Monday 5th March 2012 at 6pm

Dr Tom Walker (TCD)

‘MacNeice’s Irish Poetry’

Main building CG057

Monday 26th March 2012 at 6pm

Dr Anne Mulhall (UCD)

‘This Feeling Called Love: Affect, Biopower and the Regulation of Intimacy’

Main Building CG057

Wednesday 11th April 2012 at 6pm

Dr Michael Griffin (UL)

‘Limerick’s first printed poem?: The mysterious world of Robert Buggin’s The Enchanted Garden (1716)’

Followed by a demonstration of the completed ebooks of Limerick’s first magazine: The Magazines of Magazines (1751–69)

Venue TBC

Everyone is very welcome to attend these seminars, which will take the form of a lecture of approximately 40 minutes and an opportunity for questions and discussion afterwards. There is no requirement to RSVP, but all questions should be directed to Dr Caroline Magennis at caroline.magennis@ul.ie

Further information, including speaker biographies, may be found at our section Facebook page: www.facebook.com/EnglishAtUL

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the AHSS Faculty Teaching Board.

“Why €urope is good for us”

Dr. Eckhard Lübkemeier has been Ambassador to Ireland of the Federal Republic of Germany since August 2011, having previously served as Deputy Head of Mission at the German Embassy in London. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin (2006-7). Dr Lübkemeier was Deputy Director General for European Affairs at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin (2003-6) and Special Commissioner for Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management as well as Head of Section for European Security and Defence Policy in the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin from 2000 to 2003.

The Ambassador will be introduced by Professor Don Barry, President of the University of Limerick. The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session and a short reception.

DATE: TUESDAY FEBRUARY 14TH 2012
TIME: 17H45
VENUE: EAST ROOM, PLASSEY HOUSE

The event will be held in the Atrium of the Foundation Building (Concert Hall area). This is your chance to find out all you need to know about studying at UL. No booking required. All prospective students are welcome!

For more information, contact the Mature Student Office 061-202735 or mso@ul.ie      www.ul.ie/mso       www.ul.ie/courses

Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn T.D. addressed journalism students at the inaugural 2012 ‘Issues in Irish Journalism’ seminar series held at the University of Limerick. Minister Quinn congratulated the organisers of the series and answered a number of questions put by the students. He said that the internet and on-line media were one threat to the print media, especially newspapers. The other main threat was the possible collapse of the traditional economic model of newspapers. Such a collapse, were it to occur, should be of concern, not just to journalism students, but to all citizens, he added.

Tom Felle, Course Director of the BA in Journalism and New Media and moderator of the seminar said; “Journalists ask the tough questions and hold those in power to account, and today the Minister for Education was held to account by the future journalists of this country. These are difficult times, but even more so for Ireland’s third level students. A strong democracy, and a strong and independent media are just as important as securing the economy.”

Tom Felle added; “The journalism seminar series has attracted some of the most influential people in Ireland, giving UL’s journalism students unprecedented access to discuss important matters with the very people people who make the decisions. We’re delighted the Minister for Education took time out of his busy schedule and agreed to launch the 2012 series.”

The talk covered issues relating to Freedom of Information, media and privacy and education issues.

UL regularly invites leading industry figures to speak at the ‘Issues in Irish Journalism’ seminar series, among the speakers to date include Robert Fisk, The Independent’s world renowned Middle East Correspondent, Irish Daily Star managing director Gerard Colleran, the late Dr Garret FitzGerald and former The Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy.

Upcoming ‘Issues in Irish Journalism’ speakers include;RTE chief news correspondent Charlie Bird (6^th February), former kidnap victim and Concern aid worker Sharon Commins (13^th February 13), Former Irish Independent farming editor and MEP Mairead McGuinness (27^th February).

A language exchange is a unique opportunity for native speakers to meet more UL students, to communicate in each others’ language(s) and to experience another culture.

It is particularly important that as many foreign students as possible be present, especially native speakers of French, German, Spanish or Japanese.

Spoken Fluency Revisited

Guest speaker: Professor Michael McCarthy, Adjunct Professor, School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication

Monday 6th February 2012 at 13.00-14.00 [Room KBG15]

Abstract: What is fluency in speaking? What does it mean to say someone speaks a language fluently? Traditional accounts of fluency fail to take into account the interactive dimension and the need to maintain a smooth flow of talk across a conversation. Using corpus evidence, we look at how native speakers and learners achieve conversational ‘flow’.

