News Archive
Easter Holidays: Modern Languages Admissions talk
Following the success of the Half-Term Admissions talks, tutors will be offering a talk on studying and applying for Modern Languages degree courses at Oxford on Thursday 12 April at 2pm. There will be a formal presentation followed by time for questions. Please complete a booking form in order to attend this event: full details are available at:
http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/talks
Calling all budding cinéastes! French Film Competition 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). The films for 2012 are:
Years 10-11: Le Grand Voyage, dir. Ismaël Ferroukhi (2004)
Years 12-13: On connaît la chanson, dir. Alain Resnais (1997)
A first prize of £100 will be awarded to the winning student in each age group, with runner-up prizes of £25. The teacher of each winning student will be offered free attendance at the Sir Robert Taylor Society Conference, a forum for continuing professional development and exchange between practitioners of modern foreign languages teaching in secondary and higher education (see http://sirroberttaylor.wordpress.com)
For further details about entering the competition, see the FAQs. Each essay should be accompanied by a cover sheet.
Essays and cover sheets should be submitted by email to french.essay@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk by noon on 30 March 2012.
The French Film Competition is very grateful for the generosity of the French Embassy in London and the Sir Robert Taylor Society.
Oxford linguist is the UK's most multi-lingual student
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
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.
New 'What's on' service
A new lecture list service is available for staff and students at:
https://hermes2.mml.ox.ac.uk/nownext/
This page shows what is currently happening in a lecture room until about 10-15 minutes before the next lecture - when it will show what is going to start.
This displays particularly well on smart-phones in landscape.
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.
Tests for students applying to study Modern Languages
All Modern Languages tests for undergraduate entry are now pre-interview, and will take place in schools on 2 November 2011. For full information about which tests you need to take for which combinations of subject (including Joint Schools), see http://www.admissions.ox.ac.uk/tests/languages. This link will also give you information on how to register for pre-interview tests.
If you have questions about which tests you should take, please contact the University Undergraduate Admissions Office.
Submitted written work for students applying to read Modern Languages
Detailed information about the written work that candidates are required to submit as part of their application for Modern Languages (and Joint Schools with Modern Languages) may be found here.
If you have questions about what pieces of work to submit, please contact the Tutor for admissions at the college considering your application.
Modifications to the Taylor Institution
Work will be commencing in the Taylor Institution on Monday (22 August 2011) to begin the process of improving accessibility in this building. The work will be carried out in several stages in order to avoid disruption during term-time. A brief outline of the main stages is given below, and further detailed information together with design and floor plans will be available online shortly.
The first stage is to change the location of the accessible toilet currently in the main foyer; temporary arrangements are being made for those requiring accessible toilet facilities over a period of 2-3 weeks. This relocation is required in order to make space for a new ground floor Library Issue Desk and Enquiry Desk (the latter to replace the existing Porters’ Lodge). It is hoped that the newly remodelled Entrance Hall area will be available for use by the start of Michaelmas Term. However, work on providing an external entrance ramp to the St Giles’ door (which will become the main entrance) may take a little longer.
At the end of August, heavy construction work will commence on the installation of a lift to the right of the main staircase in the Hughes Building. As much of the lift shaft as possible will be excavated and constructed before the start of term, at which point the lift works will be halted until the Christmas Vacation. It is also hoped that work will commence on installing a platform lift to link the ground floor level of the Hughes to the Cockerell Building and, in the basement, to provide additional female and accessible toilet facilities, although the timing of these works is yet to be confirmed.
Space vacated by the Library Issue Desk on the first floor gives an opportunity to provide a new film viewing room and informal study areas, and a number of other improvements will be made to library facilities and reading areas as part of this project.
Clearly this important construction project will cause some temporary disruption to the library and other facilities in the Taylor Institution; however, the work will be carefully managed to avoid disturbance and inconvenience to staff and visitors to the building. The project as a whole should be completed by Easter 2012
Professor McGuinness's novel longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
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
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.
'New' Weblearn goes live
The new version of Weblearn is now available to all Faculty staff and students. All the up-to-date course resources have been migrated from 'old' Weblearn to the new version which is available at:
https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/portal/hierarchy/humdiv/modlang
The old site is now an archive and no new material will be added to it.
