Catching up with last year’s graduates

One of the great things about this blog is that it gives us a means of keeping up, not only with what colleagues in French at Stirling are doing, but also with what our students and our graduates are up to. As we get closer and closer to this year’s graduations, we thought it’d be good to catch-up with some of our graduates from last year so, with no further ado…

Shannon studied for a BA Hons in French and Spanish at Stirling and as a 2022 graduate moved on to pursuing her PGDE in primary education: “I am now working full time in a nursery setting in Liverpool as the curriculum practitioner. And my languages have not been completely forgotten. My pre-schoolers enjoy having a Spanish lesson once a week and we may add French to their curriculum soon! Wishing this year’s graduates all the best in the future no matter how you do or what you do!” Sophie also graduated with a BA Hons in French and Spanish and, since graduating, has started another degree studying Theology and Christian Leadership: !I’ve loved using the skills I learnt at Stirling to help this degree and next year I have chosen to study New Testament Greek which makes me excited to be able to use my language skills again.”

Meanwhile David, who graduated with a BA Hons in French and History, spent time in the US after he graduated but has since returned to do an MSc in Heritage at Stirling, and is currently researching and writing his thesis: “You will also be happy to know I have been able to make use of my French skills I acquired at Stirling, in my capacity as a volunteer at the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Museum. As a guide, not only can I assist French tourists, but behind the scenes I have also been able to translate material into French to help the Museums accreditation and be more welcoming to foreign tourists.” Our other David, who joined us as a mature student, and graduated with a BA Hons in French, explains that “after 7 years of re-education which concluded with four unbelievable years of involvement with French at the University of Stirling, I promised my wife and my three grandchildren that I would devote more time to them which I have done but that has not stopped me for continuing to learn and practice French.” In the year since graduation, David has kept on reading French books (including re-reading some he’d studied with us!), revising French grammar, listening to podcasts and regular news bulletins and trying to speak as much as he can through websites such as Language Exchange: “My appetite for learning has not waivered or reduced in any way. I have always had the will and motivation to continue although, I do miss being a student on campus and the camaraderie of my peers and being able to have the skills of our tutors to hand for advice when required.”

Lara, who completed her BA Hons in French and Spanish last June, has just finished working for a year as an English Language Assistant in a secondary school in Madrid with the British Council: “It’s been a very enriching experience and I plan on returning for a second year.” Ceinwen, having graduated with a BA Hons in French last year, has stayed on at Stirling for postgraduate studies on our MRes Humanities programme carrying on the research she did during her undergraduate degree and “When I’m not doing that I’m making full use of the Institut Français’ cinema programme in Edinburgh.”

Valentina, who graduated with a BA Hons in International Management with European Languages and Society, she has spent the past year working for Global Voices, our local translation and interpreting company, as a credit controller: “I call and email every day in French as I look after the debt for the French and Swiss market, as well as the Italian one. So, naturally my languages skills have improved, I now feel comfortable to speak on the phone to a native speaker which is great! I’ve also learnt all about chorus pro which is the public administration invoicing system in France!” And Muirne, who completed her BA Hons in Business Studies and French last year, has been doing an International Business Master’s here at Stirling this past year and is starting work on her dissertation now: “I’ve really been enjoying this programme and it has opened up lots of different routes I can take to start my career journey. I was also one of the programme reps for the course as I wanted to have a bit more responsibility and show more leadership. I have still been keeping up with my French as I think that will be a useful tool in the future for me. I have also been able to keep in touch with a French pen pal I made in 3rd year which has been helpful for practicing French.”

