Please see below a list of current research projects, fundet by Jean Monnet.
PhD-Project: Europe in Foreign Language Teaching
A Comparative Study on the use of European Studies in Schools Foreign Language Teaching
Researcher: Natascha Guggi, E-Mail: natascha.guggi@ul.ie ; Tel: +353 61 202432
Supervisors:
Prof Joachim Fischer; E-Mail: joachim.fischer@ul.ie ; Tel: +353 61 202354
Prof Jean Conacher; E-Mail: jean.conacher@ul.ie ; Tel: +353 61 234218
Prof Christian Fandrych; E-Mail: fandrych@uni-leipzig.de ; Tel: +49 341 97-3751
The planned work deals with the questions to what extent European Studies are part of the teaching of foreign languages at secondary schools in Ireland, Germany and Austria and for what purposes they can be used in this context. In this context, the term European Studies refers on the one hand to fact-based teaching (rights, duties, institutions) about the European Union (especially in German teaching) and on the other hand to the question of which discourses on Europe take place and how the objective of "active European citizenship" can be supported with the help of foreign language teaching. The latter seems particularly desirable in view of BREXIT in order to strengthen the European Union.
In order to answer the research question comprehensively, a study of secondary school curricula and textbooks in Ireland, Germany and Austria will be carried out, which will be complemented by a survey of teachers on the use of internal (official textbooks, workbooks, ... which are provided by the school) and external (e.g. additional material provided by the EU) materials. Beyond that, discourses on Europe among teachers and pupils will be explored, especially with regard to a European identity and whether and how the learning of foreign languages can strengthen this identity. For this purpose, besides referring to the current state of research, a survey among teachers and pupils of the three countries mentioned above will be carried out in order to determine to what extent they identify themselves as European citizens or how learning a foreign European language can strengthen this identity.
The results of this work will hopefully help to identify and stimulate new ways of teaching European Studies in foreign language teaching.
Kate Uí Chiobháin, Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail, Joachim Fischer (eag.)
Féiniúlacht i gcéin
Litríocht taistil na Gaeilge agus an Eoraip, 20ú haois agus 21ú haois
This is an anthology of Irish travel writing about continental Europe from the 20th and 21st centuries. Particular attention will be paid to post-1973 texts and the response to Ireland’s entry into the EU. It is in texts in the medium of Irish, perhaps, that we find Irish attitudes in their most unadulterated form. The medium of Irish shapes the perspective, particularly the authors’ positive response to Europe’s multi-lingualism and multi-culturalism, and their fascination with language aspects. This sets them apart from English-language texts.
The project is an integral part of the work programme of Jean Monnet Chair in European Cultural Studies held by Joachim Fischer at the University of Limerick. It is the first time that the Jean Monnet programme, the EU programme designed to further teaching and research in European Studies at third level institutions, becomes involved in an Irish-language project. This comes at a crucial time as the derogation for Irish from achieving its full status as an official EU language ran out on 1 January 2022. His will increase interest in this publication.
The book will find receptive audiences in the university Irish-language classroom among secondary school teachers of Irish and among the Irish-speaking community generally. The European/EU dimension will heighten the sense of relevance the Irish language still has today.
The texts will be annotated and accompanied by a brief synopsis in English, with its main purpose to encourage English-speakers to revive their Irish to read the originals.
The EFACIS Kaleidoscope Series engages with writers and artists from the island of Ireland about topical interests they may like to share with scholars and lovers of Irish literature and culture in the rest of Europe.
Kaleidoscope 1 collected fiction authors’ observations about the act of writing fiction. This resulted in the website https://kaleidoscope.efacis.eu/ which published original insights by 50 authors.
While EFACIS usually looks at Ireland from a European point of view Kaleidoscope 2 inverts the perspective: we asked Irish authors what Europe means to them. Forty-one contributors answered, sixteen men, twenty-five women; twenty from the South, eight from the North, six from the diaspora and seven who have roots in the North or abroad but tend to live in the South most of the time. In this project Joachim Fischer, Jean Monnet Chair in European Culture (2019-2022) teamed up with Anne Fogarty, Professor of James Joyce Studies at University College Dublin, and Hedwig Schwall, project director of EFACIS.
The project includes a Survey: The European Union, its citizens, writers and artists through the eyes of Irish writers
We tried to get a little closer to what this positive disposition towards the EU actually means and asked the 41 writers from the island of Ireland involved in this project to give us their sense of the role, image and visibility of the European Union in Irish culture and what importance they attach to Ireland’s EU membership and the EU citizenship it bestows. We also wanted to explore the extent of the writers’ personal interaction with continental European culture and their assessment of how much, beyond the utilitarian realms of the political and economic, other EU member states and their cultures (and languages) matter in the Ireland of today, in other words how ‘European’ Ireland really is after nearly fifty years of EEC/EC/EU membership. And, indeed, whether its self-definition in this way might be a good thing in any case.
The questionnaire consisted of 20 questions within three sections: European culture and you; the EU’s visibility; the EU and Ireland. The answers are currently being edited and a summary of the findings will be published on this website before the end of July. This part of the project is co-ordinated by the Jean Monnet Chair in European Cultural Studies at the University of Limerick.
More details:
http://kaleidoscope2.efacis.eu/
Edition of the President of Ireland’s speeches on Europe 2016-2021 together with Dr Fergal Lenehan, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena
Concluded and published as
Michael D. Higgins, Reclaiming the European Street: Speeches On Europe and the European Union, 2016-2020. Ed. by Joachim Fischer and Fergal Lenehan. (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2021)
European Studies for a post-Brexit Ireland
(incl. chapter on Europe in Irish writing)
Dr habil. Fergal Lenehan and Dr Juisa Conti, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, Germany, for more information see: https://www.uni-jena.de/201119-redico
