LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

(BRISMES) British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Annual Conference 2012
Event date: 26 March, 2012 - 28 March, 2012
Location: Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science

The Utopian years? Radical Left Movements in Pompidou's France
Event date: 11 May, 2011
Location: Room 2.09, Park Building, University of Portsmouth

Teaching and learning Africa (19 Feb 2004)
Event date: 19 February, 2004
Location: University of Birmingham

Set texts? New approaches to the teaching of literature in languages and related/area studies
Event date: 6 June, 2003
Location: CILT, London

Indigenous protest in Peru

These materials concern a protest in Bagua, Peru on 5 June 2009 against a free trade agreement with the USA. According to official sources, 34 people (10 civilians and 24 police) lost their lives during an attempt by 600 Peruvian soldiers and riot-police to remove an indigenous blockade of the Belaunde Terry Highway at Devil's Curve in the northern Peruvian Amazon. They are based on an article published in Social Movement Studies: Hughes, N (2010) Indigenous Protest in Peru: the 'Orchard Dog Bites Back' Vol 9, No1, pp85-90, January. The materials are an example of how easy-to-use and cheap technologies can be used by lecturers to address the nexus between teaching, research and technology.

Graffiti de Julio Cortázar

This learning object looks at a story by the Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar who was writing in difficult and oppressive political times during the last military dictatorship in Argentina which ended in 1983 just one year before his death.

This learning object has been subject to peer review and editing, and is entirely in Spanish.

En esta unidad leerás el cuento Graffiti de Julio Cortázar (escritor argentino 1914-1984), el cual trata del flirteo de una pareja de enamorados durante los años de la última dictadura militar en Argentina (1976-1983). Aprenderás cómo se pudo haber sentido el ciudadano común en una época de represión cuando los actos más ingenuos se convertían en peligrosos y subversivos. Además de leer el cuento, podrás escucharlo en las grabaciones al principio de cada parte. El acento que escucharás es el de una nativa de Argentina.

Special Interest Group for Literary and Cultural Studies

Call for contributions: European Journal of Language Policy

Proposals are invited for contributions to the European Journal of Language Policy / Revue européenne de politique linguistique, which is published by Liverpool University Press, in association with the Conseil européen pour les langues / European Language Council, and edited by Michael Kelly (University of Southampton, UK).

Mini-projects: Call for bids
The Subject Centre is funding small projects to address the development, implementation and evaluation of innovative approaches to teaching, learning and assessment in Higher Education. The scheme is aimed at academics wanting to develop and evaluate new approaches to their teaching practices.

Intercultural Learning and the role of Visual Media
Workshop: 31st January, CILT, Covent Garden, London

Plenary: Languages in Higher Education Conference 2008: transitions and connections

To follow

An introduction to South Asian Studies in the United Kingdom
The efflorescence of South Asian Studies in Higher Education is evident in the range and number of taught and research degrees, the number of language courses, and the popularity of South Asian options within other courses that are offered by Colleges and Universities in the United Kingdom. This article gives an overview of the range of options available to a student at the undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree level, lists the major centres of teaching and research on South Asian Studies, indicates the range of resources available for research and highlights the principal networks of academic exchange and research in the United Kingdom and the world.

Canadian Studies teaching in the UK
An overview of the nature and content of Canadian Studies (including Québec Studies) teaching and research in British and Northern Irish universities, with sections on each designated centre, their specialist disciplines and the courses they offer. These are mainly in history, politics, literature, geography, film, and aboriginal studies, often as part of a comparative programme.

American Studies

A general overview of the nature and variety of American Studies degree courses in United Kingdom universities, including notes on the differing structures and content of degree courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, opportunities for study abroad and the wide range of resources available for students and lecturers in American Studies.

Russian studies in UK universities
An account of offerings and trends in Russian Studies in the UK at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including a brief history of the field, details of selected modules within key programmes, and of the main centres for study of Russia and the former Soviet Union

French studies in UK higher education
A survey of French area studies teaching in the UK, covering curriculum content, design and delivery.

European studies programmes in the UK
European Studies is a type of interdisciplinary programme, widely established in the UK since the 1970s, which combines modern languages with disciplinary studies in the social sciences or humanities. Programmes fall predominantly into two groups: those based on progressive study of two or more disciplines applied to Europe, typically history, politics and economics, and those in which language is studied in the context of European cultures and societies. The study of the EU is a core part of most programmes. Degrees are usually of four years with one year spent at university or in a placement in continental Europe.

Early English Books online
From the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, this incomparable collection now contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. Libraries possessing this collection find they are able to fulfill the most exhaustive research requirements of graduate scholars subject areas, including: English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science.