Sofia, who graduated with a BA Hons in French and Spanish last year, has almost finished her MA in South Asian Area Studies and is currently working on my dissertation, which is focusing on the legacies of trauma stemming from Partition and how this has affected the diasporic descendants of the Partition. Sofia was also recently accepted into a summer programme for Our Shared Cultural Heritage which is a programme that experiments with ways for museums and heritage organisations to work better for young people. Their focus is on the South Asian diaspora in the UK and young people in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh: “I’m not quite sure yet what the programme will entail but it will be interesting to look at heritage, culture, and of course language and to look at the Scottish South Asian community.” Vasiliki, having graduated with a BA Hons in Business Studies and French, moved to Madrid after graduation to do a Master’s in International Trade and Business: “Classes are finishing at the end of July, then I have to submit my thesis by mid-September, so in the meantime I am looking for an internship in the field of marketing or HR mostly, and I am really just looking across Europe, as I don’t want to limit myself. I would also be very much interested in moving back to the UK.”

And Morgan, who graduated with a BA Hons in International Politics and Languages, is currently in Belfast where she has just started writing her Master’s thesis exploring who is responsible for the deaths of displaced persons who drown while attempting to cross the Channel: “While I no longer directly study French, my knowledge of the language and the country have been particularly helpful when conducting research for my thesis. I work part-time as a hotel receptionist where I regularly get to talk with guests from French-speaking countries who always love to be able to chat in their native language.” Brendan, graduated with his BA Hons in French and Spanish last summer, and applied for a Masters in TESOL (Teaching English to Students of Other Languages) here at Stirling Uni and started that at the end of September. He hopes to complete that, including his final teaching portfolio/dissertation project by the end of August at the latest: “Afterwards, in September and October, my programme may offer an external placement in various countries, one of them being France, where I would be asked to observe and do some English teaching in a language school. However, it is not clear if that will materialise yet so right now I’m just taking each day at a time and focusing on what I have to do at present. If everything goes according to plan, I will officially graduate in November. My reasoning for doing this Masters was to prepare me to be able to teach English and get employment more easily when living in France and Spain in the future. If I’m to be completely honest with you all, this has been the most challenging year in my academic journey so far (even more so than third year of undergrad when everything was online due to covid, which says a lot!). However, I’m hopeful that it will bear some fruit in the not-too-distant future in my pursuit to become a languages teacher, which is my dream job.”

Pauline, who graduated with a BA Hons in International Politics and Languages, is just finishing up her Master’s degree in Applied European Governance and Policymaking: “I will have written and oral exams throughout June. I am doing last revisions for my master thesis on the economic impact of integration of migrants in Germany and I expect to graduate at the beginning of July. I am also applying for traineeships and jobs, mainly in Brussels, for EU policy positions, with hopes to not be unemployed in August. We shall see how that goes. I’ve also been involved with a new volunteer network (Generation Climate Europe) and have moved up to now being the Network and Outreach Lead, which I am quite excited about.”

And finally (for the moment… if you’re a 2022 French at Stirling graduate reading this and you haven’t been back in touch yet, there’s still time!) Fiammetta, who graduated in Modern Languages and Business Studies says that her life has completely changed since graduation in June 2022: “After graduating, I was unsure which path to follow for my career. I wasn’t happy with my life and I almost decided to go back to my home country. I started a job in Edinburgh as a customer service assistant in a travel agency. The team was great, however after only 3 months I realised that it wasn’t the job for me so I decided to apply for a job I thought I would never get.

In February I applied for Emirates cabin crew and a few days later I received an email asking me to go to one of the company’s assessment days. Being cabin crew for Emirates has always been on my mind but I always thought it would be really hard for me to get that job. The day after the interview I received the “golden call” and after less than a month I moved to Dubai. I have now been living in Dubai for more than 3 months. It was hard to leave my friends again (I had left my family and friends in my home country 6 years earlier) but it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Now I get to travel and visit so many countries and I get paid for it! I am in contact with so many cultures and during my flights I can use my language skills to interact with customers. The best advice I can give to the graduates of 2023 is to always pursue your dreams, even if it’s not easy or if you have to leave everything behind, it will always be worth it. Now I’m having the best time of my life!”

