Heat wave and historical linguistics in Essen 1

Heat wave and historical linguistics in Essen
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

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

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

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

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

The Department by the River

The Department by the River
As mentioned earlier in the Tale of Two Departments, there are two Departments of English here in Turku. Situated as we are on the University Hill, our department is known as the Department Up the Hill, while our Åbo Akademi sister department (right at the brink of the river Aura) is known as the Department ...

Turku #PoPsymp 2014: International symposium of linguistics and book history

Turku #PoPsymp 2014: International symposium of linguistics and book history
Linguistics met book history on 24–25 October 2014 as twenty-odd participants gathered in the Turku Main Library for an invigorating two days of presentations and discussion on the interaction of linguistic and material issues in the study of historical text. Linguistics Meets Book History: Seeking New Approaches (aka the PoP symposium), was organised by the ...