Major research grant enables exploration of sexual communication 

Former Newnham Research Fellow Laura Caponetto has been awarded a major grant for research on sexual communication, working with an international team including Fellow Rae Langton, Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. 

Dr Caponetto was awarded a €1.2million Italian Science Fund Starting Grant to lead a five-year research project, The Pragmatics of Sexual Communication and Its Ethical Implications, at the University of Milan, Department of Philosophy. 

With a cross-disciplinary team of philosophers, psychologists, and linguists, the project combines conceptual analysis and empirical investigation.  

Laura said, “I’m genuinely excited about the opportunity to work on sexual communication — a topic I care deeply about — from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

“Sexual communication is very much in the spotlight in Italy right now, as parliament is debating consent-based rape law reform and the introduction of relationship and sex education in high schools. The project will combine theoretical analysis and empirical investigation, with interviews and focus groups in schools, and I very much hope our findings will contribute meaningfully to this ongoing public debate.” 

The research will explore consent and other ‘intimate speech acts’, the ‘gray area’ of sex, disabled sexuality, and social narratives around sex and sexed bodies.  

“We’ll also collect brand-new data on how young Italians talk and think about sex, and how sexuality is represented across Italian media,” she said. 

Laura will be accompanied by a board of experts, including Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham), Francesca Dragotto (Rome), Lucy McDonald (King's College London), Mary Kate McGowan (Wellesley, MA), Robbie Morgan (Leeds), and Rae Langton (Cambridge). 

Professor Langton said the research award was a great achievement. Laura was Sarah Smithson Fellow and is very appreciative of her time at Newnham, which enabled her to kickstart her research on this and related areas. She has also been appointed an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Milan, starting in May. 

“Thank you and the College again for your invaluable support,” Laura added. 

Congratulations Laura, we look forward to hearing more about the research as it progresses.