It’s always lovely to hear from our graduates and to learn where life has taken them after their time as undergraduates at Stirling. Thank you very, very much to all of our 2022 graduates who have been back in touch and who have contributed to this blog post (and to Joanna whose earlier post started off this particular catch-up) and do keep in touch and keep us posted on what you go on to do next. Bon été to you all!

Volunteering with displaced people in Calais

This will be the last blog post for a few weeks but it seems appropriate, a day or two before graduation, to round off this latest flurry of posts with news about what we’re proud one of our finalists, Morgan, is doing this Summer:

‘In Calais, I’m volunteering with an organisation called Utopia 56. Unlike other organisations here that mainly focus on food, water and clothing distribution, at Utopia we have a helpline number that the displaced people in Calais can call at any time day or night. We can take them to doctor’s appointments, find them temporary accommodation and help with any questions they may have, especially when they are new in the area. 

I’ve not been here for long yet but it’s already been such an eye-opening experience, both meeting so many interesting people and seeing how the different volunteer organisations come together to support the displaced people of Calais. 

Many persons here are near the end of their journeys, having been forced to leave their homes and travel hundreds of miles in harsh conditions. Despite the Calais Jungle officially closing in 2016, there remains a steady population of displaced persons in Calais; with no safe routes available for those who want to seek asylum in the UK, most trying to reach the UK will end up in Calais on their journey. This means that there is still a need for volunteer organisations here, who are all doing the jobs that the French and British governments are failing to do: provide food, clothing, water, shelter, advice, phones and so much more. 

If you ever have a couple of weeks, a month, or longer to spare, there are many amazing organisations in Calais that could use the help. From chopping vegetables, sorting clothing donations and distributing water to giving out phones and sim cards and creating safe spaces in the city centre for the displaced persons to visit, your time would be well spent.’

Many, many thanks to Morgan for this post and for getting involved in this way.

More blog posts to follow in a few weeks but, for the moment, bonnes vacances!

Cuimhnichibh Oirnn – Remember Us

And while we’re posting about French at Stirling-related research, this seems a perfect opportunity to post this article about what our colleague, Aedín ní Loingsigh, has been up to over the past couple of months.

Back in June, Aedín was part of a team of academics and actors who organised a one-day workshop on Dementia and Bilingualism at the Insight Institute in the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. As this BBC Alba film shows, the performance-led day created a very different kind of event to the usual format of academic and voluntary sector conferences.

A dramatic reading of the play ‘Five to Midnight’ (provisional title) portrayed the experiences of ‘Mary’ who, with the onset of dementia begins to lose her ability to speak in English and returns to Scottish Gaelic, her mother tongue. The play, performed in separate parts, was interspersed with audience reflection and three panel discussions on bilingualism in the medical context, dementia’s impact on the family and the bilingual community and bilingualism and the arts.

The play prompted much discussion about changing roles and relationships in families affected by dementia. Mary’s husband ‘John’ does not speak Gaelic. Meanwhile, Mary’s adult son finds himself being pulled into the not always comfortable role of interpreter between his parents and those around Mary who do not understand Gaelic.

As Mary’s dementia progresses, she becomes increasingly cut off from the English-speaking world. Audience members without Gaelic language skills are exposed to more and more Gaelic monologues and conversations as the play unrolls, mirroring John’s experience of being increasingly locked out of his wife’s world. This experience fosters audience empathy with characters in the play who are separated by language divides.

Dementia’s impact on language is a key clinical and care issue, and science has shown that monolingual and bilingual individuals are affected differently.

Of course, the play focuses on a very specific linguistic context. However, students of French may be interested in this interview with the Canadian actress Louise Pitre who speaks about the struggles she had to find linguistically cognate care for her native French-speaking parents in anglophone Canada. As the project continues, it is hoped that it will highlight the need for wider recognition of the role of language and cultural understanding for the care needs of bilingual individuals living with dementia.

