Division of European Languages & 12/1/2012 Issue 1, 2012/13 Cultures, School of LLC DELC NEWSLETTER
WELCOME IN THIS ISSUE: Thank you to all contributors, please keep your input coming: Staff News p1 [email protected]. In the first issue of our 2012/13 Newsletter we Undergraduate Awards p2 bring you several contributions from students who are on a year abroad, or have recently returned. We cover the many events DELC has been PhD Awards and News p3 involved in since our last issue and provide an update on staff publications. Recent Events /Departmental News p4 Details of the always excellent language plays organised by students and Societies p8 staff can be found on page 12 – we hope you’ll show your support by Year Abroad Stories p9 coming along! Language Plays p12 Staff Publications p13
An Open Letter to DELC 1st Years p6 STAFF NEWS Subject Specific News & Events p7 Dr Laura Bradley, German, has been awarded £1570 by Annette Gotzke, German, has been given a Principal´s Staff Publications p16 the Carnegie Trust for a project on 'Crime under Teaching Award: German in the Workplace: Boosting Communism: Representations of Criminality, Detection Employability and Language Skills. The project will offer first- and Surveillance in GDR Film.' Dr Bradley carried out the year students an opportunity to interview leading professionals in research in June and July in archives in Berlin and the private and public sectors who are native German speakers Potsdam. and work in Edinburgh, allowing them to practise their spoken and written German in a natural, realistic context. Besides Dr Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, Russian Studies, has been developing their communication skills, it will provide them with awarded the following: valuable insights into the workplace, broaden their career options, and enhance their cultural awareness. It thus addresses an AHRC grant for organising Russian Film Festival in Scotland (November 2012) two key concerns in student feedback: spoken language skills and an AHRC grant for an international workshop ‘Global graduate employability. Russian: Exploring New Research Perspectives’ (January 2013). The objective of the workshop is to contextualise the Russian Language within the new and rapidly developing field of sociolinguistics of Dr Alexandra Smith, Russian Studies, was awarded a globalisation and collectively to provide a critical reflection on the theoretical challenges posed by CRCEES (University of Glasgow) grant (£3,990) for Russian as a global language; organising an international workshop "Word and Image in a Calvert-Smolny five year research fellowship Russian Contexts: The Legacy of the Russian avant-garde" programme for an Research Fellow to spend a semester (February 2013). each year at the Princess Dashkova Russian Centre.
1
Professor Federica Pedriali, Italian, has been Pia Sund left her position as Swedish Teching fellow at awarded the following: Scandinavian studies. Pia is now working as a teacher in adult £3750 from the CHSS Knowledge Exchange Small education in Gotheburgh and reports that her family is happy to Grant Scheme to organise the British Premiere of have her back at home. She sends her appreciation to all staff for Fabrizio Gifuni’s award-winning Gadda show, Gadda giving two challenging and happy years at Edinburgh university goes to War, Traverse Theatre, 21-22 September 2012. in DHT and gives best regards to all. a Carnegie Large Research Grant (£39,873) to set up stage one of the new Italo-Scottish Research Centre. Italy is one of the great migrant nations of modern A warm welcome to Dr. Leanne Dawson, who joined the times. To date Italo-Scottish history has only partly been written and Italo-Scottish heritage has never been University of Edinburgh in September as the Post-Doctoral systematically archived or developed for public Research Fellow in the Department of European Languages and engagement initiatives. Through the ISRC Italian at Cultures. Leanne’s teaching here at Edinburgh spans Film Edinburgh will make this rich heritage not just Studies, Translation Studies, and German Studies. Her research available but also productive in both the scholarly and the wider community. This will be achieved through an focuses on the representation of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity innovative approach to multimedia conservation in German literature, theatre and film and she frequently resulting in a Web Archive produced in collaboration disseminates knowledge outside of the academy, including a with the creative industries. funded ‘Queer Identities’ Impact Project. She is Editorial Assistant for journal, Studies in European Cinema and looks forward to bringing the annual European Cinema Research The Edinburgh Gadda Projects have secured a Forum conference to the University of Edinburgh in summer Newton International Fellowship (£102,000) for a 2013.She is also Project Co-ordinator for DELC’s Edge of project on the grammar of laughter from Balzac to Words and would like to hear from anyone interested in taking Gadda. Co-applicants: Dr Alberto Godioli, Scuola part in the Edge of Words, any of her film projects, or her Queer Normale Superiore Pisa, and Prof Federica G. Pedriali, Identities work outside of the academy Edinburgh Gadda Projects Director. ([email protected]).
