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Read all the latest news and upcoming events from the faculty on the main News page.

Emmanuel Guilbert
Conversation avec Emmanuel Guibert

As part of the Seminar on Contemporary French Writing and Culture, author, illustrator, and graphic artist Emmanuel Guibert will be a guest in the ‘Conversations avec…’ series. The conversation will be convened by Professor Catriona Seth and Professor Seth Whidden and take place on Monday, February 19th at Queen’s College.

This event is free and open to all, and will be in French.

Open Days 2018

The Open Days for spring 2018 have now been announced! We welcome prospective applicants to meet our tutors and students, to have a look at libraries and classrooms, and to learn more about the admissions process and studying at Oxford.

The main Open Day at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages is taking place on Saturday, April 28th, with additional language-specific days from February to March.

Arthur Rimbaud Soft Power
Professor Seth Whidden on 'Soft Power' (France Culture)

As part of France Culture’s focus on travel, the radio show ‘Soft Power’ devoted its last episode of 2017 to Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), one of the most important poets of the nineteenth century. Among the invited guests was Seth Whidden, who recently completed a biography of Rimbaud due out later this year.

Plakat Lumieres Versionfinale 1
Les Lumières au pluriel

A conference on Les Lumières au pluriel marks a stage of the ANR/DFG-funded EDULUM project. It is being held on 14-16 December at the Maison Française in Oxford and at All Souls College, with support from both organisations and from the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at Oxford.

Mla Prize 2016
Dr Andrew Counter to Receive MLA Prize

Congratulations to Dr Andrew Counter of the French Sub-Faculty on winning the very prestigious MLA Prize:

The Modern Language Association of America have awarded the twenty-fifth annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies to Dr Counter for his book The Amorous Restoration: Love, Sex, and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century France, published by Oxford University Press.

Stael Jurine
Professor Catriona Seth FBA on 'In Our Time'

Germaine de Staël (1766-1817), one of the greatest writers and the most famous woman of the early nineteenth century, is the subject of Radio 4’s In Our Time, hosted by Lord Bragg on November 16 2017. He is in conversation with Catriona Seth FBA, the Marshal Foch Professor of Literature and Fellow of All Souls, who recently edited Staël’s works for Gallimard’s prestigious “Pléiade” series, and with fellow academics Professor Alison Finch and Dr Katherine Astbury.

Affiche Colloque Baudelaire 2017 09 11 13 V3
International Baudelaire Colloquium

International Colloquium Marking the 150th Anniversary of Baudelaire's Death and the 160th Anniversary of Les Fleurs du mal.
Organized by Ève Morisi (Oxford), André Guyaux (Paris-Sorbonne) and Bertrand Marchal (Paris-Sorbonne)

Bm Stael
Catriona Seth Elected to the British Academy

Catriona Seth, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature and Fellow of All Souls, has been elected to the British Academy. Fellows of the British Academy represent the very best of humanities and social sciences research, in the UK and globally.

Jane Austen Germaine De Stael
Jane Austen and Germaine de Staël 200 Years Later

Chawton House in Hampshire played host to a conference on Germaine de Staël and Jane Austen jointly organised by Dr Gillian Dow of the University of Southampton, Dr Nicola Watson of the Open University and Oxford's Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature, Catriona Seth.

Fantin Latour
Film now available for Arseholes: a New Play

In June 2017 a team of Oxford University undergraduate students, graduate students, and lecturers joined forces to perform Arseholes, an original new play about the poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud’s two-year relationship.

Tolerance Volume In Rotterdam
Tolerance volume in Rotterdam

In May Caroline Warman spoke to the teenage delegates of the International Philosophy Olympiad in Rotterdam about the Tolerance volume, which had been translated by 102 Oxford French students and tutors.

Creative Multilingualism
Creative Multilingualism in Schools

In June Prof. Jane Hiddleston and Dr Laura Lonsdale ran three workshops for Year 10 pupils from two East London schools, Haggerston School in Hackney and St Paul’s Way Trust School in Tower Hamlets, where a very high proportion of students speak more than one language.

Idea Of Europe Cover
The Idea of Europe: Enlightenment Perspectives

121 students from Oxford, along with their tutors, have translated extracts from 18th century thinkers from France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain and Italy for a new book which has just been published by Open Book.

On Appelle Les Compositeurs
Bringing Proust's Imaginary Music to Life

Friday 5 May saw the culminating event of an exciting collaboration between the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and the Faculty of Music in Oxford. The project, generously supported by the John Fell OUP Research Fund, has been investigating the descriptions of the imaginary sonata for piano and violin of the fictional composer Vinteuil from Marcel Proust's famous long novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).

French Film
French Film Competition 2017

2017 sees the sixth year of Oxford University’s French film competition, in which school pupils are invited to watch (a) selected French film(s), and write an essay or script re-imagining the ending.

Lidee De Leurope Au Siecle Des Lumieres
L'idée de l'Europe au Siècle des Lumières

During the Enlightenment, many men and women of letters envisaged the continent’s future, in particular when stressing their hope that peace could be secured in Europe. Published in French, and edited by academics from the University of Oxford and the University of Augsburg, with colleagues from different European countries, this volume gathers such texts on Europe, its history, its diversity, but also on what its nations have in common.