Bridging the gap (11 March 2005)

Programme | Abstracts

Past event summary

This was the second one-day seminar of 2005 hosted by the Subject Centre, this time in conjunction with the University of St Andrews and Scottish CILT.

In many universities the teaching of foreign languages goes hand in hand with the teaching of foreign literatures. Whereas the methodology of foreign-language teaching receives considerable scrutiny in the Modern Languages community, less collective attention has been paid to the pedagogy of foreign literatures and cultures. This seminar will bring together teachers of literature and film from a variety of institutions and backgrounds to explore ways in which new and improved teaching methodologies might be developed. Within the overall theme of teaching inter-cultural communication, there will be a particular interest in issues of translation and intertextuality, which corresponds to the pedagogical experience of building cultural bridges to convey foreign culture.

Organisers

• Professor Tony Lodge, French, St Andrews; Member of Subject Centre for Scotland
• Dr Gustavo San Román, Spanish, Director of Teaching in Modern Languages, St Andrews

Programme

Abstracts

Influence and intertextuality: a reappraisal

Susan Bassnet, Comparative Literature, University of Warwick

What I am proposing to do is to look at ways in which thinking about both intertextuality and influence has shifted in recent times, partly through the popularity of ideas of hybridity, partly also through research in translation studies. The paper will consider whether we can begin to talk about new paradigms in comparative literary study and whether these long-standing terms still hold any meaning for contemporary literary and language researchers.

New ideas in module structure for an electronic age

Bernard Bentley, Spanish, University of St Andrews

In the context of our present remit to teach specific skills and transferable skills, I would like to speak about SP3007 Practical Translation, a module that teaches translation through children's literature which is part of a European project. The course required some radically different activities and methods of assessment which could be transferred to other types of course. The module itself has been described as a Euro-Module, as it is taught with variations in other European universities, and has a corresponding WebCT page to facilitate transfer of information from one university to another. I shall provide background to the creation of the module and describe its features and the student response it has generated.

Fictional spaces as cultural maps

Dr David Gascoigne, French, University of St Andrews

In this paper, I would like to suggest briefly that an approach to narrative fiction which focuses on configurations of space can provide a helpful starting point in reflecting on cultural difference, and has indeed inspired a good many recent critical studies. An examination of how spaces are represented and described in a text, how they relate to each other and what charge they carry in the economy of the narrative can lead into discussion of different dimensions of the way humans inhabit and map their environment. It is likely to touch at once on archetypal oppositions of higher/lower, inside and outside, but also on more specific oppositions associated with the values of a culture, and in particular that culture's sense of its defining boundaries : our space and their space, my space and the space of the Other , his space and her space. The notion of cultural space is often ill-defined but, in a given text or group of texts, it can sometimes be mapped in a quite specific way, and can offer a useful entry-point into the problematics of cultural identity. I will seek to illustrate my case with some examples from modern French fiction.

Visualizing Homer: Classics at the cross-roads of literacy

Dr. Emily Greenwood, Classics, University of St Andrews

My paper will discuss the cultural politics of what it means to read Homer' in the contemporary academy. As a case-study, I will take a recent paedagogical project that involved working with a group of St Andrews students to make a filmic adaptation of a section of Christopher Logue's War Music itself an adaptation' of Homer's Iliad . The act of adapting Homer for film raises issues of fidelity and ownership (both key issues in Translation studies), as is evident in the hostile academic reception to Troy . However, the modern technology of film should not stand in the way of the critical appreciation of Homer within the academy. On the contrary, using the technology of film and the semiotics of film can enhance students' understanding of what it means to read' Homer, by bringing into view the visual, oral, and dramatic features of Homeric narrative. This focus is particularly relevant, at a time when contemporary scholarship on Homer is increasingly preoccupied with questions of the oral performance contexts of the poems and how bards may have brought the poems alive for their audiences. This shift in scholarship coincides with a shift in cultural literacy whereby many students are as literate in reading' film, as they are in reading literary texts. I will use the case-study to illustrate ways in which different types of literacy can be combined in teaching students how to read' Homer.

