Year Abroad photos: April winners on the theme of Water

We were inundated (pun intended) with photos for our April theme of ‘Water’ – there were illuminated fountains, meandering rivers, oyster farms and loads of beautiful beaches. Here are the winners:

Isabelle Hanley, the Rambla del Mar

“This picture was taken in The Rambla del Mar in Barcelona. It’s a lovely spot by the port where locals and tourists alike can go and relax by the water and get away from the hustle and bustle of Barcelona!”

And three photos by Helen Peacock: La Rochelle; Destroyed pier, Saint-Jean de Monts; Fishing nets, Pornic, Nantes

See also the winners of the photo competitions for March, February and January.

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DAAD competition to win placements in Berlin and summer course grants in Germany

Germany 2051: what will it be like?

Enter the latest DAAD competition and you could win a placement at an Art/Cultural Institution in Berlin or the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, or a Summer Course Grant at a German University in 2012.

Imagine Germany a generation on. What will it be like? Is it still making cars everyone loves? Is Berlin still a hub of creative activity? Is Angela Merkel remembered fondly? What else has changed or remained the same? Does the UK feature in any of this?

Send the DAAD your vision of Germany in 2051 to be in with a chance of winning these fantastic prizes. Whether you write a story, draw a picture, take a photo, produce a film …it’s up to you!

For more information and to enter the competition, please click on the picture or go to the DAAD’s website.

Guest Blog: A Student Visit to China

First year student Michael Regan spent three weeks in China recently as part of the Study China Programme:

“Last October an e-mail was sent around offering places on the Study China Programme to University of Liverpool students. I thought “sounds interesting, I might as well apply and see what happens”, so I filled in the application and sent it off. After a few weeks I’d forgotten all about it. Suffice to say, I was pleasantly surprised (understatement!) when I received an e-mail telling me I’d been accepted onto the programme. Three months later I was jetting off to Hangzhou.

The 21 days that followed were possibly the best of my life. It’s amazing how much I – and everyone else on the programme – managed to fit in to such a short space of time. The activities were endless and varied. I learnt the basics of Mandarin Chinese, as well as tai ji and wu shu (a Chinese martial art); I zip wired across the bamboo forest where part of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed; I took a boat trip across West Lake and visited a nearby pagoda and Buddhist temple; I sampled scorpion-on-a-stick (which tasted strangely like pork scratchings) at Gourmet Street; I watched and laughed as my friends – stretching their Chinese vocabulary and insane haggling skills to the limit – spent hours trying to make a cheap purchase on a pair of (fake) Beats by Dr. Dre headphones at a market stall in Shanghai; I visited a fairly humble-looking house on Mount Mogan that happened to be the former temporary lodging of a certain Chairman Mao… I could go on forever.

But at the risk of sounding horrendously corny, none of the above would’ve been so memorable without the fantastic people I met on the trip, many of whom I will definitely keep in touch with. The Chinese volunteers were friendly, helpful and often hilarious. In fact, I found the people of China in general to be really gracious (apart from stall holders when you were trying to haggle their wares down to stupidly low prices!).

The people, the landscape, the language, the culture – everything about China has left a huge impression on me and I hope to return as soon as my degree is finished. For now though, I’ll just content myself with sipping Chinese green tea and reminiscing… and getting on with uni work, obviously.

Anyway, I can’t recommend the Study China Programme enough. Sending off that application was the best decision I’ve made and I’d advise everyone to do the same when the next opportunity comes around!”

Liverpool’s Marieke Riethof appears at House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee

Dr Marieke Riethof, lecturer in Latin American Politics, was invited to give evidence as an expert witness to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee at the House of Commons, on Wednesday 11 May 2011.

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee is currently holding an inquiry into UK-Brazilian relations, reflecting the government’s recognition of Brazil’s growing importance as a global political and economic player. Marieke Riethof appeared alongside Prof. Andrew Hurrell (Oxford), an expert in the international relations of Latin America and emerging powers.