Glasgow Digital Library (GDL)
Glasgow Digital Library (GDL)has produced a series of freely available e-books relating to Glasgow and Scotland. These books have been digitised and converted toweb format at the Centre for Digital Library Research from a variety of special collections.

Michael Peto photographic collection
Michael Peto came to Britain from Hungary in 1939. He was a freelance journalist with the Observer newspaper, and travelled extensively, covering the work of the Save the Children Fund around the world. Other aspects of his work involved the arts, especially the London ballet scene. Major topics covered by the collection (which consists of some 130,000 items) thus include Eastern Europe, Israel, India, ballet and theatre and Scotland, as well as leading political, literary and entertainment figures.

DOMIC: Documentaries on modern international conflict
DOMIC is a two-year project launched to improve cross disciplinary access to television documentary archives held in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London. The project supported by Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) began in January 2000. The archival collections to be covered relate to the Vietnam, Falklands and Gulf Wars, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli Wars, conflict in the former Yugoslavia, chemical and biological testing and the development of nuclear technology and its impact on international relations and defence policies. Summary guides and detailed catalogues covering some 92,000 items are available on line.

Kennedy Papers
The Kennedy Papers of Captain Malcolm Duncan Kennedy cover the period from 1917 to 1965, relating to Japanese economic, military and political matters.

H.G. Alexander Minorities Archive
Horace G. Alexander was lecturer in International Politics at Woodbrook (a training college in Birmingham). The H.G. Alexander Minorities Archive consists of material he collected on the problem of the German minorities in Poland after 1919, where the intermingling of Polish and German communities made the partition of Upper Silesia difficult. The archive includes the typescript of a lecture by Alexander; books and pamphlets by German and Polish authors on the German-Polish partition and on Polish claims to the town of Danzig; publications of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies.

Gallacher Memorial Library
The Gallacher Memorial Library is based on the library of William Gallacher, it has grown by further donations since his death in 1965. It is a diverse collection of material on Spain donated from the collections of persons such as G. McCarty, past secretary of the IBA. It also includes material from the Gallacher Memorial Library's Guy Aldred collection.

Spanish Civil War Collection
Most of the material was donated by Janey Buchan and has been supplemented by further acquisitions and donations. The collection represents a continuing record of publication from 1936 to the present day. Most of the material is pro-Republicans but there are also significant items that reflect a Nationalist bias.

Ronald Fraser Oral History Collection
The Ronald Fraser Oral History Collection consists of research materials gathered by Ronald Fraser, the leading oral historian in the field of modern Spanish history, for his books In Hiding: the life of Manuel Cortes and The Pueblo: a mountain village on the Costa del Sol, which record first-hand accounts of the experience of living in post-War Spain. It includes tapes of interviews (in Spanish with English transcripts) with Manuel Cortes, the last republican Mayor of a small Spanish village, who lived in hiding from Franco's regime for 30 years.

George H. Johannes Collection
An extensive collection donated by George Johannes. Most of the works were published in the 1970s, 80s and 90s but there are also some earlier works. Johannes joined the ANC in 1970 and worked as a full-time political activist from 1976. He subsequently became Political Counsellor with the South African High Commission in London.

Soviet Posters - Come the Revolution!
The Baykov Library's collection of posters spans the decades from the 1920s to the 1980s, from workers' rallying calls to the anti-bureaucracy and corruption themes of the Glasnost period. What all 500 have in common is that they are propaganda works casting light on life under the Soviet system and what it meant for individual citizens.

Schlesinger Papers
Papers of Dr Rudolf Schlesinger (1901-1969), Marxist theoretician and co-founder of the Glasgow University's Institute of Soviet and East European Studies. They include editorials, articles, correspondence relating to his editorship of Soviet Studies and Co-existence; lectures, drafts and revisions for books and articles on Soviet history, legal system and political theory; memoirs; some correspondence with leaders of the German Communist Party in the 1930s; part of the records of the German Communist Party during the 1920s and 30s (in very poor condition). In 1991 all of Dr Schlesinger's papers, which after his death had become the property of his close friend and executor, René Beerman, were transferred to the University Library’s Special Collections Department.