DELC Graduate wins prestigious UNDERGRADUATE & International Scholarship at Ecole Normale RECENT GRADUATE AWARDS Supérieure, Paris French and Russian Studies graduate Laragh Congratulations to all Division of European Languages Horn has won a Master’s Fellowship at the & Cultures Graduates 2012! Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. The Of our cohort of 220 students: International Selection allows about thirty of the most promising international students to follow 63 achieved a first class degree a two-year course at the ENS, one of France’s 142 were awarded a 2.1 most prestigious grandes écoles. Laragh 15 were awarded a 2.2 graduated in June 2012 with a first class MA No students were awarded a 3rd Honours in French and Russian Studies with distinction in spoken French and Russian. She was awarded the DELC Class Medal for Best Brian Shaw, a student of German 2, won one of the 3 main prizes of Overall Performance in Modern European the DAAD competition Europe - "What next? Your Advice to Angela Languages, the French Prize for best and/or David": http://www.daad.org.uk/en/20151/index.html performance in paper 1 and the FC Green Prize in French Literature. She is currently studying His letter to Angela Merkel won one of the main prizes; Brian can now for the Master Programme ‘Théorie de la choose a placement at either a Cultural and Art Institution in Berlin Littérature’. during summer 2013 or a Summer Course Grant at German Universities in 2013. 2
All undergraduate and postgraduate students registered for a Bachelors/Masters/PhD degree at a UK university could participate, 31 did. PHD NEWS
Recent PhD Awards
Ekaterina Popova ‘SELF and OTHER representations in Aaron Tregellis Hodgson (PhD student in Russian) contemporary Russian Discourse on migration’ (principal has been awarded a CRCEES grant to attend the 5-day supervisor: Dr Lara Ryazanova-Clarke) training course 'Reading, Comprehension and Translation Gesine Strenge ‘Mediated metadiscourse: Print media on Strategies for Advanced Learners of Russian: Working anglicisms in post-Soviet Russia’ (principal supervisor: Dr with Media for Research Purposes' offered by the Lara Ryazanova-Clarke) University of Oxford in December 2012.. Samantha Sherry ‘Censorship in Translation in the Soviet Union in the Stalin and Khrushchev Eras’ (principal supervisor: Dr Lara Ryazanova-Clarke)
PHD STUDENT BLOG Submitted by Shuangyi Li Quest Proust from Edinburgh to Paris
As a second-year PhD student in French working on Marcel Proust and China, I’ve been granted the opportunity (by the French Section) to study at a top French institution, the École Normale Supérieure, for a year. This prestigious exchange programme aims to facilitate postgraduate research in French studies and boost students’ linguistic proficiency as well as their knowledge of French culture, with the ultimate goal to strengthen the ties between the University of Edinburgh and the ENS.
One of the most ‘practical’ advantages of this exchange programme is that the ENS provides us with a free room in central Paris. Happily, mine is located right above the library! And the computer and study rooms with 24-hour access are also found in the same building. However, people do complain about the water pressure in the shower, the limited number of washing machines and dryers and the rather poorly-equipped kitchen. These are the kind of aspects on which one has to compromise living in the heart of a big, expensive (but also charming and romantic) city... for free. Fortunately, there are quite a few launderettes nearby, and the school canteen, which provides subsidised meals during the week, is right next to the library. We can survive well after all, I suppose.
As far as my research is concerned, I can't think of a better place to be right now. Not only does the ENS own an impressive Proust library, the 'Proust team' of the ITEM (Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes) based at the ENS also offers the most up-to- date information on Proust studies. In the past month, I've been constantly given all sorts of help by my 'fellow Proustians.' Thanks to the professional network set up by the ENS, I've managed to make contact with distinguished scholars working both in Proust and Chinese studies.
On the social side, I'm enjoying tremendously the lively postgraduate community here. In fact, I've never met so many research students working on different aspects of French studies in my life. Exchanging ideas and sharing information with them on a regular basis have proven to be intellectually stimulating. Furthermore, since most of us are relatively new to the city, we often take the advantage of our 'foreign status' to explore together the city of flâneurs...
As a final note, France is famous for its daunting bureaucracy, and it is all the more daunting if you're from outside the EU. At my arrival, I was quite scared of the traumatising queue in front of the préfecture for applying for the French 'resident permit.' But to my great surprise, the ENS looks after all the paperworks, including those for bank accounts and house insurance (although it did take a while for everything to be finally settled). The director of international relations was very quick in providing me the documents needed for accessing other major libraries in Paris. For the rest of my stay, I'll keep my fingers crossed!