All are welcome!

For further information please contact: freda.mishan@ul.ie

The books will prove useful not just to students studying Japanese language and literature at UL, but will also appeal to those studying politics, sociology, economics, management, history, education and gender studies. Literature in translation ranges from a version of the 11^th century Tale of Genji to works by late 20^th century novelists.

Ph.D. (Trinity College Dublin), PG diploma (Trinity College Dublin)

B.A. (WSZMiJO), M.A. (University of Silesia)

Research interests

• the role of working memory and short-term memory in second language learning
• enhancing the retention of L2 vocabulary and collocations
• computer assisted language learning (CALL)
• learner autonomy and strategy training
• age and the classroom learning of additional languages
• teaching L2 vocabulary and collocations
• statistical research methods in second language learning

Other interests

Art – http://askrzypek.artworkfolio.com

Statistics – http://academicstats.com

Selected publications

Articles published in refereed journals:

Skrzypek, A. (2009). Phonological short-term memory and L2 collocational development in adult learners. EUROSLA Yearbook 9: 160–184.

Skrzypek, A. (2005). A review of IATEFL 2003 Brighton Conference Selections. EFL Journal 59(1): 82-85.

Other refereed contributions:

Skrzypek, A. (2004). Autonomia ucznia w polskim kontekście edukacyjnym – środowisko gimnazjalne i licealne (Autonomy of English language learners in Polish secondary schools). In Pawlak, M. (Ed.), Autonomia Ucznia w Nauce Języka Obcego (Learner Autonomy in Foreign Language Learning). Poznań: Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza.

Refereed book chapters in press:           

Skrzypek, A.,  Kopečková, R., Bidzińska, B. & Singleton, D. (in press). Language and culture: Attitudes towards and perceptions of English L2 acquisition among adult Polish migrants in Ireland. In Geraghty, B. & Conacher, J. E. (Eds.), Cultures in Contact: Contemporary Issues in Language Use and Language Learning. London: Continuum.

Skrzypek, A. (in press). Phonological short-term memory and the operation of cross-linguistic factors in elementary and pre-intermediate L2 adult learners’ collocational usage. In Singleton, D., Regan, V. & Debaene, E. (Eds.), Linguistic and Cultural Acquisition in a Migrant Community. Multilingual Matters.

Singleton, D. & Skrzypek, A. (in press). Age and the classroom learning of additional languages. In M. Pawlak (Ed.) Classroom-oriented research: Achievements and challenges.

Books in preparation:

Skrzypek, A. (in preparation). Statistical Research Methods in Second Language Acquisition. Multilingual Matters.

University of Limerick, 1 December 2011

Media organisations in Ireland are struggling for profitability and, in some cases, survival. The regional newspaper industry, in particular, has suffered a corrosion of titles, jobs and audiences. The economic crisis, the emergence of the web as an additional outlet for news publication, and people’s changing habits of news consumption are all increasing the strain on the industry. Yet regional newspapers retain a crucial place in documenting the social, economic, political, legal, cultural and sporting lives of local communities in Irish society.

The University of Limerick invites you to a one-day conference in which industry representatives and academics examine the challenges facing the regional newspaper industry, evaluate the changing position of the local newspaper in Irish communities, and debate the industry’s future prospects and strategies to survive and remain relevant.

Speakers include:

• Professor Roy Greenslade, Professor of Journalism at City University, London, former editor of The Daily Mirror, and regular contributor to The Guardian.
• Joe Webb, Chief Executive, Independent News and Media Ireland.
• Sheila Reilly, Editor Longford Leader
• Seamus Dooley, Irish Secretary, National Union of Journalists.
• Frank Mulrennan, Chief Executive, Celtic Media Group.
• Gerry Collison, Managing Director, Middle Eye Media.
• Joe Flaherty, Managing director of Johnston Press group and President Regional Newspapers and Printers Association of Ireland
• Dr Kevin Rafter, Senior Lecturer in Political Communication and Journalism, Dublin City University, and former political correspondent.

The conference will take place in the Millstream Common Room, University of Limerick, on 1 December 2011. The registration fee, payable on the day, is €20. Tea/coffee and lunch are included. Conference attendance is open to all interested parties.

Updates on the conference programme, as well as details on local hotels, are available at http://www.ul.ie/journalism/journalism/regional_newspapers_conference.html.

The conference is being organised by the School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication, in association with the Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society.