Aedín has also been busy on the publication front with entries on ‘Anthropology’, ‘Coevalness’, ‘Ethnicity’, ‘Primitivism’ and ‘Translation’ in Key Words for Travel Writing Studies: A Critical Glossary and a chapter on ‘Migrant Travel Narratives’ in The Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing.

Many thanks to Aedín for this update and keep an eye on the blog for more news over the weeks ahead.

Narratives of Forced Migration Conference

We’re delighted next week to be welcoming to Stirling around 90 academic colleagues from around the world for a three-day conference looking at the narratives which emerge from diverse experiences of forced migration. The event is part of Fiona Barclay’s AHRC-funded project, ‘Narratives and Representations of the French Settlers of Algeria’, and takes place at the Stirling Court Hotel.

As well as an array of academic papers we’re looking forward to welcoming our keynote speakers. Professor Marianne Hirsch (Columbia) and Professor Leo Spitzer (Dartmouth), who will be speaking about their new book, School Photos in Liquid Time, and Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge (Birmingham), who will be speaking on Hannah Arendt’s refugee narratives.

The event also includes a film screening of the play The Trojans, a reworking of Euripides’ The Trojan Women, written and acted by a cast of Syrian refugees working with director Victoria Beesley and her company Terra Incognita. The showing at the Macrobert Arts Centre will be followed by a live Q&A with the producer and some of the actors.

For more details, visit the project’s website!

Welcome to Nina Parish!

Over the past 6 months or so, we’ve been able to report on a whole series of fantastic new appointments to French at Stirling starting with Beatrice Ivey, then Emeline Morin, then Aedín ní Loingsigh and finally Hannah Grayson who took up her post at the start of this year. And it’s with great delight that we get to welcome another new colleague in the shape of Nina Parish who will be joining us as Chair in French at the start of July. Nina is currently at the University of Bath and her research expertise encompasses representations of the migrant experience, difficult history and multilingualism within the museum space. She was part of the EU-funded Horizon 2020 UNREST team working on innovative memory practices in sites of trauma including war museums and mass graves. She is also an expert on the interaction between text and image in the field of modern and contemporary French Studies. She has published widely on this subject, in particular, on the poet and visual artist, Henri Michaux.

Our students will get their first chance to meet Nina in the Autumn semester and we’re all very much looking forward to working with her and doubtless gently persuading her to write a few blog posts along the way…

Williamson Travel Scholarship: Approaches and attitudes towards migration

The previous post about this year’s applicants for the Stevenson Exchange Scholarships, reminded me that I still had one other article lurking in my files, waiting to be posted, about a French at Stirling student’s success. In this instance, the scholarship in question is the University of Stirling’s Williamson Travel Scholarship which, last year, was awarded to Stefano, currently in the final semester of his degree in International Politics and Languages, along with his fellow student Christopher. Their joint research project was entitled ‘(Dis)integration in Southern Europe. A comparative observation of integration practices for migrants in Italy and France.’

Stefano and Christopher used the research they conducted under the auspices of their project to observe perceptions towards integration of migrants in two different European countries, namely Italy and France, through on field observations of integration practices at both local and regional level. Last July, they made use of their scholarship to spend two weeks in Southern Europe to carry out a comparative review of approaches to integration between two neighbouring countries which have been dealing with an increase of migrants in recent years, in order to enhance their understanding of the ways these countries can foster the integration of migrants in their societies. As well as examining national media representations of ‘the migrant question’, they also made contact with local civil servants and representatives of NGOs to further their knowledge and understanding of the situation. For example, they interviewed Dr Stefano Pasta, Adjunct Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Milan (Research Centre for Intercultural Relations), Journalist and senior volunteer at the Community of Sant’Egidio, a leading international NGO founded in Italy to support and integrate foreigners and migrants in Europe.

