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Postgraduate Research
The Project has a successful record of attracting funding for PhD research through the Irish Research Council.
The Centre welcomes proposals for future research projects, whether on specific texts or on the Latin culture of Ireland in the period. Students register in History, Classics, or a related department and graduate with degrees in these disciplines (ote that it is not currently possible to graduate with a denominated degree in Neo-Latin). Students affiliated with the Centre participate in the Neo-Latin seminar, take courses at the Centre, and are expected to graduate with advanced knowledge of Latin, textual scholarship and relevant historical methods. The Centre offers to its postgraduates additional training in languages and research methods, as well as guidance for historical contextualisation. Further enquiries should be addressed to Dr Jason Harris: j.harris@ucc.ie
Four research students are currently studying at the Centre:
- Margaret Madden, Peter Lombard's De Hibernia Insula Commentarius (PhD programme, History Dept)
- Aislinn McCabe, The Politics of Culture in Fourteenth Century Padua: Mussato and the Cenacolo Padovano (PhD programme, History Dept)
- Alma O'Donnell, Irish Exorcists in the Catholic Reformation (PhD programme, History Dept)
- Anne McCarthy, Bonaventure Baron's Latin Correspondence (MPhil programme, History Dept)
Five PhD theses have been completed by students who have studied at the Centre in recent years:
- Jennifer Browne, Context and Rhetoric in Pierre Bayle's Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique (History/French Dept, 2013)
- Nóirín Ní Bheaglaoi, The Manuscript Tradition of Gerald of Wales's Topographia Hibernica (History Dept, 2012)
- Nienke Tjoelker, The Alithinologia of John Lynch (Classics/History Dept, 2011)
- Meghan King, The Hebdomada Mariana of Richard Stanihurst (Classics Dept, 2008)
- David Caulfield, The Tenebriomastix of Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare (Classics Dept, 2004)
The Centre also hosts with the School of History the MA in Renaissance Latin Culture.
Neo-Latin Seminar
The Neo-Latin Seminar meets on Wednesday evenings from 7.30-9pm during term time (September to April) to translate and build up commentary upon Irish Latin texts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
For details of the seminar group click here.
The location of the seminar is 1 Elderwood, College Road, Cork.
The topic of the forthcoming year's seminar is normally announced on this website in August or early September.
All are welcome to attend, whether simply to listen or to participate more actively. It is not necessary to have much knowledge of Latin since translations are offered of all texts; indeed, historians and literary scholars often attend to contribute contextual information about the texts under consideration. The atmosphere of the seminar is very convivial and we would be glad to welcome you for one night or for a longer period.
If you would like to do so, or even if you merely wish to get more information about the seminar, please do not hesitate to contact Dr Jason Harris: j.harris@ucc.ie
Spoken Latin
Learning to speak Latin is an excellent way to improve your ability to read texts with greater rapidity and to appreciate the nuances of style and idiom. It is thus a valuable pedagogical tool from which teachers and researchers alike can benefit.
For this reason, the Centre has established a Spoken Latin circle and also offers free classes each year for those who wish to learn the basics of how to speak the language. For more information on the development of the group, go to Spoken Latin.
Please note that the Centre only offers classes in Spoken Latin to those who already know the basics of Latin grammar. We do not teach Latin ab initio using Spoken Latin. We share the outlook of those who see speaking Latin as a helpful way to extend your capacity to understand the textual corpus of antiquity, the middle ages, and the renaissance; accordingly, we pay close attention to comprehension and active application of classical idiom and vocabulary rather than to learning to speak in an unstructured or unidiomatic way.
Anyone who is interested in studying the basics of the Latin language is advised rather to contact the Classics Department in University College Cork, where it is possible to enrol as an occasional student in the first-year Latin programme or to attend the world-renowned summer school, which covers two years of the basic Latin curriculum intensively over an eight-week period.
Members of the Cork Spoken Latin circle are taught to use reconstructed classical pronunciation. They vary from absolute beginners at speaking Latin to more experienced users of the language. We maintain links with other groups worldwide who teach and employ Spoken Latin. In particular, we would recommend that anyone who wishes to learn more about the value of and approach to using Spoken Latin for pedagogical purposes should consult the short film distributed by the University of Kentucky for that purpose. For the more adventurous, it is also possible to watch a documentary about the use of Spoken Latin in North American universities that is delivered entirely through the medium of Latin and offers a useful sample of the high level of competence that may be attained by Latin speakers.
Funding
The Centre's Renaissance Latin Texts of Ireland project is a unique enterprise of great importance to the history of Irish intellectual culture, but it currently lacks the basic funding that would allow us to maintain and develop its research activities.
We are seeking two different strands of funding:
- Overall project funding
- Large research grants from the Irish Government, the European Union, and private benefactors. These would allow us to advance to the next stage of the Renaissance Latin Texts of Ireland project.
- Targeted funding
- Small-scale private benefactions. At present, we are seeking benefactions to enhance the services we provide for the wider academic and cultural community through:
- expansion of our corpus of on-line texts
- establishment of a prestigious lecture series to introduce our research to the public and place it in an international context.
- Small-scale private benefactions. At present, we are seeking benefactions to enhance the services we provide for the wider academic and cultural community through:
Value for Money
The activities of the Centre are of central importance to Irish historians and literary scholars in an age in which advanced knowledge of Latin is increasingly rare. Scholars at the Centre have a record of high productivity and prestigious publications. All out-put that has been enabled by external funding is prominently acknowledged in our work. We are also willing to attach the name of significant benefactors to specific project activities or facilities, such as the proposed lecture series.
The Centre for Neo-Latin Studies is based in the Department of Classics, University College Cork, and is run in collaboration with the Department of History. A small core of academic staff can therefore be maintained without external funding. However, in order to pursue major research projects, such as the Irish Neo-Latin Project additional, external funding is essential.
The Centre has a strong record of gaining funding:
- In 2003 a major research grant was won from the Higher Education Authority for the Renaissance Latin Texts of Ireland Project
- Four postgraduate students have won IRCHSS scholarships to fund their research at the Centre
- Funding has also been secured through research awards within University College Cork
Copyright © 2009 Centre for Neo-Latin Studies, University College Cork
Last updated 02/16/2012 19:42:54
Last updated Tuesday, November 23, 2004 15:54:10