Dutch Studies News and Events

The successor of Joel Baker, winner of the ANS prize 2012, is called Orla Randles. On 5 June, The Anglo-Netherlands Society announced the Sheffield winner of their essay prize. Orla was awarded the £250 cash prize for her essay 'Refocussing the Lens of Orientalism', in which she discusses Said's seminal concept in connection with the work of Hafid Bouazza and the Yusuf El Halal project. Her essay will be published in the Society's Newsletter. 

The Anglo-Netherlands Society awards their annual Essay Prize to recognize and reward outstanding work in the field of Dutch Studies. Topics include the culture, language, literature, history and society of the Netherlands.

Orla comments on winning the prize: 'I am delighted to have won the ANS prize. It is a real confidence boost just before going on my year abroad. Thank you very much ANS.'

Orla Randles is a BA German with Dutch student who will spend the autumn semester of 2013 studying at the University of Groningen and the spring semester 2014 studying at the University of Bonn.

In February and March 2013, 4th years students of Dutch translated a short story by the up and coming Flemish author Bouke Billiet. This translation 'Palm Leaves and Promies' is part of the citybooks.eu project in which Dutch at Sheffield is an active partner.

What makes this exercise special is that it involves extensive collaboration with students of Dutch at two other universities: UCL and Nottingham. In addition we have access to the author of the text who contributed actively to the discussion on our digital environment and who visited in person Sheffield to discuss the text with the students. Finally we could call upon the services of a professional translator, Jonathan Reeder, who was digitally at hand to respond to translation issues. The grand finale of the project was the two-hour conference in which we discussed translation issues in a plenary session through a three-way video link: Jonathan joined students at UCL and Bouke was in Sheffield. A small editorial committee consisting of students from all three institutions carried out the last phase of the project. They prepared the translation for publication.

Students evaluated this project very positively: the collaboration with author and translator followed by the publication of the translation is viewed as a true celebration of their work and achievement. One student commented on their feedback sheet, ‘A great experience. Good preparation for world of work, working with people you don’t know and good to do something so different from “usual” uni work.’ Aimée Hardy, one of the 28 participants, wrote a blog for the citybooks website.

In May 2012 a group of final year students of Dutch within Germanic Studies put together their own conference. The target audience were fellow students of Dutch and anybody interested in Dutch Studies within or outside of the University. Their theme: Windows on Dutch Culture.

Drawing on their own research and experience as language and culture learners, they put together a series of lively presentations on aspects of Dutch culture while at the same time trying to get to grips with the concept of culture itself: What is it? Why does is seem so important? Is it just Rembrandt or does it include football and politics? How do thinkers and researchers define culture and how can we transfer cultural knowledge in a classroom situation?

The students shaped and organised the event themselves and the conference was a prime example of how theory and practical execution can come together. For more information, please check the conference website, and watch the video below.

A BBC Radio Sheffield interview with one of the event organisers, James Fennell, can be found here:

Students of Dutch publish a collaborative translation

Sheffield is an active partner in Virtual Dutch, a group of universities that work together to make their curriculum more varied, more interesting and more challenging. The most recent edition of a joint effort was the Translation Project: students from Sheffield, Cambridge, Nottingham and University College London worked together to translate a literary text from Dutch into English. The author was Abelkader Benali, one of the citybooks authors, who visited Sheffield as a Writer in Residence for two full weeks in November 2011. Together with the professional translator Jonathan Reeder, Abdelkader Benali and students of Dutch at all four institutions translated the text 'Warrior on a Horse', which was published as part of the EU-sponsored citybooks project. You can find the full translation and the original text in Dutch here.

Citybooks Sheffield

Citybooks Sheffield is an exciting EU-sponsored project in which the Dutch Section within Germanic Studies works closely with the Flemish-Dutch House deBuren in Brussels. Five authors, a photographers and a video artist created a unique portrait of the city of Sheffield, an alternative travel guide, which is available in three languages: Dutch, French and English. The artists worked closely with our the students, in particularly students of Dutch. Joost Zwagerman and Abdelkader Benali were involved in the 4th Year Virtual Dutch Translation Project and Rebecca Lenaerts offered several workshops for students of all levels. Second Year students were involved in a full modules on citybooks in which they explored the role and meaning of stories in our lives and wrote and recorded their own collective citybook: Beyond Sheffield Railway Station. For more citybook information, click here