Nathan expands his Spanish knowledge in Granada, Spain
I spend the month of July improving my Spanish at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas in Granada. I have been studying Spanish for many years and the opportunity to spend a semester in Spain was one of the main reasons I elected to do the EUROSUD degree. I was able to take two courses in Spanish at UAM in the Spring semester and the Career Development Fund allowed me to continue my studies at the CLM for a month afterwards. I greatly enjoyed exploring another region (and dialect!) of Spain and am excited to leverage my Spanish abilities as I look to begin my Thesis in year 2 of the degree.
by Nathan Guerin
𝐉𝐮𝐚𝐧𝐣𝐨 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞
FFIPP Network for Human Rights in Israel and Palestine’s Summer School has provided a multidisciplinary approach about colonisation process, conflict management, repression, human rights, international law and non-violent forms of resistance. We have been able to meet first hand, experts and researchers whose focus is the palestinian-israeli conflict and workers from several NGOs, such as Defense for Children International or Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. It has also offered us the opportunity to know deeper about Mediterranean Relations, the key role of Israel in Middle East and the difficulties of the International Community to enforce International Law. Furthermore, as part of the programme, I am doing an internship Jerusalem during 4 weeks in the NGO Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, which main focus are providing legal aid, international advocacy and monitorize the last policies of Israeli government towards the city.
By Juan José (Juanjo) Luis Delgado
Suljo Participates in Summer School in Turkey
From 24-29 July, I participated in the Summer School on International Protection of Refugees in Çeşme (Izmir Province, Turkiye), organized as a part of the Human Rights Academy by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, UNHCR, and Mülkiye Migration Research Center (MÜGAM). The school included lectures, discussions, and panels on the topic of refugee and migrant human rights, as well as debates about management and different policies of the migration situation in our countries. As a EUROSUD student from Bosnia and Herzegovina, I shared some of the challenges that my country, as well as the rest of Southern Europe is facing in this field. Furthermore, we discussed possible solutions, and positive examples coming from civil society, media, governmental policies, etc. The 20 participants of the summer school were coming from more than ten countries, and included MA and Phd candidates, human rights lawyers, social workers, artists, and researchers, which allowed us to have a fruitful discussion during all our sessions. It was particularly interesting to me to hear about first-hand experience from people who work in international organizations about migrations such as UNHCR, or to talk with me who have been researching the topic of migration for decades already.
During my first two semesters in Glasgow and Athens, we have worked on the topic of migrations in Southern Europe during multiple courses, which offered me a great background knowledge before attending the summer school. Besides the academic aspects of the program, I was given the opportunity to discuss and network with motivating people from around Europe and the MENA region, and soon I hope to collaborate with them on new projects and research activities.
By Suljo Corsulic – 2021-23 student cohort
Sebastian presents paper at the 14th Victorian Popular Fiction Association Annual Conference (13-15 July 2022)
Contagion, Decadence, Contingency: Debating and Examining Deconstructions and Reinforcements of Imageries and Mythologies of Purity and Contamination in Victorian Popular Fiction
My participation in the 14th Victorian Popular Fiction Association Annual Conference (13-15 July 2022)
Thanks to the support of EUROSUD Studies and Career Development Fund, I was able to participate in the 14th Victorian Popular Fiction Association Annual Conference held at the University of Loughborough from the 13th to the 15th of July 2022. During the three work-intensive days of the conference, a wide range of scholars and researchers in the field of Victorian Literature Studies presented papers related to this years’ conference general topic “Purity and Contamination in Victorian Popular Fiction and Culture”. Although relying on different theoretical and methodological approaches of Literary Studies, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, all papers had one thing in common: they all analyzed representations of purity and contamination in Victorian popular fiction, offering new perspectives on the mechanisms of construction of imageries and mythologies of purity and contamination in Victorian imagination. The topics of the papers, among others, included: Gothic monsters, contaminated aesthetics, purity and contamination in detective and sensation fiction, sin and moral corruption in fiction, imperialism and travel fiction etc. One of the highlights of the conference was undoubtedly the keynote lecture “Poisoned by Books: Reading and Writing in the fin-de-siècle Gothic” given by Prof. Andrew Smith.
