EUTOPIA Languages Week

These events will take place online or in hybrid format and are open to the whole alliance.

• All week: Quizzes and games all hosted on a dedicated website.
  Lead institution: VUB.
  Language quizzes and games: discover your true Eutopia match, multillingual songs, little languages quizzes... language and Eutopia fun in a gamification environment!
  Link to the website here.
• Monday 6th, 13:00 - 15:00 CET: Opening to the week + Plenary talk: Does learning a new language rewire your brain?
  Lead institution: Warwick.
  What is language good for? One obvious answer is communication, which helps us transmit information rapidly and understand the mental state of others, crucial for group cohesion and survival. Moreover, it is often said that learning a foreign language is an enriching experience that broadens our perspective and access to other cultures and ideas. Here, I will be taking these questions further: Does language tune our vision to specific aspects of reality? Does learning a new language change the way we see the world? Does thinking in a foreign language actually help people make better decisions? The current talk will bring together evidence from psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience to begin to sketch an answer to these questions, and thus highlight some of the ways in which language can enhance, or meddle with our thinking in some often surprising ways.
  Speaker: Prof Tiziana Lippiello, Rector of Ca'Foscari University of Venice, then Prof Panos Athanasopoulos (Lancaster University)
  Register here.
• Monday 6th, 17:00 - 18:00 CET: Language Cafés: English and French.
  Lead institution: Ljubljana.
  EUTOPIA’s Language Café is an opportunity for learners of French, German, Italian, Spanish and English (±B1/B2 language level CEFR) to have a virtual discussion to practise their speaking. We’ll put you in small groups with students from other universities in the EUTOPIA alliance. There will be suggestions for topics to get you started but you can take the conversation in any way you like once you’ve got going! The conversations will be recorded so that students studying Discourse Analysis can use them afterwards as research material but you don’t have to be doing Discourse Analysis to join in – perhaps you just want to practise speaking, or are interested in the experiences of students in other countries! The event takes place on MS Teams. Details regarding how and when to join a session will be sent to you when you register.
  Register here.
   
• Tuesday 7th, 13:00 - 14:00 CET: Language Cafés: French and German.
  Lead institution: Ljubljana.
  EUTOPIA’s Language Café is an opportunity for learners of French, German, Italian, Spanish and English (±B1/B2 language level CEFR) to have a virtual discussion to practise their speaking. We’ll put you in small groups with students from other universities in the EUTOPIA alliance. There will be suggestions for topics to get you started but you can take the conversation in any way you like once you’ve got going! The conversations will be recorded so that students studying Discourse Analysis can use them afterwards as research material but you don’t have to be doing Discourse Analysis to join in – perhaps you just want to practise speaking, or are interested in the experiences of students in other countries! The event takes place on MS Teams. Details regarding how and when to join a session will be sent to you when you register.
  Register here.
• Tuesday 7th, 15:00 - 16:00 CET: The mystery of the Griko language spoken by the Greeks in Southern Italy over many centuries.
  Lead institution: Pompeu Fabra Barcelona.
  The extreme South of Italy is home, up to nowadays, to two tiny Greek- speaking communities, which once used to be way more extended than today. How many centuries have these Greek minorities been in Italy? Are they some remnants of the Ancient Greek colonies since the 8th century BC or did they settle down on the other side of the sea only during the Middle Ages? Answers about their history are still controversial! What is certain is that the Griko language survives as a sparkle of what used to be the beating heart of the Italian Hellenism. This talk will guide you through the discovery of the Griko culture and identity through intergenerational poems, songs, stories, events and fascinating language facts.
  Speaker: Emanuela Pina (Doctoral Student) Translation and Language Sciences, UPF.
  Link to the activity here.
• Wednesday 8th, 16:00 - 18:00 CET: Round Table: The Future of Multilingualism in a Disrupted Society.
  Lead institution: Warwick.
  16:00: Roundtable. Despite the multilingual profile of contemporary societies, linguistic diversity does not suggest socio-political linguistic equality. On the contrary, linguistic hierarchies and linguistic exclusion have implications for social cohesion, sustainability, social justice as well as our collective ability to transcend boundaries to address complex, global problems. This panel brings together scholars from different backgrounds to discuss our options for a linguistically inclusive society and the future of multilingualism in the disrupted 21st century.
  17:30: Closing by Prof Stuart Croft, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Warwick
  Speakers: Anna De Fina (Georgetown University), Julie Kerekes (University of Toronto), Jean-Marc Dewaele (Birkbeck University), Panos Athanasopoulos (Lancaster University), Jo Angouri (University of Warwick), and Stuart Croft.
  Register here.
• Wednesday 8th, 17:00 - 18:00 CET: Language Cafés: Italian and Spanish.
  Lead institution: Ljubljana.
  EUTOPIA’s Language Café is an opportunity for learners of French, German, Italian, Spanish and English (±B1/B2 language level CEFR) to have a virtual discussion to practise their speaking. We’ll put you in small groups with students from other universities in the EUTOPIA alliance. There will be suggestions for topics to get you started but you can take the conversation in any way you like once you’ve got going! The conversations will be recorded so that students studying Discourse Analysis can use them afterwards as research material but you don’t have to be doing Discourse Analysis to join in – perhaps you just want to practise speaking, or are interested in the experiences of students in other countries! The event takes place on MS Teams. Details regarding how and when to join a session will be sent to you when you register.
  Register here.
   
