Read all the latest news and upcoming events from the faculty on the main News page.
"Walter Benjamin and Method: Re-thinking the Legacy of the Frankfurt School"
The conference, at the University of Oxford, 25th-27th September 2017, will be organized in six thematic strands with two convenors each. Panels in each strand will consist of three 20-minute papers. Proposals (250 words) for 20-minute papers in either English or German should be submitted by 7th April 2017.
The University of Oxford has been ranked 3rd in the prestigious QS World University Rankings for Modern Languages, just behind Harvard University and the University of Cambridge, with the coveted top five-star rating for research, innovation, and teaching.
L'idée vient en parlant: These words will serve as a basis for exploring – in English and German – how the debate about knowledge is configured in literary texts, to what extent it determines the poetic reflections of specific authors, and what might be the methodological and theoretical implications.
A workshop in honour of T.J. Reed's 80th birthday, hosted at St John's College and The Queen's College from 18-19 April 2017.
Women in German Studies is a professional organisation for Germanists in Great Britain and Ireland which was founded in 1988 by Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. From 22 to 24 June 2017 the conference will come to Oxford for the first time, to explore the topics 'reform' and 'revolt' across German history, literature and culture.
Jan Wagner will now give the Annual Poetry Society Lecture at 7pm on Monday 20 February in the Shulman Auditorium, The Queen's College, High Street Oxford. This is a new venue because of demand.
The German-Japanese writer Dr Yoko Tawada will be visiting the University of Oxford from 17 February to 1 March 2017, on the invitation of DAAD-Lektor Christoph Held.
Professor Karen Leeder, Professor of Modern German Literature and Fellow of New College, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
An interview with Henrike Lähnemann, Professor of Medieval German, was recently published in Letter, the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) alumni magazine. Henrike discusses her reactions to the Brexit vote, and those of people around her in the UK, and thoughts on how it will affect British universities.
On Thursday 1 December 2016, Professor Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly was conferred with an Honorary DLitt by the National University of Ireland in Dublin. She is an alumna of the NUI, having studied German and Spanish at University College Cork for her BA and German for her MA, before taking the degree of Dr. Phil at the University of Basel.
Our school competitions are now open! Please click here for details of the annual French film competition, Oxford German Olympiad, and the NEW Spanish flash fiction competition.
Mediating Modern Poetry is pleased to host the launch of Ulrike Draesner's new version of the Nibelungenlied.
The University of Oxford, founded some nine centuries ago, has enjoyed the closest links, throughout its long history, with the great centres of learning across Europe.
The OUSU Student-led Teaching Awards provide students every year with direct opportunities to recognise excellence in teaching by nominating their tutors and lecturers for awards in various categories, including Most Acclaimed Lecturer, Outstanding Tutor
Oxford University has come top in the 2016 QS World University Rankings for Modern Languages. The annual QS World University Rankings is a comprehensive guide to the world’s top universities in a range of popular subject areas.
Oxford alumna Imogen Taylor has won the 2016 Goethe-Institut Award for New Translation. This year’s judges were Anthea Bell, Jens Boyer and Paula Johnson. Imogen Taylor studied French and German at New College, Oxford and the Humboldt University in Berlin. She now works as a freelance translator and academic in Berlin. Her translations include Sascha Arango’s The Truth and Other Lies. Taylor receives an award of €1,000 and will attend the 2016 Leipzig Book Fair between 17 and 20 March, including the International Translators’ meeting on 13 March.
Daljit Nagra – Radio 4 & 4 Extra’s Poet in Residence – has selected Karen Leeder's ‘Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus - Dancing the Orange’ for Radio 4 Extra’s ‘Poetry Extra’ slot on Sunday 24th April 2016 at 5.00pm, with a repeat the next morning.
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.