ALCS – Association for Low Countries Studies

Come and celebrate with us: 70 Years of Dutch at Sheffield University

18 May 201818 May 2018 Henriette Louwerse

ALCS members, colleagues, students, alumni, friends,

Please join us to celebrate the first seven decades of Dutch at Sheffield. Dutch started modestly in 1948 as an option for students of German. Seventy year later Sheffield boasts the largest Dutch Section in the Anglophone world.

We would like to invite you to celebrate this with us on
Thursday 28 June 2018

This is the day of the opening of the ALCS International Conference on Dutch Studies: Picturing Reality, which will take place in Sheffield. The (draft) Programme can be found here.

You are most welcome to join us for the opening of the conference in the Council Room, Firth Court at 5 pm. The opening address will be by Prof. Lotte Jensen (Nijmegen). This is followed by a wine reception. This event is free.

We will then proceed to our festive dinner in Weston Park Museum. Please join us from 19.30. For this you will have to book a place before 1 June. The three course meal in Weston Park’s main gallery setting is £20. Please choose ‘Optional Extras’ if you are not registering for the Conference. We have 60 places so don’t wait too long.

If you have any questions: ALCS@shef.ac.uk

Workshop Tutors of Dutch: 28 June 2018

17 April 201818 April 2018 Henriette Louwerse

A recent ALCS survey has shown that Dutch is getting increasingly popular within Institution wide Language Programmes. We are keen to support the IWLP tutors, which is why we are organising a half-day workshop for Tutors of Dutch in the UK and Ireland.

This ALCS Workshop is first and foremost an opportunity to meet colleagues from other institutions, to swap ideas and share good practice. But we have also invited an expert, drs. Vera de Bot (Universiteit Amsterdam). Vera is an experienced Dutch Language tutor (Sheffield, Philadelphia, Amsterdam), author of Dutch course books, and a master at new techniques, games and suggestions to engage language learners.

Programme

12.00	Arrival, Registration and Lunch Chancellor’s Room, Firth Court, University of Sheffield
13.00	Workshop Part 1
14.45	Tea/Coffee Break
15.15	Workshop Part 2
16.30	Evaluation and Planning
16.45	Workshop finishes
17.00	Opening of ALCS Conference: Picturing Reality Opening Lecture by Prof Lotte Jensen (Nijmegen)
18.15	Wine Reception

This workshop, lunch, refreshments, reception and lecture are all free of charge.

We also have a small pot to help out with travel costs if your institution does not cover your travel expenses. If you want to make use of that, please contact ALCS@ Sheffield.ac.uk.

All tutors of Dutch at University Language Centres in the UK and Ireland are welcome to apply. Please register for our Workshop here.

ALCS Conference 2018: Picturing Reality

27 October 201720 March 2018 Henriette Louwerse

12th Biennial Conference of the ALCS

Low Countries: Picturing Reality

University of Sheffield
28 – 30 June 2018

With the 12th ALCS Conference Picturing Reality, which will take plave at the University of Sheffield, we want to map and analyse a wide range of areas of interchange or zones of contact in a Low Countries context. We want to approach ‘traditional’ or binary pairings such as fiction and truth, art and life, imagination and history through a lens of complementarity and not only in terms of contamination and opposition. We regard adaptation and translation as exemplary contact zones.

We can boast a truly international conference with speakers from 4 continents and 11 different nations.

The (draft) Programme can be found here

Click here for our online registration which is now open till 1 June 2018

Selected papers will be published in the ALCS Journal: Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies

The Centre for Dutch and Flemish Studies will host the 12th ALCS conference as part of the festivities celebrating 70 years of Dutch Studies at the University of Sheffield.

ALCS Research Grant: Anna Geurts

8 September 20178 September 2017 Henriette Louwerse

The ALCS sponsored Dr Anna P.H. Geurts’ research visit to The Hague in August 2017. Anna Geurts reports.

archiefplaatjeag — Page from a local illustrated notebook from the Harz, used by a Dutch visitor in the summer of 1869.

‘My ALCS grant allowed me to travel to the Netherlands in order to examine primary as well as secondary literature for my project on the history of Dutch travel in the nineteenth century. I have examined a range of secondary literature on the history of transport technology in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, and copied several published pieces of travel writing, such as Henrica Françoise Rees van Tets’s book Voyage d’une hollandaise en France en 1819 – written in French by a well-travelled lady from a Dutch family of politicians, painters and art dealers; and the quite different account of Johannes van Oostendorp who was drafted as a soldier to help suppress the Belgian Revolution of 1830.

I also visited the Dutch National Archives to photograph manuscript travelogues from across the nineteenth century, ranging from an aristocratic boy visiting his father at work in the southern Netherlands, to journeys to Switzerland, Italy, Germany and France, including even one cycle trip, made at a time when bikes were rare even in the Netherlands.

I will use these sources in my book on Dutch travellers’ interactions with space and place, as well as an article about the changing experience of distance and an article about the significance of gender in nineteenth-century travel.

I am also looking for a publisher to print a set of four particularly fascinating manuscript accounts, which I have discovered.

I would like to thank the members of the ALCS for their generous support, and am looking forward to the moment when I can present my findings – in English as well as Dutch!

‘A Source of Great Pleasure’

8 August 201713 September 2017 Henriette Louwerse

The ALCS are conducting an investigation in ‘the state of’ Dutch language and culture studies in the UK. The full report will follow soon, but ahead of the hard facts and naked truths, we want to share some stories of colleagues we have uncovered in the process. First up is Claire van Wengen. She is tutor of Dutch with the College of Open Learning (COL) at Edinburg University.

“I have had the good fortune of growing up and going to school in the Netherlands (Oegstgeest) and studying in London. I am bilingual with Dutch and English. I have lived in Edinburgh for almost 30 years now. I trained as a French teacher (Durham University) and I hold an MSc in Language Teaching from Edinburgh University (2013).

clairevanwengen — Clarie van Wengen (back row, second left) with COL students of Dutch

About fifteen years ago I discovered that my true calling and passion lay in teaching Dutch so that is what I do now. I started teaching one evening class at the University of Edinburgh in 2002 and have managed to expand the small department from the original two classes (at that time there was another Dutch teacher) to four classes. From October 2017 instead of having two Beginners’ classes and a Dutch 2 and Dutch 3 we will have one Beginners’ class and also a Dutch 4 class.

The students are all incredibly enthusiastic and I was delighted to be nominated for the Best Overall Teacher Award by a number of my students. They said lovely things such as ‘Claire has fostered a genuine community around her Dutch language lessons’ and ‘Claire is extremely knowledgeable with endless patience for her students. Lessons are varied and always appropriately adapted to the needs of the class and the individual students’.

Every year I give a party for all my Dutch students and their partners and children. It is always tremendous fun and it’s wonderful to see all my students (both children and adults) connecting with each other and laughing and talking. Quite often long lasting friendships are formed which is a source of great pleasure.”

Dutch courses offered by Centre for Open Learning, University of Edinburgh