The Institute of Modern Languages Research is a research institution associated with the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. A constituent institute of the

School of Advanced Study The School of Advanced Study (SAS), a postgraduate institution of the University of London, is the UK's national centre for the promotion and facilitation of research in the humanities and social sciences. It was established in 1994 and is ba ...

based on the second floor of the Senate House, the Institute of Modern Languages Research promotes and facilitates national and international collaborative, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural research by means of seminars, lectures, workshops, colloquia, conferences, a fellowships programme, and its various research centres.

History

The Institute of Germanic Studies was founded in 1950 to promote and facilitate the study of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

-speaking cultures. It was joined in 1989 by the Institute of Romance Studies, which was founded to promote and facilitate the study of

Romance language The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language f ...

-speaking cultures. The two institutes were merged in 2004 to form the new Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies. It became the Institute of Modern Languages Research in 2013, when its Euro-centric focus began broadening significantly to encompass the study of all languages currently spoken around the world. The institute has since also come to engage directly in emerging interlingual and inter-disciplinary topics such as

translingualism Translingual phenomena are words and other aspects of language that are relevant in more than one language. Thus "translingual" may mean "existing in multiple languages" or "having the same meaning in many languages"; and sometimes "containing word ...

and

translation Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

. From April 2021 it has further broadened its scope as it has included Latin American Studies through the establishment of the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), formerly the

Institute of Latin American Studies The Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) was one of nine research institutes that comprised the School of Advanced Study at the University of London. It was located in the landmarked Senate House building in Bloomsbury, central London. F ...

(ILAS).

Degrees

As well as offering doctoral supervision, and co-supervision as a member of the London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP), the institute currently offers a Masters by Research postgraduate degree MRes in Modern Languages. Research degrees are offered in the

modern languages A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such ...

, broadly conceived. The institute has significant expertise, archival strengths and student funding in its historical focus: * Germanic Studies (

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

and cultural studies) * Romance Studies (French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese language, literature and cultural studies) *

Comparative general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...

and

Interdisciplinary studies Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

(The City-especially

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...

, The virtual or imagined city,

Border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

s, The body,

Psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

German philosophy German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Gottfried ...

and

history of ideas Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual his ...

, Women's writing,

Jewish writing Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Exile writing Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

Children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

and

Feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

). *Latin American Studies However, along with the new, broader remit of the institute, the range and fluidity of its expertise have also increased significantly in recent years.

Affiliated research centres

Several research centres are affiliated with the institute, including * Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory * Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing *

Ingeborg Bachmann Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. Biography Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her f ...

Centre for Austrian Literature * Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies * Centre for Quebec and French-Canadian Studies *

Ernst Bloch Ernst Simon Bloch (; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers ...

Centre for German Thought * Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS)

Events and activities

The institute organises and hosts a large number of events around the year, promoting and facilitating research into a very broad range of modern languages and Latin American studies topics. The vast majority of these events are free of charge and open to everyone, from scholars and students of London colleges and universities, to interested members of the public. These events draw leading scholars in Modern Languages and Latin American Studies from around the United Kingdom and world to London to share their findings.

Fellowships

The institute is also host to a large number of stipendiary and non-stipendiary fellowships, which allow leaders in modern languages and Latin American studies research fields at various stages of their careers to spend time at the institute, undertaking advanced research production, promotion, and facilitation activities.

Resources in Latin American Studies

Through its Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the IMLR hosts and curates a range of digital, open access resources that seek to facilitate research in the field of Latin American studies. These include:
Research Portal

Library and E-Resources

The Caribbean Studies Collection

The Legal Cultures of the Subsoil Database

References

External links

*

{{Authority control School of Advanced Study University of London Educational institutions established in 2004 2004 establishments in England