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.

Philippe Le Goff had a very successful PhD viva on 17 November. The external examiner was Dr Jim Wolfreys, from King's College, London and the internal examiner was Dr Oliver Davis. The title of Philippe's thesis is The militant politics of Auguste Blanqui.

Dr Wolfreys and Dr Davis commented that the thesis 'is a major contribution to the political history of nineteenth-century France, as well as a substantial intervention in today's debates about equality'.

The thesis was supervised by Professor Nick Hewlett.

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/

Dear students,

We are delighted and relieved to report that all our students are safe. Please read our updated statement here.

Open to all students
Free entry
All films have English subtitles
With an expert introduction and Q&A/discussion afterwards

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures is shocked and saddened by the events on Friday 13 November in Paris. We send our solidarity and sympathy to all those affected. We ask all our students in Paris at the moment to verify their safety for us and to read this statement.

Professor Seán Hand, Head of School.

Congratulations to Prof. Anne Fuchs (German Studies) on the publication of two new essays! Follow the link for full details.

Dr Peters will join Angolan art critic Adriano Mixinge at New York University's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies on 6 November 2015, in A Conversation about History and Literature on Cuban-Angolan Relations. The conversation is part of the CLACS-hosted conference #CubAngola40: Rethinking the 1975 Africa-Cuban War. Click here to find out more!

Dr Hooper visited Cambridge on October 28th to present her current research to the Hispanic and Lusophone Research Seminar. Her paper, Ríos, fuentes, muelles, océanos: Hydropoetics and the Galician Cultural Imagination, takes the case of nineteenth-century Galicia - a crucial hub on global shipping networks - as a starting point to reflect on the implications of turning the gaze of Iberian cultural history outward towards the ocean. The paper reads the canonical poetry of Rosalia de Castro alongside forgotten works by the geographer Gabriel Castro Arias and the naval officer and novelist Patricio Montojo, to argue for the transformative potential of reading Galician cultural history from an oceanic rather than land-based perspective.

Congratulations to Professor Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, Head of French Studies, on the publication of his guest-edited special issue of the International Journal of Francophone Studies, around the theme of 'Francophone African Philosophy and the Aftermath of the Empire.' Well done Pierre-Philippe!

The winners and runners up of the Zoe Russell Prize 2015 were awarded their prizes by Mr and Mrs Russell at a ceremony on Friday 30 November:

Joint Winners: Nadia Bazargan (F&G) and Halina Gadbury (F&G)

Joint Runners up: Lucy O'Connor (G&H); Hannah Solle (E&G); Heather Watts (GwF)

Previous winners Alice Arnold (F&G); Rachel Bousfiled (F&G) and Rebecca James (G&B) also attended.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Dr Viala's presentation, Caribbean Crossovers: Examining the “Other” Caribbean in the Work of Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Kamau Brathwaite, Edouard Glissant and Frank Martinus Arion, brings together Benítez-Rojo's reading of Haiti (Performance, Body Memory and Vodou); Brathwaite’s approach, vision, and inscription of Cuba in his theories of Caribbean Memory and specially his poetry; Glissant’s differential approach to Martinique through a double-bind silencing/magnifying reading of other Caribbeans (transculturation and Carnival/Cuba, Barbados, Jamaica Trinidad); and Frank Martinus Arion’s defense of Papiamentu following the "model" of English Creole within/ as a Jamaican Nation Language.

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.

Many congratulations to Warwick French Studies PhD students Hannah Grayson, Rebecca Pillière and Clare Siviter, who have received commendations in the Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence for Postgraduates who Teach (WATE PGR).

Warwick Hispanic Studies' Alison Ribeiro de Menezes is in Dublin this weekend (2-4 October) for the ISLA Irish, Spanish, Latin American Literary Festival hosted by Dublin's Instituto Cervantes. Writers, readers and critics from all three places will come together for panels, interviews, conversations and presentations. Check out the programme here!

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.

The most recently published Complete University Guide (2016) sees German Studies at Warwick rise a further two places to 3^rd position in its national league table, placing Warwick German just behind Cambridge and Durham, and ahead of Newcastle, Oxford, King’s College London, and St Andrews.

Dr Mary Harrod (French Studies) appeared on BBC Radio 3's 'Free Thinking' programme on Thursday 9th July 2015 to discuss French intellectual culture.