In their report on the project, Stefano and Christopher explained that having had the possibility to spend time in two European countries which have both been affected by the arrival of migrants since the start of the humanitarian crisis in 2015, ‘it has been deeply interesting to further investigate their different approaches and attitudes towards migration and subsequent integration within their societies’ and they hope their research will foster ‘awareness of the necessity for an ever greater deal of solidarity and cultural understanding in order for all of us to be oriented by the inspiring examples encountered along the journey.’ And they are, of course, grateful to the Williamson Trust for its trust in them and for its financial support through the scholarship.

Many thanks to Stefano for sending us the information about this project and for his patience while the article somehow sat in an email folder waiting to be posted!

Experiences of Exile: Week of Events

The University of Stirling is hosting a special week of events under the theme ‘Experiences of Exile’ to launch the new exhibition in the Pathfoot Gallery of the same name.

A View of Love Screening, 8^th November, 4.30/5.30pm

Kicking us off the Macrobert Arts Centre is hosting a special screening of A View of Love/Un Balcon sur la mer (2010 dir. Nicole Garcia) as part of the French Film Festival programme. A View of Love is a romantic mystery film about three French children who left Algeria very suddenly during the last violent months of the War of Independence in 1962. The film moves between past and present as the characters, now adults in France, rediscover each other and their past. It illustrates how the nostalgia of the French settlers who lived in Algeria before it became independent, opens the door to the unexpected return of the past.

The film will be preceded at 4.30pm by an introductory talk by Dr Fiona Barclay. Her talk unpacks the emotional and historical attachments which linked Algeria to France for over a century, and which continue to shape the lives of millions living in France today. You can book tickets directly from the Macrobert Art Centre here.

Photographer Anna Pantelia presents: The European Dream, 13^th November, 3pm

The photographer Anna Pantelia, will discuss her current exhibition ‘The European Dream’ which is on display in the Pathfoot Gallery. Anna Pantelia is an award-winning photojournalist and the Field Communications Manager for Médecins Sans Frontières. She was the official photographer for CERN between 2012-2014. Her photography and interviews have appeared in Newsweek, CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Vice News etc. She has worked in Europe, Turkey, South Sudan and Mozambique as a freelancer photographer with international NGOs such as Action Aid, Save the Children, and CARE International. (Oscars, Pathfoot Building, 3pm).

Autumn Art Lecture, with Professor Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair: Refugee integration through languages and the arts (University of Glasgow)

Pathfoot Lecture Theatre, 15^th November, 5.30pm

Entitled ‘Drift. Float. Drown. Dance: Reflections on refuge from a calabash’, the lecture will reflect on a translational study in Ghana. It saw researchers work alongside a dance company, who expressed the themes of the research in dance form. Places are free for the event but must be booked in advance here.

Many thanks to Beatrice Ivey, Research Assistant on Fiona Barclay’s project, for sending us all this information and we hope to see many of you at these events!

Research at Stirling: Exhibitions, Conferences and Interactive Maps

A Summer of changes for French at Stirling, not only with new cohorts of students coming to join us and our ELAs and Study Abroad students returning, but also on the staffing front. As we’ve mentioned here before, Bill Marshall retires at the end of next month and we are currently advertising for two new lecturers so there’ll be new faces in the teaching team over the months ahead. And, as we’ve also spoken about on the blog, Fiona Barclay – who has been on research leave this past semester – was awarded an AHRC Early Career Researcher Leadership Fellowship so we’re also appointing a fixed-term lecturer to replace Fiona for the next two years. We’re looking forward to introducing you to these yet-to-be-appointed colleagues very soon but, first, we thought it’d be good to get Fiona to tell us a bit about what she’s been up to over these past few months and what lies ahead. And that also gives us an excellent excuse to introduce Dr Beatrice Ivey who was recently appointed to work as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant with Fiona and who we’re very excited to welcome to Stirling!

