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Conference Report: Borders and Crossings Kielce, Poland, 12-14 September 2016

Published on 7th October 2016 in Conference Reports

Borders and Crossings: An International and Multidisciplinary Conference on Travel Writing,

Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland, 12-14 September 2016

Eva Oppermann, Kassel

dsc_3038
Picture credit: Pjotr Burda

Held for the second time in former Eastern Europe, this conference, which is the 13th Borders and Crossings Conference since 1998, was hosted by the Department of Modern Languages of the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Poland. Dr. Agnieszka Szwach and associate professor Magdalena Ożarska, as its main organizers, did an excellent, extremely supportive, job. In eighteen sessions, more than fifty speakers from nearly twenty countries and about fifteen disciplines have covered a wide range of topics concerning travel writing of all ages. The two keynote lectures, “Illusion, immediacy, and the “vehicle of description” in travel writing and travel illustration” by Benjamin Colbert (university of Wolverhampton) and Ludmilla Kostova’s (St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria) “Intercultural mediation in travel writing and its (dis)contents: the cases of Mary Wortley Montagu and Rebecca West” introduced various topics of wider interest in the field: Colbert discussed the concepts of both the picturesque and subjectivity in connection with travel writing, especially with description and illustration. Kostova introduced xenophilia, interpretation and mediation as means of understanding the “other” in women’s travel writing. The topics of the sessions included a concentration on various national literatures (e.g. Polish, French, Russian and British), gender (women’s travels), non-human travel (esp. animals; the space travel of science fiction was not represented), or travel in important works of literature. Continue reading “Conference Report: Borders and Crossings Kielce, Poland, 12-14 September 2016” →

ESSE13 Round Table – Gender Studies Network

Published on 3rd October 2016 in GSN Announcements

ESSE13 Round Table “Creating a European Anglicists’ Gender Studies Network”

gsn-picture-esse-13Evidently, the topic was very popular, and it attracted an engaged audience. The introductory part was devoted to foundations. First, Renate Haas (University of Kiel) highlighted Gender Studies as a European discipline.

She based her argument on the recent volume Rewriting Academia: The Development of the Anglicist Women’s and Gender Studies of Continental Europe (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2015). In it, 25 experts give broadly contextualised surveys for their countries. Haas pointed out that European cooperation has proved crucial for the full academic recognition of Gender Studies and that a deeper European understanding of Gender Studies presents both a task and a great chance. Next, María Socorro Suárez Lafuente from the University of Oviedo characterised several landmark achievements. That some of their beginnings were modest and elementary may be an encouragement for new endeavours. Chaired by Florence Binard (Université Paris Diderot / Sorbonne Paris Cité), the second part focussed on the concrete practical measures of networking.

A registration form will be posted on this blog for those who wish to join the EGSN. The aim is to become more visible on a national and, more importantly, on a European level.

During the Galway round table, also a call for national correspondents was launched. Their main role will consist of collecting relevant information (written in English) in their respective countries. Participants from Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Romania, and Spain have already volunteered. Candidates from other European countries are welcome! In addition, all EGSN members are invited to send us (Renate, María, Florence) information about CFPs, conferences, publications etc. on English Gender Studies that might interest other members.

A mailing list will be created in order to further intensify communication between EGSN members.

Renate Haas, haas@anglistik.uni-kiel.de
María Socorro Suárez Lafuente, lafuente@uniovi.es
Florence Binard, fbinard@eila.uni-paris-diderot.fr

EJES – 20th Anniversary

Published on 1st September 2016 in EJES Matters, ESSE Matters, Events

ejes-logoCelebrating 20 Years of EJES (The European Journal of English Studies)

2016 brings the publication of the 20th volume of the European Journal of English Studies (EJES). To mark this occasion, the Editors have curated a special collection of articles which not only showcases the breadth of scholarship that has been a feature of the journal over the last two decades, but also hopes to inspire contributions for future issues. The anniversary collection features an article from each volume of EJES, free to read, with a commentary from the Editors. It also includes an insightful introduction from Professor Kayman which is designed not only to look back on previous content, but also to inspire contributions for future themed issues.

You can see the Virtual Special Issue on the Taylor & Francis website here: http://explore.tandfonline.com/page/ah/neje-20th-anniversary-vsi.

pdf-1 NEJE 2016 ESSE Flyer

ESSE Book Grants

Published on 1st September 2016 in ESSE Matters

esse-logo-postsRecognising that it is difficult in some situations to obtain access to books necessary for research without purchasing them, and recognising also that some ESSE members have financial difficulties, ESSE awards some small grants to its members for the purchase of books in connection with specific research projects. Deadine: 1st October 2016.
The rules have just been posted at https://essenglish.org/book-grants/

New SAES President

Published on 21st June 2016 in ESSE Matters

esse-logo-postsSAES (La Société des Anglicistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur), the French association affiliated to ESSE, has a new President, Professor Wilfrid Rotgé (Université Paris-Sorbonne), a distinguished linguist. Professor Rotgé’s election followed after Professor Pierre Lurbe stepped down as president of SAES after a four year term, following two years as vice-president.

