Modern and Medieval Languages

Dr Richard Riddick is a specialist in French literature and culture of the long nineteenth century, especially the novel. He is completing a book, A Madeleine for Dreyfus, about the relationship between mass democracy and literary form during the fin de siècle. He is a previous recipient of the Nineteenth-Century French Studies Association’s Naomi Schor Memorial Award. He studied French and film as an undergraduate at UCL before completing a PhD at Yale.

Daniela's research interests are tourism and travel literature, intercultural aspects of literature and gender studies.

In her PhD research at Ghent University and Luxembourg University, she examines the intricate interconnections between literary discourses and concepts of tourism.She is particularly interested in tourist ways of perceiving and writing about the world that manifest themselves as particular narrative strategies in the literary medium. Daniela focuses on 21st century German-speaking authors depicting travels to India such as Josef Winkler, Martin Mosebach, Ilija Trojanow, Hans Christoph Buch, and Felicitas Hoppe. Situated at the intersections of literary and socio-scientific discourses, her work follows a multi-perspectival theoretical approach, focusing on aspects of identity as well as social, cultural, ethnical and gender-specific differences.

I joined Lucy Cavendish College in 2020 as one of the first standard age undergraduates, studying French and Italian (ab initio). So far I have found MMLL at Lucy to be both an enjoyable and invigorating experience despite the backdrop of the pandemic. The MMLL course allows you to explore the many aspects of language and culture, from film to medieval literature. I have found the course, teaching and support links to be excellent. The learning format of supervisions, seminars and lectures has enabled me to accelerate my language skills, which has been particularly helpful for Italian. Over the course of this year, I have found Lucy to be such a welcoming and warm college. Everyone here from your Director of Studies to the porters are lovely and want to make sure you profit from your time at Lucy.

I thoroughly enjoyed my year at Lucy as an MMLL MPhil student. This incredible experience began with having the opportunity to work with internationally known experts in the field and carrying out research under high quality supervision. Furthermore, at Lucy, I found myself surrounded by lovely people who are passionate about their studies and are always ambitious to learn more. Inspiring conversations happen every day and everywhere, from breakfast to formal dinner. Besides study, Lucy has given me a sense of home. There are always people I can go to when I seek help in all aspects of my life. The friendship I made here is deep and strong.

I joined Lucy Cavendish College in 2022 as part of the second academic year of co-education admissions and study Modern and Medieval Languages (French and German). Even after just one term at Lucy Cavendish, I have thoroughly enjoyed my studies and have benefited enormously from the vast range of support available within the college and wider university. The MML course itself is very diverse in nature providing a wide variety of subjects, namely culture, literature, film, history among others. I find the contrast between larger lectures and classes to that of more individualised supervisions extremely beneficial for my academic progress. I have found Lucy Cavendish to be excellent in providing not only the academic but also pastoral support I have required throughout my first term at Cambridge. In addition, the college offers exceptional facilities such as the excellent library, which almost always has the books I need, as well as free gym access which I have found useful in establishing a healthy work/life balance. I look forward to seeing what the next three years of studying at Lucy Cavendish will bring me and the opportunities that I will be afforded in the future.  

I had already studied German and English for three years when I came to Cambridge as an Erasmus student to study German literature, German historical linguistics as well as first and second language acquisition. I love linguistics because it gives you an insight into the human mind, individual and societal development and our perception of the world. Furthermore, studying literature broadened my horizon immensely by confronting me with different historical periods and their authors and philosophers. At same time it appeals to me on an aesthetical level and stimulates my creativity. Studying these subjects at Lucy was a real pleasure! I love their beautiful library with its free coffee hours, the gardens, which are perfect for reading outside, and the friendly, international and empowering atmosphere of the place. The workload with all the essays is challenging indeed, but Lucy does everything to give you the support you need to succeed! Regarding the future, I am planning to become a secondary school teacher. I will use the credits from Cambridge to complete my Master at home and am also currently writing a book about teaching German grammar at school.

The objective of Rebecca's research project is to explore the role of ‘gossip’ in late 19th Century and early 20th Century Hispanic literature, in particular in the later novels of Emilia Pardo Bazán and Clarín’s La Regenta and José Rizal’s Noli me tangere. José Rizal was a contemporary of Clarín and Pardo Bazán in the Philippines. In its most obvious form, gossip operates as a thematic device for plot construction and internal ‘commentary’ on the nature and behaviours of characters in realist literature of the time. However, she would also like to explore gossip as a metaphor for the medium of the novel of this period, with a view to seeing what this lens, and theories on the psychology of gossip, might reveal.

Considering the etymology of the word ‘gossip’ and its Spanish equivalents, Rebecca has categorised her research into three, interdependent strands: gossip as dialogue, gossip as catechism and gossip as discourse. Sub-strands include (i) exploring gossip as a gender-neutral, positive exchange, for example, a mode for settling up imagined communities, (ii) gossip as the handmaid/manservant of the ’Symbolic’ in novels of the period and (iii) gossip as double-voiced discourse, its economics crossing the border between symbolic and social capital, feeding and/or eroding them both.