The aim is for students to acquire full competence in the methodology of The Ph.D. Programme has at its core the written text analysed in its characteristics as a linguistic and literary product as well as a material object. Both the text and the material document(s) which preserve it are to be studied, as regards their format, materials, paleography, the history of their production, transmission and reading; and of course their textual aspect , metrics, rhetoric and the historical and cultural contexts of which each text is an expression. The five curricula cooperate for the study of such themes each according to specific aspects and to their individual aims and obiectives, as described below. Common to all curricula is an approach which has at its centre the text studied through the appropriate methodologies: textual criticism, palaeography, bibliography, literary and textual theorization, codicology, rhetoric, metrics and narratology. The aim of the Ph.D. programme is to form competent scholars capable of pursuing their research in their chosen field. Specific aims of the individual curricula are as follows: English-language literatures Curriculum The acquisition of up-to-date critical and exploratory skills that will allow candidates to pursue specialized researches in the fields of English language and literatures as well as in those cultural and disciplinary areas that are connected to them; the acquisition of competences a) in regards to the history and the periodization of literature, with a specific focus of the problems related to its main epochs, including the contemporary scene; b) the analysis of texts, developed in light of critical methodologies, with a special emphasis on those from the English-language world; c) the connection with theories of literature, and other literatures; d) the investigation of linguistic problems, approached both from a specifically communicative perspective and from a literary and non-literary point of view, on the basis of the instruments of contemporary stylistics and discourse analysis; e) the investigation of theories, methods, and approaches developed within Translation and Adaptation Studies, and especially those of the last 30 years; f) the study of theories, methods and approaches connected to the history of the English language, with a specific focus on linguistics and historical pragmatics. Research areas that will be pursue are the following: 1) Medieval English Literature 2) Shakespeare and dramatic language 3) Forms and objects of modern literary discourse 4) Contemporary voices 5) American Studies 6) Post-colonial Literatures 7) Comparative studies, including studies on the relation between the Bible and literary discourse 8) Translation Studies and literary translation 9) Adaptation Studies 10) History of the English Language 11) Historicalpragmatics and stylistics Curriculum in French Studies The curriculum of French Studies is designed to provide students with the mastery of critical and cognitive tools that enable them to develop specialized research in the field of French literature and linguistics, and of related cultural areas. The aim is to train skills 1) in the history of literature, with the focus of problems related to its main ages, including contemporaneousness 2) in the analysis of texts, put forward in the light of critical methodologies, especially French, developed in the last forty years 3) in the connection with the theory of literature, the humanities, the arts 4) in the investigation of language, both as means of communication and as literary function. For these purposes the training offer is divided into the following areas: 1) Poetics and methods of criticism 2) Types of literary genres 3) Issues of literary history 4) Paths of the imagination 5) Literature and Culture 6) Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives 7) Pathways and problems of the French language. Curriculum in Philology and Comparative Slavonic Literatures The main scientific and didactical aim of the Curriculum in Philology and Comparative Slavonic Literatures consists in ensuring the formation of young scholars in Slavonic studies with an expertise in philology and comparative literatures. The latter should provide them with the capacity of grasping the complex spectrum of cultural debates in Central and Eastern Europe from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period. The growing interest in Eastern Europe and the enlargement of the European Union to Eastern European countries call for the formation of young experts. A particular focus lies on literary history, linguistics and cultural history of the Slavic countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The doctoral candidates will be provided with critical instruments enabling them to investigate the relevant cultural debates from a fresh and original angle. Particular attention is devote to the history of inter-slavonic, bizantine-slavonic, slavo-romanic, germano-slavic, slavo-balkanic, and slavo-jewish relationships, as well as the dynamic of influence between literature, figurative arts, cinema and theatre. -Curriculum di Romance Philology The analytic study of literary texts written in Romance languages, with special attention for those written in the period of their first development: old French, Provençal, Italian early vernaculars, Portuguese, Galego-Portuguese, Castillan, Catalan and Rumenian Given its comparative nature this curriculum also welcomes research in .Iberic literatures and Italian literature. Curriculum in Paleographical Studies The aim is for students to acquire full competence in the methodology of Palaeographical studies and the issues it raises; in view of both scholarship and research and the preservation and valorization of the treasure of written texts which form the cultural inheritance of Italy and Europe. Through the study of written testimonies and of the material form which contains them (documents, manuscripts, stones etc.,) the students will refine their abilities to date and place written testimonies, identify the hands which wrote them, contextualize and evaluate the bearing of the testimony also to other disciplines (textual criticism, linguistics, art history, archaeology, history) so as to achieve a comprehensive reading and interpretation of the written document and its contextualization in the historical and social milieu in which they were produced. Curriculum in German Studies The curriculum of German Studies aims to focus the didactics on the cultural production of German language, relating it with culture and art of European and American Areas. The curriculum of German Studies intends to analyze specific literature texts and art phenomena of German language area in the general European context and therefore to compare it with other cultures, trying to pinpoint the common characteristics of a German (and eventually European) identity. Intercultural Studies The Research doctorate in Intercultural Studies is designed to promote investigation on the inter-exchanges of codes, paradigms, and on the interpretative and representational models generated by the encounter, the comparison and the clash of linguistic, philosophical, cultural and semiotic worlds, in a trans-disciplinary, trans-national and trans-lational perspective. It is directed to young scholars in the fields of linguistics, cultural and literary studies, italian studies, history of art, anthropology, who are interested in the diacronic and synchronic phenomena of cultural transfer, interference and interaction.