MML and Linguistics contributions to the Festival of Ideas 2018
LECTURES
1. THE MML ANNUAL LECTURE - MULTILINGUALISM AND LANGUAGE LEARNING - EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES, RE-THINKING EXTREMES
Speaker: Dr Thomas H. Bak
Date: Thursday 18 October
Time: 5 -7pm
Venue: McGrath Centre, St Catherine’s College
Age group: 15+
What is normal and what extreme: knowing many languages or just one? Preserving a mother tongue or losing it? Mixing languages or keeping them apart? Thomas H. Bak, University of Edinburgh, addresses these questions, integrating insights from anthropology to neuroscience.
We regret that the following event has had to be postponed until spring 2019.
2. THE POLITICS OF HOPE AND FEAR IN 1968 AND TODAY - THE SCHRÖDER LECTURE AND DAAD HUB LECTURE, 2018
Date: Friday 26 October 2018
Time: 5-7pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre, St John’s College Old Divinity School, All Saints Passage CB2 1TP
Age Group: all
Katharina Karcher explores the contemporary relevance of political ideas and developments associated with 1968 in conversation with the political theorist Christopher Finlay and the writer and activist Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan. There will be a premiere screening of the 2018 documentary You Say You Want a Revolution.
TALKS
3. FRENCH REVOLUTIONS IN PAINTING
Dr Claire White, University Lecturer, French Section, MML
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 11am – noon
Venue: Little Hall, Sidgwick Site, CB3 9DA
Age Groups: 15+/adults
From Eugène Delacroix to Édouard Manet, French painters of the long nineteenth century captured the nation’s revolutions. In this talk, Claire White explores how radical conflict was turned into art.
4. A REDISCOVERED JEWEL OF THE BIBLIOTECA APROSIANA IN VENTIMIGLIA: Isabella Sori’s Ammaestramenti e ricordi and Difese (1628)
Dr Helena Sanson, Reader in Italian Language, Literature and Culture, Italian Section, MML
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 12.30 – 1.30pm
Venue: Little Hall, Sidgwick Site, CB3 9DA
Age Groups: adults
Alessandria, Italy, 1628: a young woman, Isabella Sori, publishes her only known work, on female education and everyday conduct, at a time when war and the plague are looming large. With Helena Sanson.
5. LANGUAGE AND EMPIRE
Dr Caroline Egan, Lecturer in Colonial Literary and Cultural Studies, Spanish & Portuguese Section, MML
Date: Saturday 20 October, Little Hall, Sidgwick Site
Time: 2-3 pm
Venue: Little Hall, Sidgwick Site, CB3 9DA
Age Groups: 15+
Caroline Egan examines the relationship between language and empire through grammars of Amerindian languages produced in the early modern period.
6. UNREADABLE BOOKS: BRUNO MUNARI’S GRAPHIC AND TEXTUAL PLAYGROUND
Dr Pierpaolo Antonello, Reader in Modern Italian Literature and Culture, Italian Section, MML
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 3.30 – 4.30pm
Venue: Little Hall, Sidgwick Site, CB3 9DA
Age Groups: 12+
Bruno Munari was one of the most important twentieth-century Italian artists, who also published a series of ‘Unreadable Books’. What are they? And what can we do with them? With Pierpaolo Antonello.
7. TESTIMONIES OF GLOBAL MOVEMENT IN GERMAN LITERATURE
Daniela Dora and Dr Yvonne Zivkovic, Section of German & Dutch, MML
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 5-6pm
Venue: Little Hall, Sidgwick Site, CB3 9DA
Age Groups: adults
How do literary texts reflect on the global flow of goods and people? This event will focus on issues of migration, tourism and citizenship in contemporary German writing.
8. BAD NEWS! A VACCINE AGAINST FAKE NEWS
Jon Roozenbeek, PHD Candidate, Slavonic Section, MML
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 1- 2pm
Venue: Room LG17, Faculty of Law, Sidgwick Site, 10, West Road, CB3 9DZ
Age Groups: 15+
Ever wanted to become a fake news tycoon and fool all of your friends? Now’s your chance. Come play the game where you learn how fake news works by making it yourself.
9. THE CANON MEETS THE CONTEMPORARY
Dr Erica Wickerson, Research Fellow, St. John’s College, Cambridge
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 3.30 – 4.30pm
Venue: Room LG17, Faculty of Law, Sidgwick Site, 10, West Road, CB3 9DZ
Age Groups: adults
Target age group: 15+ and adult
Printed programme: Why is it worth reading classic works of literature and why is Netflix so appealing? Erica Wickerson explores patterns and threads in Orange is the New Black, The Godfather, and Buddenbrooks.
10. WHY NET: CAN NEW MEDIA HELP DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATIONS?
Event co-organised by MML and Intellectual Forum, Jesus College
Mariia Terentieva, PhD Candidate, Slavonic Section, MML
Date: Monday 22 October
Time: 5 - 6pm
Venue: Webb Library, Jesus College, Jesus Lane, CB5 8BL
Age group: 15+
Doubting the internet’s potential for democracy? Welcome Ukraine’s digital civil society! Ukrainians actively use the Internet to push for reforms and support causes showing us the unique example of the sustainable “connective action”.
11. LANGUAGE SKILLS FOR THE 21st CENTURY
Silke Mentchen, Senior Language Teaching Officer, Section of German & Dutch, MML
This event is organised by the Section of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics.
This talk is part of a series of talks on Language skills for the 21st century. Other speakers include: Dora Alexopoulou, Michelle Sheehan and Jonathan Kaastan. There will also be an open forum for questions and answers.
Date: Saturday 27 October
Time: 2-5 pm
Venue: GRO6, English Faculty Building 9 West Road, CB3 9DP
Age group: 12+
HANDS-ON
12. FOLLOW MARCEL, OUR INTREPID MASCOT ALL ROUND THE HISPANIC WORLD
This Drop-in session is organised by Alliance Française Cambridge.
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 2-4pm
Venue: Lecturers’ Common Room, Raised Faculty Building, Facuoty of Modern and Medieval Languages, Sidgwick Site, Sidgwick Avenue, CB3 9DA
Age groups: Drop in – all ages
The perfect chance for you to explore the similarities and differences or the French and Hispanic worlds! A must-see selection of tourist sites, food, famous people... . This workshop mixes words, drawings, crafts, group games and much more.
13. LANGUAGES: YOUR PASSPORT TO THE WORLD
This event is organised by the MEITS research project.
Date: Saturday 20 October
Time: 11am-5pm
Venue: Alison Richard Building, Sidgwick Site 7 West Road, CB3 9DT
Age groups: Drop in - 8+
MEITS research project (Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies) will offer a wide range of fun-filled, family-friendly hands-on activities (particularly suited for children in late primary/early secondary school).
PERFORMANCES
14. POLYPHONIC
This event is organised by the MEITS research project.
Date: Sunday 21 October
Time: 2.30pm – 4.00pm
Venue: Faculty of Education, Auditorium, Mary Allan Building, Homerton College 184 Hills Road, CB2 8PH
Age groups: 8+
Acting Now and Polygon Arts, in association with the MEITS research project, present an original, devised theatre performance about language and identity. This is a story of fitting in and falling out, speaking up and not being heard, finding one voice and losing another. If who we are is connected to the language we speak, who are we when we speak more than one?