The Committee’s questioning focused on the role of Brazil in international organisations, such as its aspiration to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as well as its objective to strengthen economic and political relations with countries in the developing world.

Brazilian foreign policy combines a focus on Latin American integration with the argument that the current composition of the permanent members of the UN Security Council no longer reflects the importance of emerging powers like Brazil, Russia, India and China (the ‘BRIC’ countries).

The Committee’s inquiry also focused on Brazil’s role in Africa, where aid is modelled on Brazil’s own social programmes (e.g. literacy, education and ending malnutrition). Brazil’s position as a driving force of regional integration in Latin America was also highlighted, as well as its role in conflict resolution and democracy promotion.

For more information and a full transcript of the session, see the Foreign Affairs Committee’s website.

SOCLAS staff win Guild Awards

Congratulations to Dr Kate Marsh and Mary Keaney, who both won awards at the Liverpool Guild of Students 2011 Awards evening!

Kate received the Lion Award, which recognises the contribution an individual or group has made to the student experience at the University of Liverpool. It is a student-nominated award, and Kate was praised in particular for her work leading the MA in Eighteenth Century Worlds.

Mary was awarded a Careers, Employability and Enterprise Award for Outstanding Contribution to Employability for her hard work administering year abroad placements for SOCLAS students.

SOCLAS postgraduate presentation day, 18 May

SOCLAS postgraduate presentation day, 18 May 2011

Cypress Building, room 401

9.00 a.m.           Welcome, Dr Kate Marsh

9.15-10.15          German Studies, chair Dr Lyn Marven

9.15                     Mr Ian Gwinn, ‘Radical History with the Politics Left Out? “Revisionist” History from Below in Britain and Germany’

9.45                    Mr Paul O’Hanrahan, ‘Genre, Space, Memory: Finding East Berlin in James Lasdun’s Seven Lies’

10.15-10.45       French Film Studies, chair Dr Kate Marsh

10.15                  Ms Florence Rouif, ‘L’Art de la cruauté: les mythes de la cruauté dans le cinéma français contemporain’ (in French)

10.45-11am       coffee (room 507)

11-12                   Hispanic Studies, chair Dr Kirsty Hooper

11.00                  Ms Sarah Jane Parry, ‘Myth and the Iconic Colombian Male: El leopardo al sol’

11.30                  Mr Benjamin Inman, ‘Waldo Álvarez Insua (1856-1938): A Journalist in the Galician Atlantic’

12-1pm              French Studies, chair Dr Robert Blackwood

12.00                 Ms Michelle Harrison, ‘Teachers as Policy-Makers: The Role of Teachers as Language Policy Agents in Alsace Bilingual
Primary Schools’

12.30                 Ms Devi Hardeen, ‘Le Tricolore of the French Atlantic: the Black, Brown, White’

1.00-2.15          Lunch (room 507)

2.15-3.45          Latin American Studies, chair Dr Marieke Riethof

2.15                   Ms Hannah Bradshaw, ‘Landscapes, Mediascapes and Imagined Communities’

2.45                   Mr Francis O’Brien, ‘Revolution and Political Order’

3.15                   Ms Ji-Hyun Seo, ‘Participation and Left-Wing Movements: Implications for Democracy in Peru’

3.45-4pm         Coffee (room 507)

4pm                  Guest Speaker Dr Pascale Baker (University of Sheffield): ‘Joaquín Murrieta, Gregorio Cortez and the Politics of Chicano Banditry’ (chair Dr Chris Harris)

c. 5pm              Refreshments and discussion (room 507)

SOCLAS researcher Ian Magedera organises exhibition in Hardelot, France

Neufchâtel-Hardelot, on the French Channel Coast, is probably the only commune in France whose municipal coat of arms features the Union Flag. This is because it was founded in 1905, by Yorkshireman Sir John Whitley, whose Anglo-French investment company created an exclusive beach resort out of  the sand dunes.

