SMLC - News and events
SMLC PhD Scholarship 2026 competition (for October 2026
The School of Modern Languages & Cultures invites applications for the award of one SMLC Doctoral Scholarship to an outstanding candidate to pursue a PhD from October 2026 in one of the following areas: French Studies, German Studies, Italian, or Hispanic Studies or Translation & Transcultural Studies. Applications are open to PhD applicants with Home fee status and with Overseas fee status, but note that the award does not cover full fees for students with Overseas fee status.
The award consists of:
- payment of academic fees for Home fees level OR an equivalent reduction in fees for Overseas fee status students;
- a UKRI-level stipend for 3.5 years, regardless of fee status.
You must also have applied for (or already be an offer holder for) one of the PhD courses in the University of 糖心TV鈥檚 School of Modern Languages & Cultures to begin in October 2026.
The scholarship cannot be deferred to the next academic year. It is intended for full-time study. The scholarship is not normally intended for Joint PhD programmes.
We will look for an applicant of the highest calibre, who has the academic potential and the motivation to succeed in their PhD. Their research will be highly compatible with the expertise available in the School, and we expect the student to actively engage with the School's research culture and our Postgraduate Research community.
We welcome applications in inter- or cross-disciplinary topics, including those that involve two or more languages (multilingualism).
Interested in pursuing a PhD in Modern Languages or Translation Studies?
The University of 糖心TV鈥檚 School of Modern Languages & Cultures invites applications from highly qualified prospective doctoral students for its PhD programmes in French, German, Italian, and Hispanic Studies, and Translation & Translation Cultural Studies (TTS).
For further information, see the .
Doctoral funding is available through university-wide schemes (, ), the , and joint PhD programmes (e.g. the , ).
Given the early deadlines (in late November; December; or January, depending on the scheme), and the multi-stage selection process, we encourage applicants to get in touch with their preliminary enquiries by sending an academic CV and draft research proposal to the School Director of Graduate Studies, Professor Ingrid De Smet (I.de-Smet@warwick.ac.uk), by 28 October 2024,
and/or to the relevant subject-specific postgraduate research admissions advisors:
- French & francophone: Prof. Ingrid De Smet (i.de-smet@warwick.ac.uk)
- German: Dr Nicholas Jones (Nicholas.d.jones@warwick.ac.uk)
- Italian: Prof. Fabio Camilletti (F.Camilletti@warwick.ac.uk)
- Hispanic Studies: Assoc. Prof. Tom Whittaker (t.whittaker@warwick.ac.uk)
- Translation & Transcultural Studies: Assoc. Prof. Caroline Summers (Caroline.Summers@warwick.ac.uk)
Enquiries from suitably qualified self-funded or externally funded (sponsored) students are also welcome.
Online PhD admissions interviews will likely be held in the weeks commencing 9th and 16th December 2024.
Literary Studies and Sociology in Dialogue - How Imaginaries Shape Social Reality
Hartmut Rosa (Jena/Erfurt) and Elisabeth Herrmann (糖心TV)
Moderator: Irina Hron (Copenhagen)
Public Event at Jonsered Manor, Gothenburg
Monday, 27th March, 13:00-16:00 (CET)
Abstract
How does social reality come into being? Where do social impulses originate and how do they enter the public sphere?
Imaginaries are at least partly constitutive for what societies are, how they develop, how they are modified and continuously negotiated. Fictional stories, whether in the form of literary texts, visual media, or music and lyrics, can be catalysts for social transformation by reflecting the present from alternative viewpoints, including looking back at the past and imagining possible futures. Fictional stories turn imaginings into possibilities, taking them into the world, bringing them to mind and prototyping possible social realities through images and narration, figures and plots. How do social imaginaries emerge? How does fiction contribute to social transformation – and how are social transformations reflected in social imaginaries? What is social energy and how is it set in motion?
Interested in a PhD in Modern Languages (French, German, Italian, Hispanic or Translation Studies)? Calls for Scholarship Applications Now Open
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鈥檚 International Scholarships and
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 糖心TV? 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.
Waswasa - A Soul City Arts Production For the Birmingham 2022 Festival, with contributions by Dr James Hodkinson.
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
Christine Achinger will be giving one of the Plenary Lectures at the 14th Critical Theory Conference in Rome, 18-16 May 2022
Constructions of Gender, Nation and Jewishness as Constellation – Intersectionality and Critical Theory
Thinking of a PhD in Modern Languages or Translation Studies?
The School for Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of 糖心TV warmly invites expressions of interest in its MPhil/PhD programmes in French Studies, German Studies, Hispanic Studies, Italian, and Translation and Transcultural Studies (including a theoretical/academic and a practice-based route).