3
RECENT EVENTS & OTHER DEPARTMENTAL NEWS
EDGE OF WORDS The Edge of Words is a unique five-year research project bringing together DELC, Celtic and Scottish Studies, Translation Studies, and Film Studies, focusing on the limits of what words can do. For more details, see the Edge of Words web site: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-languages-cultures/edge-of-words Its first major event was a Study Day on Friday 19 October, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. We are pleased to report that it was a great success, and certainly achieved its aim of bringing together people from all the departments involved to discuss themes that create links between them. Among the edges of words which we examined were: those created by trauma, by translation, and by the relationship between memory and lived experience; censorship, and its effects on means of expression; the borderline between words and music; and what is lost and found in the oral transmission of culture, both musical and poetic. The full programme, with abstracts of the papers, is on the Edge of Words website. The day was full of lively inter- departmental debate, including PhD students from several subject 1 Audience members from DELC and Celtic & Scottish Studies discuss the relationship between words and music areas. The Edge of Words promises to be a truly magnificent intellectual adventure. We look forward to welcoming many more of you to future events. If you would like to take part in the Edge of Words, please contact the project co-ordinator, Dr. Leanne Dawson ([email protected]). We will be looking for contributions to our seminar series for future years, and a call to submit proposals for larger Edge of Words events will shortly be posted on the web site.
RUSSIAN FILM FESTIVAL IN EDINBURGH In November, the Princess Dashkova Centre presented a Russian film festival in Edinburgh in cooperation with the Edinburgh Filmhouse and Academia Rossica. Showcasing the best in contemporary Russian documentary and
drama, the films were screened at the Edinburgh Filmhouse and the Princess Dashkova Russian Centre and were accompanied by discussions and Q&A sessions. The film Living (Zhit’) was presented by its world-renowned film director Vasilii Sigarev and the leading actor Yana Troyanova. The documentary of the recent Russian protest
movement, Winter Go Away! (Zima, Ukhodi!) was accompanied by a talk by the acclaimed film critic and journalist Dr Andrei Plakhov. Another highlight was the season of films by the legendary Andrei Konchalovsky. A special screening of Maria’s Lovers was preceded by a lecture by Dr. Seth Graham, SSEES UCL, and a Q&A session with Konchalovsky himself. For full details see the festival programme:
http://tinyurl.com/film-fest-programme
4
In August, Professor Peter Dayan, Professor of Word Dr Alexis Grohmann, Hispanic Studies, attended a press and Music Studies, French, provided a lecture at the conference with the Spanish author Javier Marías, the director Scottish National Gallery: “Whistler, Debussy and the of the publisher ESPASA CALPE, and Domingo Ródenas, to Nocturne” present, during the Madrid book fair, a double special issue of the prestigious Spanish journal ÍNSULA on the work of Marías Abstract: Whistler’s enemies derided his Nocturnes for he was invited to co-edit with Domingo Ródenas. the vagueness of their representation. Whistler replied that he wasn’t trying to paint nature, he was trying to create harmony, in the same way as musicians. Conversely, Debussy, when he wrote his Nocturnes for orchestra, seemed to be suggesting that his music could work like a painting; certainly, critics have always thought that Debussy’s nocturnes were inspired by Whistler’s. The lecture compares Whistler’s Nocturnes with Debussy’s, conjuring up that invisible common ground where the two arts meet.
Merlin James, “Charchoune’s Trans-Modernism” The Princess Dashkova Centre offered a talk related to a new exhibition of work by Serge Charchoun and curated by Merlin James entitled ‘The Exhibition is Open…’ The exhibition will run from 17th November 2012 to 16th February 2013 in the Georgian galley of the Talbot Rice Gallery and will offer a reconsideration of the artist and his involvement with Dada, Cubism, Purism and informal abstraction.
Michel Butor Web Site
Professor Jean Duffy, French
In September 2012 the third, expanded and updated, edition of Professor Jean Duffy's Michel Butor web site was launched.
The Butor web site aims to provide a research and reference apparatus for scholars and students which will assist orientation within Butor’s vast œuvre. It offers the following tools: an outline biography, a bibliography of Butor’s collaborative ventures with visual artists, a bibliography of Butor’s published interviews, correspondence and ‘dialogues’, a bibliography of publications on Butor’s work, an index of topics covered in his interviews, a summary of contents for the five volumes of his
important critical series Répertoire, an index of UK and Irish Libraries holding rare collaborative books, and links to on-line publications by Butor, to interviews with him and to related websites. The Butor site is to be found at: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools -departments/literatures-languages-cultures/delc/french/research-projects/michel-butor/home Thanks are due to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences web team for their invaluable advice and technical assistance.
5
ANIMALS BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY
On 17-31 August 2012, the DELC Scandinavian Studies section took over a corner of the Edinburgh Zoo Education Centre for the exhibition ‘Animals Beyond the Call of Duty’. Held in the Zoo’s peak season, this exhibition told the true stories of famous animals that have seen military service and that have become symbols of the close historical bonds between Scotland and other countries, in particular Norway. The exhibition was sponsored by the Royal Norwegian Consulate General and curated by Dr Guy Puzey (Scandinavian Studies) and Kirke Kook, a 2011 graduate of Scandinavian Studies who has since gone on to follow the MLitt in Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of St Andrews.
