Winter Bulletin
2022
ALCS
New Year's Greetings
While 2022 takes its first cautious steps, we look back on another six months in UK Low Countries Studies and look forward to new things to come. We really hope to meet each other again in person soon...
On behalf of the ALCS Executive Committee we want to thank you for your continued support of our Association and send you our warm wishes for the New Year.
Christine Sas (Chair) & Filip De Ceuster (Director)
Looking forward...
Hoge Landen, Lage Landen! ALCS Summer Course 2022
From 3-8 July, the ALCS organises its first Summer Course! This Dutch Language Course will be hosted by the University of Edinburgh and is open to all students of Dutch in the UK and Ireland, from advanced beginners to intermediate level (A1-B1).
Apart from interactive language sessions, there will be themed workshops, interesting talks and other activities. More practical information to follow soon!
Upcoming ALCS Essay Prize & Research Grant Deadlines
ESSAY PRIZE: 15 JUNE 2022
Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students, and Early Career Researchers are warmly invited to submit their essays and (short) dissertations on any area of Low Countries Studies (linguistics, literature, cultural studies, history, art history, politics, etc.) for one of the annual ALCS Essay Prizes.
Essays should be sent in electronic form (Word or PDF) to Dr Carol Fehringer, Secretary of the ALCS Committee: carol.fehringer@ncl.ac.uk
RESEARCH GRANTS: 15 JUNE 2022
ALCS members are welcome to apply for small research grants. Requests for funding can be sent to the ALCS Treasurer, Dr Jenny Watson: jenny.watson@ed.ac.uk
'Homing In' - 14th Biennial ALCS Conference, 10-12 July 2022
For the 14th ALCS Biennial Conference at the University of Edinburgh we invite you to 'home in' on 'home' in a Low Countries context.
Paper proposals can be submitted until 1 February 2022. We encourage a variety of questions and topics, delivered either as an individual contribution (20 minutes, followed by a discussion) or proposals for fully constituted panels. Panel convenors are invited to suggest a 90-minutes themed panel of 3 speakers. We particularly welcome postgraduate students and a number of bursaries are available.
Selected papers will be published in the ALCS Journal Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies.
Spring 2022 Taalunie Writer in Residence: Rashif El Kaoui!
Dutch at Sheffield and UCL Dutch are very much looking forward to welcoming Flemish novelist, playwright, actor, podcaster and rapper Rashif El Kaoui as their next Writer in Residence.
El Kaoui was awarded the El Hizjra Literatuurprijs 2016. In spring 2022, he will visit London and Sheffield to work with students on the English translation of one of his texts.
Looking back...
Weathering the storm? Christine Sas on Dutch Studies in the United Kingdom
In their strategy document Languages for the Future (2017) the British Council ranked Dutch as the 7th most important language for a post-brexit UK. However, at the moment only two UK institutions (UCL and University of Sheffield) are still offering Dutch degree programmes.
For the Anglo-Netherlands Society (ANS), ALCS Chair Christine Sas wrote a short report on Dutch Studies in the UK, highlighting the importance of the discipline and the need for structural investments: "given the multiple historical, cultural, commercial and financial bilateral relations between the Low Countries and the United Kingdom, it is absolutely vital that Dutch Studies keeps its seat at the table of the prestiguous Russell Group Universities".
Dutch poet Simone Atangana Bekono visits University of Sheffield
Whilst touring the UK in autumn 2021 as part of the New Dutch Writing campaign, the prize-winning Dutch poet Simone Atangana Bekono visited the Dutch section at the University of Sheffield.
Atangana Bekono won the prestigious Charlotte Köhler Stipendium for new Dutch writers. With final year students of Dutch she discussed her debut novel Confrontaties (2020). In the evening, she read from How the First Sparks became Visible, her first collection of poems, translated into English by David Colmer in 2021.
The visit and event were organised by Sheffield's Centre for Dutch and Flemish Studies and New Dutch Writing.
Tessa Leuwsha & David McKay in conversation with Henriette Louwerse
On 24 October 2021, New Dutch Writing explored the importance of re-writing and translating Dutch colonial stories from new perspectives.
Surinamese-Dutch author Tessa Leuwsha was joined by translator David McKay and Dr Henriette Louwerse (ALCS, University of Sheffield). Together they shed light on the negotiations that go with sensitive and inclusive translations of historical texts and (post)colonial literature.
This event was a collaboration between Sheffield’s Off the Shelf Festival of Words and the New Dutch Writing campaign of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.
Representing Slavery, a SURE Podcast by Catherine Newell
3rd-year Student of Dutch Catherine Newell (University of Sheffield) was awarded a SURE research scholarship to devote six weeks to a research project.
In the summer of 2021, Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum held its first exhibition on slavery. Brussels' AfricaMuseum re-opened in 2018, after a renovation that aimed to confront its pro-colonial past. In Liverpool, the International Slavery Museum (ISM) opened in 2007 and is now looking to expand.
For her SURE Project, Newell looked at how these three museums have changed from when they were first created, and how they continue to change. Whose stoties do they tell? And how do these museums deal with the ongoing legacies of slavery and racism in our society today? She turned her findings into a podcast.
ALCS Research Grant awarded to Davide Martino
An ALCS Research Grant was awarded to historian Davide Martino (University of Cambridge) to support his research on Hydraulic philosophy in three early modern European cities. After Augsburg and Florence, he turns to the city of Amsterdam to develop questions about urban water-management in early modern Europe. The three case-studieare approached from an interdisciplinary perspective. More on Davide Martino's research here.
Journal - Dutch Crossing
Our flagship journal Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies continues to develop successfully. At present it has a very healthy h-index of 9 according to Harzing's Publish and Perish.
The complete journal run from 1977 to the present day is now available online.
Does your library have a subscription to Dutch Crossing? If not, please encourage them to do so!
Stay in touch: alcs.ac.uk
