Members
Director of the Centre for Luxembourg Studies
Before taking up my current post at the University of Sheffield, I lectured at the Université du Luxembourg/ Centre Universitaire de Luxembourg (1998-2006) and the University of Leeds (2007-2010). I have published widely on language politics, language ideologies and multilingualism in Luxembourg, including a special issue of Language Problems and Language Planning on Luxembourg (2009). My current research is focused on language and citizenship in Luxembourg and on Luxembourg cultural heritage in the United States. I serve on the AFR Expert Panel of the Fonds National de la Recherche in Luxembourg and on the editorial board of the journal Discourse, Context and Media (Elsevier).
Lead Advisor to the Centre for Luxembourg Studies
I am Reader in German at Aberystwyth University and have also taught at the Universities of Mannheim, Heidelberg and Manchester. My PhD was about language use and language attitudes in Mannheim. I have also published on norm knowledge and language awareness amongst teachers in Germany and on differing conceptions of language amongst lay people and experts. One of my major publications was The Making of Bad Language: Lay linguistic stigmatisations in German, past and present (with Nils Langer) (Peter Lang
2006). I am currently working with colleagues in Switzerland and Luxembourg on a comparative study of German teachers' norm knowledge
I am Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at the University of Sheffield with a particular interest in American techno-culture and machine aesthetics. I have recently also worked on narratives of plastic utopia; the insidious Cold War appropriation of Antarctica; the rocket's 'ideology of the zero'; and have published articles in Textual Practice, CTheory and Configurations. I completed my PhD, a cultural analysis of US missile culture, at the University of Glasgow in 2009, and have since been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh and held a Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Luxembourg, where I investigated science fiction, utopia and the mining industry in Luxembourg.
Graduate Teaching Assistant in Luxembourg Studies
I grew up in Luxembourg before studying sociology (B.A.) at the University of Heidelberg. In 2010, I came to Sheffield to study for an M.A. in the Department of History and in 2011 I started my PhD at the Centre for Luxembourgish Studies. My research supervised by Dr. Kristine Horner focuses on language, citizenship and identity in contemporary Luxembourg. I intend to interview people who have recently applied for citizenship and have completed the Luxembourgish language test. The heart of my study will be participants’ narratives of citizenship and identity. I also teach Luxembourgish in weekly conversation classes for the ‘Introduction to Luxembourgish’ module.
Honorary Research Fellow in Luxembourg Studies
I grew up in Luxembourg where I starting studying English Studies, then came to the UK and finished a BA in English Language at Bangor University (formerly the University of Wales). I then came to the University of Sheffield, where I did both an MA and PhD in Germanic Studies whilst teaching Luxembourgish and some French, both being my first languages. Currently, I am an AHRC research officer at Bangor University for the corpus linguistic project "What's Hard in German?" (WHiG). As part of disseminating my doctoral research, I released a freely accessible Luxembourgish Email Word Corpus (LEWC).
Founder of the Centre for Luxembourg Studies
I am a graduate of the University of Liverpool and have been a member of staff in the Department of Germanic Studies at Sheffield since 1971. My research is mainly in the area of the language and society of Luxembourg, although I have also published on regional and historical varieties of German and the history and culture of the Netherlands. Recently, too, I have written on German immigration to Great Britain, and am currently researching the early history of radio broadcasting from Luxembourg. I was awarded Commandeur de l´Ordre de Mérite du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (1998), then Commandeur de l´Ordre Grand-Ducal de la Couronne de Chêne (2011).
Member of the Centre for Luxembourg Studies
I am Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Sheffield. My research focuses on the rise, use and perception of languages in medieval Flanders, but always within a larger spatiotemporal framework, as illustrated by my chapter Written Vernaculars in Medieval and Renaissance Times in the Blackwell Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics (2012). The sociolinguistic similarities between Belgium and Luxembourg regularly lead to collaborations with Luxembourg Studies. At the 19th Sociolinguistics Symposium in Berlin (Aug. 2012), I organize a thematic session with R. Vosters (VUB) and G. Rutten (University of Leiden) on Romano-Germanic Encounters in the Low Countries, which includes contributions on Luxembourg.
I am a Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Sheffield, specialising in the period before 1200. Much of my research concerns the region of Lotharingia, the 'lost kingdom' between France and Germany - of which Luxembourg is perhaps the most authentic surviving remnant! My published work on Lotharingian history is varied, touching on (amongst other things) group formation around tenth-century Trier, western Frankish perceptions of Lotharingians in the eleventh century, and the emergence of Luxembourg itself. I have presented my research at the field's only annual conference, the Journées Lotharingiennes, held (of course) in Luxembourg.
Advisory Board
The Centre is grateful to the following individuals who presently serve on the advisory board:
- Dr Winifred Davies (Aberystwyth University, Wales)
- Professor Martin Durrell (University of Manchester, England)
- Dr Germaine Goetzinger (Director, Centre national de littérature, Luxembourg)
- Professor Michel Margue (Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
- Mr Serge Moes (Director, Luxembourg Tourist Bureau, London, England)
- Professor John Widdowson (Traditional Heritage Museum, Sheffield, England)