third paper on an area of culture or history related to your language, a history paper focusing on a particular period, region or theme, and a fifth paper that can be a specialist paper from either your language area or from history.

History and Modern Languages is taught at Cambridge by way of University-based lecture courses and College-based supervisions. The relationship between the two is co-ordinated by the College’s Director of Studies who arranges your supervisions each term and oversees your academic studies.

For more information about the course and its modules, visit the University website.

 

What is it like to study HML at King's?

King's is a friendly, culturally diverse and exciting place to study HML. We have a good number of international students, which makes the College a particularly rich environment for students with an interest in languages and cultures across the world. In an average year, there are normally some native speakers of most languages taught on the course, and travel grants are available to help fund visits to other countries during the vacations.

King's is conveniently one of the closest Colleges to the Sidgwick Site where both the History and Modern & Medieval Languages faculties are. You'll only have to walk a few minutes to get to lectures, languages classes, and seminars. In College, King's Library is available 24/7 and provides a very pleasant place to study and work on essays and dissertations, and the Archive Centre is an exciting resource for historians to explore too.

 

What do we look for in an applicant to HML?

We look for students who are academically curious, have explored their interests outside of their school or college curriculum, and are ready to be challenged. We are also looking for students who can demonstrate an aptitude for language learning.

 

Requirements

A Level: A*AA with A* in History or a language

IB: 41-42 points overall with 7, 7, 6 at Higher Level with 7 in History Higher Level or a language Higher Level

Subject requirements: History and the language you would like to study, unless you have chosen to apply for a language from scratch (ab initio)

Admissions assessment: Yes

Written work: 2 pieces

 

Admissions assessment

If you are applying for a post-A Level language, the College admissions assessment consists of a discursive response in the foreign language (40 minutes) and a discursive response in English (20 minutes). If you are applying for a language from scratch (ab initio), the College admissions assessment consists of a discursive response in English (40 minutes) and a language aptitude test (20 minutes).

 

Written work

You should submit 2 pieces of written work. These should be recent examples of writing completed for school. If you are applying for a post-A Level language, 1 piece of written work should be in the language you intend to study.

 

Careers and graduate opportunities

You will graduate with advanced language skills and experience of living abroad as well as transferable skills like reading critically, speaking and writing with clarity, dealing with information, and working independently and with others. Recent graduates have progressed to careers in media, PR, law, public administration, consultancy, teaching, and the charity sector.

 

What is the best thing about studying HML at King's?

King's linguists and historians are very supportive of each other and also benefit from the strong community of students and academics in related subjects such as Human, Social & Political Sciences, Linguistics, and Economics.

 

A top tip for applicants to HML at King's

Show us why you are interested in the subject – what intellectual excitement it has for you. Interrogate the relationship between History and the language you have chosen.

People

Marcus Boeick, a smiling man with short blonde hair, glasses and a blue shirt

Marcus Boeick

Bio

Dr Marcus Boeick is a historian specializing in Modern German and European History. 

"My research and teaching focus on the intricate relationship between the public and private spheres throughout the 20th century, particularly at the intersection of the state, economy, and society. My initial book delved into the contentious history of mass privatization of state assets in post-socialist Eastern Germany during the early 1990s. Currently, my ongoing book project presents a comprehensive and empirically grounded history of private security in 20th-century Germany and Central Europe. My approach encompasses a wide array of sources, ranging from classical references in state archives to media coverage, oral interviews, and material artefacts. I consistently strive to unearth unheard voices "from below" and offer novel perspectives from overlooked areas. Concurrently, I contextualize Germany within its transnational connections and broader global frameworks. I place significant value on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration across a diverse spectrum of fields. Born in East Germany shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, I completed my studies at Ruhr-University Bochum, situated in the former West German "rust belt" region. Over recent years, I held a Postdoc Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies at University College London and a Guest Professorship at the Imre-Kertész-Kolleg at Jena University. In the past year, I have been awarded a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard."

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Marcus Boeick
Ian James, a man with short grey hair and glasses wearing a pale shirt. He is outdoors standing against a hedge

Ian James

Bio

I am a Professor in Modern French Philosophy and Literature in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics and Direct Studies at King's for student's in their third year spent abroad.

My research focuses on twentieth-century and contemporary French literature and philosophy. I have worked extensively on contemporary French philosophy and also on the reception in France of German thought. In particular I have engaged with specific thinkers working in the wake of postmodernism and also on the interplay between philosophy and other areas of knowledge (e.g. aesthetics and artistic or literary practice, but also political thought).

I teach second and fourth year papers on twentieth-century and contemporary French literature, film, and thought (FR6, FR12), the fourth year comparative paper, 'The Body' (CS5) , and on the critical theory and modern French courses of our  MPhil in in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures (ELAC).

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Ian James
A man in a green top in front of a Venetian lagoon

Angus Russell

Bio

Angus works on the history of Mongol and post-Mongol Eurasia, with a particular focus on the politics and institutions of Rus’ and Moscow in the late medieval period. His doctoral thesis traced the evolution of fiscal models in the regions conquered by the Mongol khans. As part of his research fellowship at King’s, he hopes to explore the role language and translation can play in studying the cross-cultural interactions of pre-modern societies. Angus studied for his PhD in Slavonic Studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, after an undergraduate degree in History and Russian, and a master’s degree in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at the University of Oxford.

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Angus Russell
Dror Weil, a smiling bald man wearing a blue shirt and striped bow tie.

Dror Weil

Bio
Research

Dror is a historian of pre-modern Asia, with a particular interest in scientific and intellectual exchanges between the Islamicate world and China. His publications explore the translation and articulation methods of premodern experiences of the natural world, China's participation in the early modern Islamicate book culture, China's reception of Arabo-Persian astronomy and medicine, and the movement of Islamicate knowledge along the Silk Road.

Dror received his BA degree in East Asian Studies and Economics from Tel Aviv University, MA degrees from National Chengchi University in Taipei and Princeton, and his PhD degree in 2016 from Princeton with a dissertation titled: "The Vicissitudes of Late Imperial China's Accommodation of Arabo-Persian Knowledge of the Natural World, 16th–18th Centuries".

Before taking up his position at Cambridge in 2021, Dror held a lectureship in History of Asia pre-1750 at King's College London. Dror was a recipient of the Thomas Arthur Arnold Fund for Excellence in Historical Research fellowship and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge. He also served as a Visiting Professor at EHESS in Paris and Marseille.

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Dror Weil

The Directors of Studies for 2025-2026 are Dr Dror Weil (Part IA), Dr Angus Russell (Part IB), and Dr Marcus Böick (Part II).

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