• Thursday 9th, 13:00 - 14:00 CET: Language Cafés: English and Spanish.
  Lead institution: Ljubljana.
  EUTOPIA’s Language Café is an opportunity for learners of French, German, Italian, Spanish and English (±B1/B2 language level CEFR) to have a virtual discussion to practise their speaking. We’ll put you in small groups with students from other universities in the EUTOPIA alliance. There will be suggestions for topics to get you started but you can take the conversation in any way you like once you’ve got going! The conversations will be recorded so that students studying Discourse Analysis can use them afterwards as research material but you don’t have to be doing Discourse Analysis to join in – perhaps you just want to practise speaking, or are interested in the experiences of students in other countries! The event takes place on MS Teams. Details regarding how and when to join a session will be sent to you when you register.
  Register here.
• Thursday 9th, 13:00 - 14:30 CET: Lost in Translation Story Slam
  Lead Institution: TUD.
  For our Story Slam on the topic of "Lost in Translation," we want your amusing, tragic or horrific stories involving something that was lost in translation. The topic can be interpreted in any way you choose, and is not restricted to examples of failed or embarrassing language translations, although these are, of course, particularly welcome.
  Register here.
• Thursday 9th, 17:00 - 19:00 CET: Languages and Linguistics Societies: International Networking.
  Lead institution: Ljubljana.
  A space for Linguistics and Languages Societies in the EUTOPIA alliance to meet, network and have a general chat. It’s an open space to present what your society does and how we can all work collaboratively in the future! Anyone with an interest in language and/or linguistics is free to join to see what we do and how you can get involved too.
  Register here.
   
• Friday 10th, 11:00 - 12:00 CET: Tous des Oiseaux by Wajdi Mouawad, a "world-play".
  Lead institution: CY.
  What can contemporary theater tell us about our identities and our languages? How does the multilingual play Tous des Oiseaux written by Wajdi Mouawad show our enemies as our friends because they are speaking the same language? Talk presented by Elsa Caron.
  Register here
• Friday 10th, 11:00 - 13:00 CET: Roundtable: Gender-Inclusive Language in French, Italian and Spanish + Closing the Languages Week
  Lead institution: TUD.
  11:00: Roundtable. In what forms does gender-inclusive language manifest itself in the three Romance languages of French, Spanish, and Italian? What are the societal debates about gender-inclusive language in Francophone, Hispanophone, and Italophone societies? What language policies are being pursued? What practices of gender-inclusive language are being fostered in these languages at the EUTOPIA universities? Our group will discuss these and other questions with the guests of the Round Table. The goal is to engage with students and colleagues from the EUTOPIA universities on the issue of "Gender-inclusive Language," to exchange ideas about practice and challenges, and to consider joint projects on this topic. The conversation languages in the Round Table are English, French, Spanish, and Italian.
  12:30: Closing by Prof Roswitha Böhm, Vice-Rector University Culture at TU Dresden
  Speaker: Vanessa Bravo Feria, Michela Gargiulo, Josephine Klingebeil, Torsten König, Bettina Lindorfer, Silvia Nania, Annegret Richter, Enrico Serena, Florence Walter, and Roswitha Böhm
  Zoom link here.

These events will take place internally and in person at the institution running them.