‘Greetings from the sunny south of France, where I’ve just finished my semester of research leave! Stirling seems very far away but as the semester comes to a close it’s a good time to look back on the last few months and reflect on plans, progress, and the inevitable changes that happen…

I came to France in January with the plan of writing a couple of chapters of the book that I’m working on, using local libraries, and accessing some archives. The book is on the European settlers who came to Algeria following its conquest by the French in 1830. Almost all of them – 900,000 – were forced to leave for France when Algeria became independent in 1962 in one of the biggest population movements since 1945. Since then, a proportion of them have been very vocal in French politics, whilst others have produced a large corpus of literature which records their memories of their homeland and works through their feelings of loss and nostalgia. My project looks at these narratives and representations, and the ways in which the community’s identity is being passed on to the younger generations born in France since 1962.

Plans are often subject to change, and so it was on this occasion. My idea of using the local university library ran into trouble straightaway, when I discovered that, due to a combination of a local strike against university mergers, and the subsequent national blockade of universities, it was closed until further notice. In the end ‘until further notice’ meant nearly 5 months, giving me a new perspective on the UK’s UCU strike action, and a lot of sympathy for local students who were still expected to sit exams. Thankfully Stirling’s electronic library holdings and lending provision has developed a lot in the last few years, so I was able to access most of the texts needed.

Le Voyageur

The second change to my plans came in February, when I received news that my application to the AHRC’s Leadership Fellows scheme had been successful. The award is £250,000 for a two-year project starting next month and, in addition to the completion of the book, it has a substantial set of public engagement activities, some of which will start early in the project. Consequently, I’ve spent much of the last few months working with colleagues in museums and archives in Paris, Perpignan and Port-Vendres to organise access to images, video testimonies, artefacts and so on. These will feature in a year-long exhibition opening in September at the Pathfoot Gallery in Stirling. I’m also working with colleagues at Stirling to build a new project website, which will feature an interactive map giving access to many of the images, videos and sound-files, as well as links to a free access online course (MOOC) and film season taking place as part of the UK French Film Festival in November 2018.

The project will also have another team member, a Postdoctoral Research Assistant who will work on the project for 15 months. I’m delighted that Dr Beatrice Ivey, who recently completed her PhD at the University of Leeds, will be starting at Stirling on 1 September. She will be leading on many of the digital and online parts of the project, and also co-organising an international conference on forced migration which will take place at Stirling next May. We look forward to welcoming her to Stirling!’

Many thanks to Fiona for this update – news of the exhibition and other events will follow in due course! – and over to Beatrice:

‘I’m joining the ‘From Colonisers to Refugees’ project at the University of Stirling as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant and, in this role, I’ll be assisting Dr Fiona Barclay with the management of the project website, the organisation of an international conference at Stirling in 2019, research and publication as part of a planned special issue. I will also interview people who have settled in Scotland having fled Syria as refugees for the project’s Digital Cartographies and Storytelling Soundscapes components.

I completed my PhD at the University of Leeds in 2018, examining the gender performativity of cultural memory in writings by Assia Djebar, Hélène Cixous, Ahmed Kalouaz, Malika Mokeddem, and Nina Bouraoui. My thesis, entitled ‘Performing Gender, Performing the Past’ argued that acts of cultural memory also reiterate, and possibly subvert, the gendered imaginaries associated with French colonialism in Algeria. I examined specific cases of gendered memory which produced connections between the memory of French Algeria and other disparate histories of extreme violence, such as the Holocaust, Partition, Slavery in the Caribbean, and the ongoing ‘Border Crisis’ (Daniel Trilling 2017) in the Mediterranean. I have published a chapter ‘Hélène Cixous’s L’Indiade ou l’Inde de leurs rêves: Gendering Memories of Colonialism in Algeria and India’ in the volume French Feminisms 1975 and After (Atack, Fell, Holmes, Long 2018) and an article ‘Affect, Gender, and Postmemory in Nina Bouraoui’s Representations of the 1970s’ in the International Journal of Francophone Studies. 

My current research focuses on the transnational memory of forced migration in Francophone cultural production from and about the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean.’

Many thanks to Beatrice and Fiona for these posts, and good luck with the project!