Key aims of the exhibition were to test the format of public exhibitions for public engagement and the dissemination of research, as well as to TRUE STORIES OF FAMOUS ANIMALS THAT explore the potential for further oral history research into Scottish- HAVE SEEN MILITARY SERVICE AND HAVE Scandinavian links. The feedback from visitors was very enthusiastic, BECOME SYMBOLS OF THE CLOSE and interpretive materials created for the exhibition have since gone on display at RAF Leuchars Airshow and at the Montrose Air Station HISTORICAL BONDS BETWEEN SCOTLAND Heritage Centre. AND OTHER COUNTRIES At the opening on 17 August, talks were given about the exhibition’s four main animal stars. Retired Norwegian Major Nils Egelien gave a very animated presentation about Nils Olav, a king penguin at Edinburgh Zoo first adopted as the mascot of H.M. the King of Norway’s Guard upon their visit to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo in 1972, then with the rank of corporal. On every return visit since then, Nils Olav has been promoted and is currently styled Colonel-in-Chief Sir Nils Olav III. At the exhibition’s opening, the Norwegian Guards Association presented the Chief Executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Professor Chris West, with special NATO skis for Nils Olav, who is currently at another zoo in Gloucestershire while the penguin enclosure in Edinburgh is being redeveloped. Nils Olav’s flipper badges and his new skis were among the items on display.
Authors Dr Andrew Orr and Angus Whitson spoke about Bamse, a St Bernard dog from northern Norway who went to sea with his master aboard the minesweeper Thorodd, which was based in Scotland during the Second World War as part of the Norwegian forces in exile. Bamse saved two men’s lives in separate incidents at Dundee docks. He died in 1944 and is buried in Montrose, where he is well remembered by locals. The exhibition included replicas of Bamse’s medals, postcards designed by Angus school pupils and a sample of ‘Sea Dog Bamse – Pride of Norway’ tartan, all on loan from the Montrose Heritage Trust.
Dr Guy Puzey presented the story of Winkie, a messenger pigeon from Broughty Ferry. Winkie’s epic flight saved the four crew members of a Beaufort torpedo-bomber based at RAF Leuchars in Fife that ditched in the North Sea in February 1942, following an anti-shipping sweep of the Norwegian coast. Winkie was later awarded the PDSA’s Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross. As well as featuring source material from the National Archives, Dr Puzey also looked at the different versions of Winkie’s tale that have appeared in literature over the past seventy years. Thanks to the kind co-operation Zoo Exhibition: The flipper badges of the McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum, Winkie herself was on display at the exhibition, and skis belonging to Colonel-in- Chief Sir Nils Olav III together with her medal and a plaque presented to her by the squadron.
Finally, author Aileen Orr told the astounding story of Wojtek, an orphaned brown bear adopted by Polish troops in Persia during the Second World War. Having travelled with the soldiers through the Middle East and into the Mediterranean, Wojtek fought at the Battle of Monte Cassino, passing ammunition to his human counterparts. At the end of the war, Wojtek was sent with the soldiers to a resettlement camp in Berwickshire before being rehomed at Edinburgh Zoo in 1947, where Wojtek remained until his death in 1963. There are currently plans to erect a bronze statue of Wojtek in Edinburgh city centre, and a maquette of this statue was displayed at the exhibition.
See a video report about the exhibition here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAP1e64LSIg
6
Chantal Akerman Retrospective The Centre de recherches francophones belges at the University of Edinburgh in conjunction with the French Film Festival UK and Wallonie Bruxelles International held a season of films from 16 November to 2 December 2012, dedicated to
Belgian filmmaker and video artist Chantal Akerman. Screening ten landmark films representative of her highly diverse oeuvre, this season offered a rare opportunity to discover one of modern cinema’s great innovators. Ms Akerman was present
at Q&As in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London following the screening of her latest film, Almayer’s Folly, freely adapted from Joseph Conrad’s debut novel. For more information see http://frenchfilmfestival.org.uk/FFF2012/wp/?page_id=1520
The Edinburgh Gadda Prize, Edinburgh, 20-22 September 2012, Initiative sponsored by the Edinburgh Gadda Projects
Carlo Emilio Gadda is Italy’s greatest modernist writer. While he never really wrote for the theatre, his work travels best in performance.
Five interconnected events made up this year’s edition of the Gadda Prize, Edinburgh 2012. These five platforms – postgraduate summer school, inaugural lecture, junior installation, show proper and award ceremony – all exploited and generated a stage. In this way, through actively engaging others, we explored how we too, like Gadda, go to war with our times on all the issues that matter: identity, social norm, citizenship, cultural mobility and plurality. Our idea is quite straightforward. If Gadda is theatre, scholarship must be engagement.
