EHRC Challenge: The Visibility of Modern Languages

Bids are invited for EHRC small grants (£2,500) that enhance the visibility of research in Modern Languages. This challenge stems from the idea that there is much going on in Modern Languages which would profit from showcasing.

The challenge should be to encourage everybody working in Modern Languages (faculty, librarians, students) to:


think about the visibility of their research in ways which profit their ongoing work
share best practice in documenting outreach, using social media
link up within the university as much as with external partners

6 January 2016: More than 100 students and academics from Oxford University have translated extracts from great French writers of the eighteenth century to demonstrate the importance of freedom and tolerance in French literature and thought.

A book of these translated quotations is to be published tomorrow to mark the one-year anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

The book can be read for free online.

It is targeted at the general public and the authors hope it will be used for teaching in schools.

Dr Caroline Warman of the Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, who led the project, said: ’We hope people will be excited by the texts and that it will help them to reflect on the world we live in now.

'We want this book to reach people thinking about tolerance and intolerance, and to inspire them to connect with our history, as they discover that major European thinkers of the past also wrote passionately about these topics.

17 Jul 2015: The Faculty is delighted to congratulate Professor Annette Volfing, Professor of Medieval German Literature, on her election as a Fellow of the British Academy.

Fellowships are awarded to highly distiguished UK academics in recognition of their outstanding research. More details are available here.

Professor Leeder awarded Knowledge Exchange Fellowship

Professor Karen Leeder has been awarded a year long Knowledge Exchange Fellowship for the Mediating Modern Poetry: Reception and Dialogue project. She will be working with the Southbank Centre, London to curate a series of events exploring aspects of modern European poetry and its transmission. A first focus is a specially curated evening exploring the reception of Rainer Maria Rilke for the biannual festival ‘Poetry International’ (July 2014). Rilke’s influence on modern culture is inescapable and has inspired poets from Auden to Zwetayava along with filmmakers, thinkers, composers and artists. An evening will be given over to events ‘After Rilke’ featuring major English-language and German poets and their wide-ranging responses to the poet and his life (translations, versions, new poems). This will feed into Leeder’s own project on ‘An English Rilke’, which teases out what makes an author travel like this and what happens to them en route (tackling a wide range of issues along the way). Thereafter a series of further events in Autumn 2014 will explore aspects of contemporary poetry in dialogue with major English and...

Annette Volfing has been elected to the 'Kommision für Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters' (Committee for German literature of the Middle Ages) of the Bavarian Academy of Science and Humanities. This body has oversight of a number of prestigious research projects, notably the monograph series MTU (Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen) and a project devoted to the cataloguing of German-language illustrated medieval manuscripts. The committee, chaired by Professor Jan-Dirk Müller, has a small and very distinguished membership. In recent years, Nigel Palmer has been the only non-German member. For further details, see http://www.badw.de/orga/klassen/kl_phil/k_23_dlma/index.html

We are delighted to announce that Henrike Lähnemann, currently Chair in German Studies at the University of Newcastle, will be joining us as the Chair of Medieval German. This is one of the eight statutory chairs of the Faculty for Medieval and Modern Languages - and the first to be taken up in German by a woman in the 150 years of history of Modern Languages at Oxford. Her predecessors are Peter Ganz, the famous medievalist and editor, among other texts, of the Tristan by Gottfried of Straßburg, and Nigel F. Palmer, one of the best known academic British figures in German medieval Studies. She will start her new job on 1 January 2015.

To find out more about Henrike Lähnemann's research profile and her ambitions for German Studies in the UK, read an interview with her on Academia.net and a report on NU Connection.

European Grant for the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages

Professor Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, FBA, learned on 3 May 2013 that her application for a collaborative research grant to HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) was one of 18 successful projects. The 3-year grant of almost 1 million Euros will enable her to work with colleagues in Germany, Poland and Sweden on ‘Marrying Cultures: Queens Consort and European Identities 1500-1800’. The focus of the project is the foreign consort as agent of cultural transfer. Among the case studies to be investigated are the Polish princess Katarzyna Jagiellonka, Duchess of Finland and Queen of Sweden (1526-83); Hedwig Eleonora, Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and Queen of Sweden (1636-1715); the Portuguese princess Catarina of Braganza, Queen of Great Britain (1638-1705); and Maria Amalia, Princess of Saxony, Queen of the Two Sicilies and Queen of Spain (1724-1760).

On Tuesday 18 June languages teachers from across Oxfordshire joined languages lecturers from Oxford University to share their expertise in Oxford’s first ever MFL teachmeet. A teachmeet is a bit like a conference but each presentation lasts for a short period of time – usually two or five minutes. Each presenter explains an activity or technique which has worked well for them. It’s about sharing best practice, inspiring others and making connections with other educators.

The event was organised by Helen Swift, University Lecturer in Medieval French and Schools Liaison Officer for the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, and the heads of languages in the OCL (Oxford City Learning) schools: Cheney, Wheatley Park, Matthew Arnold, St. Gregory The Great and Oxford Spires. These schools work together to share ideas, challenge and support each other. 35 teachers and lecturers attended the event. Most of the teachers were from OCL schools but there were also representatives from Henry Box, Bartholomew and Didcot Girls.

The impact of the introduction of the EBacc performance measure can be felt in this year's GCSE numbers, with modern foreign languages up by 15.8%.

