EnglanTY ← What the dickens is happening at the Department of English, Turku University ← Page 7

Festschrifts and academic festivities

Jun

27

2014

One catch-phrase nowadays is that universities are dynamic. Indeed, there are many changes going on during each academic year. But there are also traditions that are valued by the academic community. For instance, the academic year has the opening ceremony in September and the graduation ceremony, publiikki, in June where new MAs are celebrated. In ...

A Day to Remember 1

Jun

3

2014

What happens when three professors of the School of Languages and Translation Studies retire at the same and give their valedictory addresses in the same room? There is of course a full house, with colleagues, collaborators, students, friends and family in attendance. The addresses are full of memories from the professors’ long careers, both personal ...

”Once upon a Time There Was University: Yliopistoon! To the University!”

May

22

2014

In the summer of 2005, I happened to read a Finnish detective novel by Matti Hälli, titled Sopimatonta kuolla yliopistolla (1943) [It Is Unbecoming to Die at the University]. The text intrigued me so much that I wrote a short piece on it to the University Employee Unions’ magazine, Acatiimi. What was then just an ...

A Tale of Two Departments

May

17

2014

The two English Departments in Turku, Åbo Akademi and Turun Yliopisto, congregated, as has been the custom over the years, for a joint retreat, this time on the island of Seili in the Turku archipelago. Seili, of course, is the island historically (in)famous for its leper colony and later its mental institution. For the last ...

Bridging North America: Inauguration of the John Morton Center

Apr

30

2014

The recently launched John Morton Center for North American Studies held its inaugural event on Tuesday, April 29, in the University of Turku’s Calonia building. The Center’s new director and powerhouse Benita Heiskanen did not rest on her laurels in starting the center’s activities: in the past three months she has already, with the help ...

More Poetry from Our Students

Apr

23

2014

Wizard Battle Inside enchanted magical valley Dark, narrow, ominous alley Dastardly, evil, warlock-meeting Legendary Thor, coming, greeting Attacking with spells, fantastic blunder Powerful, brave, controlling thunder Using lightning, scary, frightening Boldly fighting, wrongs righting Calling strong blizzards Freezing poor wizards Impervious to pain Summoning rain Until Enemies swimming in water Old Nordic tales, better than ...

Poetry from our students

Apr

10

2014

This academic year, our (mostly) first-year students have been assigned poetry-writing as a part of the Academic Writing Skills I course, taught by Henno Erikson Parks and Justin Parks (no relation). Our poetry expert and recent PhD, Elina Siltanen, selected some of the poems to be showcased here on the blog for your enjoyment. Well ...

The path to graduation is paved with… a new curriculum 1

Mar

7

2014

‘OMG it’s happening again’ may have been many a teacher’s first thought last autumn when planning the new MA degree began at the School of Languages and Translation Studies. This is the third curricular reorganization in ten years, and everyone is worried about the time that planning always takes, which is time away from research ...

Upcoming event: MA Thesis Symposium

Feb

20

2014

11 March, 10-12 Lecture room X The first MA Thesis Symposium of the English department was organised last year. Six speakers, from different Advanced Studies tracks, gave a ten-minute paper on their pro gradu projects. The audience consisted of students and staff members, and many good questions were answered after the presentations. The second MA ...

Hard Work Made Easy

Feb

7

2014

On the last day of January, 2014, a fifty-strong crowd gathered in the Tauno Nurmela auditorium to listen to the defence of Elina Siltanen’s doctoral dissertation “Hard Work? Reciprocal Communication in Contemporary American Experimental Poetry”. The opponent who discussed the dissertation with Siltanen was professor emeritus Charles Molesworth (Queens College, The City University of New ...