New Outreach Blog from the Sub-Faculty of French

The schools liaison office in the Oxford French sub-faculty is proud to announce the launch of Adventures on the Bookshelf. A collaborative project run by the staff and students in French at the university, the blog is aimed at pupils and teachers of French in Years 11 to 13, and anyone with an interest in French language and culture who may be considering applying to study them at Oxford. It combines lively posts about French language, literature and culture, insights into student life, and reviews and recommendations for French books, films, apps and websites, along with information for prospective applicants about how the Oxford admissions process works from UCAS form to interview, and what you can do to prepare for it. Please do check it out, and let us know what you think.

UNIQ Summer Schools 2012

If you are interested in studying Modern Languages at Oxford, and would like to get a taster of what it would be like, why not apply to take part in a UNIQ Summer School?

UNIQ Summer schools are for UK students from state schools, currently studying for AS Levels (lower sixth form). The courses for 2012 will include French, German, Spanish and a new course in Beginners’ Languages. As well as engaging in an intense academic programme which will give you a good idea of what studying at Oxford is like, you'll have the opportunity to take part in a varied social programme including theatre trips, sports activities, and drama workshops.

For more information and to make an application, please visit http://www.ox.ac.uk/uniq

Note that applications for UNIQ Summer Schools close on 23 February 2012.

Another successful novelist in the Modern Languages Faculty

Following on from the huge success of The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Modern Languages Faculty is celebrating the appearance of Nicola Gardini’s fourth novel, Le parole perdute di Amelia Lynd.

Both McGuinness, Professor of French Literature, and Gardini, University Lecturer in Italian Literature, are also well known poets. Gardini has published six collections of verse and McGuinness two, one of which has been translated into Italian. Both are, of course, also held in high regard as literary critics and scholars. The two authors will be in conversation with each other and reading from their novels in the Taylorian Hall at 5.00 pm on Tuesday, 6 March, 2012.

The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at Oxford University is looking for budding film enthusiasts in Years 10-11 and 12-13 to show their imaginative engagement with the world of French cinema. To enter the competition, students in each age group are asked to re-write the ending of a film in no more than 1500 words (in English).

With over 50 entries from across 32 schools, the Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty’s first French film essay competition yielded a very impressive range and richness of responses to the two set films: Le Grand Voyage (Years 10-11) and On connaît la chanson (Years 12-13). Entrants rewrote the closing chapter, picking up narrative threads left hanging by each film’s ambiguous ending. So rich were the responses that, in addition to the winner and runner-up in each category, a number of further entries were offered special commendation. To read more about the rewritings of each film, click here.

The Medieval & Modern Languages Faculty congratulates all participants and expresses its gratitude to their teachers for supporting their entries. Particular thanks are offered to the French Embassy and to the Sir Robert Taylor Society for their generous sponsorship of the competition.

Professor Patrick McGuinness has the won the 2012 Writers Guild Award for Best Fiction for his book The Last Hundred Days.

Miss Amy Cowan (Hertford College) has won the 2012 R.H. Gapper Undergraduate Essay Prize for her essay on the topic: 'A la recherche du temps perdu has been described as an epistemological quest. Explain and exemplify what this might mean.' The essay was judged outstanding by both the initial readers in the first round, and by the second round panel of judges.

The prize is awarded by the Society for French Studies for an essay in English or French, of between 2,000 and 5,000 words, on any subject within the scope of French studies. The award is for outstanding academic merit at undergraduate level, and the judges are a subcommittee of the Trustees of the Society for French Studies.

Miss Jessica Benhamou (St Hugh's College), must also be congratulated as being among the shortlist of six considered in the second round.

Dr Thibaut Maus de Rolley, a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow, has just been awarded a ‘Prix solennel de la Chancellerie des Universités de Paris’ for his doctoral thesis, a book version of which is forthcoming from Droz in 2011 under the title Élévations: l'écriture du voyage aérien à la Renaissance.