The programme was as follows:
Event 1 - Body irregular, Great irregulars Pilot Summer School Gaddus Scholars Event 2 – On becoming militant (Gadda goes to war) Inaugural Lecture by Federica G. Pedriali Event 3 – L'ingegner Gadda va alla guerra British premiere of Fabrizio Gifuni’s award-winning show Event 4 – Hybridity Multimedia installation (International Gadda Juniors)
Event 5 – Awards Ceremony Award Ceremony for all Categories of the Prize Full events programme www.gaddaprize.ed.ac.uk
Follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/EdinburghGaddaProjects
Subscribe us on YouTube www.youtube.com/user/edinburghgadda7
Negotiating Ideologies II: Inclusion and Exclusion This semester The Princess Dashkova Centre has also hosted in Russian Language and Culture a postgraduate conference and several speakers, including Victor Shnirelman of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Artur On the 5th of October, the Princess Dashkova Centre Czapiga, who made a research visit from the University of hosted a successful postgraduate conference entitled Rzeszów. ‘Negotiating Ideologies II: Inclusion and Exclusion in
Russian Language and Culture. Following on from the Visiting Fellow Dr Artur Czapiga and Dr Lara Ryazanova-Clarke: first successful ‘Negotiating Ideologies’ conference in 2010, this event sought to examine the production and function of ideologies in Russian society through the lens
of inclusion and exclusion. The speakers were drawn from a number of disciplines including film studies, history, linguistics and literature. The interdisciplinary approach was intended to take advantage of different perspectives on these broad themes, and to encourage
future collaboration between postgraduate researchers in different disciplines. The keynote speech was delivered by Presentation from the postgraduate conference: Professor Stephen Hutchings from Manchester University. Professor Hutchings shared his new research
on the Russian media, and presented a fascinating account of contemporary television discourse in Russia. An edited collection including papers presented at the conference and contributions from other authors is currently being
planned.
SOCIETIES
Exchange 360 is a social society for student pre, on or post exchange at the University of Edinburgh. We have many international students joining every semester along with our Edinburgh students who are interested in making friends with people from around the globe. To all language students who are going abroad or have just come back, Exchange 360 is a great way to meet people from your partner university so you can find out more about where you’re going and stay connected once you return. It’s a great way to keep up your spoken language practise and have some fun with students all over the world! Our main event this semester is the St. Andrew’s Day Ball at Our Dynamic Earth which is open to both international and home students. Next semester, look out for events such as Ceilidh’s, Burn’s Night Dinner and many more. We hope you come along to future events to keep the society as diverse as possible!
8
YEAR ABROAD STORIES…
HOW, NOW, SANTA COMBA DÃO: A YEAR ABROAD EXPERIENCE IN PORTUGAL.
SUBMITTED BY ED PROSSER, 4TH YEAR SPANISH & PORTUGUESE AND EUROPEAN UNION STUDIES
In early February 2012, following six months of indulging in the Erasmus experience in Madrid, I hopped on a bus, crossed over the border into Spain’s charming smaller neighbour and eight or so hours later I arrived in the city Santa Comba Dão, where I would spend the next five months working as a teaching assistant in a school – the Escola Básica de Santa Comba Dão – as part of the British Council’s Comenius Assistantship programme. Often Comenius Assistants are sent to smaller and more remote locations in their allocated countries with the aim of extending the cultural outreach as far as possible beyond simply larger and more developed cites and zones. If we take this context into consideration, I really hit the jackpot with my destination. ‘City’ is a very generous term to describe Santa Comba Dão. As a sub-district municipality (município) in Portugal, the population of the region is about 12,400, with the population of the actual city itself around 3,300. Less city, more Lego© town. On your left is the Police station, on your right the doctor’s and straight ahead is the supermarket and the gas station. There was even a town “…IT WAS THE PEOPLE AND THE helicopter for putting out mountain fires, although I don’t COMMUNITY THAT MADE MY think it was possible to dismantle this and reconstruct it as a jet-fighter. In terms of history and places of interest, EXPERIENCE AS ENTERTAINING AS IT the Portuguese dictator António Salazar was born in Santa PROVED TO BE.” Comba Dão and this is probably the only notable characteristic of the town. The house where he grew up is an historical attraction. The historical attraction. And then there’s that helicopter... While Santa Comba didn’t exactly prove itself to be a cultural hotspot, it was the people and the community that made my experience as entertaining as it proved to be. Living there was a bit like life in a television show or a movie. Or a combination of the two. What I’m really trying to say is that it resembled life in The Truman Show. Everyone knew everyone and thus everyone seemed to know me and what I was doing there. A typical day in the school would see me saying ‘hello’ to everyone, shaking hands with staff and high-fiving the kids and we’re all smiling like it’s a toothpaste advert. This wasn’t restricted to school scenarios either, similar situations would occur in the supermarket, pharmacy and cafés. All surreal yet entertaining experiences that only lacked a Hans Zimmer soundtrack in the background. Perhaps inevitably I was a bit of a novelty. Not many foreigners reach those parts of the country and during the first few weeks it seemed enough to introduce myself in each class by repeating ad infinitum that my name is Ed, I am from the UK and yes, I drink tea. Most Q&A sessions eventually turned to football, which is the most established religion embedded in Portuguese culture. Kids really do live and breathe football in Portugal and I spent many lunch-breaks joining in various games across the age-groups. This was both exhausting and depressing given the skills on display and more specifically how rubbish I was in comparison. Since my best moves went missing in action somewhere in West London about five years ago, passing to me had a similar effect as passing to a piece of corrugated iron. Still, my capacity to make a card cut-out of a London Undergound sign is unrivalled.
