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Undergraduates

Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics

 

Resources and reading lists for prospective students

Modern and Medieval Languages 

see also History and Modern Languages and Linguistics


Books

  • The Language Instinct - Steven Pinker 
  • A Concise History of [X Country] published by Cambridge University Press
  • French/German/Italian/Russian/Spanish Literature: A Very Short Introduction published by Oxford University Press

General books: see Authors for language specific recommendations of literature (and film) 


Journals/articles

For newspapers in other languages, see links below in websites section


Authors

French

Text: Albert Camus L’étranger, Françoise Sagan Bonjour tristesse, Joseph Joffo Un sac de billes

Film: Jean-Luc Godard A bout de souffle, Mathieu Kassovitz La Haine, Laurent Cantet Entre les murs.

German

Text: Franz Kafka Die Verwandlung, Friedrich Dürrenmatt Der Besuch der alten Dame, Bernhard Schlink Der Vorleser. 

Films: Wolfgang Becker Goodbye, Lenin!, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Das Leben derAnderen, Marc Rothemund Sophie Scholl Die letzten Tage.

Italian

Text: Italo Svevo La coscienca di Zeno, Primo Levi Se questo è un uomo, Natalia Ginzburg Lessico famigliare. 

Films: Vittorio di Sica Ladri di bicicletta, Federico Fellini La dolce vita, Matteo Gorrone Gomorrah.

Portuguese

Text: José Saramago A viagem do elefante, Lygia Fagundes Telles Antes do Baile Verde, Luís Bernardo Honwana, Nós matámos o cão tinhoso.

Films: Margarida Cardoso, A costa dos murmúrios, Walter Salles Central do Brasil, Fernando Mereilles and Kátia Lund Cidade de Deus.

Russian

Text: Natalia Baranskaia A week like any other, short stories by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol Revizor

Films: Andrey Zvyagintsev Leviathan, Sergei Bodrov Prisoner of the Mountains, Andrei Tarkovskii Ivan’s childhood.

Spanish

Text: Federico García Lorca La casa de Bernarda Alba, Gabriel García Márquez Crónica de una muerte anunciada, Isabel Allende La casa de los espíritus.

Films: Guillermo del Toro El laberinto del fauno, Pedro Almodóvar Volver, Sebastián Leilo Una mujer fantástica.


Websites

General

French

German

Italian

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish


Video

See website links above 

Other

  • Netflix language films and series 
  • Mubi - films in many languages

History and Modern Languages


Books


Journals/articles


Websites


Video

HML at Cambridge - department video (YouTube)


Podcasts

Radio 4 - In Our Time


Linguistics

See the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics Preliminary Reading list