News
Launch of Early Modern Festivals Books Database
Russian undergraduates win translation prize
French Film Essay Competition 2012
A Modern Languages degree: a career advantage
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.
Here they are with Dr Ovenden and with Professor Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, principal researcher on the project.
Dr Madeleine Brook, Research Assistant on the project, demonstrated the database.
Russian undergraduates win translation prize
Six first year FHS students in the Russian sub-faculty have been awarded a prize by the Washington DC Russkii Mir foundation for their joint translation of a Vysotsky poem, 'She was in Paris'. You can read the original, plus their translation and the names of the six students here:
http://vvysotskyinenglish.blogspot.co.uk/p/she-was-in-paris.html
French Film Essay Competition 2012: A feast of narrative imagination and directorial invention!
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.
A Modern Languages degree: a career advantage
The latest annual data from the University has shown once again the benefits of a Modern Languages degree in boosting graduate prospects. The Faculty's graduating students of summer 2010 have a higher percentage in employment or further study than the University average (93% > 87%), and an even smaller figure in unemployment. National data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency indicate, furthermore, that Modern Languages graduates have one of the highest rates of employment across all subject areas, exceeded only by medical disciplines and law.
For further information about career prospects for Modern Linguists, see: http://www.languageswork.org.uk
The University has its own Careers Service for guiding and supporting students in their future planning:
http://www.careers.ox.ac.uk