Russian and East European Studies
Glasgow University library has one of the most extensive collections in Europe of Russian and East European economics, politics and history. From a modest departmental collection in 1948 it has grown to its present size of about 75,000 items. The collection is particularly strong on the Russian and Soviet economy, especially of the post-war period, but other aspects of the former USSR are well represented. There is, for example, a good series of publications on the history and the economic history of the republics and regions, and a significant number of publications on the history of individual industrial enterprises. There are rapidly expanding sections on foreign policy, politics and law, and considerable holdings of material on pre-Soviet and early Soviet history. The holdings include published collections of historical, statistical, legal, diplomatic and Party documents, dissident materials, archives such as the Schlesinger Papers, special collections (e.g. on Trotsky) and microfilm collections of newly available Russian archives.

Klugmann Collection
The majority of the items relate to trials (often what are sometimes termed "show trials"), related matters such as espionage and treason, and other political events in Eastern Europe (such as the uprising in Hungary in 1956), though not exclusively in that area, during both pre- and post-World War II times.

Gallacher Memorial library
Based on the library of William Gallacher, last Communist Party M.P. in U.K. The library has grown by further donations since his death in 1965. It contains an extensive, wide-ranging collection of material on almost all aspects of the Soviet Union and CPSU including: the Russian revolution; World War II; politics; literature and art.

Left Pamphlet Collection
The Left Pamphlet Collection consists of printed pamphlets relating to left-wing politics mainly in the 20th century of which a number are from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Scottish Parliamentary Archive
Extensive collection on Scottish government, politics, political parties, devolution, public policy and elections. The strength of the collection lies in contemporary material. Emphasis has been placed on post-1945 material. The Collection reflects the needs of teaching and research within the University. All Scottish Parliamentary Papers are collected. An Archive on the Scottish Parliament has been established. Material relating to the Scottish Parliament including election ephemera from the Scottish Parliamentary elections is collected.

Latin American Collection
One of the most important Latin American library collections in Europe. Holdings total c.80,000 monographs and over 1,600 journals of which about 100 are current. The collection is not housed separately but is integrated into the main stock of the University Library and dispersed throughout it on a subject basis. All items are recorded in the Library's online catalogue.

Rubeo Collection
The Rubeo Collection was purchased from the collector Capitano Giuseppe Rubeo. It consists of some 4000 books, many rare, on a variety of subjects. They include many hundreds of volumes relating to Italian fascism, published during the fascist period itself, which are particularly rare, as such books were usually thrown out and destroyed at the end of the war, by both private collectors and libraries, and are now extremely hard to locate in Italy. Probably the most interesting sub-category here are the many books published in the 1920s and 1930s on the Italian colonies (Libya and Ethiopia). There is also literature, including first or early editions of important literary texts by writers such as Ardengo Soffici, Giovannli Papini, and Giuseppe Prezzolini. The Library is currently seeking funding for the full cataloguing of this collection.

Sprigge Collection
Cecil Jackson Squire Sprigge was chief correspondent for Reuters in Italy during World War II. He had previously been Italian correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, where he was succeeded by his wife Sylvia. The Sprigge collection covers the period c. 1920-1970 and reflects the Sprigges' interest in all aspects of Italian affairs, including the Fascist regime, Vatican politics, post-war reconstruction, art and literature. They also contain material about European politics and diplomatic relations. Printed books from the Sprigge collection were added to the Main Library stock and include material on Italian history, politics and philosophy, as well as a number of guidebooks and pamphlets collected by the Sprigges during their time in Italy. A number of the books are not yet fully catalogued.

Gallacher Memorial Library Collection
The Gallacher Memorial Library is based on the library of William Gallacher, it has grown by further donations since his death in 1965. Major additonal sources of materials on Ireland are donations from the collection of Pat Devine and materials from the CPI.

Kevin Morrison Collection
A collection of primary sources, ranging from 1933-1950, showing life in Germany under a dictatorship and with Allied occupation. The collection has a copy of the Volkischer Beobachter (official Nazi newspaper) for the day after Adolf Hitler became chancellor on 30 January 1933. It also holds photographs of Germany in ruins in the summer of 1945. In between these two landmark years German society underwent a radical transformation. The collection records this transformation.

Mendelson Collection
The Mendelson Collection is particularly rich in material on German political and economic history, especially of the twentieth century, including works on the rise of fascism, communism and socialism, and post-war conditions in Europe after 1945. German-language material predominates, accounting for approximately three-quarters of the collection.

Mendelson Collection
The Mendelson Collection is particularly rich in material on French political and economic history, especially of the twentieth century, including works on the rise of fascism, communism and socialism, and post-war conditions in Europe after 1945. French-language material accounts for approximately one-quarter of the collection.

Stephen Riley Collection
This collection was donated by Stephen Riley and reflects his interests in Development Studies. It also contains material on Social Sciences, Politics, African Studies and Economics. It dates from c.1950 and the items are in English or German.