In addition, all the information relating to current students on the Faculty website has been moved to Weblearn. This includes handbooks, exam information and year abroad information.
Memorial Service for Paul Foote
A memorial service for Paul Foote will be held on Saturday, 11 June at 3 pm in The Queen's College Chapel.
Memorial Service for Gudrun Loftus
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).
Paul Foote
The Faculty regrets to announce the death of Paul Foote on 1 March 2011 in the John Radcliffe Hospital. Mr Foote was University Lecturer in Russian from 1954 until his retirement in 1993, and Fellow and Praelector in Russian at Queen's from 1964 until his retirement (and latterly an Emeritus Fellow).
More information regarding arrangements will follow. Our condolences go to his family, friends, and former colleagues.
Giacomo da Lentini Prize
The Sub-Faculty of Italian is pleased to announce the Giacomo da Lentini Prize for the best translation of an Italian sonnet into English
Poster (doc)
Each candidate is allowed TWO entries, which can be selected from ANY period of Italian literature. Entries should be sent, in hard copy, to Dr. E. Tandello at Christ Church - please NO electronic entries, unless you happen to be a third-year student currently abroad.
For any information about the prize, and conditions of entry, please contact Ela Tandello at Christ Church.
Modern Languages student to give 2011 Sylvia Naish lecture
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:
http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/postgraduate/sylvia-naish-research-student-lecture.html
Dr Gilbert McKay
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.
'Black Africans in Renaissance Europe' - book distribution in Africa
Tom Earle (Professor of Portuguese in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages) has obtained several paperback copies of his book Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (Ed T. F. Earle, University of Oxford and K. J. P. Lowe, Queen Mary, University of London) which he would like to donate to University Libraries in Africa. The aim is to distribute these books by means of personal contacts rather than by risking them to the vagaries of the postal system. If any colleagues have links with, or are planning trips to, any African countries over the next few months, please contact Professor Earle (Thomas.earle@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) to obtain a copy of the book to take with you. Copies have already been distributed to the University of Ghana in Accra, and to Chancellor College in Zomba, Malawi.
Further details of the book can be found on:
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item5735921/?site_locale=en_GB
Margaret Malpas
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 Tom Earle
Professor Tom Earle has been elected a corresponding fellow of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa - Classe de Letras. More information about the Academia can be found at:
Call for Expressions of Interest:
John Fell OUP Research Fund support for applying to the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship scheme
Please note, the following information outlines an internal pre-application selection process. It is not authorisation to make an application to the Leverhulme Trust through this Institution.
Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship Scheme
The Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship scheme is aimed at those at a relatively early stage of their academic career but with a proven record of research. The Humanities Division has a track record with the Trust, having received several such fellowships over the past few years (with a number also awarded to other parts of the University). Fellowships are normally tenable for two or three years on a full-time basis.
The Leverhulme eligibility criteria are that applicants must normally be under 35, not hold or have held a permanent academic position in a UK university or comparable institution, and have an awarded doctorate or equivalent research experience. (Applications from those aged 35 and over will be considered if they began their academic studies at a later age than is usual or if they have had a career change or break.) The Leverhulme Trust also requires that candidates should normally hold a degree from a UK higher education institution by the time of taking up the Fellowship. Those without a UK degree will be considered if, at the time of application, they hold an academic position in the UK. It is likely that applications from candidates having an association with the UK academic community of less than two years' duration will be strengthened by a move of employing institution.
The award requires matched funding from the institution and there is provision for personal research expenses of up to £6k per year, if requested at the time of application. The John Fell Fund will provide matching funding for TWO nominations from the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages to the Leverhulme Trust.
The Leverhulme Early Career Fellow will normally be appointed by the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages in the first three points of University Grade 7, salary range (currently £28,983 - £30,747), depending on experience and current employment status.
Interested candidates must consult the Leverhulme website for full details of the Leverhulme scheme, including further information about eligibility: http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/funding/ECF/ECF.cfm
For further information about applying from outside the University of Oxford, please see the following page on the Humanities Division website:
http://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/research/applying_from_outside_oxford/leverhulme_early_career_fellowships
Before submitting an Expression of Interest, it is the candidate’s responsibility to find a Faculty mentor willing to support the application.
