5 Aug 2015: Martin McLaughlin has been elected President of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) for 2015. Each year, the MHRA chooses as President a scholar of international repute. Professor McLaughlin’s Presidential Address, entitled ‘Rewriting in the Italian Literary Tradition: Dante to Calvino (but not everything in between)’, will be delivered as a keynote lecture at the MHRA annual conference: this year’s conference is entitled ‘Rewriting(s)’ and will be held on Friday 16 October 2015 at the Senate House, London. More information is available here and here.

The OUSU Teaching Awards Ceremony was held in the Weston Library on 28th May 2015. For the category of Outstanding Tutor there were 250 nominations, with a shortlist of four in the Humanities section, including two Modern Languages Tutors. The winner was Dr Vilma de Gasperin, Senior Instructor in Italian, to whom we offer warmest congratulations.

Dr Christina Roaf, former University Lecturer in Italian, has died on 18th June at the age of 96.

Dr Roaf was born on 17 November 1917 and named after Christina Rossetti, who had once lived in the house. An account of her childhood appeared in the 2003 Somerville Magazine in the "Life before Somerville" section. Much of her childhood was spent travelling around Europe in the company of her mother, Vera Waddington, an exhibition of whose work she helped put on in 2007-08.

Taught by the legendary Enid Starkie, she gained a First in Modern Languages from Somerville, thanks in part to her proficiency in spoken French and Italian. During the War, she worked for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office research department, and was later posted to the British Consulate in Milan (1945) and the British Embassy in Rome (1946).

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

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.

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.