Faculty Research in Modern Languages
Overview
Byzantine and Modern Greek
Celtic
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Yiddish
Overview
The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages celebrated its centenary as an examination subject in 2006, but modern language studies in Oxford go back to the Renaissance, as is shown by the presence of important early printed books in Oxford libraries, such as two editions of Don Quixote published in 1605. The Taylor Institution is the largest separate modern European languages collection in Britain. It comprises well over 650,000 volumes, including 1,000 current periodical titles, and approximately 58,000 pre-1801 titles, including 56 incunables. Works on such related subjects as history, history of art, philosophy and theology are also bought by the Bodleian or by other libraries in Oxford. The Modern Languages Faculty Library and College libraries also contain significant modern languages collections.
The Faculty is now one of the leading centres for the study of European language, literature, and culture world-wide, offering expertise in the entire chronological range from the earliest times to the present day, and with specialists in film studies, cultural studies, and cultural history as well as in Byzantine and Modern Greek, Catalan, Celtic, Czech, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Brazilian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and Yiddish languages and literatures.
The Faculty has a number of specialist research centres, such as the Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment in the Voltaire Foundation and the Kafka Research Centre and currently hosts various externally funded major grant projects. The individual sub-faculties, as departments are called at Oxford, all have their own vibrant research cultures, including ‘clusters’ in a number of areas, as detailed below. Colleagues across the various languages work together too in various interdisciplinary projects, which bring specialists in language and literature together with historians, philosophers, and social studies scholars.
Byzantine and Modern Greek
The Sub-Faculty of Byzantine and Modern Greek has significantly widened its research scope in the last few years with the recruitment of scholars from abroad, such as Marc Lauxtermann, the Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature; Dimitris Papanikolaou, who specializes in cultural and gender studies; and Kostas Skordyles, an expert in Modern Greek history. Lauxtermann is a specialist in Byzantine poetry and metrics, but he has also written extensively on classical and post-Byzantine subjects; his next major research project is a historical commentary on the letters of Michael Psellos. Papanikolaou is particularly interested in Cavafy, but has also written on other twentieth-century subjects, such as singer-songwriters of the 50s and 60s, Greek youth culture in the 60s, the popular uses of Zorba the Greek, the representation of immigrants in recent Greek cinema, and New Queer perspectives on Greekness. Skordyles has written on minorities and national identity, but he is also doing research within the field of translation studies. The Sub-Faculty works closely with Byzantine and Greek specialists in the Faculties of Classics and History.
Celtic
There are important collections of Celtic material in Oxford, both in the Bodleian library and in the Taylorian Institution, which is the main Modern Languages library. Thomas Charles-Edwards (Professor of Celtic) works mainly on Irish and Welsh history up to the twelfth century and on medieval Irish and Welsh literature and law. His books include Bechbretha (with Fergus Kelly: an edition of an early Irish law-tract on bees), The Welsh Laws, Early Irish and Welsh Kinship, Early Christian Ireland, The Chronicle of Ireland. He is currently finishing vol. 1 of the Oxford History of Wales: Wales and the Britons, 350-1064. A principal aim of this book is to include the history of the language and the literature as major strands within a more general history.
Mark Zumbuhl was an undergraduate in Cambridge and then did a doctorate at Glasgow. He is working on medieval Irish narrative literature, but his interests extend to Cornish and Welsh.
Current and recent graduates have worked on a wide range of subjects from ancient Celtic religion or the Indo-European origins of Celtic down to nineteenth and twentieth-century Welsh literature. The main concentration is in Irish and Welsh medieval literature, but there is usually a group of graduates in History working on Celtic topics, and they also form part of the graduate community in Celtic.
French
The French Sub-Faculty at Oxford, which celebrated its centenary in 2006, comprises the largest cluster of French specialists in the world outside France and continues to sustain and foster research in most areas of French literary, cultural and linguistic studies, from the Middle Ages to the present. Through its connections with major research poles, including the Voltaire Foundation, the Maison Française d’Oxford, the Bodleian, Taylorian and other libraries, its staff exchanges with Université Paris-III and similar institutions, Oxford is a central point of reference in French Studies nationally and internationally. ‘Littérature française actuelle à Oxford (LFAO)’, with support from the Maison française, brings contemporary writers to Oxford to talk about their work and in some cases to engage with students. Major endowed lectures, particularly the long-established Zaharoff lecture, provide funds to bring leading figures to Oxford (Assia Djebar in 2004, Michel Butor in 2005, and Yves Bonnefoy in 2007).
