Research Projects
All the academic members of the School of Modern Languages at St Andrews are actively engaged in research projects. Information on individual research interests can be found on the individual Staff profile pages.
Among recent and current externally-funded projects in the School of Modern Languages are the following:
Lectura Dantis
Two members of staff of the School are combining their individual research into different aspects of Dante’s poetry and the Dante Commentary tradition with a series of Lecturae Dantis: public readings and explanation of all 100 cantos of Dante’s Divine Comedy canto by canto, partly funded by the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh and the Society for Italian Studies and soon to be the subject of a major research funding bid. Contact Dr Robert Wilson: rpw@st-andrews.ac.uk, or visit the Lectura Dantis web site for the more information.
The Antillean Novel and the ‘Malédiction des Noirs’
Over the past 20 years or so, scholars have demonstrated that modern French Antillean fiction is systematically haunted by broad references to slavery, through a range of literary devices such as metaphor and narrative structure. Looking at the idea of slavery as a ‘Curse’, this project, funded by the British Academy, aims to show how a specific pattern of ‘haunting’ in literature of the late 20th and 21st centuries can be traced right back to pre-abolition constructions of slavery, imprinted on the beginnings of the Antillean imaginary nearly 400 years ago. Contact Professor Lorna Milne: lcm2@st-andrews.ac.uk
The Pronunciamiento in Independent Mexico, 1821-1876
Funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council), this is a three-year project on the pronunciamiento in Independent Mexico, 1821-1876 which aims to produce a major on-line relational database that includes transcriptions of over 1,500 pronunciamientos; publish three edited volumes on the origins, experience and memory of these forceful petitions; enable the funded PhD students to complete their dissertations successfully; and assist the project’s principal investigator in collating the data that will then be analysed in his monograph on the subject. This project has resulted in the emergence of a vibrant research team made up of two research fellows, two PhD students, and a designer / database developer. Contact Professor Will Fowler: wmf1@st-andrews.ac.uk and also see the Pronunciamiento project web pages.
A Medieval History of Film: Time, Visuality and the Human in German Cinema
This project, funded by the Humboldt Foundation and the Philip Leverhulme Trust, argues that medievalism – the reception of the Middle Ages – has been integral to the theory and practice of cinema since its inception. It shows that German cinema and German film theory in particular have persistently been interested in renewing the Middle Ages, particularly medieval concepts of time, believed to escape linearity and teleology; medieval methods of expression, seen to overcome the dominance of the written word; and medieval definitions of the human as alternatives to individual personal identity. Contact Dr Bettina Bildhauer: bmeb@st-andrews.ac.uk
Russian Crime Fiction: A Critical History
This project, funded by the Carnegie Trust, undertakes an in-depth study of the development of crime fiction in Russia, its socio-historical context, practitioners, and theoretical paradigms from its beginnings in the reform period under Alexander II (c.1860) up to its present-day flourishing. Contact Dr Claire Whitehead: cew12@st-andrews.ac.uk
Sentimental War-Heroes in Prussian-German Literature, 1750-2000
The main objective of this project, funded by the Carnegie Trust, is to disprove the common view that Prussian-German ideas of heroism were based exclusively on obedience and a stoic denial of expression. It offers a differentiated history of heroism in German literature which incorporates the tensions between obedience and insubordination on the one hand and stoicism and sentimentality on the other, which inform the writing of authors such as Lessing, Kleist, Fontane, Jünger and Heiner Müller. Contact Dr Michael Gratzke: mg43@st-andrews.ac.uk