Distinguished Speaker Series: Alison Phipps and the Languages of Crises
Published: 22 November 2022
Professor Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair, University of Glasgow joins us to discuss the importance of languages and the arts in times of crisis.
Join us online for our Distinguished Speaker series where we’ll hear from Professor Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair at the University of Glasgow who will discuss the Languages of Crises.
Alison will share the work of key research projects which have focused on the languages of crises examining what it is that researching multilingually can bring to understanding contexts as diverse as law, mental health and trauma, bombing raids and siege and the multiple ways in which people in crisis seek asylum.
Drawing on a decade of work in conflict transformation using the resources of languages and the arts, most especially to advocate for and enable restorative forms of integration, Alison will also turn her attention to epistemic and methodological critiques which have arisen from the sources of conflict in colonial conceits.
This lecture will offer both theory and practice and maybe also some poetry to ring the changes from the prophets of doom but without eschewing their necessary cadences for these times.
Professor Phipps' talk will be followed by a brief introduction to the latest short course hosted by the OU's Open Centre for Languages and Cultures: The Languages of Crises.
This new short course examines the role that language and culture play in how people manage and respond to crises. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis such as most of us have never experienced before and is used as a springboard for this short course to explore key linguistic and intercultural concepts and highlights how humour, art and language help people cope and understand in times of crisis.
Biography: Alison Phipps
She is UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the University of Glasgow and Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies. She was De Carle Distinguished Visiting Professor at Otago University, Aotearoa New Zealand 2019-2020, Thinker in Residence at the EU Hawke Centre, University of South Australia in 2016, Visiting Professor at Auckland University of Technology, and Principal Investigator for AHRC Large Grant ‘Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the body, law and the state’; for Cultures of Sustainable Peace, and is now co-Director of the Global Challenge Research Fund South South Migration Hub. She is Ambassador for the Scottish Refugee Council. She is an academic, activist, educator and published poet.
We look forward to seeing you there !
First published: 22 November 2022