French numbers are up from 153,436 to 177,288 (up 15.5%). German up from 57,547 to 62,932 (up 9.4%). Spanish up from 72,606 to 91,315 (up 25.8%). Other languages up from 29,843 to 31,368 (up 5.1%).

The figures show a change in market share: Spanish now represents over a quarter of GCSE entries (25.2%), taking one percentage point each from German (17.3%) and other languages (8.6%), while French retains just under half of total entries (48.9%).

Modern Languages at University
A letter to the TImes Higher Education by Jim Coleman, Chair of the University Council of Modern Languages, on degree-level language uptake.

The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities – Taylor Institution
November 1-2, 2013Conveners: Martin McLaughlin and Javier Muñoz-Basols
The first of three annual EHRC workshops on translation will be held on 1-2 November 2013 in TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities), Woodstock Rd, and in the Taylor Institution, St Giles.

Conveners: Martin McLaughlin and Javier Muñoz-Basols, with the assistance of Dr Elisabetta Tarantino

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.

Alex Rawlings, a second-year student reading German and Russian at St Catherine's College, has won a national competition to find the UK's most multilingual student. To hear him speak all eleven languages, go to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17107435

Launch of Early Modern Festivals Books Database

On Friday 4 May 2012 the Deputy Director of the Bodleian, Dr Richard Ovenden, launched the Early Modern Festival Books Database in the Divinity School in Oxford. The database is a freely available online resource to enable researchers to access more than three thousand descriptions in twelve languages of early modern festivals at courts and cities throughout Europe (http://festivals.mml.ox.ac.uk).

These works are often splendidly illustrated accounts of coronations, christenings and weddings, of tournaments, ballets, and operas and are a vital source of information for art historians, musicologists and historians of the period. Dr Ovenden commented: ‘How wonderful to be standing in a 15th century building, launching a 21st century research tool that will enable scholars to use 16th, 17th and 18th printed books!’

Fortunately Marie Antoinette and Maria Amalia, Queen of Naples (Charlotte Marshall of St Catherine’s and Nicola Deboys of Pembroke, both Second Year students of German sole, were able to attend.

Professor Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly elected a Fellow of the British Academy

Professor Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly is Chair of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and a fellow of Exeter College, specialising in German literature and culture in the period 1450-1750. She has worked extensively on the culture of the European courts, on writing by women and on the representation of women in German literature from 1500 to the present.

Sir Adam Roberts, President of the Academy said: “The new Fellows, who come from 23 institutions across the UK, have outstanding expertise across the board – from social policy and government, to sign language and music. Our Fellows play a vital role in sustaining the Academy’s activities - from identifying excellence to be supported by research awards, to contributing to policy reports and speaking at the Academy’s public events. Their presence in the Academy will help it to sustain its support for research across the humanities and social sciences, and to inspire public interest in these disciplines.”

The Oxford German Network launched its website on 26 September 2012, European Day of Languages.

http://www.oxford-german-network.ox.ac.uk

The network is an initiative of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, with the support of the Founding Partners Jesus College, Oxford, Magdalen College School, Oxford, and BMW Group Plant Oxford. It is designed to encourage and promote the study and enjoyment of German-language culture in the Oxford area and beyond, and will work closely with schools of all types as well as university departments, organisations and companies at a local and national level.

Alongside the website, the network's core activities will include facilitating workshops and events for learners of German and running a national competition: the Oxford German Olympiad.

The editors of Oxford German Studies are pleased to announce that digitisation of the entire run of OGS is now complete.

The Faculty regrets to announce the death on 22 February 2011 of Dr Gilbert McKay, a retired member of the German Sub-Faculty, and emeritus fellow of St Peter's.

More information regarding arrangements will follow. Our condolences go to his family, friends, and former colleagues.

The 2011 Sylvia Naish Lecture will be held on Thursday, 24 March 2011 and will be given by Alexandra Lloyd (Wadham College, Oxford) on 'Zeitzeugen' and 'Sachzeugen': the Physical Legacy of Third Reich Childhood.

The Sylvia Naish Lectures were launched in memory of Sylvia Naish, an accomplished linguist, translator, Friend of Germanic Studies and benefactor of the former Institute of Germanic Studies.

Each year, research students registered for higher degrees in the field of Germanic studies at Universities in the United Kingdom are invited to submit proposals for the next lecture. The event forms part of the Institute’s programme of activities, open to the public. The theme of the lecture should be related to the student’s topic of research. Modest travel and/or accommodation expenses as appropriate will be covered by the Sylvia Naish Bequest. The lecture is published in abridged form in the next issue of the Newsletter, annual magazine of the Friends of Germanic Studies.

More information can be found at:

A memorial service for Gudrun Loftus, Senior Language Instructor in German, will take place in St John's Chapel on Friday 6 May 2011, 11am, followed by a reception in the Garden Quad Reception Room, St John's College.

All friends, colleagues, and students past and present are welcome to attend (there is no need to RSVP).

Ritchie Robertson, MA Edin, MA D.PHIL Oxf, Official Fellow in German, St John's College, and Professor of German, has been appointed to the Taylor Professorship of the German Language and Literature in the Sub-faculty of German, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, with effect from 1 October 2010. Professor Robertson will be a fellow of Queen's College.

Professor Robertson' staff page is:

http://www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/robertson