Newcastle University

Prof. Charles Forsdick (University of Liverpool) will deliver the second keynote lecture for the Centenary of the School of Modern Languages

The lecture explores past and present debates about the coherence (or otherwise) of Modern Languages as a disciplinary field. Its premise is that such self-scrutiny, however timely, must avoid the impression of being introspective and disabling, and should be seen instead as an enabling opportunity to express disciplinary unity in diversity, and to contribute to the urgently required project of ensuring wider public understanding of the field. The lecture will begin with a reflection on the emergence of Modern Languages as a recognizably modern area of enquiry, highlighting the indebtedness to other national and disciplinary traditions, and tracking the efforts to establish a distinctive identity. It will focus on key issues, such as the negotiation of a balance between general linguistic competence and research-led specialism, and assess the possibility or even desirability of coherence in an area that is, to borrow Julie Thompson Klein’s terms,  ‘configurational’ rather than ‘restricted’, ‘less codified’ rather than ‘highly codified’, ‘nonconsensual’ rather than ‘consensual’ (Thompson Klein, 1990, 104).

I will argue that, in the current context, to prevent the interdisciplinary from becoming the undisciplined there is a need to assert the distinctiveness of Modern Languages as a research-led field with a stable epistemic community. Developing Mary Louise Pratt’s definition of Modern Languages as a set of practices focused on communicating the ‘importance of knowing languages and of knowing the world through languages’ (2003, 112), I shall outline a set of priorities for Modern Languages: (i) to identify itself as a distinctive Humanities discipline that privileges intellectual rigour and innovation, (ii) to ensure communication of the findings of research and scholarship to the widest possible audience, both academic and non-academic, (iii) to contribute to the development in each generation of a cohort of Modern Linguists for whom proficiency in a chosen language is systematically complemented by the varied tools of intercultural competence, and (iv) to articulate the centrality of languages, linguistics and area studies to any meaningful process of internationalization of research and curricula in Higher Education. The lecture concludes with a reflection on the place of curiosity in Modern Languages, suggesting that this is a foundational quality constitutive of the field that should not be ignored in debates regarding relevance.

The aim of the lecture is to provide a clear historical context for the centenary of Modern Languages at Newcastle, whilst also reflecting on the directions in which the field might go next at what is arguably a definitive moment in its evolution. In engaging with the wider conference theme, I will explore the ways in which we manage the inherited disciplinary traditions transmitted to us, but also foreground the role of the Modern Linguist as intercultural traveller, mediator and transmitter.

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Charles Forsdick is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is author of Victor Segalen and the Aesthetics of Diversity (Oxford: OUP, 2000), Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures (Oxford: OUP, 2005) and Ella Maillart, ‘Oasis interdites' (Geneva: Zoé, 2008); and co-author of New Approaches to Twentieth-Century Travel Literature in French: Genre, Theory, History (New York: Peter Lang, 2006).

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8:45-9.15am Opportunity to register for the full day conference

9:15-9:20 Welcome by Prof. Charles Harvey, Provost, Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

9:20-9:30 Introduction by Dr Elizabeth Andersen, Head of School of Modern Languages