School attracts international scholars for postdoctoral research

A record number of international postdoctoral researchers have joined the School of Modern Languages this year, attracting funding from Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and the British Academy.

The four Research Fellows are Francesco Chianese, Joanna Chojnicka, and Angela Tarantini who are all funded by MSCA and Forum Mithani who is funded by the British Academy. All researchers joined the School between August - November 2021.

The researchers’ work spans a range of diverse topics, and we are proud to welcome them to our global language community.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Francesco Chianese
Francesco Chianese, who has taught at Turin and California State University, Long Beach will be exploring the reconceptualization of Italian-ness in the context of the migration. His work, therefore, focuses on the literature and culture of the Italian diaspora and its transnational resonance. Chianese will be based at California State University, Long Beach for the first year of the fellowship before joining us in Cardiff for the second year.

Joanna Chojnicka
Joanna Chojnicka, who joins us from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, will look at Polish transition narratives published on selected social media (blogs and YouTube channels) in order to investigate their authors' use of multilingual and cultural/linguistic translation practices as they navigate local/global gender and sexuality discourses. The 'trans' disciplinary project explores the theoretical and methodological potential of the ‘trans’ prefix, binding together concepts from sociology and language and translation studies.

Angela Tarantini
Angela Tarantini will analyse the work of sign language interpreters-performers who translate a hearing-centric music world into a visual one by transposing songs and live concerts into sign language. Tarantini, who joins us from Monash University, Australia, aims to develop an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to analyse said practices from the perspective of translation and performativity, and to establish performativity as an element and a carrier of accessibility.

British Academy funding

Forum Mithani
Mithani’s three-year British Academy-funded project will use methods of feminist critical discourse analysis to examine representations of motherhood in Japanese literature, film and television drama. Joining us from SOAS University of London, Mithani’s work is grounded in the work of previous scholars of motherhood and feminist film studies. She will pay particular attention to the work of female writers and their adaptations to investigate the role of gender in the production and reception of these images.

Head of School Professor David Clarke has praised the efforts of colleagues and the School’s new Research Fellows for their success in securing this funding. He said, “These are highly competitive fellowship schemes and I know that the Fellows and their mentors in the School worked incredibly hard to develop these excellent projects. The work the Fellows will carry out over the next few years will not only be highly significant for their respective disciplines but will also create new conversations within the School that will stimulate the research culture here.”