Call for Expressions of Interest
The Faculty now invites expressions of interest from potential applicants in any field of medieval and modern languages who wish to be considered for the Faculty’s support in applying to the Leverhulme scheme (NB do not submit an application to Leverhulme at this stage)
Expressions of interest must be received by noon on Friday 14 January 2011 and should include the following:
- a 150 word abstract summarising the research for a general audience
- a maximum two-page CV with education, publications, any awards, thesis title and examiners
- a maximum two-page draft statement of research (which may use similar headings to that in the Leverhulme notes of guidance)
- an indication of what additional research expenses may be claimed
A note or email of support from your proposed mentor should be sent directly to the Faculty by the same date. A full list of the members of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and their research interests is available on the faculty website: http://www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/academics.
Expressions of interest must be sent to the Faculty Board Secretary, Medieval and Modern Languages, 41 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JF; electronic applications are preferred and should be sent to administrator@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk .
Interviews will not be held. A nominee will be selected by a panel appointed by the Faculty Board, and all applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application as soon as possible after the closing date. The successful nominee will then be given assistance with formulating an application for the Leverhulme Fellowship.
Further information may be obtained by e-mailing the Secretary to the Faculty Board, joanna.nyirenda@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
Oxford German Studies Archive Online
The editors of Oxford German Studies are pleased to announce that digitisation of the entire run of OGS is now complete.
As colleagues will know, the journal has been a part of Faculty life for forty-five years. It began as a yearbook in 1966, initially with OUP, but subsequently with the firm of Willem Meeuws. In the late 1990s production moved in-house, so that the journal was edited and typeset by the Faculty's European Humanities Research Centre. OGS was given a new, more modern, design and expanded from a yearbook to a twice-annual subscription journal from vol. 34 (2005), and proved to be a modest commercial success in its new form, with its sales per issue more than doubling. With vol. 38 (2008), OGS expanded again to its present size of three issues per year, each one being roughly the word-count of the old yearbooks. It now follows an alternating pattern of general and themed issues. Recent themes include Dorothea von Montau, the Prussian saint; curiosity in German literature; friendship in medieval culture; the life and work of Eduard Moerike; visual culture; and Thomas Mann. OGS is increasingly widely read, with one-third of its subscriptions in Germany, and its present-day form is much more prominent in citations. For example, a synopsis of OGS 38.3, "Remembering the GDR", edited by Karen Leeder, occupies more than a page in the Year's Work in Modern Language Studies.
All subscribing individuals and institutions have free online access to the OGS archive. (Vols 34 to 39 were already online; it's vols 1 to 33 which are making their debut.) As Oxford is a subscriber, members of the Faculty should have free access at the following URL if they are using a computer on the University network:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/ogs
Scanning the journal's archive was undertaken by Maney Publishing, which handles business and distribution for OGS. It was quite a major undertaking, since early numbers are now valuable and had to be handled with care, and since many, many contributors had to be contacted for copyright permission. While some went on to have major scholarly careers (not always in German studies), others went into business or the diplomatic service, and tracking them down involved a good deal of sleuthing. We are happy to report that not one contributor withheld permission, so that the online run is complete.
It takes around six weeks for new scholarly matter on Ingenta to percolate into Google's indexing, but from the New Year the journal's back run should be rather more prominent in search hits. Retro-digitisation can also be a conservation tool: OGS is deposited with trusted-third-party schemes like Stanford's LOCKSS ("lots of copies keep stuff safe"), for example, and this should make its long-term survival more likely.
The foreword to OGS 1, written by Ernest Stahl (Taylorian Professor in 1966), lays out a manifesto which has stood the test of time remarkably well:
"Oxford German Studies is a new annual publication designed to meet a need created by the expansion of German studies in this University. The editors hope to bring together contributions which throw new light on their subject and are of more than antiquarian interest. These will be mainly on German literary history, but the journal will also be open to work on related subjects, such as philosophy, art, and social history. There will be no regular book reviews, but occasional review articles are envisaged. The present number contains features upon which the editors wish to place particular emphasis. Mr. Pasley and Mr. Reed have drawn on important unpublished sources for their essays on Kafka and Thomas Mann respectively, while Mr. Mitchell bases his account mainly on conversations and correspondence with W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. This is a kind of contribution we wish to encourage as a special item of our editorial policy. We also hope to help young scholars by publishing the results of their researches: Mr. Peters's article on Kleist and Kafka is based on work recently undertaken for an advanced degree. As far as possible, the editors will not impose a limitation on length. Nor will they, within reasonable limits, enforce restrictions of subject or of the language in which articles are written. The only standards they feel bound to maintain are those of scholarship and readability."
