Important start of year information for returning students

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick welcomes expressions of interest from early-career researchers who would like to apply to the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme in 2016-17. Closing date for proposals: 16th September 2016. 

More information

Earthquake in central Italy - advice for students

If you are travelling in the affected area, please follow the advice of the local authorities. Civil Protection have activated a hotline 800840840 for information. To learn more what to do before, during, and after an earthquake visit the Protezione Civile website (http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/jcms/en/rischio_sismico.wp).

If you have been affected in any way, please email the Year Abroad Coordinator in Italian (m.milani@warwick.ac.uk). The counselling support is also available (counselling@warwick.ac.uk).

We have a small number of places available through clearing and adjustment this year. Please see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/results/courses/ for more information about our 4 academic departments.

We are happy to consider applications for all of our degree combinations, including our 3-language BA in Modern Languages - you can find a list of all our degrees here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/applying/undergraduate/-

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The School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick invites applications for two PhD fellowships from outstanding Home/EU candidates in any area of research in French, German, Hispanic or Italian Studies in which the School is able to offer supervision. The fellowships cover fees and maintenance at RCUK rates for three years from October 2016. Successful candidates will be required to carry out some teaching or other academic-related duties for the School as part of the fellowship.

In the most recent QS world rankings by subject, Modern Languages at Warwick were ranked 30^th in the world. This is a rise of 3 places on last year’s position in the same table. Warwick remains 6^th in the UK according to the QS methodology.

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures is concerned to hear of two explosions at the Brussels airport (Zaventem), and at Brussels metro stations (Maelbeek and Schuman) near the EU, this morning, 22 March. This situation has been reported as a terrorist attack, and the Belgian ministry has placed the country on maximum alert.

We are asking all our students in Brussels and Belgium at the moment to confirm immediately their safety for us, as your welfare is our first priority. If you wish to speak to anyone about your safety or welfare, please contact your Personal Tutor in the first instance, or you can contact David Lees (d.w.lees@warwick.ac.uk), Pierre-Philippe Fraiture (p-p.fraiture@warwick.ac.uk) or Cathy Hampton (c.m.hampton@warwick.ac.uk).

Brussels hosts a number of international institutions (EU and NATO), as well as government and foreign embassy buildings, which are sensitive locations. Please be vigilant at this time.

Transport, and especially flight travel, are likely to be severely disrupted today into and out of Belgium, and there will be enhanced border controls and a heightened military presence. We hear at this time (08:30 British time) that the Brussels metro has been closed. If you are planning to travel or from the UK in the near future, you may need to plan for the extra time that it may take to go through security checks. Security has been stepped up at Paris and Frankfurt airports.

Further updates may be provided by the University via the Insite web page.

Our deepest sympathies go to anyone affected by these latest outrages, and we ask all our students once again to verify their safety to us at the earliest opportunity.

Professor Seán Hand, Head of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick UK.

"Working as a Translator for the EU" by Mark Smith, Head of English and Irish Translation Unit at the European Parliament.
A wide-ranging presentation, covering all institutions, the institutional framework and legislative process, the need for multilingualism, the work of a translator and finally the recruitment process.

Respondent: Dr Mila Milani, Senior Teaching Fellow in Italian and former translation trainee at the EP.

12-13 (Graduate Space): informal Q&A session with Mark Smith, coffee/tea will be provided.

This event will be a unique opportunity to engage directly with translation experts at a highly professional standard and know more about the professional routes in translation available for Modern Languages students.

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures is pleased to offer three bursaries to suitably qualified MA applicants for the 2016-17 academic year. These bursaries cover fees only, at the home/EU rate. Any home/EU applicant for any of the Masters courses offered in the School is eligible to apply for one of these bursaries.

The Warwick Latin American Film Festival, organized by Hispanic Studies PhD student Sofia Mercader, is going from strength to strength. Join Sofia and the team for our next showing and after-film discussion, Walter Salles's Central Station (1998), on Thursday 11 February @ 6pm in Ramphal 1.15.

Check out the full programme here.

This winter, Warwick is hosting an exciting festival of Latin American Film screenings, each followed by debate and discussion. Screenings are FREE and open to all. Download the programme (PDF) for dates and venues. Please contact organiser Sofia Mercader (s.mercader@warwick.ac.uk) for more information.

The Cultural Engagement Fellowship is a three-month position beginning 15 February 2016, based in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University Of Warwick.

Professor Menezes's paper, entitled 'Out of the Labyrinth? Television Memories of Revolution and Return in Contemporary Portugal' will examine the role of television nostalgia as a potentially productive form of cultural memory. It will focus on RTP's populist series, Depois do Adeus, which charted the return of settlers, or retornados, from Angola to metropolitan Portugal following the 1974 Revolution and the declarations of independence in former Lusophone African colonies. Click on the headline to see the full programme!

Warwick’s new Academy (Warwick International Higher Education Academy) was set up in 2015 to champion inspirational and effective teaching at the University. During this year a number of staff were nominated as Foundation fellows, including Teresa MacKinnon from the Language Centre at SMLC. Further information about the possibilities that will be supported by the Academy can be seen here:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/about/

Find out what the Academy can do for you.

Hispanic Studies have launched a research blog, where you can read about new research by members of the department. Read the first entry, Rosalía de Castro, un reto para los estudios hispánicos, by Honorary Associate Professor Helena González (Universitat de Barcelona) now!

Dear students,

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

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.

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.