SMLC - News and events

This winter, Warwick is hosting an exciting festival of Latin American Film screenings, each followed by debate and discussion. Screenings are FREE and open to all. Download the programme (PDF) for dates and venues. Please contact organiser Sofia Mercader (s.mercader@warwick.ac.uk) for more information.

The Cultural Engagement Fellowship is a three-month position beginning 15 February 2016, based in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University Of Warwick.

Professor Menezes's paper, entitled 'Out of the Labyrinth? Television Memories of Revolution and Return in Contemporary Portugal' will examine the role of television nostalgia as a potentially productive form of cultural memory. It will focus on RTP's populist series, Depois do Adeus, which charted the return of settlers, or retornados, from Angola to metropolitan Portugal following the 1974 Revolution and the declarations of independence in former Lusophone African colonies. Click on the headline to see the full programme!

Warwick’s new Academy (Warwick International Higher Education Academy) was set up in 2015 to champion inspirational and effective teaching at the University. During this year a number of staff were nominated as Foundation fellows, including Teresa MacKinnon from the Language Centre at SMLC. Further information about the possibilities that will be supported by the Academy can be seen here:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/about/

Find out what the Academy can do for you.

Dr. Guo said: I am very pleased that my reflective practice and efforts have been recognised by Higher Education Academy. I recommend all my colleagues to experience this joy of being a teacher. I have been teaching languages in higher education in China and in all sectors of education in the UK for the past twenty years. Being interactive, supportive and research-informed have been my teaching principles. It is fun to use blended learning to enable students to become competent and confident learners taking charge of their own Chinese learning for their future personal and professional life.

Hispanic Studies have launched a research blog, where you can read about new research by members of the department. Read the first entry, Rosalía de Castro, un reto para los estudios hispánicos, by Honorary Associate Professor Helena González (Universitat de Barcelona) now!

Many congratulations to Deirdre McMahon, student taking the MA in Translation, Writing and Cultural Difference, who has had her translations of two poems by Austrian-Slovene writer, Maja Haderlap, published in Berlin-based journal, No-Mans-Land: see http://www.no-mans-land.org/issue10.htm.

Warmest congratulations to Kate Willman in Italian Studies, who had a very successful PhD viva on 26th November. Kate's thesis, entitled 'New Italian Epic: History, Journalism and the 21st Century "Novel"', was examined by Ann Caesar (Warwick) and Florian Mussgnug (UCL), who defined it 'a highly engaging, lively and critically alert piece of work'. The supervisors were Jenny Burns and Fabio Camilletti.

Philippe Le Goff had a very successful PhD viva on 17 November. The external examiner was Dr Jim Wolfreys, from King's College, London and the internal examiner was Dr Oliver Davis. The title of Philippe's thesis is The militant politics of Auguste Blanqui.

Dr Wolfreys and Dr Davis commented that the thesis 'is a major contribution to the political history of nineteenth-century France, as well as a substantial intervention in today's debates about equality'.

The thesis was supervised by Professor Nick Hewlett.

Dr. James Hodkinson of SMLC, currently researching Islam in German History, has been invited to take part in an event hosted by Woking People of Faith Interfaith forum, alongside prominent speakers in Woking on November 18th, 7pm.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/people/academic/jameshodkinson/

Dear students,

We are delighted and relieved to report that all our students are safe. Please read our updated statement here.

Open to all students
Free entry
All films have English subtitles
With an expert introduction and Q&A/discussion afterwards

The School of Modern Languages and Cultures is shocked and saddened by the events on Friday 13 November in Paris. We send our solidarity and sympathy to all those affected. We ask all our students in Paris at the moment to verify their safety for us and to read this statement.

Professor Seán Hand, Head of School.

Congratulations to Prof. Anne Fuchs (German Studies) on the publication of two new essays! Follow the link for full details.

Dr Peters will join Angolan art critic Adriano Mixinge at New York University's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies on 6 November 2015, in A Conversation about History and Literature on Cuban-Angolan Relations. The conversation is part of the CLACS-hosted conference #CubAngola40: Rethinking the 1975 Africa-Cuban War. Click here to find out more!

Dr Hooper visited Cambridge on October 28th to present her current research to the Hispanic and Lusophone Research Seminar. Her paper, Ríos, fuentes, muelles, océanos: Hydropoetics and the Galician Cultural Imagination, takes the case of nineteenth-century Galicia - a crucial hub on global shipping networks - as a starting point to reflect on the implications of turning the gaze of Iberian cultural history outward towards the ocean. The paper reads the canonical poetry of Rosalia de Castro alongside forgotten works by the geographer Gabriel Castro Arias and the naval officer and novelist Patricio Montojo, to argue for the transformative potential of reading Galician cultural history from an oceanic rather than land-based perspective.

Congratulations to Professor Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, Head of French Studies, on the publication of his guest-edited special issue of the International Journal of Francophone Studies, around the theme of 'Francophone African Philosophy and the Aftermath of the Empire.' Well done Pierre-Philippe!

The winners and runners up of the Zoe Russell Prize 2015 were awarded their prizes by Mr and Mrs Russell at a ceremony on Friday 30 November:

Joint Winners: Nadia Bazargan (F&G) and Halina Gadbury (F&G)

Joint Runners up: Lucy O'Connor (G&H); Hannah Solle (E&G); Heather Watts (GwF)

Previous winners Alice Arnold (F&G); Rachel Bousfiled (F&G) and Rebecca James (G&B) also attended.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Dr Viala's presentation, Caribbean Crossovers: Examining the “Other” Caribbean in the Work of Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Kamau Brathwaite, Edouard Glissant and Frank Martinus Arion, brings together Benítez-Rojo's reading of Haiti (Performance, Body Memory and Vodou); Brathwaite’s approach, vision, and inscription of Cuba in his theories of Caribbean Memory and specially his poetry; Glissant’s differential approach to Martinique through a double-bind silencing/magnifying reading of other Caribbeans (transculturation and Carnival/Cuba, Barbados, Jamaica Trinidad); and Frank Martinus Arion’s defense of Papiamentu following the "model" of English Creole within/ as a Jamaican Nation Language.