The International PhD programme in English Literatures, Language and Translation (SELLT), based administratively at Sapienza University of Rome and run in partnership with the University of Silesia in Katowice, is intended for students wishing to acquire up-to-date critical and cognitive tools for specialised research in English literature and linguistics, as well as in the related cultural and disciplinary fields. These areas correspond to the Italian national academic macro-area 10L/1, which includes English Linguistics and Translation, English Literature, and Anglo-American Literature.
The three-year programme draws on the teaching provision offered by both partner institutions, Sapienza and Silesia. This includes both transferable research skills, such as Academic English courses, teacher training, and courses exploring publishing practices relevant to early-career scholars entering academic life, and more specialised disciplinary training. In particular, the SELLT faculty promotes the following research pathways through the expertise available within the Board and through collaboration with Italian and international specialists in the relevant fields of study:
1) Studies on medieval English texts
2) Shakespeare and the dramatic language
3) Forms and subjects of modern literary discourse
4) Theatre Studies in the 21st Century
5) American Studies
6) Post-colonial literatures
7) Comparative Studies
8) Translation Studies
9) Audiovisual Translation
10) Adaptation Studies
11) Studies on Multilingualism and Language Varieties
12) History of the English language
13) Stylistics and historical pragmatics
14) English language teaching
An integral part of the SELLT programme is a period of study and training of Sapienza and Silesia students at the partner site, in order to provide a comprehensive international experience, which will also make use of the co-supervision of Sapienza and Silesia lecturers for the development of each PhD student's thesis.
The main objectives of the PhD are to train skills:
(a) in the investigation of the history and periodisation of literature, with the focus on problems relating to the main periods, including the contemporary period
b) in the analysis of texts, in the light of critical, stylistic, linguistic methodologies, especially of English-speaking literatures and cultures
c) in the investigation of theories of literature, and in the comparative connection with other literatures
d) in the investigation of linguistic problems, seen both in their communicative specificity and in their literary and non-literary values, through the tools of contemporary stylistics and discourse analysis;
e) in the investigation of the theories, methods and approaches of Translation and Adaptation Studies, especially updated to the last thirty years;
f) in the investigation of the theories, methods and approaches related to the History of the English Language, with particular attention to the studies of historical linguistics and pragmatics.