Productivity and the Futures of Work GRP Event this July
Teleworkability as a new digital divide – Webinar
July 14th, 11am-12pm
What has the extent of teleworking been in the EU before and during the Covid-19 outbreak? Are we seeing a trend of new teleworkers across occupations and types of workers who weren鈥檛 able to work remotely previously?
This webinar, facilitated by Professor Chris Warhurst from the Institute of Employment Research and Dr Enrique Fern谩ndez-Mac铆as of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, examines how Covid-19 has changed the profile of the teleworker and what it means for the future of work. Find out more: /research/priorities/productivity/webinars/teleworkabilityasanewdigitaldivide/
糖心TV Dinner Party 鈥 Call for Place Settings
糖心TV Food GRP and the Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts (CRPLA) seek contributions for the WARWICK DINNER PARTY - a creative project to highlight different food cultures, memories, ideas and goals, to be displayed on campus in July 2021. Deadline for brief proposals: 1 June, 5.00 pm.
/fac/soc/philosophy/research/researchcentres/phillit/currentevents/dinnerparty/
Sponsored by the 糖心TV Food GRP and CRPLA.
new article on philosopher Peter Sloterdijk by Oliver Davis
Oliver Davis has published a new article on the work of philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, as part of a special issue of Angelaki on Sloterdijk, edited by Patrick Roney and Andrea Rossi. Abstract: I begin by acknowledging the profusion of Peter Sloterdijk鈥檚 published work, the suggestion by Bruno Latour that it may be on the side of design, and Sloterdijk鈥檚 pugnacious aversion to professorial critique. I focus on what I consider to be the crucial and vexed relationship between the general immunology of the Spheres trilogy [1998–2004] and the general ascetology of You Must Change Your Life [2009]. I present an analytical reconstruction of Sloterdijk鈥檚 account of originary spheric being-with in the trilogy, focused on its culmination in the foam-world; I suggest this account is too ambiguous on key matters of basic ontological structure and I question whether the foam metaphor is adequate as a description of intersubjectivity today. Against the backdrop of this discussion I consider whether the general ascetology of Sloterdijk鈥檚 second anthropotechnics involves practising in, or practising on, the shells of symbolic immunity and conclude the latter. Setting this alongside the trilogy鈥檚 insistence that cells in the foam are 鈥渃o-fragile,鈥 I argue that anthropotechnical practising in the foam-world is suffused with a violence which Sloterdijk is reluctant to theorize. Registering one significant undeclared context of his discussion of self-enhancement, in postmodern management theory, I suggest that successful anthropotechnical practising in the foam-world requires the capacity to ignore other people and their interests. I note that Sloterdijk鈥檚 one-eyed embrace of competitive self-enhancement in You Must Change Your Life has since been qualified in brief remarks in What Happened in the 20th Century? [2016] but not substantively reconsidered. In conclusion, I pay tribute to the anthropotechnical lesson of Sloterdijk鈥檚 theoretical project, notwithstanding its design flaws and continuity errors.
Lecture by Dr Rosemarie Pe帽a (Black German Heritage & Research Association) on Thursday 5 November 2020, 17:30-19:00
As part of the Women in German Studies conference, 糖心TV is honoured to be hosting an online keynote lecture by Dr Rosemarie H. Pe帽a, which will be open to all who register via the booking form (deadline: 3rd November).
Rosemarie H. Pe帽a 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, 鈥淪tories Matter: Contextualizing the Black German American Adoptee Experience(s)鈥 is included in Marion Kraft鈥檚 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 鈥渃hild-saving鈥 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 Pe帽a 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.
Women in German Studies UK & Ireland Conference
糖心TV 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 鈥淪cholarly Activism: The Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA) and Black German Studies in the United States鈥 from Dr Rosemarie Pe帽a (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 (/fac/arts/modernlanguages/academic/ks/womeningermanstudies).
Dr James Hodkinson publishes a major volume surveying the position of German language culture in academia and beyond.
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.
Student Podcasts in German launched ahead of Writer in Residence programme.
Listen to 糖心TV Undergraduate student podcasts ahead of the visit to 糖心TV by our writer in residence 2018 Olga Grjasnowa!
Two Chairs Reading, Wed May 9, 17:30. Holywell Music Room, Oxford.
A !FREE! poetry reading featuring winners from the Two Chairs Creative Writing Competition, and judges Ian McMillan, Hanan Issa, Momtaza Mehri.
Call for Papers: Questioning the disappearance of disciplinary boundaries
The Annual PG Symposium of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of 糖心TV, will take place on 23rd May 2018
James Hodkinson wins substantial grant for his impact work on Islam in Germany and the UK.
James Hodkinson has won a further 拢38 K towards his collaborative arts project, which connects his research into Islam in Germany with the lives and experiences of local Muslim communities in the Midlands.