Warmest congratulations to Kate Willman in Italian Studies, who had a very successful PhD viva on 26th November. Kate's thesis, entitled 'New Italian Epic: History, Journalism and the 21st Century "Novel"', was examined by Ann Caesar (Warwick) and Florian Mussgnug (UCL), who defined it 'a highly engaging, lively and critically alert piece of work'. The supervisors were Jenny Burns and Fabio Camilletti.

Dr. James Hodkinson of SMLC, currently researching Islam in German History, has been invited to take part in an event hosted by Woking People of Faith Interfaith forum, alongside prominent speakers in Woking on November 18th, 7pm.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/people/academic/jameshodkinson/

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick invites applications to the university’s annual funding competition for doctoral students, for entry in 2016-17.

SALTS (School of Languages at Lunchtime Series) is a new interdisciplinary research forum for the entire research community in the School of Modern Languages and beyond. The School strongly promotes interdisciplinary research across several fields including comparative medieval and early modern studies, Film History and Film Aesthetics, Postcolonial and Transnational Studies, Migration Studies, Translation Studies, Renaissance Studies, Memory Studies, Gender Studies and Disability Studies.

Members of our vibrant research community also engage in editorial and archival work, sociocultural and political contextualization, philosophical and theoretical interrogation, medical and psychiatric history. Their research addresses the urgent issues of linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity in Europe, Africa, North America, the Caribbean and Central and South America. By examining the reception and reshaping of philosophical, intellectual and literary traditions, they also contribute to a nuanced understanding of what is involved in transcultural and intercultural encounters and translations.

Designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue, SALTS adopts a dynamic and informal format. Presenters from a particular discipline will team up with a respondent from a different subject area who is working in a related field. A short paper or position statement will be circulated ahead of each lunchtime talk and form the basis for the response and the ensuing discussion.

Term 2 (1 - 2pm)

Week 4 (3 February) – Eliana Maestri (Italian) and Mary Harrod (French): Women’s Autobiography and Cultural Production - H545

Week 8 (2 March) – Santiago Oyarzabal (Hispanic) and Jenny Burns (Italian) – Politics on Screen - H060

Term 3 (1 - 2pm)

For all further information about SALTS, contact Professor Anne Fuchs, Director of Research, School of Modern Languages and Cultures.

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.

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick welcomes strong applications to the Leverhulme Trust Early-Career Fellowship scheme. The School has enjoyed important successes in this scheme in recent years and is keen to support postdoctoral candidates whose profiles fit the scheme and whose proposed research speaks to the School’s key research strands within and across French, German, Hispanic and Italian Studies.

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.’

Call for Papers

 Iran and the West: Converging Perspectives

To be held from 1-3 July 2015, and hosted by the University of Warwick. Introductory speaker – Dr James Hodkinson, the University of Warwick. Keynote speaker – Prof Ali Ansari, the University of St Andrews.

We cordially invite scholars from diverse fields to contribute towards a wide-ranging interdisciplinary conference which aims to further our understanding of Iranian perceptions of the West and Westerners and Western perceptions of Iran and Iranians, from c. 500 BC until the present day. The aim of this conference is to improve our understanding of Iranian and Western cultural perceptions of the other’s culture, people, and politics, both from popular and elite viewpoints, and the points of convergence and divergence between them.

For further details, and for any questions regarding the themes of the conference, please consult the conference web page.

For any further clarifications, contact Dr Margaux Whiskin by email at M dot Whiskin at warwick dot ac dot uk

In research that will take him to Italy, England and Australia, Mr Goffredo Polizzi, one of the first students to receive a coveted Monash Warwick joint PhD scholarship, is examining how Italians form their identities in light of changing cultural influences. Associate Professor Rita Wilson from Monash University, and Associate Professor Loredana Polezzi from the Warwick School of Modern Languages and Cultures, are jointly supervising Goffredo’s research. The Monash Warwick Alliance is an innovative approach to higher education that is accelerating the exchange of people, ideas and information between Monash and Warwick Universities. For the full story, see here.

Researchers in Italian at Warwick are central in a £1.8m research project recently funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council under its ‘Translating Cultures’ theme.