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..