9
I was predominantly teaching 10-14 year olds, living the highlife of making poster-boards, marking homework and endlessly correcting grammar. Such a lifestyle struck me with the realization that these days I definitely belong to a different generation and this was most effectively illustrated when discussing my music tastes in several classes. The majority thought Elvis was British, and when it reached the stage I was describing Bob Marley as “really good island- style music, check it out guys!” I despaired and gave up. Furthermore, often bringing the cultural aspect to lessons had amusing results and describing life in London frequently saw me make a series of largely unfair comparisons with Santa Comba Dão, such as highlighting the difference in the number of palaces in each city. Furthermore, aside from the classes where I was mostly encouraged to speak English, living in a more isolated area of Portugal really pushed me to utilize my Portuguese since the majority of the community did not have a good grasp of the English language. This definitely proved to be something worth appreciating as my Portuguese during the initial stages of the placement resembled Spanish spoken by someone with food in their mouth. Discovering a country, one grammatically incorrect sentence at a time, I would not be able to recount all my experiences in this article, but some notable activities that I was involved in during my placement included cricket lessons, ‘Afternoon tea’ sessions and putting together a ‘music club’ which saw a group of students learn to sing and play a variety of British songs culminating in an informal school concert held in the local church. We also had a ‘Europe Week’ where I was joined by fellow Edinburgh student Andy McDougall, studying in the nearby Coimbra university, to aid me in my promotion of the UK. Together we made the local newspaper in Santa Comba for our ‘cultural’ contribution.... http://www.cm-santacombadao.pt/index.php/pt/informacao-municipal/noticias/866-rede-de-bibliotecas-de-santa- comba-dao-rbscd-promoveu-semana-da-europa-e-dos-paises-da-lusofonia
One of my personal highlights was the Feira Tradicional - an annual traditional fair in Santa Comba Dão held in mid-June. This meant donning the outfit of a traditional Portuguese farmer/lost member of Mumford & Sons and working several stalls in the local square with the help of school staff and students. There was traditional food, jewellery, various games and competitions to be found and the whole atmosphere really encapsulated the spirit of community that lives there. And then with a flash, a bang, some laughs, a few tears and some casual sunburn, the Kwik Cricket stumps took one final hammering, my time in the Escola Básica 2,3˚ and my time in Santa Comba Dão came to an end. O tempo corre depressa... I kept up a blog during my time both as an Erasmus student in Alcalá de Henares and in Santa Comba Dão. Have a read here if you’re interested! http://caballeroextranjero.wordpress.com
10
Highlights from my year abroad - Submitted by Eilidh Coope Oliver, 3rd Year Russian Studies
I'm coming to the end of my three months living in the northern city of Petrozavodsk. I'll be back in Russia after Christmas, but somehow I don't think it'll be quite the same. In my first month I took a trip to Kizhi Island. An hour's, rather bumpy, ferry journey across the second largest lake in Europe and there we were. The island reminded me somewhat of my native Tiree, although I suspect Tiree has never had enough trees to be able to build even the smallest of buildings on Kizhi. The island hosts an impressive collection of wooden churches and dwellings but for me the best thing about it was just getting out of the city and being back in the open, but rather chilly, air. My second month here was largely uneventful, save for the early snowfall, which even here grounded all flights, even if only for the day. As far as we were concerned there could be nothing more exciting than snow but just a couple of days later we were as bored of it as the Russians. I did, however, manage to get some lovely photos, fall spectacularly and get shouted at in the street for throwing snowballs. This last month has perhaps been the best. I finally feel at home here. I can go get my messages, understand the cashier and even have a little joke. I spent the day looking round the shops and never once had to revert to English or strange hand gestures. I won an argument with my host's husband, with a little help from his daughter. We held a party and burnt Guy Fawkes in the snow, eating chocolate toffee whilst dancing some strange Russian dance to keep warm. And most recently I managed to extricate myself from a drunken marriage proposal.
I've learnt a lot here, from the intricacies of vodka drinking to how to dress appropriately (though my host still runs after me yelling that I should be wearing a kurtka) and as much as I never thought I would say this, I'm going to miss it.
