30-31 May 2019, Iasi - Romania

Runes webOral tradition or oral lore is a form of communication wherein the set of knowledge, art, and ideas which define a given culture is received, preserved and transmitted orally from one generation to the next. Once recorded in writing, a culture becomes visible, its values are expressed clearly, and those records will endure. It is not only visibility and recorded expression that it gains but also vitality and a virtually universal dimension.

We invite participants in the conference From Runes to the New Media and Digital Books to look at how writing in English shaped a language which has become the world’s most used, the lingua franca of our contemporary world. From the earliest indigenous writing found in England, written on the ankle bone of a roe deer, from the Undley bracteate (a gold medalion), which is the earliest example of Old English found so far, from the dramatic increase in the amount of writing in the Middle English period, through the advent of printing to the development of the World Wide Web and the Internet, the history of the English language is the story of its written texts. As Dominic Wyse argues in How Writing Works: From the Invention of the Alphabet to the Rise of Social Media, "New forms of social media still rely heavily on the alphabetic language of English. And new developments such as emoticons and images have been reunited with written language perhaps as an echo of the hieroglyphic past. At the same time the global spread of language, and particularly the English language, as a result of the internet, including in juxtaposition with still and moving images, music and sound, is on a quite extraordinary scale. The extent to which English establishes itself as a digital lingua franca remains an open question” (88).

Afis lewisThe 5th International Interdisciplinary Conference in Iasi, Romania devoted to the life and work of C. S. Lewis:
Of This and Other Worlds

Start date - end date:19-21st November 2020
Registration deadline: 1st November 2020
Early bird deadline: 15 September 2020
 
The fifth C. S. Lewis conference focuses on C. S. Lewis and his literary and academic kin as creators of worlds. His entire work testifies to his fascination with alternative universes, from his scholarly exploration of Medieval literature, with its haunting myths and arcane symbolism, through his fiction, to his apologetics, where Christianity is seen as a parallel kingdom seeking to be reinstated in “an enemy-occupied territory”. From pain to love, through faith and imagination, he opened a spectrum of realities inviting exploration and reflection. The collection of essays by Lewis alluded to in the title of this year’s conference spans both this and other worlds: “this” realm, which we inhabit, is the necessary, unavoidable starting point for any explorers, conquerors, pilgrims, even refugees into the “others”.

12-15 October 2017

Iași and Chernivtsi

Discourse on linguistic and cultural diversity is by no means new and the topic has been approached from the most diverse angles of investigation: from cultural studies, anthropology and linguistics to literature, translation studies and foreign language teaching –if we were to mention some of the disciplines that are closest to this area of research. Despite its recurrence, though, the subject is far from losing its high relevance at a time when cultural and linguistic identities are constantly challenged by the powerful – and inevitable – phenomenon of globalization. Moreover, the interdisciplinary potential of the topic makes it still attractive to further multifaceted research and thought-provoking inquiries.

22-23 November 2018

CS Lewis 4The Fourth Interdisciplinary Conference devoted to the life and work of C. S. Lewis: C. S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits, Iasi, 22-23 November 2018, continues the series of events devoted to the celebrated Oxonian writer and scholar and is open to both specialists and lay people who are interested in, and fascinated by, the Oxford Don’s legacy and influential presence within current culture.

Details on the conference and registration: http://simpozioncslewis.blogspot.com/

 IMPORTANT DEADLINES 
 October 20th early bird conference registration
 November 15th full conference registration 
 November 15th registration for conference dinner and/or trip to Bukovina 
 November 20th final registration for attendants 

Contact persons:

Professor Rodica Albu: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dr. Daniela Vasiliu:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dr. Teodora Ghivirigă: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 

27-29 October 2016

Re-Reading, Re-Writing, Re-Contextualizing Shakespeare was one of the many international conferences that, in 2016, celebrated Shakespeare’s 400-year afterlife. However, we would also like to regard it as a unique academic event, and the city of Iaşi, together with its old university, as privileged places to host it. The reasons for this could be manifold, but two of them stand out as particularly relevant in this respect: firstly, it was in Iaşi that the first Romanian translation of a Shakespearean play, The Merchant of Venice, was staged in 1851; secondly, it was at the University of Iaşi that, in 2007, the European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA) was founded.

Keynote speakers:

David Crystal (University of Wales, Bangor, UK); Siobhan Keenan (De Montfort University, Leicester, UK); Monica Matei-Chesnoiu (“Ovidius” University, Constanta, Romania); Michael Hattaway (University of Sheffield, New York University in London, UK); Laurence Raw (Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey)
 
Pictures from the event may be found here.
For more information, please click here.
 

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