French Ambassador, His Excellency Mr Jean-Pierre Jouyet, presented Professor Patrick McGuinness and Mrs Geneviève Adams of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages with the insignia of chevalier and chevalière of the 'Palmes académiques'
Read all the latest news and upcoming events from the faculty on the main News page.
The Voltaire Foundation is delighted to announce the award of a generous research grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant of $704,000 for a period of 18 months will enable the preliminary phase of Digital Scholarly Editions of the European Enlightenment (Digital Enlightenment).
The Faculty would like to congratulate Dr Kate Tunstall on being appointed Interim Provost of Worcester College.
Madeleine Chalmers has been selected as the winner of this year’s R. Gapper Postgraduate Essay Prize, for her essay ‘The Surreal Technics of André Breton and Gilbert Simondon’.
The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages shares the concern within the sector on the issue of severe grading in the Modern Foreign Languages A level.
Applicants for the Faculty's graduate courses have access to a wide range of funding opportunities within the Faculty and wider University.
Research within the University has found that reading complex and engaging texts is key to inspiring young learners’ interest in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) and potentially improving how the subject is taught in UK secondary schools, according to new Oxford University research.
The Faculty are delighted to announce the launch of a new configuration of our MSt course through a partnership with the Saïd Business School. The new 1+1 MBA course with Modern Languages will be available for first intake from October 2019, and is a unique, two-year graduate experience that combines the depth of a specialised, master’s degree with the breadth of a top-ranking, one-year MBA.
Medieval and Modern Languages doctoral student Helen Craske has jointly won the prestigious Naomi Schor Memorial Award presented by the international scholarly society the Nineteenth-Century French Studies Association (NCFS), at its annual conference held in late October.
The Faculty is holding an information session for MSt and MPhil programmes on Monday 26 November.
We are pleased to announce that the Zaharoff Lecture 2018 will be given by Pierre Michon. The celebrated French author will join us on November 13th, 2018 (Tuesday of 6th Week, Michaelmas Term 2018) in the Main Hall of the Taylor Institution from 5 o’clock.
All are welcome to attend.
Oxford Open Doors is the annual weekend when when we celebrate the city: its places, spaces and, most of all, its people. The Taylor Institution Library is taking part in the Oxford Open Doors event this Saturday, September 8th, 2018.
Library staff will be giving guided tours to small groups throughout the day, and visitors will be taken to the Voltaire Room to view an exhibition. We hope that this will not cause any disruption, as visitors will be advise that the library rooms are for quiet study. If you have any queries, do not hesitate to contact Joanne Ferrari (joanne.ferrari@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).
Kieran Hodgson, an alumnus of the Faculty, has been shortlisted for the best comedy award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018. His show '75 is an exploration of the prehistory of Brexit, dating not to the referendum of June 2016, but back to the 1960s and '70s.
Advertised as 'an overambitious hour of history, politics and enduring friendship punctuated by stunningly accurate impressions of dead politicians you've never heard of', '75 has been a success, with the critics especially praising Hodgson's considerable skills as an impersonator.
The show will be running until August 26th, 2018, and further details can be seen on the Pleasance Theatre Trust website. We wish Kieran the best of luck with the performances and with his nomination.
Open Days provide an excellent opportunity to visit the Faculty and meet our tutors and students. We welcome prospective applicants to have a look at libraries and classrooms, and to learn more about the admissions process and studying at Oxford.
The next University of Oxford Open Day will take place on Friday, September 14th, 2018. The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages will be holding information sessions on all three dates; booking is required. To reserve your place at the Open Day, please, follow this link.
It is our pleasure to announce that the inaugural issue of The Oxford Polyglot, the Faculty e-newsletter, has now been published and can be seen in its entirety here. Professor Ian Watson, Chair of the Faculty Board, has provided the introduction, and the articles have been written by colleagues across Sub-Faculties, on topics varying from Romantic objects to Angolan women writers to epitaph fictions in late-medieval France and the friendships of the great German poet Goethe.
We hope that you enjoy learning about our research, activities, and events (find out about those in 'Our Events'). If you would like to be among the first to receive the future issues of The Oxford Polyglot, please, subscribe here.
On June 19th members of our Schools Liaison team ran an Oxford Language Day at Bridgwater and Taunton College in Somerset. At this event pupils from local schools met with University lecturers to learn about language study, receive taster sessions in French, German, and Spanish, and hear about life at the University of Oxford.
The Language Day is part of the larger Outreach programme undertaken by the Faculty to engage with young people in regions that are historically under-represented at Oxford. We encourage talented students across Britain to follow the opportunities and careers opened up by a degree in languages — and we are happy to answer any practical questions.
We are happy to announce that Professor Catriona Seth (Fellow of the British Academy, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford) was recently made an associate member of the Académie Royale de Belgique — Belgium's National Academy, which was founded in 1772 under the aegis of Empress Maria Theresa.
On the occasion, Professor Seth was commended on her research, interdisciplinary approach to literary discourse, her work as an editor and as a specialist in Women's Studies. The new title was seen as especially appropriate given the Academy's background and Professor Seth's expertise in literature and the history of ideas of the long 18th century.
Our congratulations to Professor Katherine Ibbett, whose book Compassion’s Edge: Fellow-Feeling and its Limits in Early Modern France has been awarded the Society for Renaissance Studies Book Prize 2018. The prize is given biannually to encourage original research on any aspect in the field of Renaissance studies and to recognise significant accomplishments by members of the Society.
Compassion's Edge was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018, and is available from the Bodleian Libraries, including Taylor Institution Library. The title has been commended by SRS for its 'brilliant interdisciplinary range and relevance' and 'promises to inspire fresh scholarship in early modern French history'.
Open Days provide an excellent opportunity to visit the Faculty and meet our tutors and students. We welcome prospective applicants to have a look at libraries and classrooms, and to learn more about the admissions process and studying at Oxford.
The University of Oxford Open Days 2018 will take place on Wednesday, June 27th, Thursday, June 28th, and Friday, September 14th. The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages will be holding information sessions pm on all three dates; booking is required. To reserve your place at an Open Day, please, follow this link.
We were saddened to learn of the death on 8 June 2018 of Roger Pensom, Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College and formerly University Lecturer of Old French Language and Literature at the University of Oxford; he was 79.