Video-conference of Oxford University and Educational Establishment “Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University” (05.06.2015)
Teleconference between Oxford University and Educational Establishment “Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University” took place on June 05, 2015. The students and lecturers of Foreign Languages Faculty participated in the on-line meeting.
The British professor, Karen Hewitt, has been coming to Russia regularly for delivering lectures and classes on British Literature. Since 2005 Karen Hewitt conducts international seminar “Contemporary British Literature in Russian Universities”. The project is funded by Oxford-Russian Fund & is held annually at the Perm State University. More than 80 Russian & Belarusian Universities have become members of the project.
Karen Hewitt, Emeritus Professor of the PSU was awarded an Order of British Empire by Decree of the British Queen Elizabeth II for services to building academic and cultural understanding between the UK and Russia. She is the author of numerous books and articles.
The teleconference was organized on the initiative of Mogilev State University, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics by the lecturer Evgeniy Samsonov and Department of English Philology and Culture—Olga Rezvova and Tatyana Pinchukova.
Last year our teachers Olga Rezvova and Tatyana Pinchukova visited the Perm Seminar and delivered novels with commentaries as a gift from the Oxford-Russia fund.
Now our library has “Waterland” by G. Swift, “An Experiment in Love” by H. Mantel, “Regeneration” by P. Barker, “Atonement” by l. McEwan, “About a Boy” by N. Hornby, “White Teeth” by Z. Smith, “Ulverton” by A. Thorpe, “Morality Play” by B. Unsworth and other contemporary novels. The mentioned novels are being used for lessons and scientific works of students.
The students and lecturers had the possibility to share with Karen Hewitt their opinions on the books they read and discuss the following questions:
Points under discussion were the following:
- the work of the metaphor in the title “White Teeth”
- the aim of numerous lexicon layers in exposing multiculturalism in “White Teeth”
- the meaning of the playful ending in “Atonement”
- episodes selected for looking at the imagery and message in “Atonement”
- the role of language for taking up literature in class
- perspective heroes in the works of Hillary Mantel
- possibilities of contributing to Footpath
Footpath is a journal on contemporary British literature. It publishes articles on recent novels, drama, poetry and prints the best students' essays.
Our Faculty is planning to continue cooperation with “Oxford-Russia Fund”. Our lecturers, Tatyana Pinchukova and Natalia Pritychenko are going to Perm in September 2015 to take part in the IX International seminar “Contemporary British Literature in Russian and Belorussian universities”.
Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics & Department of English Philology and Culture
Senior lecturers Evgeniy Samsonov and Olga Rezvova