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Languages and Culture Staff Recent Publications, Public Engagement and Activity

Details of recent public engagement, outreach, media appearances and activities of SSEES Languages and Culture colleagues

May 2024

  • Dr Alex Krouglov completed a report on a new book proposal for Palgrave Macmillan (20 May 2024)
  • Prof Peter Zusi launched his new book, The Integrity of the Avant-Garde: Karel Teige and the Biography of an Ambition (Cambridge: Legenda, 2024) on 16 May at the University of Bristol. He also launched 17 April at the Centre for East and Southeast European History at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.
  • Dr Alex Krouglov organised the international conference 'Languages and Cultures in time of war' over 2-3 May, held at UCL. A full write of the event can be found here.  
  • Dr Eszter Tarsoly has been awarded funding (€130.000), jointly with János Imre Heltai, by the National Research Council (OTKA) of Hungary for a four-year project whose aim is to enhance the linguistic citizenship of bilingual Roma through participatory research in linguistic ethnography. The project investigates the frictions, tensions, and convivial possibilities arising from the coexistence of bilingual Roma and monolingual non-Roma in a small-town setting in eastern Hungary.
  • Dr Svetlana McMillin gave a presentation “Russian Anti–war Songs” at the conference “Languages and cultures in time of war: (im)possible, (re)imagined, (un)manageable, organised by SSEES and University of Giessen, Germany.
  • Dr Alex Krouglov presented a paper "Russian invasion of Ukraine and the growing role of English and other European languages" and chaired several panels at the international conference "Languages and cultures in times of war: (im)possible, (re)imagined, (un)manageable, 2-3 May 2024

April 2024

  • Dr Eszter Tarsoly and Dr Jelena Calic have been awarded a grant by the UCL Center for Humanities Education (funded by generous support from the Lord Randolph Quirk Endowment Fund at UCL) responding to a call for developing EDI initiatives that connect to socio-economic equity and education. Eszter and Jelena will use the funds to organise a symposium ‘Lessons from the margin: Roma inclusion in education’ in September.
  • On April 19, Dr Eszter Tarsoly and Dr Jelena Calic took part in a workshop titled 'Neither London Nor Moscow: Decolonial Dialogues' held at the University of Glasgow. This workshop was part of a wider series called 'From the Ground Up: Reframing Russian Studies in Scotland and Beyond'.
  • On April 24, Ramona Gonczol, Yordanka Velkova and Olga Volosova hosted 58 GCSE students from three high schools at UCL, as a culmination of the Proficiency in East European Languages (PEEL) project. Students had language classes in their heritage language, a tour of UCL and heard about what studying a language at university could lead to. 