EXTRACTS FROM A YEAR ABROAD JOURNAL: SUBMITTED BY HELEN GARDNER, 4TH YEAR FRENCH & SPANISH Your Year Abroad – source of absolute terror before you go, time of your life when you’re on it, endless realms of nostalgia when you come back. From the point of view of someone who has experienced all three of these things (and is now wandering the realms of nostalgia), I thought it might be interesting to look back at my year abroad from the very first, and very last, pages of my well-worn and long-suffering travel journal. I spent my first semester in the typical French cheese/wine/ski paradise of Grenoble, and the second semester exploiting the free tapas and infinite sangria of sunny Granada in Spain. “29/08/11 TGV, Gare de Lyon, Paris, to Grenoble “27/08/12 Madrid Barajas airport to Glasgow This may be the best train I have ever been on. The French have it so The end! Well, very nearly the end. I want to reflect on all of my Erasmus, right. The seats are basically armchairs and from the top deck I have but there isn’t enough room in my head. I’ve got my travel journal with me, the best view of the countryside going by. Flew into Charles de Gaulle ready for one last flight. One last flight! The goodbyes this morning were airport and then had a 5 and a half hour wait in Gare du Nord train everything I could have wanted, lots of hugging and kissing and shouting in station... but I went to a beautiful pavement café and had a croque Spanish, with everyone running alongside the car as Pepe drove me to the monsieur, an orangina and a chocolat chaud. I am French! I will be RENFE station. I suddenly feel like I’ve been away for a very very long French! (Must stop spending Euros like monopoly money though, time. Almost a year to the day since I left! I’m starting over again for the oops.) The flight out was good – actually felt excited, but weirdly third time, but this time I’m not starting from zero, I’m picking up all the disconnected – don’t feel like this is real, or that it’s all started. It feels threads of a life I left behind. (And everyone speaks English! Everything is good to have left though, staying at home and saying my goodbyes was going to be so much easier!) I want to talk to the old me, little me sitting on awful, it just made me not want to go. Anyways, I need to make lists the train to Grenoble, to tell her all about the happy ending, so she won’t and plans for la reste de ma vie! My parrain from the Uni is picking me be scared. But I don’t think she was scared, I think she was ready – and up at the station, and though it feels like I’ve sorted my head out a little look at what she did! This year has been one long adventure. I still have no I can’t ignore that I’m hurtling towards the great unknown of the next idea what I’m doing with my life, but I know what’s important to me now. year of my life! First priority... finding somewhere to live! Mon Dieu!” And I know that if all else fails, relax and just do it mañana, like the Spanish. I wouldn’t change any of it – even the parts that didn’t go to plan and the parts where I had no plan at all. There is still some blank space left 11 at the end of this journal, but I guess that’s only fitting. This is so far from over, this has only just begun.”
LANGUAGE PLAYS Italian play - “Il bugiardo” by Carlo Goldoni German play - "Der Reigen" by Arthur Schnitzler Perform ances: 14th and 15th March, 2013 Performances: 21st & 22nd February, 2013 Adam House Theatre, Chambers Street Adam House Theatre, Chambers Street First performed in 1750, Il bugiardo (The Liar) was based, as the author acknowledges in his preface, on a French play by Corneille, who in turn had reworked a Spanish play. Goldoni was A man meets a woman. They talk, quarrel, flirt, have sex, flirt, in the process of reforming and modernising the traditional quarrel and talk again. The scene ends. In the next scene, the Commedia dell’Arte, in which set characters (maschere) woman meets another man. They talk, quarrel, flirt, have sex, improvised their lines on loosely scripted and hyperbolic plots. flirt, quarrel and talk again. The scene ends. In the next scene, In this comedy Goldoni preserves several traditional characters the man meets another woman. They... of Commedia dell’Arte, such as Harlequin, Columbine, the Doctor and Pantaloon, but he provides a fully articulated script This is the play that landed its author, actors and directors in and more realistic elements. court and sometimes even in jail after it was first performed in 1903. Why? The lies of the protagonist (or “witty Because it exposed the moral double standard of the society it inventions”, as he defines them) generate portrayed but moreover because it foregrounded sex as a a sparkling comedy of errors, set on the means of transgression of social class. “Reigen” means a backdrop of 18th century Venice. round dance and refers to the structure of the play with its encounters between characters from all social classes. In ten dialogues, you won’t necessarily learn everything you always wanted to know about sex, but you will certainly find out more