Oxford has major strengths in French medieval studies (Sophie Marnette, and Helen Swift), the Renaissance (Richard Cooper, Ian Maclean and Wes Williams), the seventeenth century (Alain Viala, Richard Parish, Michael Hawcroft, and Richard Scholar), the Enlightenment period (Nicholas Cronk, Jonathan Mallinson, Angelica Goodden, Edward Nye, Caroline Warman, and Kate Tunstall), the nineteenth century (Roger Pearson, Timothy Farrant, and Ann Jefferson), the modern French poetic tradition (Patrick McGuinness, Katherine Lunn-Rockliffe, Toby Garfitt, Ian Maclachlan and Michael Sheringham), Francophone and post-colonial studies (Jennifer Yee, Toby Garfitt, Christina Howells, Ann Jefferson, Jane Hiddleston, and Michael Sheringham), modern French thought (Christina Howells, Michael Holland, and Ian Maclachlan) contemporary French writing (Michael Sheringham, Ann Jefferson, Marie-Chantal Killeen, Toby Garfitt, Jane Hiddleston, and Simon Kemp). Interdisciplinary research is also strong: Ian Maclean works on early modern law and medicine, Alain Viala on the sociology of literature, Ann Jefferson on changing notions of the literary as embodied in the treatment of authors’ lives, Michael Sheringham on the genealogy of the concept of the everyday, Michael Hawcroft and Alain Viala on performance in 17th century theatre. Other work bridging theatre, performance and the visual arts is carried out by Patrick McGuinness, Michael Holland, Edward Nye, and Wes Williams. The research of Angelica Goodden, Kate Tunstall, Jennifer Yee, Michael Sheringham, Reidar Due, and Marie-Chantal Killeen also embraces the visual, either in the form of aesthetic theory, painting, film or photography.
Oxford also has strengths in French Linguistics: J.C. Smith in historical linguistics and Ian Watson and Ros Temple in modern linguistics, all of whom contribute also to the research culture of the Faculty of Linguistics. French at Oxford was ranked first in its subject in the UK in RAE 2008.
German
The German Sub-Faculty at Oxford is one of the largest clusters of Germanists outside the German-speaking world. It sustains and fosters research in all periods and fields within German studies from the eighth to the twenty-first century, in linguistics and philology, history of the book and music, philosophy and theology, photography and film, intellectual and cultural history. It has many links with Universities and colleagues abroad, in particular with those in Germany, Switzerland, and the US.
Particular strengths include: medieval studies (Nigel Palmer, Almut Suerbaum, Annette Volfing), early modern studies (Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly), 18th-century studies (Kevin Hilliard, Katrin Kohl, Charlie Louth, Ritchie Robertson), 19th-century studies (Ritchie Robertson, David Groiser, and others), modernism (Anthony Phelan, Carolin Duttlinger, Ben Morgan, Ritchie Robertson, David Groiser, Tom Kuhn), German poetry of all periods (Kevin Hilliard, Katrin Kohl, Karen Leeder, Anthony Phelan, Charlie Louth, Carolin Duttlinger, Ritchie Robertson), and gender studies (Georgina Paul, Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly). Research on contemporary literature is another area in which Oxford Germanists are very active, with special lecture series and conferences and invitations to well-known writers to come and speak.
Research on German-Jewish writers is another major area of expertise (David Groiser, Anthony Phelan, Carolin Duttlinger, and Ritchie Robertson).
Oxford medievalists form part of a major interdisciplinary and international research project with the Universities of Freiburg i. Br, Fribourg (CH) and Geneva and Oxford entitled ‘Literarische Topographie von Südwestdeutschland im 14. Jahrhundert’, Oxford Germanists lead the Oxford Kafka Research Centre, and the following international research groups: Benjamin Encounters - the Oxford–Princeton Benjamin Research Group and the Search for Legitimacy: German Literature, Thought and Culture 1750-1850.
German at Oxford was ranked first in its subject in the UK in RAE 2008.
Italian
Since 2001 the Italian Sub-Faculty has grown to reach a historic high in terms of numbers of full-time staff, undergraduates, and research students. This expansion has substantially extended its research coverage, as outlined below. The Department is a major player in Italian studies nationally: Prof. McLaughlin and Dr Bonsaver are on the Executive Committee of the national subject association, the Society for Italian Studies (McLaughlin has been Chair since 2004), and from 2002 to 2009 McLaughlin was Chair of the Legenda Editorial Board (Legenda publishes several monographs a year on Italian literature and culture). In international terms too the department is a major point of reference: recent appointments have enhanced its links with university research networks particularly in Italy and North America.