The Faculty is sad to announce the death of Margaret Malpas in a nursing home on Sunday 23 January. Margaret had been associated with the Sub-Faculty of French for a great many years and was most recently a Lecturer at Hertford College, and taught at Keble, Pembroke, St. Edmund Hall & Trinity Colleges, amongst others. Margaret’s contribution to the teaching of language and linguistics has been extensive and many of her former students will remember her with affection. Condolences are extended to Margaret’s family; information about funeral arrangements will be circulated in due course.

Professor McGuinness is made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres

Patrick McGuinness, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford has been made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in recognition of his creative writing. The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, established in 1957, rewards “artists who have significantly contributed to the development of art and literature in France and in the rest of the world.”

Professor McGuinness has written two books of poems - The Canals of Mars (2004) and Jilted City (2010), both published by Carcanet – which have been translated into several languages and have appeared, translated by Gilles Ortlieb, in French poetry journals, notably Théodore Balmoral. His edition of Charles Dantzig's Collected Poems was published by Grasset last year.

His novel - The Last Hundred Days - about the downfall of the Ceausescu regime in Romania is due for publication later this month, and he is working on a book on Poetry and Radical Politics in fin de siècle France.

The first published novel by Patrick McGuinness, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for fiction for 2011. 'The Last Hundred Days' was inspired by his experience of the 1989 Romanian revolution.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14307727

I am a journalist and former Oxford University student and I would like to forward you details about internship opportunities for MFL students at EU Radio Nantes. I think this could be a great opportunity for students on their year abroad. They can come to France for 4-6 months and work at a European radio station. They must be able to speak and write French well, though they do not necessarily need to be bilingual in the strict sense of the word. This is a rigorous and serious journalism opportunity for people who are interested in Europe. It's a great way for students to perfect their French and they will be trained to be a European radio journalist through hands on work.

Please find attached the details of the internship, as well as an application pack. Internships are available from March and from September 2010.

Please email year-abroad@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk to request further information.

Kind regards,

Victoria Sill
(Hertford College 2004)

Colleagues and students will be saddened to learn of the death of Professor Elizabeth Fallaize on 6 December 2009. Please follow the links to see the obituaries that appeared in the national press.

The Times, 06/01/10, p54
Obituary: “Elizabeth Fallaize was an international authority on the work of Simone de Beauvoir as well as a leading figure in French studies, a much loved teacher and mentor, and from 2005 to 2008 a highly effective Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at the University of Oxford.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6976887.ece

The Guardian, p.20, 04/01/2010, Judith Still
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jan/03/simonedebeauvoir-oxforduniversity

The Society for French Studies has announced the results of the 2009 Postgraduate Gapper Essay Prize. The winner is:

‘Skinner in Tandem: Against Methodological “Servitude Volontaire”’ by Tanya Raie Filer (University of Oxford)

The award includes a cash prize of £750 and expenses-paid travel to the next annual conference.

The Society for French Studies is delighted to announce the award of the tenth annual R. H. Gapper Book Prize to Alain Viala for La France galante (Presses Universitaires de France).

The Society also commends the three further works shortlisted for the prize:


Celia Britton: The Sense of Community in French Caribbean Fiction (Liverpool University Press)
Margaret McGowan: Dance in the Renaissance. European Fashion – French Obsession (Yale University Press)
Gavin Parkinson: Surrealism, Art and Modern Science (Yale University Press)

The award, which is for the best book published in 2008 by a scholar working in Britain or Ireland in French studies, is made by the Society for French Studies together with Mr Richard Gapper, representing the R. H. Gapper Charitable Trust, on the recommendation of a Prize Jury appointed by the SFS. The Prize Jury for 2009 was composed as follows:

The prize, which has a value of €25,000, has been awarded in support of the Foundation's work on the complete works of Voltaire.

The annual prize was created in 2007 to reward individuals or institutions which promote French as an international language.

Links to:

The Voltaire Foundation

Académie Française

The Modern Language Association of America has awarded its twentieth annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies to Frédérique Aït-Touati, of the University of Oxford, Saint John’s College, for her book Fictions of the Cosmos: Science and Literature in the Seventeenth Century, published by the University of Chicago Press. The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding scholarly work that is written by a member of the association and that involves at least two literatures.

More information can be found here.