Events
In celebration of the 10-Year Anniversary of the MIT/Harvard Cool Japan Research Project, the Dissolve Inequality: Music Summit @ MIT was held on March 16, exploring the question: How can a new era of music offer insights into dynamics that can reduce inequalities — gender, racial, economic, and more? Organized by Prof. Ian Condry, the day-long event featured panel discussions with artists, scholars and activists, as well as a networking dinner and musical performance in the evening featuring Shing02, a renowned artist, producer, and “artivist” from Japan known for his genre-bending, pioneering hip-hop. Shing02 is part of of a new generation of youth activists in Japan who communicate their political message through art and music. Happy Anniversary Cool Japan! (see photos on GSL’s Facebook page).
On March 2, Brazilian filmmaker Anna Muylaert was on-hand to answer questions after the screening of her film, “Second Mother.” Also speaking at the event were Nilma Dominique, the event organizer; Literature professor Margery Resnick, and Consul General of Brazil in Boston, Glivânia Maria de Oliveira (see photos on GSL’s Facebook page). On March 9, professor Rachel Price spoke on “New Cuban Ecologies: visual arts, environment, and new media in contemporary Cuba” as part of the Latin American Studies Forum, MIT Global Studies and Languages. Also in March GSL hosted a Middle Eastern Studies dinner event, attended by faculty and students across the Institute. To see announcements of upcoming events, visit GSL’s website.
News
MIT undergraduate Virginia Adams, a student in the Chinese language program and sophomore in Biological Engineering, has won a scholarship to study Mandarin in China over the summer.
Shigeru Miyagawa’s book manuscript has been accepted by MIT Press. Agreement Beyond Φ will appear later this year or early in 2017 in the Linguistic Inquiry Monographs series, which is considered the most prestigious monograph series in theoretical linguistics.
Emma Teng presented a paper on the “China in Definition” panel at the American Comparative Literature Association conference at Harvard, March 19.
Bettina Stoetzer will be giving an invited talk March 25 at Vampire Vibes: The Dark Side of Modern Culture, an interdisciplinary symposium at Harvard. Her talk is “Notes on the Uncanny in Contemporary Asylum Worlds.”
On March 21, Kurt Fendt gave the keynote at the “Day of Teaching” (“Tag der Lehre”) at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. His talk was entitled: “Digital Learning: Rethinking Student Engagement.”
Bruno Perreau presented a paper, “Political Fantasies of Queer Theory in France,” to the panel “Queer Theory in French,” which he chaired at the Northeast Modern Language Association, Hartford, CT, March 20.
Haohsiang Liao gave a talk at the New England Chinese Teachers Association (NECTA) in Newton on March 12. His presentation was entitled “Reconsidering Integration of Listening, Speaking, Readingand Writing in CFL.” The talk attracted about 60 teachers from the greater Boston area.
Ellen Crocker and Kurt Fendt presented “Collaborative Story-Telling. Berliner sehen and Deep Learner Engagement” at the 2016 symposium “Foreign Languages in the Digital Humanities” at UT Austin’s Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning on February 6. The hypermedia learning environment Berliner sehen has been integral to German Studies curricula across the USA since 1997.
On March 5, Dagmar Jaeger gave an immersion workshop for high school students of German on the topic of “German inventions.” This workshop was a part of the Global Language Day at Melrose High School, MA.
This month Jane Dunphy gave two professional communication workshops for the Supply Chain Management (ESD) group at MIT in March: “The Art of Story-Telling,” and “Effective Design and Use of Visual Aids.”
Leanna Rezvani reports that on March 10, in celebration of Francophone month, she and Carrie O’Connor took a group of MIT French students to a concert by Tunisian singer and songwriter Emel Mathlouthi. The students enjoyed hearing songs in English, French, and Arabic that addressed issues such as the political situation in Syria, homelessness in the West, and the role of the artist in the struggle against tyranny. On February 26, Leanna Rezvani’s French Conversation students attended Lamine Touré and Groupe Saloum’s Senegalese music concert here at MIT. After the concert, they had the opportunity to meet with the musicians.