Events

Dylan Herrera, gives the talk The Latin American socio-political turmoil:  A regional spring of revolts? in Veröld – House of Vigdís, room 108, on 4 March at 16.30.  His talk will be in English.

The end of the year 2019 was shaken with social and political unrest around the world, with protests in France, Algeria, Sudan and Hong Kong; and Latin America has not been the exception. Adding to the ongoing tension of Venezuela throughout the year, strikes in Chile, Ecuador, Puerto Rico and Colombia as well as the coup d’état against Evo Morales in Bolivia and the election results in Argentina and Uruguay, are evidence of drastic changes in the region.

Although there is not a unique cause or catalyst for all the protests in the region, there are several elements that must be pointed out as significant for the understanding of current Latin American affairs (social inequality, corruption, human rights, foreign political interests, among others).

What appears to be more critical is that Latin America doesn’t have a clear response by local governments towards an -apparently common- burden. On the other hand, there seems to be no clarity of how to achieve what is being demanded in the strikes (implementation route or the costs that will imply for each country). Why?

How do these shifts in the region evidence a structural failure of neoliberalism and what are the possible impacts of having a Latin America divided between right and left?

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Italian Movie Day in Veröld: La dolce vita (1960)

Director: Federico Fellini
Duration: 180 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho6XiWvwEjw
English subtitles.
Free Admission.

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Film screenings in Veröld – House of Vigdís are organized by the teachers of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures in the University of Iceland, as a part of the language courses. Although designed for students, everybody is welcome and encouraged to attend these screenings.

Program:

16:00-16:30
Dory Merino from La Rioja University in Spain gives the presentation “Escenas costumbristas: el cine español desde sus inicios”

16:30-17:00
Ana Cao & Ignacio Vázquez, frá Universidade da Beira Interior íCovilhã, in Portugal, give the presentation “(Casi) todo sobre nuestras mujeres: el universo femenino en el cine español contemporáneo”

Both presentations will be in Spanish. Please scroll down for abstracts.

17:00:
Screening of the film “Te doy mis ojos” (2003)
Director: Icíar Bollaín
Duration: 109 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaP8t_A0u6E
English subtitles.
Free Admission.

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Dory Merino frá La Rioja-háskóla á Spáni
Escenas costumbristas: el cine español desde sus inicios

El objetivo principal de la ponencia se concreta en realizar una comparativa relacional de los orígenes del cine español de 2019, concretamente con seis películas y dos series. Se observa una característica común: tanto en las primeras películas españolas (1897), como en las que se analizan del siglo XXI, la temática es la misma: las películas de ficción muestran la realidad del día a día. Sin embargo, las series analizadas se alejan de la vida real.

Analizamos las siguientes películas:

1. Campeones
2. Diecisiete
3. El mejor verano de mi vida
4. Padre no hay más que uno
5. Toc-toc
6. Vivir dos veces

Y las series.
1. El Ministerio del Tiempo
2. La casa de papel

Justificación y metodología
La primera película que se rodó en España se filmó en la plaza del Pilar. Los 17 metros de cinta, traducidos en dos minutos y medio de película, se rodaron el 11 de octubre de 1897, en soporte de nitrocelulosa con perforación circular Lumière, característica de los filmes de aquella época, como “Salida de la misa de doce de la iglesia del Pilar de Zaragoza.

En esta etapa la gran mayoría de producciones era la documentación de eventos o sucesos, como fiestas o celebraciones políticas y culturales. Esto se debe a que en el momento el espectador solo veía al cine como un medio para recibir estímulos o impactos visuales, más comparable a una atracción de feria que a un arte como tal. Por esto, al cine de la época se le conoce como cine de atracciones.
La primera película española con argumento fue ‘Riña en un café (1897).
Se utiliza una metodología de análisis comparativo para determinar si existen estereotipos o no.

Ana Cao og Ignacio Vázquez, frá Universidade da Beira Interior í Covilhã, Portúgal
(Casi) todo sobre nuestras mujeres: el universo femenino en el cine español contemporáneo

En esta charla se hará una breve presentación del miniciclo de cine español que tendrá lugar los días 9, 10 y 12 de marzo, con la proyección de las siguientes películas: Te doy mis ojos (Icíar Bollaín, 2003), Todo sobre mi madre (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999) y Spain in a Day (Isabel Coixet, 2016). El hilo común entre estas películas reside en el hecho de que, como tendremos oportunidad de comprobar, las tres se relacionan de una u otra forma con el universo femenino.
Con esta presentación, previa a la proyección de los tres filmes mencionados, se pretende ofrecer una rápida panorámica acerca de la presencia femenina en el cine español desde sus orígenes hasta hoy, tanto en lo que concierne a la (escasa) participación de mujeres cineastas como, sobre todo, en lo que respecta a las representaciones de la mujer predominantes en unas películas casi siempre dirigidas por hombres. En tal abordaje histórico, realizado desde un presente en el que estas cuestiones han cobrado una enorme relevancia y eco mediático, se hará hincapié en los cambios sociales que ha experimentado el país a lo largo del tiempo en relación con la igualdad entre géneros y el rol social de la mujer, tal y como quedan reflejados en el cine.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Duration: 105 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob8YL__6R1s
English subtitles.
Free Admission.

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French Movie Days: Timbuktu (2014)
Director: Abderrhamane Sissakó (Mauritania)
Duration: 97 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs2dYAlbINY
English subtitles
Free admission

The screening is supported by Institut Français.