To register, email tom.felle@ul.ie.

www.ul.ie/journalism

Please contact Claire Ryan for further details: claire.l.ryan@ul.ie

Application Deadline: Friday 24th February 2012

ALL STUDENTS AND STAFF WELCOME!

Susan Bassnett is Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. She is external examiner of the MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Limerick. Susan Bassnett was educated in several European countries which gave her a grounding in diverse languages and cultures. She has lectured in universities around the world and began her academic career in Italy, moving via the United States to the University of Warwick. She is one of the leading international figures and founding scholar in Translation Studies. Her research interests include comparative and world literature, theatre history, English poetry.

Susan Bassnett is author of over 20 books, and her Translation Studies, (3rd Ed. 2002) which first appeared in 1980, has remained consistently in print and has become the most important textbook around the world in the expanding field of Translation Studies.

Partly through her innate flair and passion for languages, but also through an exceptional level of assiduity and conscientiousness, both in and beyond the classroom, Jessica has invariably managed to achieve a high level of success in all three of her languages – Irish, French and Spanish. Tackling significant challenges, her excellent linguistic proficiency has also been complemented by undertaking a Comenius Assistantship and an Erasmus placement. During her time abroad, Jessica learned both Occitan and Catalan, a further example of the joy she experiences from language learning. The depth and consistency of her commitment to achieving an exceptional level of multilingualism is extremely impressive and a great credit to her motivation, determination and talent.

‘I heard her tell the story another way’: Vision and Play in Irish Studies

Monday 21 November 2011
17h45 for 18h00
Computer Science Building, Lecture Theatre CSG01
University of Limerick

and

Reception hosted by the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
17h15 Aroma Restaurant, Computer Science Building
University of Limerick

RSVP:
Claire Ryan
School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication
University of Limerick
Telephone: 00 353 61 202424
e-mail: claire.l.ryan@ul.ie

Margaret Harper studies and teaches Irish and American literature of the long twentieth century, modernisms, modern and contemporary poetry, and transnational feminist theory. She’s a specialist in the occult life and work of W. B. Yeats and has written extensively about the mediumistic collaboration between Yeats and his wife George Hyde Lees, as well as editing scholarly editions of the manuscripts and philosophical book A Vision.

Radek Glabazňa of the Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic, will read from his 2010 collection It Only Takes Splinters in the Head. These poems, written by the poet while he lived in England, represent a poetic response to an unfamiliar landscape, but one filtered through familiar texts, and are concerned with language and the migrant perspective.

ALL WELCOME!

Everybody welcome.

An associate professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, Ed Madden is the author of three books of poetry. His first collection, Signals, won the 2007 South Carolina Poetry Book Prize. A second collection, Prodigal: Variations, was published in 2011, and a third, Nest, is forthcoming from Salmon Publishing. His poems have appeared in Los Angeles Review, Poetry Ireland, Cyphers, and other journals, as well as in Best New Poets 2007 and the Notre Dame anthology The Book of Irish American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. He is also the author of Tiresian Poetics: Modernism, Sexuality, Voice 1888-2001, a study of sexuality and modernist literature, and editor with Marti Lee of Irish Studies: Geographies and Genders. He is currently at work on a study of masculinity and homosexuality in Irish culture.

STAFF AND STUDENTS ARE VERY WELCOME TO ATTEND

Please confirm attendance to Niamh.OSullivan@ul.ie

All ARE WELCOME

Pictured are Catherine Curtin, First Place Medal, Bachelor of Arts (Joint Honours), UL President, Professor Don Barry and Aoife O’Dwyer, Cooperative Education Award, Bachelor of Arts in Language and Cultural Studies.

BA (European Studies) (UL); PhD Applied Linguistics (UL)

Research interests

Corpus linguistics, especially corpus-based discourse analyses; Pragmatics and language in context; Irish English; Workplace discourse and the discourses of language teaching and learning; investigating communities of practice; (im)politeness and the pragmatics of humour and laughter.

Selected Publications

Vaughan, E. & B. Clancy, 2011. ‘Pragmatics and Irish English.’ English Today: The International Journal of the English Language, 27(2): 47-52.

Vaughan, E., 2010. How can teachers use a corpus for their own research? In: O’Keeffe, A & M. McCarthy (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. London: Routledge, pp. 471-484.