The journal continues to welcome enquiries about possible articles or themed numbers, which should be made to the General Editors in the first instance.
Nigel F. Palmer and T. J. Reed, General Editors
Marie Isabel Schlinzig, Editorial Assistant
Graham Nelson, Production Editor
Dr Thibaut Maus de Rolley wins French prize
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.
De Osma Studentship in Spanish Studies
The Vice-Chancellor gives notice that he will make an appointment to the de Osma Studentship during Michaelmas Term 2010. The Studentship is open to members of the University of Oxford.
Nationality: Any nationality
Level of study: Undergraduate and Graduate students
Subject: Candidates should be concerned with Spanish studies, such as Spanish art history, Spanish language and literature, Spanish history, geography, or archaeology. They must, when presenting their applications, provide evidence that they have sufficient knowledge of both written and spoken Spanish to enable them to make proper use of the facilities of the Instituto as well as a detailed account of their proposed study.
Countries to undertake study or research: The student must undertake to study in connection with the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid in any subject for which facilities are provided. The Instituto is especially a centre for Spanish Art studies. It has a fine collection of Spanish and Hispano-Mauresque ceramics and of Spanish medieval sculptures and objets d’art, and an outstanding library of the history of art. The library also contains a considerable number of medieval and early-modern documents and a collection of historical periodicals, mostly relating to the earlier periods of Spanish history. It is a tranquil place in which students may pursue their work.
Duration: Not less than six weeks (usually in the Easter Vacation)
Value: Approximately £3,000
Deadline: 30th November 2010
Application procedure: Candidates must send their applications to: Ms Anna Johnson, The Vice-Chancellor, University Offices, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JD. For further details, please contact the Vice-Chancellor’s office.
Supporting documentation: Tutor or supervisor recommendation
Message from Mrs Loftus' family
"Gerry, Oliver and family would like to sincerely thank Oxford University's German Faculty staff and students and St John's College for the many warm tributes to Gudrun as a much valued colleague and teacher, following her untimely death in Oxford recently.
Our sincere thanks also go to those who attended her requiem mass in St Bernardine's Church in Buckingham, and to those who sent cards, flowers and donations in Gudrun's name for World Villages for Children."
Obituary: Mrs Gudrun Loftus
Many of those who were shocked by the untimely death of Gudrun Loftus in a tragic accident have expressed the lasting importance which her teaching has had for them: for almost twenty years, she had been at the heart of German language teaching at the University of Oxford. When she took up her post in 1990, this marked a new departure for her as well as for the university, which created her post in response to the fact that the teaching of Modern Languages at schools had changed significantly. The shift in emphasis towards fluency in the spoken command of a foreign language had improved the ability of school-leavers to hold a conversation, but for many, writing in German and expressing themselves with accuracy was an increasingly unfamiliar and rather daunting task. Gudrun Loftus was a vigorous advocate of teaching grammar systematically in order to enable students to aspire towards speaking and writing like native speakers, and she was instrumental in putting together a course that helped students to achieve this. She was famously strict in her marks; students knew that the standards she expected were high, and that she had very clear views on what was and wasn’t acceptable. But once they had got used to the rigours of the first-year classes, they were full of praise and acknowledged that their success in examinations was in no small part due to the excellent teaching they had received. The university formally recognized her “outstanding and unparalleled contribution to the teaching of the German language” with a Teaching Award in 2007.
