Paget Toynbee Lecture 2017 - CANCELLED

We regret to announce that the Paget Toynbee Lecture 2017 has been cancelled.



Professor Ascoli is an eminent scholar in Medieval and Early Modern Italian culture. His interests include the relations between literary form and history; the author-reader relationship; the construction of Italian national identity; literary politics of gender; Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Ariosto, Shakespeare. He is the author of the celebrated study, Dante and the Making of a Modern Author (Cambridge, 2008), and has recently completed editing the Cambridge Companion to Petrarch (2015).

French Film Competition 2017

2017 sees the sixth year of Oxford University’s French film competition, in which school pupils are invited to watch (a) selected French film(s), and write an essay or script re-imagining the ending.

L'idée de l'Europe au Siècle des Lumières

During the Enlightenment, many men and women of letters envisaged the continent’s future, in particular when stressing their hope that peace could be secured in Europe. Published in French, and edited by academics from the University of Oxford and the University of Augsburg, with colleagues from different European countries, this volume gathers such texts on Europe, its history, its diversity, but also on what its nations have in common.

Portuguese Ambassador visits Oxford

On Wednesday 26 April 2017, H. E. Manuel Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese ambassador to the UK was welcomed by staff and students in the Sub-Faculty of Portuguese.

Inspirational Teacher Honoured by Oxford University

Debra Walsh, teacher of French at Brynteg Comprehensive School in Bridgend, is one of ten state school teachers who have been recognised by the University of Oxford's annual Inspirational Teachers Awards. She was nominated by Elis Harrington, a first-year student at Jesus College studying French and German.

Oxford Ranked Second in Complete University Guide 2018

The University of Oxford has been ranked second in the Complete University Guide for 2018 entry, and very highly across the board for language subjects.

Neil Kenny & Patrick McGuinness Win R. Gapper Book Prize

The Faculty is delighted to report that Neil Kenny and Patrick McGuinness have been announced as the joint winners of the prestigious R. Gapper Book Prize for their publications Death and Tenses: Posthumous Presence in Early Modern France (Oxford: OUP, 2015) and Poetry and Radical Politics in fin de siècle France (Oxford: OUP, 2015) respectively.

Des boulevards aux jardins : rituels de la promenade au XVIIIe siècle

The MFO is hosting a two day conference jointly organised by Sophie Lefay (Université d'Orléans), Laurent Turcot (Université du Québec à Trois Rivières) and Catriona Seth (University of Oxford) on walking and social rituals in the 18th century. It will include papers on national characteristics of walks, literary and educational walks, royal progresses and botanical collections, garden fashions and commercial activities for walkers. All welcome.

Conversation with Delphine de Vigan

Prize-winning French author and film producer, Delphine de Vigan, will be in conversation with Henriette Korthlas Altes (MFO) and Catriona Seth (All Souls) at Jesus College, in the Harper Room at Jesus College at 5.15 P.M. on Wednesday 26th April.

Professor Catriona Seth Interviewed on French Radio

Oxford academic Professor Catriona Seth is interviewed on French radio by philosopher Adèle van Reeth. They discuss Germaine de Staël (1766-1817), a 'thinker without borders', whose works include essays, novels and political pamphlets and whose ideas often show preoccupations with themes which are still present in contemporary debates, from the role of fiction to the way culture can serve to unite people.

Society of Dix-Neuviémistes Postgraduate Prize 2017

Congratulations to current MSt student Helen Craske, who has won the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes' 2017 Postgraduate Prize for her essay on 'The Decadent Ideal of Impenetrability'.

Philosophy Undergraduate Open Day

The Faculty of Philosophy will be holding an open day on Saturday 6th May 2017, which may be of particular interest to anyone considering studying Philosophy and Modern Languages at Oxford, especially those thinking of applying for the 2018-19 academic year.

Call for Papers: IWBS Conference 2017

"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.

Professor Catriona Seth on Bibliothèque Médicis

Professor Catriona Seth presents her forthcoming edition of Germaine de Staël's works in Gallimard's prestigious 'Pléiade' series on French television's 'Bibliothèque Médicis'.

New publication: Persisting in Folly by Oliver Ready

The theme of foolishness has long occupied an unusually prominent place in Russian culture, touching on key questions of national, spiritual, and intellectual identity. In literature, the figure of the fool – and the voice of the fool – has carried additional appeal as an enduring source of comic and stylistic innovation. Never has this appeal been stronger than in the past half-century, whether as a reaction to the «scientific atheism» and official culture of the late-socialist era, or as a response to the intellectual and moral disorientation that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union.

European Research Council 10th Anniversary & The 15cBOOKTRADE

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the European Research Council (ERC) and, to celebrate the occasion, the Humanities Division are featuring a different research project each day to highlight some of the different endeavours that the ERC are supporting at Oxford. On Tuesday, the 15cBOOKTRADE project, led by Cristina Dondi, was chosen to showcase ERC-funded research at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages.

R. Gapper Postgraduate Essay Prize 2016

Vittoria Fallanca (1st-year DPhil, Pembroke College) has been announced as the runner-up for the 2016 R. Gapper Postgraduate Essay Prize with her work 'The Design of the Essais: Montaigne and the language of ‘dessein’'.

Transnational Portuguese Women Artists Conference

The aim of this conference is to foreground transnational women’s contribution to Portuguese culture (and vice versa) and to interrogate the nature of their impact in Portugal and beyond, while fostering an interdisciplinary and transcultural perspective. The conference will examine how the meaning of being a transnational/ diasporic artist has shifted across time, and focus on negotiations of creative influence and multiple identifications through the lens of gender.

Oxford Modern Languages Ranked 3rd in World QS University Rankings

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: Reflections on knowledge by German-speaking writers

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.