Professor Seán Hand, Head of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, will give the opening address at the Levinas Reading conference to be held at the University of Chicago, April 8-9, 2015. Featuring speakers such as Jean-Luc Marion and Adriaan Peperzak, the international conference is sponsored by Chicago’s Divinity School, Martin Marty Center, and Philosophy Department, the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Chicago France Center. More information here.

As part of Warwick’s day-long celebration on 10 March of International Women’s Day, the School of Modern Languages and Cultures congratulated its large cohort of students who recently graduated from Warwick’s 2015 ‘Sprint’ female personal and professional development programme. In thanking the students for their participation and commitment, Dr. Joanne Lee spoke of the continung need to develop female leaders, especially those with multi-lingual skills and real international experience.

Four PhD students in the School have been successful in their bids to win funding from Warwick's Humanities Research Centre to stage their own events and projects.

Congratulations to our own David Lees, who successfully defended his PhD thesis on documentary film produced by the Vichy regime during the Occupation of France, including in terms of the continuity of themes propounded between the Third Republic and the Vichy regime. David's external examiners (pictured) were Dr Jackie Clarke (Glasgow) and Dr Steve Wharton (Bath). David's thesis was supervised by Professor Nick Hewlett and Dr Jessica Wardhaugh, both of French Studies in the School of Modern languages and Cultures.

Congratulations to Siân Miles on the signing and launch of her re-released translation of Guy de Maupassant's Femme fatale as one of 80 Penguin 'Little Black Classics.'

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures is pleased to offer three bursaries to suitably qualified MA applicants for the 2015-16 academic year.

An exciting and illuminating alumni careers evening, organised by students Nung Yang and Jessica Hargreaves for the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, was attended by 74 students from all undergraduate years. Invited speakers, including several graduates, gave presentations on the wide variety of career options available for modern linguists, before networking discussions continued over the obligatory pizza!

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures was highly successful in the most recent national research exercise, the 2014 REF, with our research outputs ranked 5th in the UK. 79.7% of our work, and 100% of our environment, was judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent. With three of the four submissions ranked above us specialising entirely in Linguistics outputs, we are one of the very best UK institutions for comprehensive research in modern languages. This output ranking also places us above all other Russell Group universities, including Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, King's College London, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Queen Mary University of London, and UCL. The School is also top-ranked for Modern Languages overall in the Midlands region.

Professor Seán Hand, Head of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, commented: ‘We are delighted with this strong endorsement of our research capabilities across the whole of our School, in French, German, Italian and Hispanic Studies. As we do not pursue research in Linguistics, the proportion of our outputs deemed to be in the highest possible category of 'world-leading' also places us just behind Cambridge and Kent (which both also included Linguistics in their overall return). And our output's 'intensity' ranking (which takes account of the proportion of staff entered into the exercise), again ignoring Linguistics returns, places us 2nd in the UK, just behind Cambridge. In conjunction with our University’s overall rankings, where we are rated the 7^th best research university in the UK, and with our status as the current Times/Sunday Times University of the Year, this result really emphasizes how Warwick offers a truly world-class research-intensive environment for the comprehensive study of modern languages.’

Congratulations to Leigh Anne Casey on the successful defence of her doctoral thesis on Jacques Maritain. Pictured here with Leigh are internal examiner Dr Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, supervisor Professor Seán Hand, and external examiner Professor Mike Kelly of Southampton University.

French Studies at Warwick presents a round-table event on Patrick Modiano, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature. Wednesday 26th November at 3pm in MS.02.

A competition has been launched to find a new, original photograph to front the School's new webpages!

Visit of Professor Dudley Andrew (Yale) to Warwick

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick again welcomes applications for the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme.

Impressive scores were achieved by several languages within Warwick's School of Modern Languages and Cultures in the latest National Student Survey. German Studies was awarded an exceptional 96% overall satisfaction score, while French Studies scored 93%. Commenting on the overall results, the Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Thrift said: 'This success reflects our commitment to provide Warwick students with a high-quality research-led learning experience, that also equips them to become internationally aware and to leave Warwick inspired and equipped to take on some of our world’s greatest challenges. It also reflects Warwick’s continued reinvestment in its campus to provide the experience that our students expect.'

Congratulations to Professor Ingrid de Smet of Warwick French Studies for having been elected as a Fellow of the British Academy.

Dr Kate Astbury, Associate Professor and Reader in the Department of French Studies, is one of this year's University winners of the Research Impact and Public Engagement Awards, given in recognition of an academic's strong focus on public understanding and involvement in research activity. The list of all winners can be viewed here. Dr Astbury's work especially analyses the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era, and is decribed here.

Sir Michael Edwards, a founding member of the Department of French Studies at Warwick, has become the first Briton and first native English speaker to enter the prestigious Académie française, France's highest learned body charged with defending the purity of the French language. He was elected by standing members in 2013, and was received on 22 May 2014. He will occupy seat F31 in the Academy.

The Modern Languages subjects at Warwick achieved some impressive rankings in the 2015 Complete University Guide, published 12 May 2014. French moved up one place to 3^rd, and now sits above Cambridge and just behind Oxford. German moved up to 5^th position, on the heels of Oxford, Cambridge, and Exeter. Italian is in 7^th position, on equal footing with St. Andrew’s. Our new Department of Hispanic Studies does not yet feature in these tables.

The next SFPS Postgraduate Study Day will be held on Thursday 5 June 2014, at the University of Warwick, in the Wolfson Exchange Centre. The theme of the day willl be: 'Migrations in Francophone Culture'. For full details of papers, location, and registration, see here.