On this course, applicants will have the option of studying one of two streams: Muslim-Jewish Relations; or Persian Cultural History. Students taking the Muslim-Jewish Relations stream will be introduced to the analytical tools required for studying Muslim-Jewish relations, primary sources in translation and original language, bibliographical method, objectivity in the study of interfaith relations and controversial themes. Topics may include the Jewish languages of the Islamic world; key historical documents in the study of Muslim-Jewish Relations; Muslim and Jewish thought; Law and Society and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Students taking the Persian Cultural History stream will be offered readings in Persian cultural history, identifying persisting trends in Persian literature and cultural production from the medieval period down to modern times. These themes revolve around kingship and the image of the ideal prince, theories of justice and good government, and competing sources of secular and religious authority. Similarly, the motif of love, both earthly and divine, is a common thread running through Persian literature and entails also the extensive use of imagery of the natural world. In the modern world, the course examines a number of issues by studying Iranian cinema and focusing on gender, historical adaptation, nation and approaches to narration and resistance to dominant discourses, reflecting also on how the stories and legends of the classical tradition are adapted for contemporary literature and media. In discussing these topics, attention is paid to their visual as well as written representation. At the end of the MPhil programme, students will be expected to have: acquired the ability to read, interpret and translate primary sources in Hebrew, Arabic or Persian; acquired a good knowledge of the general scholarship on Muslim and Jewish or Persian culture(s); acquired an in-depth knowledge of the secondary literature relevant to the subject of their dissertation; developed the ability to formulate original research questions and produce a well-constructed, argument to answer them, in the form of an independent piece of research based on the use of primary and secondary sources and acquired the skills to use library and internet resources independently.