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 and for the 40 cycle proposals will have to focus on the role and destiny of archives (manuscripts, correspondences etc.) or public and private libraries (book heritage, collections of magazines and periodicals, etc.). 

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. PhD research in the 40th cycle focuses on cultural heritage broadly intended, as a perspective in which the local and the global intersect and redefine each other. The research will focus on the production of memories, counter-memories and genealogies of women and subjects long silenced in cultural texts and contexts through their circulation, revitalisation and remediation from the early modern age up to the contemporary and post-contemporary. The cultural heritage will be analysed to rethink ways of narrating, selecting and preserving in which gender issues are made central in an intersectional perspective. Projects may be based on approaches including trauma studies, ecocriticism, cultural heritage and cultural studies, always following the methodologies and theories of gender and women’s studies.

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 path of inquiry aimed at reflecting on the relationship between theoretical directions born in different historical moments and, therefore, ontologically different, but in dialogue and at the center of transdisciplinary critical paths. WORLDLIT opens up 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, hyperdiversity, ecologically complex environments and cultural heritage, also from a transcultural perspective. Added to this is a view of literary practice 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" may be considered from diachronic and synchronic perspectives, sensitive to the reader's pathways of reading, enjoyment and involvement. For the 40th cycle, a critical reflection on the theme of "cultural heritage" is proposed, starting from a broad conception of the term, understood in a material and intangible sense, and in relation to natural heritage. WORLDLIT welcomes proposals that investigate this concept through world literature, opening up to the complexity and multiple dialectics of inhabiting the world. At the same time, research projects are invited to investigate the in-depth study of literature considered as "cultural heritage", whose ever-changing articulation is connected to contexts, strategies of production, circulation and re-vitalization, removals and shadow zones. Paths focused on old and new forms of orality, epistemologies and alternative ecologies are also accepted in this theoretical framework.

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 40th cycle of the PhD programme must address topics connected with the ideas of the cultural and natural heritage between local and global: texts, contexts, and speeches. 

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.

Appointed by RD n. 802 Prot. n. 0143275 of May 23rd, 2024