Classics and Modern Languages
Academic Staff
Fellows
Dr Armand D'Angour is the Fellow and Tutor in Classics. His interests include most areas of Greek and Latin language and literature, as well as ancient Greek music, psychology and sociology. He is an enthusiastic promoter of the Classics and its value in the modern world. He is completing a book on the idea of novelty in ancient Greece.
Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards is a Professorial Fellow in Celtic. His research interests include the early medieval history of Ireland and Wales, and, to a lesser extent, Scotland and England. He has just finished a history of Ireland from c 400 to c 850 and is beginning work on vol. 1 of the Oxford History of Wales.
Professor Katrin Kohl is the Fellow and Tutor in German. She teaches German literature from 1750, with a particular interest in the way literature interacts with the society and culture of its time and communicates with the reader. Her current research focuses on eighteenth and twentieth century poetry and poetics, and on the theory and practice of metaphor as a means of shaping concepts of literary communication. She also has a strong interest in language teaching and has published language courses from beginner to university level.
Dr Caroline Warman is the Fellow and Tutor in French. Her main research interests lie in the literature, history of ideas and medical discourses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Her first book was on Sade and materialism (2002); she is now working on Diderot and theories of consciousness in the 1790s. She is also translating the novels of Isabelle de Charrière. She mainly teaches literature and thought in the modern period but also offers (and enjoys!) the span of first year texts, from medieval to modern. Her language teaching specialises in translation into and out of French.
Lecturers
Dr Teresa Morgan, a Fellow in Ancient History at Oriel College, is a Lecturer for Jesus. Her work covers many aspects of the relationship between literature and society in antiquity, cultural and intellectual history and early Christian history. She is the author of Literate education in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds (1998), and Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (2007).
Dr Nicola Gardini is a Lecturer in Italian for Jesus who teaches on Renaissance and the classical legacy and XIX- and XX-century poetry. His research interests lie in the Renaissance, poetry and translation. He writes poetry and fiction and co-edits the monthly magazine "Poesia", based in Milan, and the online magazine "Il Calzerotto Marrone", based in Padua.
Dr Julie Curtis, a Fellow in Russian at Wolfson College, is a Lecturer for Jesus. Her research interests lie in twentieth-century Russian literature, especially Mikhail Bulgakov and Evgenii Zamiatin. She has also published on the literature of the Gorbachov era.
Dr Jonathan Thacker, a Fellow in Spanish at Merton College, is a Lecturer for Jesus who teaches mainly in the literature of the Golden Age, or early-modern period. He writes principally on the drama produced by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca and their contemporaries, and on the works of Cervantes.
About the Course
Classics and Modern Languages enables you to combine study of either one or both of Latin and Ancient Greek with one modern language (French, German, Modern Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Czech, Celtic). The course involves extensive study of major literary texts, alongside training in linguistic skills. You must decide at the time of application whether you wish to take the 3-year or the 4-year course (not counting the year abroad). Beginners' Russian is not available.
Oxford has the largest classics department in the world, with unparalleled teaching, library and museum resources and a range of extracurricular activities, including performances of Greek plays and various societies. The Modern Languages Faculty is one of the largest in the country, with a major research library (the Taylorian) and a modern, well-equipped language centre fitted with satellite and computer-assisted language learning facilities. Undergraduates will also have the opportunity to develop oral proficiency in the modern language by regular contact with native speakers. Students take a year abroad in a foreign country before their final year.
Most undergraduates spend their year abroad as a paid language assistant in a foreign school. Colleges assist in arranging these placements, and colleges or the Modern Languages Faculty may also provide financial support. College support may also be available to help undergraduates with academically related travel to Italy or Greece.
Your time is divided between lectures, language classes, tutorials and private study. Most of your work will be in preparation of essays for your tutorials, although the systematic reading of literary texts, not necessarily aimed at any particular tutorial, also requires a considerable input of time and effort.
Admissions
School record, GCSEs, A Level results, if available, written tests and interviews all play a part in the selection of candidates. In a total College entry of about 100 men and women, 4 are offered places in a typical year to read Classics and joint schools. Offers made to post-A Level candidates will usually be unconditional. Applicants studying both classical languages to A Level, or only one, are equally welcome, as are those who may have only studied to GCSE level.
Written Work: In Classics, candidates submit two essays or commentaries. For Modern Languages, two pieces of written work should also be submitted. At least one piece should be an essay written in the language you are applying to study. The submitted work should have been marked by a teacher.
Written Tests: On the classics side, option 1 candidates applying to take the Modern Languages Prelim will be required to sit an A-level standard test either in Latin or in Greek (see the entry for Classics). Option 2 candidates applying to take Classics Mods Course I will be required to sit a written test or tests for Classics (see the entry for Classics). Option 2 candidates applying to take Classics Mods Course II will be required to take the Classics Language Aptitude test (see the entry for Classics). All candidates will be required to sit a short written test (30 minutes) in the modern language. This test aims to assess your grasp of the basic grammar of the language you intend to study. It is not a test of vocabulary.
Deferred Entry: Applications may be made for deferred entry to Jesus College. You must apply for deferred entry at the time of application to Oxford: you cannot change your mind after an offer has been made. Please refer to departmental web sites for subject-specific advice. Applicants who are offered places for deferred entry will be among the strongest of the cohort for their subject. We would not usually offer more than one deferred place per subject in order not to disadvantage the following year's candidates. In some cases, an applicant for deferred entry may be offered a place for non-deferred entry instead. If you require any further advice, please contact the Admissions Officer.
Postgraduate Studies and Careers
In Oxford there is a larger concentration of teachers of classical subjects, and of graduate students, than anywhere else in the world. The following degrees are offered at postgraduate level:
- MLitt or DPhil Classics
- MPhil or MSt Greek and/or Latin Language and Literature
- MPhil or MSt Greek and/or Roman History
Oxford has a large, varied, and active teaching and research community in Modern Languages. There are over ninety members of the Faculty, with research interests spread across the full chronological range of the languages and into most areas of linguistics and literary study. The College welcomes applicants for all postgraduate degrees in Medieval and Modern Languages. The following degrees are available:
- MSt, MPhil or DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages
- MSt, MPhil or DPhil Celtic Studies
- MSt or MPhil Slavonic Studies
- MSt Women's Studies
- MSt Yiddish Studies
Graduates in Classics and Modern Languages go on to a wide variety of careers, including the media, teaching, acting, management, advertising and librarianship.
Preliminary Reading and Further Information
Further information about Classics and Modern Languages at Oxford can be found on the Faculty of Classics and Faculty of Modern Languages web sites and the University's Undergraduate Courses pages.
Last updated May 2009
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