Her name had become familiar well beyond the group of those whom she taught at Oxford. Together with Martin Durrell and Katrin Kohl, she was responsible for providing a volume of rigorous and imaginative exercises to complement Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage, the standard reference work for anyone studying German in an English-speaking context. Work on a revised third edition of the exercise book Practising German Grammar had just begun. As part of the same team of authors, she also provided the exercises for the foundation volume, Essential German Grammar. Here, as in her teaching, Gudrun Loftus aimed to support clear explanation of the rules with examples from real spoken German which often revealed her sense of humour. Together with her husband Gerry Loftus, she produced a volume of off-air transcripts, TV und Texte, because she firmly believed that authentic material not only makes practising grammatical detail more enjoyable, but also allows a glimpse into the other culture.
On completing her university degree in Tübingen, Gudrun Loftus moved to Britain in 1985, becoming an ambassador for the German language in her new home country. At the same time, she enjoyed becoming part of her new surroundings - especially as a lecturer at St John’s, to which she was deeply attached, in the close-knit community of the Language Centre, or in serving as Mayoress of Buckingham in 1989/90. Mediating between two languages and cultures was thus part of her private as well as her professional life, and her son’s success in his German A-level exams was a source of visible pride. It was characteristic of her generosity that she gained special pleasure from his ability to build on the skills she had imparted to him and to develop them independently.
Gudrun Loftus, born 28.1.1958, died 5.10.2010. Language Instructor in German, University of Oxford, 1990-2007; Senior Language Instructor in German, 2007-2010; College Lecturer, St John’s College, Oxford, 1994-2010.
Mrs Gudrun Loftus
The Chair of the Faculty Board is sad to announce that Mrs Gudrun Loftus, the Senior Language Instructor in German, died as the result of a tragic accident on Tuesday. Colleagues and students past and present will share our sense of loss, and our thoughts are with her family at this difficult time. Funeral arrangements will be circulated in due course and the Faculty hopes to arrange an occasion later in the academic year at which we can remember her.
Professor Sheringham elected Fellow of British Academy
The Faculty is delighted to announce the election of Professor Michael Sheringham as a Fellow of the British Academy.
Each year, the British Academy elects to its Fellowship up to 38 outstanding UK-based scholars who have 'attained distinction in any of the branches of study which it is the object of the Academy to promote' – i.e. the humanities and the social sciences.
More information is available at:
http://www.britac.ac.uk/fellowship/elections/2010-Sheringham.cfm
Professor Ritchie Robertson appointed to the Taylor Professorship of the German Language and Literature
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
The Voltaire Foundation is awarded the 2010 Prix Hervé Deluen by the Académie Française
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:
DPhil student Alice Brooke wins prestigious AHRC/ESRC Library of Congress scholarship
Alice Brooke, who is studying for a DPhil, funded by the AHRC, at Merton on the religious theatre of the seventeenth-century Mexican nun-poet, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, has been awarded a prestigious joint AHRC/ESRC Library of Congress scholarships.
The Library of Congress Scholarship is run jointly between the AHRC and the ESRC. The scheme offers the chance for AHRC/ESRC funded doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows and research assistants to access the internationally renowned research collection at the Library of Congress.
More information is available at:
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/LibraryofCongress.aspx
The Taylor Institution Library on Facebook and Twitter
You can now follow the Taylor Institution Library on Facebook and Twitter and get instant information about opening times, events, library news and more. Search for Taylor Institution Library Oxford on Facebook or TAYOxford on Twitter, or follow these links:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TAYOxford
Professor Alain Viala wins R. H. Gapper Book Prize 2009
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:
- Chair: Diana Holmes (University of Leeds)
- Simon Gaunt (King’s College London)
- Alex Hughes (University of Kent)
- Christopher Johnson (University of Nottingham)
- Neil Kenny (University of Cambridge)
- Roger Pearson (University of Oxford).
The R. H. Gapper Book Prize will be presented to Professor Viala at the next Society for French Studies annual conference, which takes place at Swansea University, 5-7 July 2010.
The winning book: La France galante, Alain Viala
This is a history of the rise and cultural prominence of galanterie, especially between the mid-seventeenth and the mid-eighteenth centuries, though sixteenth-century roots are also analysed. In the core period studied, the terms galanterie and galant(e) were applied to a wide range of practices (notably conversation) and cultural productions (multi-media court festivals or fêtes galantes, poems, dialogues, letters, maxims, novels, theatre, opera, paintings by Watteau and others). Many men and women styled themselves as galants/galantes. Alain Viala establishes convincingly that, far from being a marginal pursuit, galanterie was at the heart of high culture. By taking his cue from the period’s own language, he shows the anachronistic distortions that have at times arisen from the retrospective application to (the earlier part of) this period of other labels (‘classicism’ and ‘baroque’) that are not actually rooted in it.