Vaughan, E., 2008. ‘Got a date or something?: An analysis of the role of humour and laughter in the workplace discourse of English language teachers.’ In: Reppen, R. & A. Ädel (eds.), Corpora and Discourse: The challenge of different settings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 95-115.

Vaughan, E., 2007. ‘I think we should just accept…our horrible lowly status: Analysing Teacher-Teacher Talk within the context of Community of Practice.’ Language Awareness, 16(3): 173-189.

Jessica Gough, a University of Limerick Erasmus student has been selected by the European Commission to represent Ireland as the Erasmus Student Ambassador at the 25th anniversary of the Erasmus Programme in 2012. 87 proposals from 33 countries were received by the European Commission from which Jessica was chosen to represent Ireland.  A press conference is planned in January to launch the birthday year as well as a conference under Danish Presidency in the first half of 2012.

Erasmus is the EU’s flagship education and training programme and enables 200,000 students to study abroad each year. It is part of the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme and has expanded since 2007 to include teacher and staff mobility. Since the programme began in 1987, over 1.5 million students have participated in semester or year-long exchanges. Jessica’s Erasmus journey took the form of a study placement at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) and a Comenius work placement in Poulx in the South of France.

Jessica who is from Dungarvon in County Waterford will graduate with a BA in Applied Languages from UL this year.  Having a form of cerebral palsy which affects her balance and movements, she opted for Erasmus as an opportunity to gain independence.  On notification that she would represent Ireland she said, “I am so proud to be representing Ireland at this international event.  The decision to partake in the Erasmus experience has changed my life in a number of ways and has had an enormous impact on my academic and personal development.  Mine is a unique story of a person who has overcome otherwise insurmountable odds thanks to the Erasmus programme. I consider and value myself as an independent and highly successful human being and I hope that this will give confidence to other students, with or without special needs. The network of friends, both personal and professional, developed through the experience will sustain me personally, academically and professionally for the rest of my life”.

UL has been participating in the Erasmus programme since 1988 and is part of an extensive Erasmus network that includes over 240 European university partners. Limerick is a popular destination for European students – with over 400 students arriving each year from countries such as Spain, France, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia and Malta.

About the facilitator:

Colleen Blaney Doyle works as Student Adviser in the College of Engineering, Mathematical & Physical Sciences at University College Dublin. A native of Indiana, USA, she has a BA (International Studies) from Butler University, MA (Irish Politics) from UCD and an MSc in Educational Guidance & Counselling from Trinity College Dublin. She is currently working on her PhD in Education with UCD’s Centre for Teaching and Learning researching how parents of first year engineering students view their student’s transition to higher education. Colleen has been invited to deliver workshops for the Scottish QAA, UK HEA and the International First Year Experience Conference on a range of topics including student retention, student transitions and student support systems. She served as Chair of the Confederation of Student Services in Ireland from 2007 until 2011. In March, she received the inaugural award for Outstanding Contribution to the College of Engineering, Mathematical & Physical Sciences.

ALL WELCOME!

Supporting you – Supporting Your ESL Students is a half- day event dedicated to interculturalism in Irish education and is designed to provide attendees with a combination of plenary talks by experts in the field discussion fora and workshops.

Our practical sessions are intended to provide teachers with dedicated skills and resources for their work. Four workshops on the following themes will run twice during the day, enabling participants to attend two of their choice:

1. Assessing students’ needs.
2. Mind your Ps and Qs. Teaching politeness to language learners.
3. Teacher talk in multicultural classrooms.
4. Scaffolding language: Building bridges to success in all curricular areas.

A nominal fee of €10 (euro) will be charged per participant, this is payable at registration on the day.

If  you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us: Fiona Farr (fiona.farr@ul.ie, 061202980) or Jo Baumgart (joanna.baumgart@ul.ie, 061-237408 ).

Europe in Crisis?
Language Diversity in Europe: The Case of Malta
Prof. Antoinette CAMILLERI-GRIMA
University of Malta (Malta)

Ms McCarthy is a columnist with the Sunday Times but was previously Deputy Editor with the Sunday Tribune and previously worked for several years as a feature writer and columnist with the Irish Independent. She is a regular contributor to various RTE talk shows as a commentator on politics and Irish public life.

The entire 2011 series, including the public interviews with former Taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald and The Irish Times Editor Geraldine Kennedy, are available for worldwide download on iTunes.

For more information visit our website www3.ul.ie/womensmemory or email womensmemory@ul.ie