Italian at Oxford has major strengths in research on Dante and medieval literature (Manuele Gragnolati), Renaissance studies (Nicola Gardini, Martin McLaughlin), 19th century literature (Giuseppe Stellardi, Emanuela Tandello), 20th century literature (Emanuela Tandello, Martin McLaughlin, Guido Bonsaver, and Giuseppe Stellardi), women’s writing (Emanuela Tandello), comparative literature (Nicola Gardini, Manuele Gragnolati), literary theory and philosophy (Giuseppe Stellardi, Nicola Gardini), cultural history and cinema (Guido Bonsaver). Italian Studies at Oxford is an interdisciplinary network for the study of Italy at Oxford University.
In the 2008 RAE the Italian Sub-Faculty maintained its position as one of the top departments of Italian in the UK.
Portuguese
The Portuguese sub-faculty at Oxford has one of the largest clusters of researchers into all aspects of Lusophone literature and culture in the United Kingdom. In its chronological coverage of Portuguese literature, from the Middle Ages to the present day, it is unparalleled outside Portugal and Brazil. In addition, it has developed considerable expertise in women’s writing.
Particular strengths in the areas of literature include medieval poetry, especially the Cantigas de Santa Maria (Stephen Parkinson), Renaissance poetry and drama, especially Gil Vicente, Sá de Miranda, António Ferreira and Camões, and neo-Latin literature (Tom Earle), twentieth-century literature (Cláudia Pazos-Alonso) and twentieth-century Brazilian literature (Claire Williams). Members of the sub-faculty have edited the first Companion to Portuguese Literature in English (Boydell & Brewer, 2010).
Other research interests: Stephen Parkinson is one of the few researchers in the United Kingdom to work on Portuguese linguistics, both synchronic and diachronic. He is also active in metrics and literary and linguistic computing. Tom Earle works on the history of the book, especially the presence of books written by Portuguese writers before 1640 in libraries in England. Cláudia Pazos-Alonso and Claire Williams share an interest in postcolonial Lusophone studies.
The sub-faculty has close links with a number of universities in Portugal and also with the Instituto Camões. The Oxford Centre for Portuguese Language/Instituto Camões has a regular programme of academic visitors. The recent appointment of Claire Williams to a University Lecturership in Brazilian Literature and Culture, the first such appointment in Oxford, is an indication of the sub-faculty’s growing commitment to Brazilian studies.
Russian and Slavonic
The Sub-Faculty of Russian and Other Slavonic Languages at Oxford is a thriving centre for research across the areas of literature, philology, linguistics, and cultural studies in Russian, Church Slavonic, Czech, Slovak, Polish, as well as in other Slavonic Languages. Research in the Sub-Faculty embraces a wide range of approaches and concerns. Mary MacRobert and Jan Fellerer undertake philological and linguistic investigations into the history and structure of a range of Slavonic languages, especially Russian, Old Church Slavonic, Bulgarian and Serbo-Croat, Polish and Ukrainian, and Jan Fellerer has also worked on the history of ideologies of language in Eastern Europe. James Naughton works on the languages, literature, and culture of modern Czech and Slovak. David Bethea has many publications in the field of Russian poetry, especially Pushkin, Khodasevich, and Joseph Brodsky, and is currently a co-editor of the new collected works of Pushkin being published in St Petersburg. Julie Curtis has published on Bulgakov and on Zamiatin, Michael Nicholson is internationally known for his work on Solzhenitsyn, but has also published on Varlaam Sharlamov and on Socialist Realism. Andrew Kahn is a specialist in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literature and history of ideas, and also on Russian poetry more broadly. His publications include a major study of Pushkin’s lyric poetry, work on the dissemination of Western literature and culture in Russia, and numerous studies of twentieth-century Russian poetry. Andrei Zorin is a noted literary historian and literary critic whose publications include a study of Russian official ideology at the turn of the nineteenth century, work on the history of emotions in Russia, and studies of the leading literary historian and thinker Lidiya Ginzburg. Philip Ross Bullock’s work on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian culture includes studies of Andrei Platonov, of the reception of Russian culture in Britain, and of Russian music, in particular the art song, and its relations with Russian literature. Catriona Kelly has published widely on Russian cultural history and Russian literature, including Russian modernism, and also gender studies, and most recently the history of everyday life, particularly of childhood. She is currently working on a study of local identity and cultural memory in Leningrad/St Petersburg since 1957.
