Best Wishes for the New Year!
The ALCS looks back on a strange but no less productive year. And: we’re looking forward to more good things to come!
Check out the ALCS Winter Bulletin 2021 here for updates, flashbacks and news.
Author: Filip De Ceuster
Event: Taalunie Writer in Residence Niña Weijers – 20 November
Join the ALCS and the Nederlandse Taalunie for a conversation with our Dutch Writer in Residence Niña Weijers! This event takes place on Friday 20 November (4pm) and will be chaired by Dr Hans Demeyer (UCL).
You can join us by registering here!
ONLINE EVENT – Introducing VERZET Chapbooks
On Tuesday 13 October, Off the Shelf Festival and New Dutch Writing organise the free live event ‘VERZET‘, which focuses on contemporary Dutch writers and their translators.VERZET is a collection of beautifully designed chapbooks, showcasing the work of eight of the most exciting young writers working in the Netherlands today. The event and Q&A will be chaired by the ALCS’s own Dr Henriette Louwerse (University of Sheffield).
Join us via this link!
ALCS Language Teacher Workshop 20-21 November 2020
This autumn, the ALCS is organising its first Language Teacher Workshop. Originally planned to take place in London, the workshop will now be delivered online and is open to all teachers of Dutch in adult education in the UK, and generously sponsored by our long-term partner the Nederlandse Taalunie. We are planning sessions on learning psychology, creating learning communities online, personal language journeys and the sense and nonsense of grammar teaching. There will be a borrel with our writer in residence NiñaWeijers, and of course plenty of opportunities to meet colleagues and exchange ideas!
Do join us! We are very much looking forward to bringing together the UK and Ireland’s Dutch language tutors, who are often working in isolation in larger institutions. Do spread the word and register your interest here.
In other news: Flanders House has initiated a stall at the Language Fair in London with a language taster on Saturday 14 November. Board members of the ALCS will be manning the Learn Dutch Stall on both days (13 and 14/11). There will also be a talk by the Dutch Language Union’s general secretary Kris van de Poel, so many exciting opportunities to put the teaching and learning of Dutch high on the agenda!
ALCS Essay Prize Winners 2020!
We are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Undergraduate and Postgraduate ALCS Dutch Essay Prize. We had contributions from a range of disciplines, ranging from Low Countries history and political culture, to translation studies and Dutch and Flemish literature.
The ALCS PG Prize was awarded to Irving Wolters for his enjoyable essay on the relative success of choices translators make, and the influence of other players on their work, with a case study of Marriage/Ordeal by Gerard Walschap translated by Alex Brotherton. The jury deemed the essay scholarly, informative, and a very interesting discussion of some very knotty translation issues.
We had several excellent contenders for the ALCS UG Prize. After some deliberation, the prize was awarded to UCL BA Dutch and French finalist Alice Learmouth for her concise and well-focussed essay on the peculiarities of Dutch political culture. Our panel thought much was achieved in a relatively short essay, which was mature and well-developed. Learmouth discusses the topic from the perspective of pillarization and provides arguments for and against the influence of pillarization on policies towards ethnic minorities in the Netherlands.
Congratulations to Irving Wolters and Alice Learmouth from the whole of the ALCS community! We would also like to thank all other contenders for their contributions and hard work and would like to wish everyone a rewarding summer break.
