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-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. A constituent institute of the

School of Advanced Study The School of Advanced Study (SAS), a postgraduate-only 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 ...

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. In October 2022, it changed its name to Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies.

History

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

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also 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, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

-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 wo ...

and

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

. 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 (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 as a native language. 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 clas ...

, 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 in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

and

cultural studies Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...

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

Comparative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

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 fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...

(the city-especially

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

, the virtual or imagined city,

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

s, the body,

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

German philosophy German philosophy, meaning philosophy in the German language or philosophy by German people, in its diversity, is fundamental for both the analytic and continental traditions. It covers figures such as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, ...

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 hist ...

, women's writing, Jewish writing, exile writing,

children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

and

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

). *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. She is regarded as one of the major voices of German-language literature in the 20th century. In 1963, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature b ...

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 thinker ...

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

*

{{coord missing, London School of Advanced Study Educational institutions established in 2004 Language education in the United Kingdom Research institutes of the University of London 2004 establishments in England