 

Activities at the VUB

• Monday 6th, 17:00 - 19:00: Film Night + Q&A: Angst essen Seele auf
  The 60-year old widow Emmi meets a younger Maroccan immigrant worker. As they get along great, they decide to move in together and get married. However, this is not appreciated by Emmi's racist son in law, or by society in general.
  Speaker: Janine Hauthal
  Venue: Building I, 1.04
   
• Tuesday 7th, 12:00 - 13:00: Dutch Language Table.
  Colloquial get together over lunch in Dutch, with one of the language assistants.
  Venue: VUB restaurant
• Tuesday 7th, 12:00 - 13:00: Spanish Language Table.
  Colloquial get together over lunch in Spanish, with one of the language assistants.
  Venue: VUB restaurant
• Tuesday 7th, 17:00 - 19:00: Film Night + Q&A: 120 BPM
  In this French drama film set in the 1990s, a group of HIV/AIDS activists associated with the Paris chapter of ACT UP struggle to effect action to fight the AIDS epidemic.
• Speaker: Benoït Henriet.
  Venue: Building I, 1.04
   
• Wednesday 8th, 13:00 - 14:00: English Language Table.
  Colloquial get together over lunch in English, with one of the language assistants.
  Venue: VUB restaurant
• Wednesday 8th, 17:00 - 19:00: Film Night + Q&A: Hotel Nueva Isla
  In the ruins of the once flourishing hotel Nueva Isla, the old man Jorge spends his days digging up old memorabilia reminding him of an era long gone.
  Speaker: Irene Gutierrez
  Venue: Building I, 1.05
   
• Thursday 9th, 13:00 - 14:00: French Language Table.
  Colloquial get together over lunch in French, with one of the language assistants.
  Venue: VUB restaurant
• Thursday 9th, 13:00 - 14:00: Italian Language Table.
  Colloquial get together over lunch in Italian, with one of the language assistants.
  Venue: VUB restaurant
• Thursday 9th, 17:00 - 19:00: Film Night + Q&A: Dying to Survive (我不是药神)
  This comedy-drama is based on the life of Lu Yong (陆勇), a Chinese leukemia patient who smuggled cheap and generic cancer medicine from India for 1,000 Chinese cancer sufferers in 2004.
  Speaker: Jianwei Xu.
  Venue: Building I, 1.04
   
• Friday 10th, 17:00 - 19:00: Film Night + Q&A: Caro diario
  A film consisting of three episodes, which are presented as chapters in Moretti's life. Here he reflects on various situations in life.
  Speaker: Emiliano Acosta.
  Venue: Building I,.1.05

Activities at the Ca'Foscari University of Venice

• Wednesday 8th, TBC - TBC CET: Photography Exhibition for Women's International Day
  Speaker: TBC
  Venue: Court of Ca’Foscari
   
• Thursday 9th, TBC - TBC CET: Roundtable: Translating Texts from Modern Greek (International Book Exhibition)
  Speaker: TBC
  Venue: Bologna

Activities at the University of Ljubljana

• Monday 6th, 19:00 - TBD: Ancient languages workshop on the Hettite language.
  Registration link coming soon.
  Venue: Faculty of Arts, Lecture room 6
   
• TBD - TBD: "Who is afraid of Slovene? Jargon"
  Film screening + interview with the author and film director Maja Pavlin.
  Speaker: Maja Pavlin.
  Venue: TBD
   
• TBD - TBD: The perfective aspect - semantic and syntactic consequences in Hungarian.
  Series of workshops.
  Speaker: Dr Katalin Szili.
  Venue: TBD

Activities at the UPF

• Monday 6th, 10:30 - 12:30: Linguistic landscape and cultural diversity: Doing linguistic landscape at UPF and its neighbourhoods.
  This session belongs to the course "Intercultural Spaces, Languages and Identities" usually attended by students of the UPF undergraduate degrees "Global Studies" and " Humanities" and also by international students on credit and degree mobility from several countries. This session will be devoted to a practice activity within the course module on "Linguistic Landscapes", as a follow-up of a previous session with an invited expert who will have lectured on linguistic landscapes. During the first part of the session, students will split into small groups and will use their mobile phones or digital cameras to document the linguistic landscape of several UPF buildings as well as the neighborhoods surrounding the university. They will upload their photos to the virtual classroom in order to share them with their classmates. During the second part of the session, students will come back into the classroom and will analyse the photographs, first, in small groups and, later, with the whole class. The analysis will include the application of concepts and methods explained and discussed by the invited speaker in the previous session as well as in the readings on the topic available in the virtual classrom.
  Speaker: Mireia Trenchs Parera, Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism, UPF.
  Venue: TBD

Activities at the University of Warwick

Register for all your events here.

