Distinguished Speaker Series: Professor Alison Phipps on the Languages of Crises

Join us for the fifth talk in our Distinguished Speaker series, introducing exciting new Short Courses from The Open Centre for Languages and Cultures.

In this talk, our guest speaker Professor Alison Phipps (UNESCO Chair, University of Glasgow) 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.

BOOK YOUR PLACE: Distinguished Speaker Series: Alison Phipps and the Languages of Crises - Mon 12 December 2022, 13:00-14:00 | Eventbrite

The preamble to the UNESCO Mission states that:
"If wars are made in the minds of men and women then it is in the minds of men of women that the defences of peace must be constructed."

The crises besetting humanity today belong to the genre traditionally known as apocalypse. Every apocalypse has its own idioms, its own visceral imagery and its own often prophetic and certainly ideologically position statements discursively offering up a recipe of both woe and hope and calls for action.

In this contribution, 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.

The talk will be recorded and available on our website post-event. By attending the event you agree to be included in the recording.

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.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis such as most of us have never experienced before and is the springboard for this short course. You´ll explore the role that language and culture play in how people manage and respond to crises. You´ll find out about key linguistics and intercultural concepts and how people have engaged with humour, art and language change within crises contexts.

About the speaker

Professor Alison Phipps 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 Migration Hub.

She is Ambassador for the Scottish Refugee Council.

She is an academic, activist, educator and published poet.