EnglanTY ← What the dickens is happening at the Department of English, Turku University ← Page 5

Heat wave and historical linguistics in Essen 1

Sep

2

2016

For university faculty, summer does not simply equal vacation. It is also a prime time for international conferences that are part of our work as researchers. In the end of August, historical linguists flocked to Essen, Germany for the 19th biennial ICEHL conference (22–26 August). ICEHL stands for “International Conference on English Historical Linguistics”. The ...

Postmodern feminist challenging of dominant discourses: Mehdi Ghasemi’s doctoral defence

Jun

16

2016

The second one of the two doctoral defences at the Department of English in the spring 2016 was Mehdi Ghasemi’s “Quest/ion of Identities in African American Feminist Postmodern Drama: A Study of Selected Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks”. The public examination of the dissertation took place at the University of Turku on 10 June, 2016. The ...

The transmission of early scientific writing: Mari-Liisa Varila’s doctoral defence

Jun

14

2016

It is always a happy occasion for the whole department when a doctoral candidate defends their dissertation. This spring we were treated to not only one but two public examinations of doctoral dissertations. The first was that of Mari-Liisa Varila. On 28 May 2016, she defended her dissertation titled “In search of textual boundaries: A ...

SLT historical linguistics seminar 13.5 – Winding through the dusty deserts of a lush philology, pt 2

Jun

9

2016

The seminar continued with the Department of Finnish and Finno-Ugric languages revealing its onomastic side, as we heard presentations from Kirsi-Maria Nummila and Regina Bűdi. Nummila studies medieval street names in Turku and the credit that is their due to Baltic Sea region city plans or the so called German city plan. This city plan ...

SLT historical linguistics seminar 13.5 – Winding through the dusty deserts of a lush philology, pt 1

Jun

9

2016

What games of chance did the ancient Romans play? What role did Latin have to play in fifteenth-century England? Can a portion of medieval street names in Turku be seen as loans from Baltic Sea region city plans, and to what degree do they draw their names from their context and functions, like a nearby ...

Shakespeare 400 in Turku

Apr

25

2016

Last week, our department – along with the rest of the world – celebrated Shakespeare as Saturday April 23rd marked the 400th anniversary of the Bard of Avon’s death. Why death, you ask? Well, because we do not know his exact day of birth, and in order to celebrate, we need a date! So, a ...

English – think of the possibilities

Mar

18

2016

We’ve pretty much all studied the English language for many years already in our lives before making decisions about third level education. That English is a whole different beast than the one that’s studied in universities. Earlier you’ve simply studied how to use the language. When studying English at a university, you will get the ...

Battle and Hastings 1

Oct

13

2015

My three-year research project on multilingual practices in England in the ‘long twelfth century’ ended in August, when its last research trip took me to the UK for the sixth time since 2012. In addition to doing library work, I paid a visit to the place where my long century began: Hastings, on the south ...

A Heat Wave of Digital Humanities

Sep

15

2015

It’s not summer for a doctoral student if it doesn’t include an intensive training week or two. We two intrepid travellers from the Department attended the sixth European Summer University in Digital Humanities (ESU DH), “Culture and Technology”, held at Universität Leipzig July 28-August 7. Founded by Prof. Elisabeth Burr, ESU DH is a multilingual, ...

The Zoo

May

21

2015

An important part of academics’ work is attending conferences; think Presentation Skills meets Proseminar, or an MA Elective class, but with professors and researchers instead of students. While some of the best conferences are symposia with just a dozen or so papers, such as our own Linguistics Meets Book History last autumn, others are huge, ...