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

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

Shakespeare 400 in Turku
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

English – think of the possibilities
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

Battle and Hastings
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

A Heat Wave of Digital Humanities
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

The Zoo
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, ...

Greetings from Mousehole, Cornwall

Greetings from Mousehole, Cornwall
I am writing this piece after a night of gales and storm over England, Wales and Scotland. The small bedsit I am renting for a writing-cum-walking retreat gives out to the sea (there are seals, I’m told, but I have not managed to see them), which is now surprisingly still. The sun rises beautiful and ...

Beyond the ivory tower: Co-operation with a local upper secondary school

Beyond the ivory tower: Co-operation with a local upper secondary school
When I was in upper secondary school (‘lukio’ in Finnish), two of my teachers organized a “Rome Club” (‘Rooma-kerho’), which could be taken as an optional course. In order to receive credit for the course, we needed to take part in a variety of activities, one of which was attending guest lectures by researchers and ...

Funding applications, Part 1: Finding funding opportunities 1

When you’re a first-time participant in the game of applying for research grants, it’s a good idea to ask around and learn a few tricks of the trade. This post explores online resources for finding suitable funding for your research and career stage, and it is first in a series of posts on how to ...

Happy Holidays!

I would like to wish all our students and staff a very relaxing Christmas break and rewarding New Year. Joel Kuortti Professor, Head of English Department Head of School of Languages and Translation studies