• Monday 6th, 13:00 - 15:00 CET: Study Abroad Celebration.
  Studying and working abroad offers an opportunity to experience new friends, cultures and experiences. Thanks to all students who have contributed to the March 2023 Student Mobility Photo Competition. Please drop into the Hub, Senate House and vote for your favourite photographs!
  Venue: The Hub, Senate House
• Monday 6th, 13:15 - 14:45 CET: Bilingual Intercultural Awareness workshop – Mandarin & English.
  Join us for our inaugural bilingual intercultural awareness workshop as we celebrate Languages Week. This interactive workshop will be delivered in a mix of Mandarin and English and explores cultural influences, attitudes and behaviours, and includes a variety of intercultural activities and discussions.
  Venue: OC1.04 (max 40 people)
• Monday 6th, 16:15 - 17:45 CET: Intercultural Awareness workshop (English).
  Join us for this intercultural awareness workshop as we celebrate Languages Week. This interactive workshop will be delivered in English only and explores cultural influences, attitudes and behaviours, and includes a variety of intercultural activities and discussions. See you there!
  Venue: OC1.08 (max 30 people)
• Monday 6th, 18:00 - 20:30 CET: Film screening: Award-winning comedy Pot Luck (L'Auberge Espagnole).
  What happens when students from all over Europe find themselves on an exchange at university in Barcelona? Whether you've studied abroad already or are planning on doing so, this is a must-see hit film!
  Speaker: Reece Goodall
  Venue: FAB0.08  (max 120 people)
   
• Tuesday 7th, 17:00 - 19:00 CET: Translation Slam hosted by Rosalind Harvey
  Come and see professional translators in friendly competition to produce translations of the same literary text and compare and contrast the process of translating. Hosted by critically acclaimed literary translator Rosalind Harvey.
  Speaker: Rosalind Harvey
  Venue: S0.21 (max 90 people)
   
• Wednesday 8th, 15:00 - 17:00 CET: The Great Eutopia Treasure Hunt.
  Want to test your language skills and other language-related knowledge? Join us for this fun multilingual scavenger hunt. Working in a team, you will need to collect 16 clues posted in various places around campus and work out a 3-digit combination. When you think you have the right number, your team can attempt to unlock the case where the treasure is kept… first group to crack the code wins the prize!
  Venue: on campus (max 50 people)
• Wednesday 8th, 14:00 - 17:00 CET: Language Taster session.
  Hello, we are the Language Centre. You can study languages with us at a range of levels, from beginners to advanced. We currently offer 10 different languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. You can take language modules as part of your degree or alongside your degree. We have set up Taster Sessions in our 10 languages to help you choose a new language. Please sign up for one of our tasters.
  Venue: FAB (max 15 people/session)
• Wednesday 8th, 14:30 - 17:00 CET: Poetry with Navkiran Kaur Mann.
  International Women's Day: Come and celebrate the power and beauty of IWD through poetry.
  Speaker: Navkiran Kaur Mann
  Venue: Arts Centre
   
• Thursday 9th, 19:30- 20:15 CET: Languages Alumni Event: SMLC.
  Ever wondered what career language students go onto after their degree? Come along and gain inspiration from recent alumni from the School of Modern Languages and Culture. An opportunity to listen to language graduates talk about their work, how their degree helped, and benefit from their experience and advice!
  Venue: FAB0.08
   
• Friday 10th, 13:45 - 14:45: Bilingual Intercultural Awareness workshop – Spanish & English.
  Join us for this bilingual intercultural awareness workshop as we celebrate Languages Week. This interactive workshop will be delivered in a mix of Spanish and English and explores cultural influences, attitudes and behaviours, and includes a variety of intercultural activities and discussions.
  Venue: OC0.05 (max 30 people)
• Friday 10th, 14:00 - 16:30: Language Taster session.
  Hello, we are the Language Centre. You can study languages with us at a range of levels, from beginners to advanced. We currently offer 10 different languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. You can take language modules as part of your degree or alongside your degree. We have set up Taster Sessions in our 10 languages to help you choose a new language. Please sign up for one of our tasters.
  Venue: FAB (max 15 people/session)
• Friday 10th, 17:00 - 20:00: Languages Games Night.
  Join us for a fun, linguistically very diverse evening with classics such as Scrabble, Taboo and other board games, but also a quiz, a cockroach xylophone, silly games where you have to jump, run and twist to win, a treasure hunt and cool prizes for the winners. There will also be playful introductions to different languages such as German, French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic if you‘re up for a challenge.
  Venue: FAB, 4th floor (max 70 people)