Linguistic cultures and communities in Europe (past and present). Building the EUROTALES museum.

The scope of the collaborative project is to contribute to EUROTALES, our Museum of the Voices of Europe. EUROTALES gathers research data with the active collaboration of staff, students and the general public. It has the ambition of establishing new approaches to researching, representing and studying, as well as sharing the intangible cultural heritage constituted by the many languages used in Europe in the past and today. Our collective aim is to reveal the archaeology of languages stratified in our personal histories, territories and traditions, with a view to understand the changes that have occurred over time and place as well as in social and political history.

• Scope of Eurotales Project and Museum - Language, Community and Place
• EUROTALES Museum Laboratory Concept and Collections
• Field and Research Methods in sociolinguistics and historical sociolinguistics
• Inscriptions, Primary Sources and Bibliographies
• Collecting bibliography and images
• Guiding discussion between students of their research projects

Appreciation of the multicultural and multilayered nature of linguistic history within European territory

• Recognition of multilingualism and multiculturalism in communities and nations
• Insight on how language shapes history, identity and culture
• Knowledge of how languages live and are shaped within different geographic spaces
• Retrieval of linguistic genealogies within individuals, past and present
• Retrieval of the memory of languages in objects and places
• Investigation of the linguistic dimension of cultural heritage
• Fieldwork research methods experience
• Presenting academic knowledge to the public (outreach)

The evaluation will be carried out by the coordinators participating institutions and will consist of an assessment of the work submitted by students.

The physical mobility section of the course will be running from 7 to 11 January 2025. Selected students will arrive in Rome and participate in seminars and itineraries (20 hrs). The programme of the physical component of the course includes:

• Discussion and presentation of the work students submitted
• Visit to the EUROTALES museum
• Seminar with curators from another European Language Museum
• Visit to sites echoing the languages in Medieval, Renaissance and contemporary Rome Multilingual Theatre Lab
• Music concert

Throughout the virtual part, the classes will be held from 4 October 2024 to 20 December 2024:

• 04 October, 15.00 - 17.00: Introduction and Scope of Eurotales Project and Museum - Language, Community and Place

a. Greetings and introductions

b. EUROTALES Museum Laboratory Concept and Collections [PPT lecture]

c. Course Syllabus and Moodle Platform

d. Resonances Present – Questionnaires

e. Distribute email list and make WhatApp group for the class

• 11 October, 15.00 - 18.00: Field and Research Methods in sociolinguistics and history

a. Traces - What are they? - Template (PPT lecture)

b. Resonances of the Past - What are they? - Template (PPT lecture)

c. Discussion of First Questionnaires - Q & A

• 25 October, 15.00 - 18.00: The Basics: Inscriptions, Primary Sources and Bibliographies for Resonances Past and Traces - Q & A

a. Research and Resources (Resonances Past and Traces) (PPT lecture)

b. Discussion of choice of Resonances Past and Traces.

• 8 November, 15.00 - 18.00:  Itineraries and Working Groups

a. Making itineraries: themes, areas, people (PPT lecture)

b. Division into Working Groups on Traces and Resonances Past: discuss topics, bibliography and itinerary themes (which we would encourage as collaborative).

• 15 November, 17.00 – 18.00: Drop in office hour
   
• 22 November, 15.00 - 18.00

a. Students present the Itinerary themes they are considering to choose

b. Students break up in groups and exchange their drafts of Resonances Past. Class time is spent reading and commenting mutually on drafts.

c. General discussion on issues and problems in the drafts

•  29 November, 17.00 – 18.00 Drop in office hour
   
• 6   December, 15.00 - 18.00

a. Students present the finalised Itinerary themes to the whole class.

b. Students break up in groups and exchange their drafts of Traces. Class time is spent reading and commenting mutually on drafts.

c. General discussion on issues and problems in the drafts.

• 13 December, 15.00 - 18.00

a.  Discussion of issues and problems to fix in written work - Q & A

b.  Students’ proposals for activities in Rome

c.  Multilingualism and Theatre Online workshop

• 20 December, 17.00 – 18.00 Drop in office hour

By the end of the online part of the course we expect students to hand in the following work:

a. 20 questionnaires recording data on linguistic biographies [20 Resonances Present) 

b.  Either 2 ‘Traces’ and 1 ‘Resonance Past’ OR 2 ‘Resonances Past’ and 1 ‘Trace’

A short thematic video itinerary with map inviting the public to visit an ideal itinerary across different Resonances and Traces, intended for museum display. The video should indicate why that itinerary is relevant to the memory of the Voices of Europe.

• 25% - participation in virtual and in-person seminars and workshops
• 25% - field work for Resonances present
• 50% - historical Traces and Resonances

For good marks, undergraduates are expected to complete 20 linguistic biography questionnaires following our specific criteria. Following this, they must fill the templates for historical linguistic biographies and trace/fragments of language associated with physical objects. They must produce well-researched entries using good sources and written in clear, but not necessarily perfect English. In addition, they must show up for most of the class hours and participate in activities both online and on site, as well as deliver a presentation and video that shows thought and discretion. 

Graduate students, on the other hand, must satisfy all of the above but also produce original work, publishable for our museum with minimal intervention on the part of museum staff. In other words, their entries must show deep research and understanding of the subject in a way that is not yet possible for the younger students. Their interventions in class are also expected to be of a higher order.

Motivation Letter

CV

All applications will be evaluated based on their:

• CV
• Relevance of the course for any of the specific fields of studies indicated above
• Motivation
• Knowledge of English

• Nadia Cannata (Sapienza Università di Roma), Prof. of Italian Linguistics
• Maia W. Gahtan (Kent State University/ Sapienza Università di Roma), Prof. of Art and Architectural History and Museum Studies
• Lorenzo Bartoli (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) Prof. Of Italian Philology
• Roxana Utale (University of Bucharest) Prof. of Italian
• Margaret Sonmez (Bilkent Ankara/ Sapienza Università di Roma) English Literature and Linguistics
• Dr Dragana Kazandjiovska (Sapienza Università di Roma) Slavonic Languages
• Dr Gaia Tomazzoli (Sapienza Università di Roma) Digital Humanities and Philology