PhD in Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures: Diversity and Inclusion

1. DESE - European Literatures 
2. EDGES - Women's and Gender Studies 
3. World Literature and Postcolonial Studies 
4. LINGMOD - Modern Languages Studies

Curriculum 1: DESE - European Literatures

DESE is a PhD curriculum training young researchers (specialists) who will master the map of the literary topoi characterizing the European tradition from the Middle Ages to the present, and will be able to engage with different methods of analysis in several languages. The approach is supernational and students will be integrated in an international research environment benefiting from agreements with foreign academic institutions. The research project and the thesis will include at least three European literatures whose language the candidates are supposed to master. For the 41st cycle research projects must be focused on the literary representation of reading and the analysis of its self-reflexive potential. These aspects will be addressed from different perspectives: from psychoanalysis to literary sociology, from gender studies to cultural studies, from the history of the book (the study of reading) to the interdisciplinary connections with the visual arts and cinema, the role of translation as an act of reading and interpretation par excellence will also be considered.

The official language of the programme is French, whose knowledge is compulsory, irrespective of the literatures chosen for the dissertation project. The thesis may be written either in French or English; the final discussion must be carried out in the languages that the candidate is required to know. 

Curriculum 2: EDGES Women’s and Gender Studies

EDGES concerns the study of literatures and cultures, methodologies and theories in the field of gender studies as a site for the production, circulation and consolidation of cultures of equality, valorisation of diversity and social inclusion. The programme has at its core literary history and criticism, cultural studies, critical theories of gender and women’s studies, literature as a space for the production of critical thinking, analyses of texts and their interpretations in different literary genres and in their cultural-historical context. The 41st PhD research cycle explores reading as a cognitive, creative, and emancipatory act, capable of conferring agency on women and individuals historically excluded from cultural practices. An instrument of existence and resistance, reading is configured as a space of self-perception and plural identities, as well as a transformative strategy that redraws cultural and political boundaries. Analysing the reader as both an active participant in the production and circulation of literature and as a figure represented in the texts (literary and visual), the research path, also conducted in a diachronic manner, analyses reading as a moment of individual reflection and of construction of shared communities, real and imaginary.

EDGES includes a compulsory internship on the theme of equal opportunities, access to education and valorisation of diversity. Languages: during the oral test, knowledge of Italian and English will be assessed. Knowledge of Spanish is required, which may be improved in the course of the doctorate through co-tutorship agreements with Spanish universities. The language of the doctoral thesis is English.

Curriculum 3: World Literature and Postcolonial Studies (WorldLit)

The curriculum proposes a transversal inquiry aimed at reflecting on the relationship between theoretical instances born in different historical moments and, therefore, ontologically different, but in dialogue and at the center of transdisciplinary critical paths. In line with the framework of the Ph.D., it is open to studies focused on themes that, although different, remain inscribed in a multifaceted and interconnected historical becoming: decolonization, cultural and linguistic diversity, inclusion and citizenship, migration, traditions and social innovation, hyper-diversity, ecologically complex environments and cultural heritage, also from a transcultural perspective. Literary practice is seen as an articulated phenomenon at the center of local and global processes of distribution and dissemination that affect the relationship between culture and territories/and/or, rethinking dominant systemic models in light of ethical and plural pathways. The concept of “literary form” will be considered from diachronic and synchronic perspectives, sensitive to the reader''s pathways of reading, enjoyment and involvement. The theme around which the proposals for cycle 41 should develop is reading as a cognitive, creative and emancipatory act. As an instrument of existence and resistance, reading is configured as a space of self-perception and plural identities, as well as a transformative strategy that redraws cultural and political boundaries. By analyzing the readers as active participants in the production and circulation of literature and as figures represented in literary and visual texts, the research, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, addresses reading as a moment of individual reflection and construction of shared communities, real and imagined, as well as, theoretically, a moment of analysis of literature through more formal methodologies of texts such as, for example, close reading.

Curriculum 4: LINGMOD - Modern Languages Studies

This curriculum involves scientific and research expertise on modern languages from the perspectives of pragmatics, communication, translation and translation theory, aiming to train specialists in at least two languages in different theories and methodologies. It aims to develop a high level of scientific expertise, as required to tackle linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as the big social challenges implied by multicultural, intercultural and multilingual societies. The projects submitted for the 41st cycle of the PhD programme must address topics connected with the ideas of Reading: representations, practices and potentials. Research will explore reading as an act that is capable of attributing agency to subjects who are historically excluded from cultural practices. Through an interdisciplinary approach, which combines tools from sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, translation studies and cultural studies, research will focus on the way readers become active participants in the production and circulation of discourse and texts (including translations), but also on their function as recipients and their representation.

The curriculum prioritizes the study of language and languages in context/ in action, especially their intertwining with sociocultural issues relevant to the topic referenced above.   

A variety of approaches (sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, interactional linguistics, linguistic anthropology, applied linguistics, language acquisition, translation studies and digital humanities) may be adopted.    

Languages: the interview will ascertain knowledge of two of the following languages, chosen by the applicant: Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, English, Dutch, Spanish, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, German. Knowledge of Italian is a mandatory prerequisite, besides two languages chosen from this list.