Colleagues and former students will be saddened to hear of the passing of Professor John Osborne, Chair of German at the University of Warwick from 1979 until his retirement in 2002.

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures (SMLC) wamly invites applications from outstanding candidates for doctoral study commencing in September/October 2023. The SMLC will support pre-selected candidates for the Chancellor’s International Scholarships and Midlands4Cities scholarships

To express an interest, please send your CV and a two-page research proposal to smlcoffice@warwick.ac.uk (cc I.de-Smet@warwick.ac.uk) as soon as possible, ideally by 16 November 2022.

Interested in applying for a Midlands4Cities scholarship for doctoral study in Modern Languages or Translation Studies at Warwick? Register for the online Application Writing Workshops for M4C scholarship candidates on 19 November 2022, 10 am-1 pm. Registration details and the link to subscribe are on the M4C website.

Waswasa - A Soul City Arts Production For the Birmingham 2022 Festival, with contributions by Dr James Hodkinson. Running from Aug 25- Sept 3, this is a multi media spectacle, including film, live physical theatre, immersive sound and graphic arts. The project aims to detoxify and demystify the often misunderstood tradition of Islamic prayer, and uses a blend of high-end digital art and the tactile productions of community arts projects to ensure local voices are at the heart of this internationally renowned project

The Warwick Awards for Public and Community Engagement (WAPCE), like the Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence (WATELink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window), and Warwick Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence (WAPTE), celebrate the very best of Warwick’s staff and students. The WAPCE awards recognise the vital contributions Warwick staff and students make in engaging the public – on an international and national level as well as crucially within our region and local communities – in our learning and discovery, with the goals of sharing and co-producing knowledge, strengthening the role we play in the region and showcasing the role Warwick plays nationally and internationally in making the world a better place.

SMLC is delighted that 2 of our most engaged researchers' work in public and community engagement has been recognised.

James Hodkinson has won a staff award for his work on community events and arts projects designed to facilitate cross-community encounters, enhance public debate, cross-community empathy and more nuanced mutual understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in towns and cities across the UK.

Abigail Coppins won a Postgraduate award for the ways in which her research into Black prisoners of war in Britain during the French Revolution has had a significant impact on the young Black women at the National Youth Theatre who were involved in the R&D of a new play, The Ancestors. Her research has fed into educational resources for NYT and English Heritage and inspired a delegation of Garifuna people to travel from central America and the US to visit Portchester castle where the prisoners were held. Her work has also introduced Black undergraduates and young people from a community of 2nd generation St Vincentians in High Wycombe to the National Archives. She has, therefore, improved knowledge, strengthened networks, engaged with people from non-traditional backgrounds.

Constructions of Gender, Nation and Jewishness as Constellation – Intersectionality and Critical Theory

All language teaching teams across the academic sections and the Language Centre have collectively been nominated for a Community and Culture Warwick Award in Teaching Excellence.

We're delighted to have been shortlisted for professionalism and collegiality in responding to the pandemic.

Dr Zhiyan Guo has also been shortlisted for an Arts Faculty award.

The shortlists can be seen here:

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academic-development/wate/shortlistcategories/

Applying to Warwick to read languages? Which languages, which combinations? Ab initio or post high school entry? What are our campus, courses, and community like? Chat online to staff and students and have all your questions answered.

Wed 24 November, 5pm. Register here: https://meetandengage.com/universityofwarwick

The UK Government has announced today (4 August 2021) that the University of Warwick will be awarded £2.6 million for international student mobility, as part of the inaugural Turing Scheme.

Warwick is one of the world’s top 100 universities, and one of the ways it has achieved that position is because it is a globally connected institution. Its staff and students learn, work, and research as part of a highly international community, and more than 1000 Warwick students each year also take the opportunity to study and work abroad at one of the University’s many worldwide partner institutions.

Please read more to find out about this important survey - and take part. Have your voice heard at this pivotal point in our School's journey!

• Chancellor's International Scholarships: the scheme is aimed at students from outside the UK and includes Overseas applicants, including students from the EU.
• China Scholarship Council / University of Warwick Scholarships: this scheme will fund 25 students across various subjects for up to 4 years, with the University covering the full cost of tuition fees and CSC providing a maintenance stipend and return international airfare between the UK and China. Note that Foreign Languages and Literature is among the priority areas listed.
• Monash Warwick Alliance Scholarships (Warwick): this scheme is open to all students applying to Warwick for the Alliance Joint PhD. For 2021/22 entry there will be up to 3 scholarships available across the university.

The deadlines for these schemes are all on Thursday 21st January 2021, 23.59 GMT. Note that all supporting evidence (including transcripts and references) must be uploaded by the same time.

