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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” →

A Word from the ESSE President

Published on 20th January 2016 in ESSE Matters

esse-logo-postsThe time has come to embrace our changing world and its new technologies: with this in mind, the board of ESSE, convened last year in August in Braga, decided that The Messenger should finally go electronic. Our Newsletter was traditionally sent to you twice a year from Portugal, sometimes with real difficulties and at a considerable cost. The move to an online and electronic version seemed a most effective move, not to mention a timely one, considering The Messenger is now well beyond the age of the majority (being 25 in 2015 as we advertised in its last Winter issue).

This was a difficult decision to take, as quite a number of our members, I am sure, still hold their paper copies in great esteem as they reminded them of the presence of ESSE in their lives. We were fortunate to find in Adrian Radu (Romania) – in cooperation with Jacques Ramel, our website webmaster – a ready individual to undertake the challenging task of transferring The Messenger into its new format. I want to thank here the former editors of the paper version who performed a brilliant (often difficult) task; in particular Dr. Hortensia Parlog who helped make the transition and was in charge of the last edition of The Messenger.

We still have our academic scholarly Journal of English studies, EJES, in paper form and let me say that The Messenger will not compete against it or play the same role. Having realized that our website plays the role of a Newsletter with all kind of information published quickly and easily, The Messenger, as of January 2016, will be our new online Journal. It will retain part of its former duty as newsletter continuing 25 years of tradition of spreading information, but also publishing poetry and book reviews; it will also be an online journal publishing articles dedicated to professional issues, as well as more academic papers (such as the best papers given by doctoral students during our – now as of 2016 – yearly PhD sessions).

This year will be a year of transition, as The ESSE Messenger will move from paper version to the electronic format. It will continue its policy of offering a variety of contributions, some of which will be selected by the new editor, Adrian Radu, for peer-reviewing following the established tradition of this publication.

Let me add that it seems of the utmost importance that The Messenger should have a wider international spread for we know that today this the sine qua non condition for us, working in the field of humanities, to be read and to have our results quickly shared in our academic community and beyond.

Let me then wish The Messenger a fruitful further 25 years of good services in the interest of us all.

Liliane Louvel
Emeritus Professor,
Poitiers University
ESSE President

Conference Report: “Afroeuropeans 2015”, Münster 2015

Published on 19th January 2016 in Conference Reports

“Afroeuropeans 2015”: Black Cultures and Identities in Europe
The 5th Biennial Afroeuropean Studies Network Conference
Münster, Germany

Jean d’Amour Banyanga (PhD Student, Åbo Akademi University, Finland)

Åbo Akademi University
Åbo Akademi University,
Turku (Finland)

From 16 to19 September 2015, the fifth biennial Afroeuropean Studies Network conference took place in the beautiful city of Münster, Germany. There were 170 participants from 15 countries: Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands, Romania, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the USA. The conference featured keynote lectures, paper presentations, panel discussions, and cultural events on the literature, history, music, art, politics, and youth culture of Africans and their descendants in Europe. Since a full report on all events and sessions would be impossible, the following account is limited to a representative selection. The conference opened in the evening of Wednesday 16 September 2015 with the screening of the film Real Life: Deutschland, followed by a discussion with the director, Nancy Mac Granaky-Quaye from Cologne.   Continue reading “Conference Report: “Afroeuropeans 2015”, Münster 2015″ →

A Word from the Editor

Published on 5th January 2016 in ESSE Messenger Matters

esse-messlogo-tinyThe ESSE Messenger is now online. It will continue the good tradition of the printed version and host messages from the ESSE President, other members of the ESSE Executive or the Editor, offer current information, notes and details about events, conferences, book launches, in memoriam notes, and publish book reviews, (themed) articles, interviews, original literature. The Editor’s aim, hope and efforts are to offer a publication of good quality that readers appreciate, find useful and enjoy reading.

Contributors are invited to observe the Editorial Code, format their materials according to the Messenger’s Stylesheet and send them to the Editor at: esse.messenger.outlook.com.