Conference Report: ‘Games of Empires’, Saarbrücken 2016

Published on 1st June 2016 in Conference Reports

Games of Empires. Historico-Cultural Connotations of Board Games in Transnational and Imperial Contexts

Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany, 21-23 April 2016

Katrin Berndt (Associate Professor, University of Bremen, Germany)

erstellt am: 18.07.07 Foto: atb-thiry, Fotograf: Jochen Hans Universität des Saarlandes. Saarbrücken, Campus, Studiengebühren, Studium
Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

As a universally shared human activity and a fundamental form of cultural expression, playing has been an object of research in the humanities and the social sciences since philosopher Karl Groos developed his evolutionary psychological theory of play in Die Spiele der Menschen (1899; Engl. The Play of Man). To sketch out and establish a historico-cultural approach to the genre of board games was the aim of Games of Empires, an interdisciplinary conference organized by the Department of Ancient History and the Chair for Transcultural Anglophone Studies of Saarland University that took place from 21 to 23 April 2016 in Saarbrücken, Germany.

Continue reading “Conference Report: ‘Games of Empires’, Saarbrücken 2016” →

Tales of Berlin in American Literature up to the 21st Century

Published on 12th April 2016 in Book Announcements

tales-of-berlinTales of Berlin in American Literature up to the 21st Century

by Joshua Parker

Amsterdam: Brill / Rodopi, 2016.
ISBN: 9789004312081

Of all European cities, Americans today are perhaps most curious about Berlin, whose position in the American imagination is an essential component of nineteenth-century, postwar and contemporary transatlantic imagology. Over various periods, Berlin has been a tenuous space for American claims to cultural heritage and to real geographic space in Europe, symbolizing the ultimate evil and the power of redemption. This volume offers a comprehensive examination of the city’s image in American literature from 1840 to the present. Tracing both a history of Berlin and of American culture through the ways the city has been narrated across three centuries by some 100 authors through 145 novels, short stories, plays and poems, Tales of Berlin presents a composite landscape not only of the German capital, but of shifting subtexts in American society which have contextualized its meaning for Americans in the past, and continue to do so today.

For further information and a full list of contents, please visit http://www.brill.com/products/book/tales-berlin-american-literature-21st-century

An excerpt is available at http://op.asjournal.org/american-berlin-across-last-century/

pdf-1 About the book

Advertising in the ESSE Messenger

Published on 12th April 2016 in ESSE Messenger Matters

esse-messlogo-tinyThe European English Messenger used to carry advertisements in its paper issues. As our journal goes online from the Summer of 2016, it is now possible to place advertisements in the website of The ESSE Messenger.

The information for advertisers in the website of The ESSE Messenger is now online on the Advertisers page of the site.

PhD Scholarship

Published on 2nd April 2016

Applications are invited for a full-time PhD scholarship at the Department of Literary Studies at KU Leuven (Campus Brussels). The successful applicant will participate in the project on ‘Cultural Transfer and Translation in Scottish Romantic Periodicals, 1817-1829’, funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO, http://www.fwo.be/en/) and supervised by dr. Tom Toremans. The project will involve archival research at the University of Edinburgh/National Library of Scotland and is co-supervised by dr. Tom Mole (Centre for the History of the Book, University of Edinburgh).

More information at https://essenglish.org/doctoral-scholarships

ESSE-13 (2016) Conference – Space on S17

Published on 30th March 2016

galway2016-logoESSE-13 conference, August 22 to August 26 2016, NUI Galway, Galway, Ireland. There is still space on this seminar – please send an immediate expression of interest to the co-convenors.

S17 “Contact, Identity and Morphosyntactic Variation in Diasporic Communities of Practice”

Co-convenors

This seminar aims to look at issues of language maintenance and shift in heritage communities of practice. Specific attention will be paid to discussing their longstanding migration, cultural heritage and identity construction. Mobility, contact and exchanges are increasing, social and communicative networks are becoming more complex, and the sociolinguistics of diaspora is beginning to address new issues. Diasporic communities are constantly increasing in size and number in the urban centres, making them sites of diversity. What happens to single heritage languages as they are relocated into new settings, creating new dialect contact situations? Papers resulting from ethnographic fieldwork and observation with a focus on language use, morphosyntactic variation and heritage identity are of particular interest

Correction

Published on 26th March 2016 in In Memoriam

In the homage to Helmut Bonheim published in the Autumn 2015 edition of the European English Messenger, I stated that Professor Bonheim’s wife, Jean, had passed away shortly after his death (*). I have since been reliably informed that, though poorly, Mrs Bonheim is in fact still alive and residing in a care home in Germany. I deeply regret the error and the distress it will have caused her daughter, as well as the sadness the news will have provoked in colleagues who share the affection for the Bonheims felt by so many of us who were involved in the first phase of ESSE’s existence.