On the second day of the conference, I had the opportunity to present my paper “Mythology of Purity and Contamination of Decadent Imagination in Machen’s Horror Fiction”. My presentation started with a close reading of Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, an intriguing autobiographical quest for the sources of author’s own “degradation” which is, ultimately, found in utter “contamination” of Wilde’s aesthetics by the “perverse” aestheticism of his lover, Lord Douglas or Bosie. Namely, in De Profundis Wilde depicts his fall under the influence of Bosie’s lifestyle as a process of being “lured into the imperfect world of coarse uncompleted passion, of appetite without distinction, desire without limit”, whereby Bosie’s lifestyle and its underlying notion of aestheticism are represented as the source of contamination of Wilde’s aesthetics and ethics which, being “lured into perversity”, ultimately became detached from its initial “pure” form. Taking De Profundis as the epitome of the mythology of “purity” and “contamination” of the decadent aesthetics (and decadent imagination), my paper briefly touched upon consolidation and reinvigoration of such mythology not only in decadent literature of fin de siècle but also in anti-decadent literary criticism of critics such as Benedetto Croce and Mario Praz. Ultimately, my paper focused on the analysis of Arthur Machen’s early horror fiction – the novella The Great God Pan and the short story The Inmost Light – demonstrating how in both texts decadent imagination was represented both as a possible source of ideological “contamination” and as a “pure” aesthetic and political vision of re-sacralization of modernity, whereby characters of mad scientists represent the “contaminated” decadent imagination, while modern flâneurs embody its “pure” form. After the end of my presentation, a lively and rich discussion continued.
All in all, I benefited immensely from attending the conference and being able to share my research with renowned scholars in the field in which I would like to continue my PhD studies in Comparative Literature. Not only did I gain a better insight into the research field, but I also gained additional impetus for carrying out my research in an interdisciplinary and transnational academic environment.
By Sebastian Kukavica - 2020-22 Student Cohort
Amanda participates in a Management and Consulting in the Digital Age Summer School in Rome
BUDS – BUILDING UP DIGITAL STRATEGISTS
MANAGEMENT AND CONSULTING IN THE DIGITAL AGE
From the 11th to the 15th of July I participated in the Digital Management and Consulting Summer School in Rome. It was organized by the BUDS (Building Digital Strategists) Program, an initiative of Tor Vergata Rome University.
The Summer School consisted specialized in learning how to work with digital transformation and adapt to the current digitalized world. Some big companies in the digital sphere, such as Deloitte, Accenture, NTT Data, SAP, and SAS, were partners in the program and were responsible for giving tutorials and training. Deloitte was responsible for presenting about Customer Journey and Cybersecurity. Accenture focused on salesforce and presented a platform for online training concerning sales. NTT Data took care of Project Management and agile working.
I was one of 37 participants from different Universities across Europe (Portugal, Spain, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Italy, and the United Kingdom). Before the in-person part of the Summer School, we had access to an online course and had to choose a relative challenge that we would like to work on during the week in Rome. There were 3 different challenges provided by the partner companies (Accenture, Deloitte, and NTT Data). I, along with 4 other participants, worked on the challenge concerning project management of NTT Data. Our objective was to project the reopening of a restaurant after the COVID-19 pandemic by using digital transformation and an agile process . Besides the regular course and presentations, each group had workshops and tutorials with mentors of the respective company. Our workshop with the NTT Data team was incredibly productive and helpful. Within the designed workgroups, we had to identify aspects within the challenge that we had to change of the challenge we had to change and brainstorm solutions using technology. Next week each group will have a meeting online with the respective tutor company to present the final project for the challenge.
The Summer School opened my mind to professional opportunities in the digital area that I had not previously thought about. It was helpful to understand how digitalization is necessary for adapting to current changes in the world and how it can be used to improve all sorts of projects and processes. It was not only a beneficial academic experience, but it was also very enriching in terms of networking and meeting people from different backgrounds. Overall, it was an extremely profitable experience!
By Amanda Delgado Gussão