about fin-de-siѐcle Vienna and you will encounter some characters who might not seem so outmoded after all…
Spanish play - "El Florido Pensil" by Sopeña Andres Monsalve French Play – “Ubu Roi” by Alfred Jarry
Performances: 6th, 7th & 8th March 2013 Performances: 20th – 23rd March 2013 Adam House Theatre, Chambers Street Adam House Theatre, Chambers Street "The flowery pensil" or "El Florido Pensil". Nacionalcatólica Each year the French Theatre Society, ‘Les Escogriffes’, school memory), authored Sopeña Andres Monsalve A perform a fun and comical French play hoping to attract the recreation of the educational system of the Spanish Civil War , Francophiles of Edinburgh. This year we are performing ‘Ubu identified with the ideology nacionalcatólica , and a traditional Roi’ by the French surrealist dramatist, Alfred Jarry. The main methodology, based on dogmatism, the imposition of authority character, Ubu, is based on Jarry’s tyrannical school teacher, through discipline and knowledge acquisition routine by rote, creating a ridiculous and disgusting figure who after usurping a without allow the slightest possibility of questioning or polish king becomes a horrible dictator. His selfish and snappy criticism, and without understanding what really matters wife reminds us of the guilty Lady Macbeth, while the son of learned. the assassinated king takes revenge on his father in a way that reminds us of Hamlet. Although ‘Ubu Roi’ takes its inspiration It has been adapted to theater by the Basque group Tanttaka from other theatre traditions, Jarry uses these in his own way, mixing the grotesque, the comic, the dramatic and the absurd. Details of how to purchase tickets will be available in due Whether you speak French or just love the theatre you will be course from the relevant language area. Contact able to enjoy the play as Les Escogriffes will be offering a [email protected] to be put in touch with those striking performance through the physical and visual language organising the play. of theatre. 12
STAFF PUBLICATIONS
Since our last Newsletter, DELC staff have published the following pieces:
BOOKS ARTICLES, ESSAYS & BOOK CHAPTERS :Thresholds of Meaning: Ritual, Passage and Liminality in Contemporary French Fiction (Liverpool University Press, 2011) ‘Life is Theatre: Nina Companeez Adapts À la recherche du temps Prof Jean Duffy (French) perdu’, in Rachel Falconer and Andrew Olivier, eds. , Re-reading / La relecture: Essays in Honour of Graham Falconer (Newcastle: Corpus XXX: Pasolini, Petrolio, Salò (Bologna: Clueb, 2012). Cambridge Scholars, 2012), pp. 195-210 Dr Davide Messina (Italian) ‘Marcel Proust (1871-1922): A Modernist Novel of Time’, in Michael Bell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to European Novelists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 327-42 Prof Marion Schmid (French) "Jane Harrison as an Interpreter of Russian Culture in the 1910s- ARTICLES, ESSAYS & BOOK CHAPTERS 1920s", in Cross, Anthony. editor. A People Passing Rude: British Responses to Russian Culture, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, “Erik Satie, _Uspud_, et la mystification au service de l'art". In: 2012, pp.170-190. _Romantisme, revue du dix-neuvième siècle_. Vol 156, p. 101- 110. June 2012. "Through the Lens of Soviet Psychoanalysis of the 1920s: Ivan Prof Peter Dayan (French) Ermakov's Readings of Pushkin's Poetry", in Dinega, Alyssa, editor. The Other Pushkiniana: Taboo Texts, Topics, Interpretations, :'In the wake of trauma: visualising the unspeakable/unthinkable in Marie Darrieussecq and Hélène Lenoir, Word & Image, 27. 4, Wisconsin-Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2012, 2011, 416-428. pp.350-377. Prof Jean Duffy (French) “Reconfiguring the Utopian Vision: Tret’iakov’s Play I Want a Baby!(1926) as a Response to the Revolutionary Restructuring of
Everyday Life”, Australian Slavonic & East European Studies, Vol. 'Thomas Carlyle's Goethe Mask Revisited', German Life and 25, Nos. 1-2 (2011), pp.107-120. Letters, 65:3 (2012), 295-317 Dr Alexandra Smith (Russian Studies) Dr Eleoma Joshua (German) 'Hybrid hjemmebane. Regionalt, transnationalt og utopisk hos Selma Lagerlöf', in Hemmaplan – den regionala litteraturens traditioner, 'Silvina Ocampo' in: A Companion to Latin American Women tekniker och funktioner, ed. Margaretha Ullström & Sofia Wijkmark Writers (Tamesis, 2012), and 'Bioy, Ocampo and the (Karlstad: Karlstad University Press, 2012), pp. 27-45. Photographic Image' in: Adolfo Bioy Casares: Borges, Fiction and Art, edited by Karl Posso (University of Wales Press, 2012). Dr Bjarne Thomsen (Scandinavian Studies) Dr Fiona Mackintosh (Hispanic Studies) For more information on Publications, see our staff profile
pages: www.delc.ed.ac.uk Ryazanova-Clarke, L., (2012), ‘The Discourse of a Spectacle at the End of the Presidential Term’, Helena Goscilo (ed), Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon. London: Routledge, 2012, pp.104-132. For details of our Research Seminar Series: Dr Lara Ryazanova-Clarke (Russian Studies) www.delc.ed.ac.uk 13 - Conferences and Seminars