Martin A. Kayman

(*) ‘In Memoriam Helmut Bonheim (1930-2012)’, The European English Messenger, 24 (2): 31-39.

ESSE-13 (2016) Conference – Seminar looking for contributions

Published on 22nd March 2016

galway2016-logo The following ESSE 2016 seminar is still looking for contributors. Please send an immediate expression of interest to the co-convenors.

The Neo-Victorian Antipodes

Convenors:

From arguably the earliest example of Neo-Victorian fiction (Patrick White’s Voss, 1957) to recent Man-Booker winner The Luminaries (2013) by way of Peter Carey and Kate Grenville, the antipodes are a favoured setting for Neo-Victorian novels. This seminar explores how Neo-Victorian fiction constructs Australia, New Zealand and the Southern Pacific as, variously, the site of uncanny domesticity, an Other to Britain, a landscape to be colonised or scientifically appropriated, a frontier for the testing of masculinity, an occasion for re-writing of canonical texts. We aim to investigate the intersection of Neo-Victorian preoccupations with nineteenth-century discourses with post-colonial theorising of settler colonialism.

Please send proposals to: Mariadele.Boccardi@uwe.ac.uk therese.meyer@anglistik.uni-halle.de

Gender Studies Network – Basic Links

Published on 3rd March 2016 in GSN Announcements

This list is only preliminary and highly selective. Its aim is for a start to highlight Anglicist contributions, as the field is immense due to the strong interdisciplinary character of Women’s and Gender Studies and due to the size of Europe. (ESSE currently has more than 30 member states.) A maximum of two sites is given per country. First choice are associations or journals with an explicit Anglicist WGS orientation. If they are missing, WGS associations, journals or book series have been chosen in which scholars from English Studies play an important role or whose emphases are particularly close to English Studies. Occasionally, interdisciplinary research centres, courses of study or projects are also included.

(Please don’t forget to consult the homepages of the ESSE constituent associations.) Continue reading “Gender Studies Network – Basic Links” →

Gender Studies Network

Published on 3rd March 2016 in GSN Announcements

Welcome to the Gender Studies Network!

Women’s and Gender Studies have established themselves as a vibrant, highly innovative field of English Studies and contribute decisively to the crucial role the discipline plays among the humanities in Europe. The plethora of achievements makes it difficult to get an overall picture, particularly as the strong interdisciplinary orientation of Women’s and Gender Studies encourages co-operation in smaller local or regional units. Much can therefore be gained from European exchange and synergies. Women’s and Gender Studies cut across all sectors of English Studies and a network can help to bring them together for focussed work, greater international visibility and well-deserved prestige.

During ESSE 12, a first panel gathered together colleagues from all over Europe, and there was general consensus that a broad exchange of information is basic. A great opportunity is now open through this “corner” in the Messenger. In another panel during this year’s conference, RT11 <http://www.esse2016.org/roundtable.html>, we will be able to discuss the next steps and further initiatives. Even before Galway suggestions are most welcome, including additions to the Basic List of Links particularly relevant to Anglicist Women’s and Gender Studies <Basic_List_of_Links>. For instance, we also envisage a directory of Anglicist researchers and research in the field.

Renate Haas, University of Kiel, haas@anglistik.uni-kiel.de
Işil Baş, Boğaziçi University, isil@boun.edu.tr
Florence Binard, University of Paris Diderot, fbinard@eila.uni-paris-diderot.fr
Milena Katsarska, University of Plovdiv, milena.katsarska@gmail.com
María Socorro Suárez Lafuente, University of Oviedo, lafuente@uniovi.es

Conference Report: EASA 13 Conference, Veszprém, Hungary

Published on 5th February 2016 in Conference Reports

EASA 13 Conference: Australia as Topos – The Transformation of Australian Studies

University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary

ANDRÁS, Ferenc – FORINTOS, Éva

EASA
University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary EASA13 Conference

The town of Veszprém in Hungary has in many ways been at the cusp of history throughout its 7,000 years of known existence. The surrounding hills witnessed the decisive battles fought in the region more than 1,000 years ago. In several ways Veszprém is also a cultural capital: it was the first Hungarian city to have a university level educational institution in the 13th century. We are delighted to announce that the University of Pannonia (Veszprém, Hungary), in cooperation with Topos – Bilingual Journal of Space and Humanities and the Veszprém Regional Branch of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences successfully hosted the 13th biannual international conference of the European Association for Studies on Australia (EASA) between 30 September and 3 October 2015. Continue reading “Conference Report: EASA 13 Conference, Veszprém, Hungary” →