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.