Executive Summary

Context:

Final-year SMLC students studying a language module in the Language Centre (worth 25% of their credits in a 3 or two language degree) are now required to undertake a ‘Culture Hour’ as part of the module. In consultation with IATL we have devised a new assessment pathway for this section of the module, involving independent research-based topic work, to be assessed via a written, video or presentation assignment.

Project Outline (part one)

The proposed project will explore the potential for students of Chinese working on this section of the module to engage with Chinese culture ‘on the ground’, by experiencing Chinese artefacts and historical data at first hand at the Musée historique de l’amitié franco-chinoise in Montargis, France. This will complement the study of a range of cultural topics at Warwick in the Autumn and Spring terms. The museum houses an important collection of artefacts collected in the early part of the twentieth century, when a number of prominent Chinese intellectuals who became key figures in the formation of the New China (the People’s Republic of China) went to study and work in France.

Project Outline (part 2)

The visit will also serve as an opportunity to scope longer term links with the museum (links that its Director has already begun to explore in conversation with Zhiyan Guo) with a view to students on their Year Abroad undertaking short internships or placements at the museum in future.