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Translanguaging (TR) is a complex phenomenon. TR suggests that a bilingual person has one integrated linguistic system (García, 2009), focusing on flexible bilingualism and multiple discursive practices (Blackledge and Creese, 2010). This study investigated the TR practices of Russian-speaking parents and their children in Estonia. The data were collected using parental written questionnaires with the focus on general background, socio-economic status and language proficiency, oral semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations, in order to get a deeper understanding of how TR practices and literacy activities are managed in Russian-speaking families and what differences and similarities could be observed between them.
Applying the theories of family language policy (FLP) (King et al. 2008), I explored divergent language choices within the family context in connection with available linguistic resources. There were 60 families who participated in the study. Six families were chosen for a closer look at FLPs and TR strategies. My ethnographic participant observation aimed to observe language use in the widest possible range of situations.
The results show that parents realised quite soon the importance of early child literacy experiences at home and tried to enhance these experiences both in Russian and in Estonian via (in)direct teaching and meaning-focused shared activities. While most parents wanted to preserve the quality of Russian and transmit it to their children, they sometimes let the children use the language that was most convenient at particular moments. In turn, some parents noted that over time more domains were replaced with Estonian, which led to language shift.

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Democratic Constitutional Design invites to an open lecture on:

Deliberative mini-publics facilitating voter knowledge and judgement: Experience from a Finnish local referendum
Maija Setälä, Turku University
Veröld, Auditorium 023, Thursday 12 March, 12:05

This article examines the use of a Citizens’ Jury as a source of voter information in the context of a government-initiated (top-down) referendum. Several studies show the capacity of the Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) to enhance voters’ knowledge and capacity of judgement in ballot initiative processes. However, similar procedures have not been tested outside the U.S. or in the context of government-initiated referendums. Our case is a Citizens’ Jury on Referendum Options organized in the municipality of Korsholm (Finland) in 2019. Even though the referendum concerned a contested municipal merger, we find that Jury participants were nonetheless satisfied with the deliberative process and found it impartial. A large majority of voters had read the statement and thought it was a useful and trustworthy source of information. Based on a field experiment, we find that reading the statement increased trust in the jury, factual knowledge, issue efficacy and perspective-taking.

The talk is based on a paper in progress by: Maija Setälä, Maria Bäck, Henrik Serup Christensen, Mikko Leino og Kim Strandberg

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Director: Isabel Coixet
Duration: 81 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYI3A6WLMBU
English subtitles.
Free Admission.

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Danila Sokolov, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iceland gives the talk The Queer History of Erotic Law in the English Renaissance, in Veröld – House of Vigdís on 17 March at 16:30.

What discursive forces are at play when Renaissance poets speak of love in the language of law? This talk argues that to grasp the genealogy of this rhetorical phenomenon we need to look to the Middle Ages and the idea of erotic jurisprudence. Doing that, however, entails tracing the contours of an elusive tradition that lurk around the margins of European culture. Can reintroducing it into our critical practice “queer” the received narratives of legal and literary history?

The Vigdís Institute Lecture Series

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Catherine Delons, specialist on the French 19th century poet Baudelaire, will give the talk Charles Baudelaire et Caroline Aupick, l’idée si douce d’une mère on wednesday 18 March in Veröld – House of Vigdís, 2nd floor, at 17:00-18:00 .

In her talk, Delons will discuss Baudelaire’s relationship with his mother, Caroline Aupick, and her influence on his work.

The talk will be in French. All are welcome.

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French Movie Days: Félicité (2017)

Director: Alain Gomis (Kongó).
Duration: 123 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g92y5oRJ9Y
English subtitles
Free admission

The screening is supported by Institut Français.

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Hulda Karen Daníelsdóttir, sérfræðingur í íslensku sem öðru tungumáli (ÍSAT), heldur vinnustofuna Samvinnunám, námorðaforði og ritun í stofu 107 í Veröld – húsi Vigdísar þann 21. mars kl. 10-12.

Þátttakendur fræðast um og fá þjálfun í samvinnunámsleiðum, flokkun námsorðaforða og ritun fjölbreytts texta.

Hulda Karen lauk MA-gráðu í annarsmálsfræðum frá University of Manitoba í Kanada og hefur starfað sem ÍSAT sérfræðingur undanfarin ár.

Vinnustofan er þátttakendum að kostnaðarlausu og engrar skráningar er krafist. Boðið verður upp á kaffiveitingar.

Vinnustofur kennara eru samstarfsverkefni Vigdísarstofnunar, STÍL – Samtaka tungumálakennara á Íslandi og Tungumálamiðstöðvar Háskóla Íslands. 

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Director: Daouda Coulibaly (Mali)
Duration: 95 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rMqpjs5iNw
English subtitles
Free admission

The screening is supported by Institut Français.

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One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (2019)
Veröld – House of Vigdís, 26 March at 18 :00
Director: Zacharias Kunuk
Duration: 112 m
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M2vb7q2ZSU
English subtitles
Admission is free

In April 1961, John Kennedy is America’s new President, the Cold War heats up in Berlin and nuclear bombers are deployed from bases in arctic Canada. In Kapuivik, north Baffin Island, Noah Piugattuk’s nomadic Inuit band live and hunt by dog team as his ancestors did when he was born in 1900. When the white man known as Boss arrives at Piugattuk’s hunting camp, what appears as a chance meeting soon opens up the prospect of momentous change. Boss is an agent of the government, assigned to get Piugattuk to move his band to settlement housing and send his children to school so they can get jobs and make money. But Kapuivik is Piugattuk’s homeland. He takes no part in the Canadian experience; and cannot imagine what his children would do with money.

The event is held in cooperation with the Embassy of Canada in Reykjavík.

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