Dr Ian Magedera’s work on an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project on French-language representations of India, led him to Hardelot via the company archives of the Indian multinational Tata Group (owners of Tetley Tea, Corus [formerly British Steel] and Jaguar Land Rover). Suzanne Brière, a Frenchwoman, had married into the family in 1902 and she lived in Hardelot with her husband and their five children. Indeed, the Tatas were one of the founder investors in the beach resort. Another investor was Louis Blériot who would land his planes on the 9km long beach at low tide.

Image of JRD Tata (c) Tata Central Archives

Dr Magedera brought together documents and images from India and France to create an exhibition which will, this summer, celebrate fifty years of the presence of the Tata family in Hardelot. The exhibition is funded by the Mayor’s Office and the Tourist Board (with matching funding by Tata Group) and will be displayed on all-weather panels next to Hardelot beach where this curious moment of Indo-Franco-British cultural contact began.

The exhibition focuses on Hardelot as the place where the Tatas became acquainted with technology (principally planes and cars), which they then went on to promote in India. You can read more about this research, and the upcoming exhibition in a feature in the municipal magazine (edition mars 2011).

Find out more about the AHRC-funded project ‘Peripheral Voices and European Colonialism’ here. A conference on the project, organised by SOCLAS researchers will be held in Hardelot on 15–16 September.

Guest Blog: A student year abroad experience in Guadeloupe

Rob Jones, a final-year undergraduate reading for a BA in French and Business Studies, is to resume his work as an English-language assistant this September, having spent the last academic session working as an assistant in the West Indies. For his year abroad he had the fortune to be placed as a British Council English Language Teaching Assistant on the island of Guadeloupe in the Francophone Caribbean. The year provided an insight into the unique culture and identity borne out of the long process of departmentalisation of France’s colonies. A refreshing blend of French contemporary culture and the spice of Caribbean Créolité, Guadeloupe was truly an exciting, vibrant and welcoming island for Rob’s year abroad.

Living in the small town of Bas-du-Fort, and working in the commercial centre of the island, the city of Point-à-Pitre, Rob spent his free time exploring the island with its many waterfalls, secluded beaches and rainforest wilderness. When working, Rob taught English in two collèges and one lycée to students aged 11 – 21. Though challenging, sharing the culture of the UK and the importance of learning a language proved to be an extremely worthwhile and rewarding experience.

As a result of his first posting as an ELTA, Rob has decided to accept a placement to teach in Québec, Canada over the coming academic year. Though this promises to be a completely different, slightly colder experience, it is once again a challenge and a superb opportunity to experience a new culture, improve his French language skills and help little Quebecois realise how much fun learning a language can be!

Read two more guest blogs from students who spent their years abroad in Mexico and Vienna.

SOCLAS students can read further accounts of year abroad experiences here.

SOCLAS research seminar 11 May: Locating Galicia

SOCLAS Research Seminar Programme 2010-2011

Migrations, Places, Identities (MPI) Research Group

Dr Kirsty Hooper (University of Liverpool)

‘Locating Galicia? Towards a Relational Reading of Galician Cultural History (with photos, maps, and the odd painting)’

Wednesday 11 May 2011, 4.00 p.m.

Room 401, Fourth Floor, Cypress Building (108 on the University Campus Plan)

Refreshments and informal discussion will follow in Room 507.

All Welcome!

SOCLAS students win DAAD summer school grants

Congratulations to SOCLAS students Zuzana Rendlova and Hope Churm who have both won DAAD Summer School grants!

They will both spend a month studying an intensive course in German language and culture: Zuzana will attend a summer school course at the Universität Erfurt and Hope will be going to the Universität Bremen in July. Hope told us:

I am very pleased to have been awarded the summer school grant from the DAAD and I am excited to learn more about German language and culture alongside other international students in the charming city of Bremen. The summer school will be a taste of university life in Germany, helping to prepare me for the second semester of my year abroad, which I will be spending at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms–Universität Bonn.