We welcome applications for our PhD programmes in:

• French and Francophone Studies
• German Studies
• Italian
• Hispanic Studies
• Translation and Transcultural Studies

Prospective applicants are encouraged to identify possible supervisors through our staff expertise pages. Early enquiries are strongly encouraged. Please send a draft proposal (up to 2 A4 pages) and CV to pglanguages@warwick.ac.uk by Friday 27 November 2020, 12 noon.

We continue to welcome enquiries also for the AHRC Midlands4Cities doctoral awards (deadline 13 January 2021).

As part of the Women in German Studies conference, Warwick is honoured to be hosting an online keynote lecture by Dr Rosemarie H. Peña, which will be open to all who register via the booking form (deadline: 3rd November).

Rosemarie H. Peña holds a PhD in Childhood Studies from Rutgers University-Camden where she also earned her MA in Childhood Studies and BAs in German and Psychology. She identifies as a dual heritage Black (Senegalese) German American transnational adoptee and is the founder and president of the Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA).

Rosemarie has published in several academic journals, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies (2020), and is a contributing author in five edited volumes. Her most recent essay, “Stories Matter: Contextualizing the Black German American Adoptee Experience(s)” is included in Marion Kraft’s edited volume Children of the Liberation: Transatlantic Experiences of Black Germans of the Postwar Generation (2019).

"Scholarly Activism: The Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA) and Black German Studies in the United States"

Black Germans were among the first children whose natural lives would be forever altered by postwar “child-saving” initiatives that inspired the institutionalization of transnational adoption in the United States. The adoptees are thereby among the experiential pioneers of the juristic process effectuating multicultural families by awarding guardianship of children born to mothers in one country and culture to genetically unrelated persons living in another. For nearly three decades, Black Germans born in the wake of the World War II who grew up in Germany, Denmark, and the United States have been searching for their original families and sharing their life experiences.

As this postwar cohort re-emerges as a topic of academic interest, the adoptees and their non-adopted peers who grew up in Germany without their fathers are reconnecting with their biological kin. The U.S. adoptees are, therefore, concomitantly reuniting in discourse and actuality with other Black Germans having disparate backgrounds, cultural roots, and connections to Germany. Many of the adoptees, whose ages now range from the early sixties to mid-seventies, are learning about their German ancestral roots in dialogue with journalists, academics, and filmmakers who are eager to hear their stories, write about them, and portray their adoption experiences in documentary films.

In her keynote, Rosemarie Peña will discuss the role of the Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA) with respect to Black German family and community reunification, and the expansion of Black German Studies in the U.S. as an interdisciplinary field of academic research.

Please register for the keynote lecture using this booking form by Tuesday 3rd November. Once registration has closed, you will be sent a link to join the virtual keynote.

Warwick is delighted to host the 32nd Annual, and 1st virtual, Women in German Studies conference on 5-7th November. The event will include a keynote lecture on “Scholarly Activism: The Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA) and Black German Studies in the United States” from Dr Rosemarie Peña (Black German Heritage & Research Association), which is open to all, as well as a PG/ECR workshop on "Finding your Academic Voice" and a special workshop on online teaching. The full programme and details of how to register can be found on the conference website (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/academic/ks/womeningermanstudies).

Over several years, working with Dr Benedict Schofield (KCL) James Hodkinson has curated an important volume of essays that asses the state of German Studies in education, but also in the worlds beyond it. Published by Camden House (Boydell & Brewer), James has written a blog reflecting on the book and its relevance. Read the entry here!

We've now got an SMLC LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13877964

The hope is that it will allow languages alumni to share their experiences of professional life after Warwick with fellow alumni and to offer advice and tips to current students. Join now!

Head of School Kate Astbury has an end of term message for finalists. You can listen to it here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/news/img_5704.mp4

We'll provide details of a virtual celebration of the end of term and of degree results in due course.

Stay safe, stay in touch and have a good summer.

Head of School Kate Astbury has an end of term message for intermediate-year students. You can listen to it here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/news/img_5703.mp4

We gathered together some ideas for keeping up language learning for our offer holders but many work for more advanced linguists too - take a look: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/applying/offerholder

Stay safe and have a good summer.

Head of School Kate Astbury has an end of term message for first years. You can listen to it here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/news/img_5702.mp4

We gathered together some ideas for keeping up language learning for our offer holders but many work for more advanced linguists too - take a look: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/applying/offerholder

We'll provide more suggestions of preparatory reading for year 2 in due course.

Stay safe and have a good summer.

Watch Hartmut Rosa's lecture from Friday 21^st February 2020

You may be aware that there was a shooting in Hanau near Frankfurt last night and that several people were killed.

If you have been affected in any way by what happened, please get in touch with us (either with Andrea Klaus or Elisabeth Herrmann, the Head of German, or your Personal Tutor). The counselling support is also available at counselling@warwick.ac.uk. The emergency phone number for the university is 024765-22222 (24/7).