Round tables

The list of speakers for each round table has been proposed by its convenor. In round tables the convenor chairs the session and the participants discuss scholarly or professional topics of wide general interest. Round table topics are therefore geared to encourage audience participation.

RT.01 Making Use of Electronic Collections: Problems of Selection and Description

Prof. Hans-Jürgen Diller (Ruhr-University Bochum) - chair
Jukka Tyrkkö, MA (University of Helsinki)
Prof. Fritz-Wilhelm Neumann (University of Erfurt)

The multiplication of electronic corpora (like LOB, BNC, ARCHER, Helsinki, Old and Middle English corpora at U of Michigan) and text collections (such as Gutenberg, Online Books Page, ICAMET, Renascence Editions, EEBO, ECCO) makes a comprehensive survey desirable. It should include the interests of linguistic, literary and cultural studies and take the form of a database consisting of standardized text descriptors as used in various historical corpora or by the Text Encoding Initiative. Speakers will report on their experience with existing texts and corpora, with a view to (a) exploring the need for such a database, criteria for text descriptors, and a representative set of public-domain texts to be described; (b) exploring the potential for future research that might qualify for funding.

RT.02 What’s So Special about Literature? Literariness, Cognition and Ethics Revisited

Prof. Ronald Shusterman (University of Montpellier) - chair
Prof. Derek Attridge (University of York)
Prof. Herbert Grabes (University of Giessen)
Dr. Dominic Rainsford (University of Aarhus)

This panel will explore the definition of literature, and the extent to which this definition needs to be related to questions of cognition and/or ethics. Theorists have attempted to capture the essence of literature by developing the concept of literariness. Some of these definitions have been formulated from a linguistic/stylistic perspective, others draw on concepts from epistemology or ethical theory. If literature is indeed ‘special’ in some way, then this special feature should both help identify it and explain its value. Is the literary text to be distinguished from ordinary language by means of some special linguistic role? Does literature involve the acquisition of knowledge? Is literature ‘special’ because of its moral import? Could literariness have something to do with all three of these dimensions?

RT.03 EL Domains: Losses or Gains?

Dr. Ann Torday Gulden (Oslo University College) - chair
Sandra Brunsberg, Lecturer (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm)
Ph.D. student Ragnhild Ljosland (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Nancy Lea Eik-Nes, Lecturer (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is a developing academic field worldwide. Internationalisation strategies require programmes taught in English, the language being also almost mandatory for publication. Improving EAP skills in academe is therefore a priority and fora have been established to advance thinking and practice. The Norwegian forum, for example, founded in 2007, links EAP academics nationally and internationally. Optimising EAP skills involves several issues which this panel will address: (i) academic staff with English as a major degree subject who are called on to provide EAP support for students and staff (how much developmental work is required?); (ii) the risk of ‘loss of domain’ for ‘small’ languages; (iii) the dominance of English in academe, which may lead to aspects of conformism apart from loss of linguistic diversity.

RT.04 Britain After Blair

Assoc. Prof. Jørgen Sevaldsen (University of Copenhagen) - chair
Assoc. Prof. Sebastian Berg (University of Bielefeld)
Prof. Michael Parsons (University of Pau)
Prof. Keith Dixon (TRIANGLE, Lumière University, Lyons)

The purpose of this Round Table is to facilitate a discussion of the achievements and the failures of ‘New Labour’ in Britain at a point when Gordon Brown can be expected to have passed his first anniversary as Prime Minister and when the next general election will in any event have to be contested before long. How is constitutional reform moving along? Has Britain become a more egalitarian society? Has the idea of Britain as a multi-cultural society been affirmed or largely abandoned? Is there any real prospect of the UK finding a place in the heart of Europe?