This attention to the period’s own language means that galanterie emerges here as a complex, shifting, multivalent cluster of meanings and practices rather than a neat concept. To be galant was, variously, to be pleasing (especially but not only to women), pleasurable, good company, sociable, humorous, respectful towards others, natural-seeming, Moderne rather than Ancien, and part of a self-conscious elite. Galanterie often concerned love and eroticism, but its scope was broader still. One strand of galanterie went beyond eroticism into obscenity and licentiousness.
Viala provides a vast panorama of this phenomenon, and pulls off the remarkable achievement of combining an empathetic reconstruction of the aesthetics and stated values of galant culture with a historicizing analysis of its ideological functions. The book achieves this by periodically stepping back and analysing the socio-economic composition of the self-styled galants (a core of perhaps 20,000-30,000 in the late seventeenth century, including Louis XIV and many courtiers but also bourgeois parvenu writers in search of patrons), their absolutist, non-parlementaire, secularist ideology, and their meeting of the post-Fronde nobility’s need to develop new urban manners. In other words, Alain Viala develops his material within powerful analytical frameworks. These also enable him to bring out the contradictoriness of galanterie for women, put in the position of passive admirers of male galant performances or made the objects of the openly lubricious brand of galanterie on the one hand, while on the other hand being numerous and influential actors and voices in the sphere of galant cultural production as well as being granted at least notional autonomy within heterosexual relations.
The book is the culmination of twenty years of research, during which the author has published many articles on the subject. He also acknowledges that literary galanterie in particular has been well studied, notably by Delphine Denis. But this book clearly goes very far beyond existing work, by himself and others. It is the first study of this scope of French galanterie as a cultural phenomenon. It is written with exceptional communicative flair: a strong first-person presence chats to, cajoles, jokes with, charms the readers, managing to whisk them through immense scholarship without appearing pedantic. This is no coincidence - the galants would have approved.
Information about the 2010 R.H. Gapper Book Prize is available at http://www.sfs.ac.uk
Tanya Filer wins Gapper Essay Prize
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.
UNIQ Summer School
The University of Oxford is running a brand new summer school which is open to UK state school students currently in the lower sixth form. Successful applicants to the UNIQ summer school will enjoy a week in Oxford this July, living in one of the Oxford colleges and studying their chosen subject. 500 places are available to bright, motivated and enthusiastic students who would like the chance to see what studying and living in Oxford is really like. See http://www.ox.ac.uk/uniq for full details. There's an online brochure which tells you all about the summer school and the application process.
Professor Elizabeth Fallaize
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 Independent, 30/12/09, Margaret Atack
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-elizabeth-fallaize-scholar-celebrated-for-her-work-on-simone-de-beauvoir-and-for-championing-womens-studies-1852848.html
MLA gives honourable mention to Andrew Kahn
The committee's citation for the honorable mention reads:
"Andrew Kahn has produced an extremely erudite study of Pushkin's lyrics, in which he explores and elucidates the intellectual context for these works. Very well read in the contemporary scholarship on English and continental Romanticism, he reveals the extent of Pushkin's profound engagement with the literary and cultural movements of his day. The volume is imaginatively organized around a set of themes that shed light on how Russia's greatest poet formed and developed his ideas about such matters as the role of inspiration in creativity, the classical and the Romantic, the question of commercial success for the artist, concepts of the hero, and the confrontation with mortality."
Andrew Kahn is university reader in Russian at the University of Oxford, fellow at Saint Edmund Hall, and lecturer at Queen's College. He is the editor of the Cambridge Companion to Pushkin and translator of Nicolai Karamzin, Letters of a Russian Traveler. His articles have appeared in journals such as Stanford Slavic Studies, Révue des Études Slaves, and EMF and books such as Remapping the Rise of the European Novel and Self and Story. His research interests include travel literature, Enlightenment Russia in its European context, and the history and theory of translation in Russia (1700-1840).
The full article can be read here.
French Year Abroad Opportunity
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)