March 2024

  • Dr Riitta Valijarvi was interviewed on Sweden's national public radio Sveriges Radio about their project to document and describe Meänkieli. The interview is in Finnish and Meänkieli. https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/kielesta-kiini-meankieli-ja-ai (27 March)
  • On March 28, Dr Riitta Valijarvi, Associate Professor of Finnish and Minority Languages, was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time, to discuss Finland's epic The Kalevala. Riitta was also joined by retired SSEES Professor, Daniel Abondolo (Reader in Hungarian). Listen to the episode (BBC)
  • Dr Anna Ponomareva had a chapter published: 'The Visibility of the Translator: A Case of Telugu Section in Progress Publishers and Raduga'  in Murieann Maguire and Cathy McAteer (eds) Translating Russian Literature in the Global Context, pp.429-435. Available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0340
  • Dr Uilleam Blacker was interviewed for the European Resiliance Initiative podcast on Ukrainian literature's history of resistance: Watch on YouTube.
  • Ana Ilievska Završni and Macedonian short course students visited the Republic of North Macedonia in UK Embassy to meet with the Ambassador Ms.Katerina Stavreska
  • Dr Uilleam Blacker participated in a public discussion on 'How Wars End' at the Cambridge Union alongside Sir Richard Evans, Ayse Zarakol and Kristin Bakke. Part of the Cambridge Festival. Watch the recording on YouTube.
  • On 20 March, Dr Jelena Calic chaired a Book launch: Utopia of the Uniform, joined by Dr Jessie Barton-Hroneseva as a speaker.
  • Dr Uiileam Blacker participated in a panel organised by the Ukrainian Book Institute at the London Book Fair on promoting Ukrainian literature in wartime alongside Ukrainian writers Nina Kuriata and Tania Goriushina.
  • Dr Anna Ponomareva presented her paper, 'The Black and the White',  at The Challenges and Consequences of Cultural Misunderstanding: Linguistic, Legal and Translational Perspectives, an international symposium organised by Universite Polytechnique Hauts-de-France in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences (Zwickau) and Sorbonne University, in Valenciennes, France 14-16 March 2024.
  • On 15 March, Prof Alena Ledeneva, Dr Iryna Petrova and Dr Jakub Benes took part in a panel event at the IAS celebrating the legacy of Professor Teodor Shanin.
  • On 11 March, Dr Uilleam Blacker chaired an event with International Booker Prize winner, Georgi Gospodinov and his translator Angela Rodel on his book 'Time Shelter' at the event: Does the Past have an Expiry Date? A conversation with Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel. Dr Blacker was on the Booker Prize judging panel. A recording of the event is now available on YouTube. 
  • On March 5th, PROLang ran a successful Postgraduate event on Romanian language with 12 PhD candidates presenting their ongoing research, from UK Universities ( UCL, Exeter, Kent, Cambridge, Oxford) as well as from abroad: Timisoara, Romania, Jena, Germany and Beijing. Prof Emeritus Dennis Deletant opened the event. Prof Adam Ledgeway from Cambridge and  Prof Martin Maiden from Oxford were also present. The event was convened by SSEES PhD student Jack Dean together with Ramona Gonczol
  • On 2-3 March, Dr Svetlana McMillin co-organised and acted as Chair in the various sessions at the Eurasian Business Conference “Breaking the Boarders” (UCL/SSEES, LSE).

  • On 2 March, Dr Katarzyna Zechenter gave the opening talk at the Polish Educational Society's Polish A-level weekend, which took place at SSEES and saw over 100 Polish students attend workshops and classes on Polish language and literature. ​​​​

February 2024

 

January 2024

December 2023

  • Senior Research Associate, George Gömöri, published a new book:"Moi polscy pisarze i poeci" which includes 24 sketches and essays on Polish writers from Broniewski to Barańczak. It was published by Księgarnia Akademicka of the Jagiełło University with photographs and an index. 
  • Language short course students and staff produced a festive wishes video, showing off their language skills. 
  • On 1 December, Dr Svetlana McMillin organised and acted as a chair at the event of UCL Eurasian Business Society “Meet Ekaterina Schulmann: Q&A evening”
  • Dr Riitta Valijarvi was awarded a Swedish Research Councii Grant for the project "Meänkieli: Spoken Corpus and Descriptive Grammar".

