Alexander Winkler
During my postgraduate studies, MA in Classics at the University of Munich, I decided to take an intercalated year in order to embark on the "MA in Culture of the European Renaissance" at Warwick University in 2012-2013 - a decision I can warmly recommend to anybody. The MA at the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance offers a precious interdisciplinary approach to Renaissance studies in their multifaceted and intriguingly vast entirety. The sessions of the Core Module provide an efficient survey of the most important aspects of Renaissance culture and whet the appetite to learn more and delve into further research, which can be elaborated through various essays that must be written during the modules. The feedback I received from the supervisors was very knowledgeable, acute and helpful and I right from the beginning had the impression that they really cared about the students’ work.
Although Warwick - as a fairly recent university - does not hold as important a library stock as some other universities, its relative vicinity to London, Oxford and Cambridge makes sure that you can get hold of any sources you need for your research. The atmosphere at the Centre is welcoming, warm and enjoyable and talking to students and staff never fails to inspire you, as all of them are pursuing their own interesting individual research projects. For me the Centre seemed sort of a melting pot of interests, competences, methodologies and characters. There were also very tempting ERASMUS exchange possibilities and collaborations with other universities abroad I could have benefitted from. But even if one - as I did - decides not to leave Warwick in order to venture out into other parts of the academic world, one feels by no means cut off or isolated. On the contrary, the Centre regularly invites distinguished scholars from other institutions to deliver evening lectures and stimulate interesting discussions. After the MA at Warwick I finished my degree at Munich and went then on to start a PhD in Romance literature at the FU Berlin. In my everyday research I constantly realise how much I learnt from the people I met at Warwick."
Texts & Contexts VII, The Influence of Vernacular Discourses on Neo-Latin Literature
Date: 21st - 23rd April 2016
Location: Innsbruck, Austria
Organisers: Florian Schaffenrath (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck), Alexander Winkler (FU Berlin)