The Sub-Faculty is host to a number of international projects: ‘National Identity in Russia from 1961: Traditions and Deterritorialisation’ (funded by the AHRC); ‘Time and Space in Russian Culture’ (a network with UCL and the EHESS/CNRS, Paris), with the participation of colleagues from German universities; and a critical edition of the works of Osip Mandelstam. Professor Kelly is the director of the Centre for Russian Life History (www.ehrc.ox.ac.uk/lifehistory). Mary MacRobert is collaborating with colleagues in Vienna on an edition of a Glagolitic manuscript discovered in S. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai in 1975.
Russian and Slavonic was ranked second in its subject in the UK in RAE 2008.
Spanish
The Spanish Sub-faculty, which celebrated its centenary in 2005, is one of the largest centres in the United Kingdom for research into the literatures and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. It fosters research in most areas of literary, cultural and linguistic studies from the Middle Ages to the present day. The creation of new posts in recent years has reinforced Oxford’s historic strengths and also extended the range of specialist expertise and critical approaches, further enhancing opportunities for research collaboration, interdisciplinary activity and graduate supervision. Oxford has particular strengths in the following areas:
Modern Spanish studies (Robin Fiddian, Laura Lonsdale, Xon de Ros):
Romanticism; fiction from Galdós to the present; modern poetry; fin de siglo; the avant-garde; cinema, painting and visual culture; Spanish Republican exile theatre; cultural studies, literary theory, women’s writing. The recurrent appointment of Queen Sofia Research Fellows in Modern Spanish Literature provides a further research strand in this area.
Spanish American studies (Robin Fiddian, Clive Griffin, Dominic Moran, Edwin Williamson): Cultural history; postcolonial studies; politics and literature; ‘civilization and barbarism’; identity and modernity; the avant-garde; magic realism and the fantastic; contemporary fiction; the new historical novel; modern poetry; biography and memoir.
Golden Age studies (Jonathan Thacker, Colin Thompson, Edwin Williamson). Theatre and performance studies; poetry; fiction; visual culture; literary and aesthetic theory; political philosophy; religious thought.
Medieval studies (Juan Carlos Conde, Geraldine Hazbun): Epic; historiography; poetry; sentimental fiction; the editing of texts, palaeography, manuscript studies.
Linguistic and philological studies (Paloma Garcia-Bellido, Juan Carlos Conde): History of the language; historical morphology; phonology; linguistic theory; the biological bases of human language.
A thriving research environment is sustained by a variety of activities, guest lectures, seminars and projects in collaboration with national and international partners, e.g. Jonathan Thacker is a director of the AHRC-funded project, ‘Out of the Wings: Spanish and Spanish American Theatre in English Translation’ with researchers at Kings College London and Queen’s Belfast. A research network with the universities of Münster, Navarra, and Sorbonne Nouvelle on ‘Autoridad y Poder en el Siglo de Oro’ is now beginning its second cycle of colloquia on ‘La critica del poder’. The Magdalen Iberian Medieval Studies Seminar, directed by Conde, regularly invites distinguished Hispanomedievalists. The annual Iberian Studies Forum, now in its 13th consecutive year, explores topics relevant to the Peninsula’s various languages and cultures. Clive Griffin and Juan Carlos Conde are members of the Bodleian’s Centre for the Study of the Book, and regularly collaborate with specialists abroad. Paloma Garcia-Bellido is engaged in a collaborative project on the relationship between genetic and language disorders in human development.
Yiddish
Oxford is one of only a few places in the United Kingdom for the research and study of Yiddish in both its linguistic and literary aspects, connecting the expertise of colleagues across different faculties. Kerstin Hoge, a postholder in both the Modern Languages Faculty and the Linguistics Faculty, has a research interest in Germanic syntaxwhich involves work on Yiddish, and she has also worked on Yiddish children’s writing and the role that Yiddish played in the construction of a secular Jewish identity during the inter-war years in Eastern Europe. Jordan Finkin (Oriental Studies & Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies) is interested in the interrelationship between Hebrew and Yiddish, in particular as it manifests itself in modernist poetry.
Yiddish resources at Oxford include an important collection of early Yiddish printed books in the Bodleian (containing in many cases the only extant copy), as well as the Whitechapel-Schweizer Yiddish collection in the Taylor Institution Library. This incorporates ca. 3,000 books that formerly belonged to the Whitechapel Public Library and thus preserves what was the reading library of the Jewish immigrant community of East London. Yiddish research culture at Oxford is reflected in the volumes published in the Legenda ‘Studies in Yiddish’ series.