November 2023

  • Maja Rančigaj Beneš moderated a discussion at SSEES with Slovene writer and artist Cvetka Bevc, as part of the Study of Central Europe Seminar Series (28 November 2023)
  • Ramona Gonczol has delivered content for Romanian, as part of the SELCS-run 'Not Just Words' project which promotes language learning through art and objects. Watch on YouTube. On Friday 10th November, Ramona attended a meeting between the Romanian community and three Romanian parliamentarians representing the diaspora, organised by the Romanian Embassy and hosted at the Romanian Cultural Institute, discussing the contributions , successes and importance of the Romanian diaspora in the UK as well as the need to encourage the maintenance of the language amongst school children. A working group between the Romanian embassy, the Romanian cultural centre and SSEES will be formed to collaborate on projects that lead to the introduction of GCES exams in Romanian as a community language in the future. 
  • Keti Kalandadze and Marine Tigishvili, Georgian Short Courses teachers, organised a Language Taster with the Georgian Students society, run by  SSEES student Mariam Vekua. 
  • Emeritus Professor Arnold McMillin attended an international conference on a Belarusian pioneer, Vaclau Lastouski, in the Francis Skaryna Library, London. (11 November 2023)
  • Dr Anna Ponomareva had an article chapter hasublished (5 November 2023) :'Mirror pas de deux: Cranko’s reinvention of Pushkin’s Text in his Ballet Onegin (1965)' in Helen Julia Minors (ed.) (2003) Music, Text and Translation Vol. 2. London and Oxford: Bloomsbury, pp.117-132. ISBN: 978-1-3501-7573. She also presented a paper 'Translation as Gardening: Early Buddhist Project in China' at the 7th UK-CHA Conference “Shared Visions: Humanities in Retrospect and Prospect” at Wuhan University on 10-11 November 2023. The visit to China was supported by a British Council grant. On 6 November, she was a guest lecturer at the Centre for Translation at Hong Kong Baptist University where she presented her lecture My Appointment with Onegin: Charles Johnston, Douglas Hofstadter and Stanley Mitchell.
  • Dr Uilleam Blacker moderated an event in memory of Victoria Amelina, with Emma Shercliff (literary agent), Sasha Dovzhyk (Ukrainian Institute London/IWM, Vienna), Charlotte Higgins (Guardian), Christina Lamb (Sunday Times), at the British Library. (9 November 2023). He also participated in a  discussion organised by the Fund of the President of Ukraine on the place of Ukrainian literature in western academia. With Sasha Dovzhyk (Ukrainian Institute London, IWM, Vienna) and Iryna Odrekhivska (Ivan Franko University, Lviv/UCL SSEES), organised by Anna Oliinyk (UCL SSEES)
  • Prof Alex Krouglov has been invited to join the Conference Committee of 2024 International Conference on Education, Psychology and Modern Management (with responsibilities for Education)

October 2023

September 2023

  • Dr Svetlana McMillin participated in a conference “Russian studies after 2022”, held by the Institute of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the Marie Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland (28–29 September) On 28 September, she was a discussant in a panel «Русистика на фоне войны, репрессий, эмиграции» (“Russian studies against the backdrop of war, repression and emigration”). She also gave a paper “’Здесь птицы не поют…’ Российские антивоенные песни” (“’The birds do not sing here…’, Russian anti–war songs”).(29 September) 
  • Dr Ljiljana Bilbija attended the European Language Day in the UK EU Delegation Open Day to promote Croatian language learning in the UK (Sept 26, 2023)
  • Prof Arnold McMillin presented a paper, 'The Growth of Belarusian National Consciousness' at Gdansk University on  23 September
  • Prof Alex Krouglov has been teaching a course in Ukrainian for heritage speakers at Ukrainian Institute London (from 21st September):
  • Prof Zoran Milutinovic (together with Prof Slavo Radosevic) was one of three keynote speakers at The Third Balkan Studies Conference -Cultural Inheritance and Diversified Development, organised by Balkan Studies Center, Beijing Foreign Studies University, September 19-23, 2023.
  • Dr Uilleam Blacker was in conversation with Dame Melinda Simmons, former UK ambassador to Ukraine, at JW3/Ukrainian Institute London: https://ukrainianjewishencounter.org/en/news/video-dame-melinda-simmons-in-conversation-with-uilleam-blacker-in-london/  (11 September 2023). On 25 September, Dr Blacker's translation of a poem by Iryna Shuvalova was chosen as poem of the day by the American Association of Poets: https://poets.org/poem/moving-grov
  • Dr Ramona Gonczol created and filmed the Romanian Subject Spotlight with SpringPod, a platform to allow prospective students to try out a university level course before application. 

August 2023

July 2023