The gaze of the Other: what can it do for us?

Professor Dina Iordanova, Film Studies, University of St Andrews

As a specialist in film studies I will discuss cinematic material. More concretely, in my talk I will argue in favour of diversification in teaching national culture and cultural history through the inclusion in the curriculum of more versatile material that represents other points of view augmenting the mainstream narrative. My discussion will touch on three types of cinematic works that represent the gaze of the other:

• As juxtaposition to the films of discovery (e.g. 1492, Christopher Columbus) I will argue in favour of using films made in formerly colonized nations which represent the native point of view in regard to the coloniser.
• As juxtaposition to western interpretations of controversial and contested historical episodes (e.g. German films on WWII, Nazism and Hitler) I will propose the inclusion of international cinematic interpretations of the same episodes.
• As juxtaposition to the representation of immigrant communities in the mainstream filmmaking of a given country (e.g. UK, France) I will point at the usefulness of including material which shows what the host culture looks like in films made from point of view of incoming migrants.

Circles of Hell: why literature is important to understand the Holocaust

Professor Sharon Wood, Italian, University of Leicester:

I'd like to talk around how to teach something about Holocaust literature, Primo Levi in particular, concentrating on the chapter on Ulysses that refers back to Dante's Divine Comedy . In other words - why literature is so important, even in the death camp.

Perceptions of relevance' and what we can learn from them: the examples of Gender and Ecology

Professors Sarah Colvin, Gernan, Edinburgh and Colin Riordan, German, Newcastle upon Tyne

Language students are not only interested in learning language. Given the opportunity, most of them are interested in ideas and interconnections: that is, they are interested in the substratum of which the various linguistic cultures are manifestations.

Courses on gender and courses on ecology have in common a) that they invite a reconsideration of cultural notions based on hierarchical binary arrangements (male female / [hu]man nature), and b) that they are, in our experience, extremely popular with our students. Asked to account for their course choices, many students cite relevance' as their primary motivation without further defining the term.

We shall be asking

• What do our students mean by relevance' when referring to gender and ecology courses?
• What issues influence their perception of what is relevant and hence their choices?
• What can we as teaching academics learn from this, especially with regard to maintaining student numbers and student interest?
• Given that, as academics in the humanities, we increasingly face the difficult question why , how useful might this mode of questioning be when it comes to persuading society at large of the usefulness and crucialness of what we do?

Event report: Bridging the gap: teaching foreign language literary and cultural studies

by Anthony Lodge

The Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area studies, in conjunction with the University of St Andrews and Scottish CILT , hosted a one-day seminar on the teaching of foreign literatures and cultures in St Andrews University on Friday, 11 March 2005 .

Susan Bassnet ( Warwick ), in a keynote address entitled Influence and Intertextuality: A Reappraisal, asked what meaning new paradigms in translation and comparative literary study hold for contemporary researchers and teachers of foreign literatures. Bernard Bentley ( St Andrews ) described a new Europe-wide module in which students from six European countries translate into their mother tongue children's stories submitted by the other participants. David Gascoigne ( St Andrews ) gave a practical demonstration of the way literature teaching may be transformed by moving away from 'theme' and 'characterisation' towards a focus on the presentation of space and time in fictional narrative. Emily Greenwood ( St Andrews ) illustrated how student video-enactments of sections of the Iliad can enhance students' understanding of what it means to read' Homer. Dina Iordanova ( St Andrews ) argued in favour of diversification in teaching national culture and cultural history through the inclusion in the curriculum of more versatile material that represents other points of view augmenting the mainstream narrative. Her remarks bore primarily upon the teaching of film. Sarah Colvin ( Edinburgh ) & Colin Riordan ( Newcastle ) sought to tackle the motivation of students to study foreign literatures. They explained the popularity of c ourses on gender and on ecology, as expressed in German literature, on the grounds that both are matters of deep concern for our students, inviting a reconsideration of cultural notions based on hierarchical binary arrangements (male female / [hu]man nature).