Over these summer months, we’re keeping busy in French at Stirling, whether thinking about teaching for the new academic year, working on publications, attending conferences, developing schools outreach projects or just generally keeping up with all things French and Francophone. Having recently spent a month on a research trip in Armenia (blog post to follow later in the summer…), our colleague Nina Parish has just returned from another trip and has sent this update on the research she’s been conducting and the encounters and discoveries she has made along the way:
‘The month I have just spent at the Borderland Foundation, staying at the site of the Milosz Manor in Krasnogruda situated close to the Polish-Lithuanian border in the Suwalki Gap, has certainly been rich in discoveries and acquiring knowledge.
I have had a crash course in learning about the history of this particular borderland, which is so relevant to the work we are doing for the DisTerrMem project, but also in understanding the Borderland philosophy and practice developed in Sejny and Krasnogruda by Krzysztof Czyźewski and his friends and family.
I have twice been to see The Sejny Chronicles, an ongoing theatre workshop and play, organised by the Borderland Foundation and performed by local teenagers, aimed at rediscovering the rich multicultural, multilingual (hi)stories of Sejny using oral histories handed down by its residents before World War II. I have had the immense privilege of talking to different generations involved in The Sejny Chronicles and been struck by what a lasting influence participating in this project has had on their lives. I have swayed to the intoxicating music created by the Klezmer Orchestra of the Sejny Theatre in the White Synagogue.
I have been reminded of the importance of the local, of community practice, of kindness, and of the slow work of poetry.’
Many, many thanks to Nina for this post and do follow the links above to learn more about the Borderland Foundation and the DisTerrMem project.
French at Stirling 
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