RT.05 History, Sociology and Politics within the Field of British Studies – a Status Report

Assoc. Prof. Jens Rahbek Rasmussen (University of Copenhagen) - chair
John Calton, MA (University of Helsinki)
Prof. François Poirier (University of Paris 13)
Prof. Jürgen Schlaeger (Humboldt University Berlin)

The position of the social and historical sciences within university curricula and research programmes in the fields of ‘English’ or ‘British Studies’ has changed with time and varies greatly from university to university and country to country. In recent decades, linguistic or literary turns within the discipline of history and postmodernist fashions within literary studies have tended to blur borders formerly regarded as reasonably clear. Where are we heading now? This Round Table will provide an opportunity to take stock of the present situation.

RT.06 Ideology and Metaphor

Prof. Monika Fludernik (University of Freiburg) - chair
Dr. Greta Olson (University of Freiburg)
Assoc. Prof. Craig Hamilton (Université de Haute Alsace, Mulhouse-Colmar)
Prof. Andrew Goatly (Lingnan University, Hong Kong)

This roundtable will debate new research on the relationship between ideology and metaphor. Cognitive research has shown metaphor to be central to political discourse (Paul A. Chilton, George Lakoff), science (Thomas Kuhn, Theodore L. Brown), culture and ideology (Andrew Goatly, Sebastiaan Faber, Zoltán Kövecses). Ideology is understood here in a post-Marxian sense to mean dominant cultural beliefs and their representations. Work on metaphor demonstrates how imagery transports ideological messages and helps to build powerful arguments and subconscious attitudes. This work, as the panel will argue, has fundamental implications for cultural studies and its models of signification and transfer.

RT.07 The Punitive Turn

Dr. Greta Olson (University of Freiburg) - chair
Prof. Philip Rawlings (University College London)
Prof. Monika Fludernik (University of Freiburg)
Frances Crook (Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform)

This round table deals with the increasing punitivity in legislation, treatment of suspects and conditions of incarceration in the U.K. A trend towards putting more people into prison, lengthening prison terms and implementing ever harsher treatment of suspects and inmates has been a feature of the British legal and penal system for nearly two decades, intensifying after 9/11 in the context of anti-terrorist legislation. The speakers in this round table will discuss this aspect of contemporary British life from the varying perspective of cultural law-and-literature studies, legal studies and practical involvement (prison service and human rights activism).

RT.08 Focusing on a Linguistics of Difference: Intercultural and Contrastive Approaches

Prof. Giuseppina Cortese (University of Turin) - chair
Prof. John Douthwaite (University of Genoa)

Inspired by Bourdieu’s idea of ‘a linguistic sense of place’ and Hymes’s discussion of ‘ways of meaning and what they mean to’ members of a community, this round table aims to explore discourse studies, rhetoric and stylistics in their attempt to relate micro- and macro-level discourse features and configurations to the engagement of language with the social order and the negotiation of dominant, marginal, or oppositional voices in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, institutional role, status, etc. Exploring how the link between text and community becomes grammaticalized, these approaches to the social uses of language are at the same time approaches to situated ways of meaning across cultures, across specific times and places. Texts are also ‘action around texts’, and any social actor is a participant in the ‘doing’ of difference – of asymmetry, dominance, power.

RT.09 Intention and Reading in Early Modern England (Cancelled)

RT.10 English Studies in Doctoral Programmes: a European Perspective

Prof. Marina Bondi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) - chair
Prof. Martin Procházka (Charles University)
Dr. Francisco Gonzálvez-García (University of Almería)
Prof. Roberta Maierhofer (University of Graz)
Dr. Paul Thompson (University of Reading)

One of the most interesting challenges of the Bologna process – and of the creation of a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) – appears to be at the level of Doctoral programmes. Following the definition of the three cycles of higher education, there has been an increase in structured programmes, but emphasis remains on the need to facilitate access and mobility at the level of the third cycle. The round table discusses examples of current practice in terms of: issues of global structure and interdisciplinarity, learning outcomes, quality assessment and forms of international collaboration. Debate will be open for participants to share experiences and discuss projects.