Ich habe mein Junior Fellowship am University of Bayreuth Centre of International Excellence 'Alexander von Humboldt' nun abgeschlossen. Angegliedert war ich dem Institut für Fränkische Landesgeschichte der Universitäten Bayreuth und Bamberg. Ich werde „mein Schloss“, den Arbeitsplatz des Instituts im beeindruckenden Schloss Thurnau, und die tolle Atmosphäre, die von den dort arbeitenden Menschen geschaffen wurde, sehr vermissen. In dieser Zeit... Continue Reading →
Now that I have started to acquire some degree of mastership in several languages, I am beginning to wonder about the side-effects of being a polyglot. Googling the term "polyglot" I came to the wikipedia page dedicated to multilingualism. According to some studies, there is a difference being made between "compound bilinguals" and "coordinate bilinguals".... Continue Reading →
Thank you Peter for commenting on "Polyfonias" and delving into literary analyses. I would like to add to your comment on monolingualism. It seems that today we have forgotten our past when it comes to language. Our past was Babelian (but not in the sense that the myth should serve the construction of a universal... Continue Reading →
I went to a concert/poetry reading at the Danish house in Paris, the institution in charge of promoting Danish (not only but mainly) culture in France. Peter Wessel, a Danish born poet who lived in France, Spain, California, and who knows where else, was performing with Mark Solborg, a Danish/Argentinian composer, guitarist and musician, and... Continue Reading →
I am back in France and have been staying for a month now. I left about 7-8 years ago and only came back a few days twice a year for season holidays to visit my parents. My contact with French politics was limited to following the news sporadically in the dailies, and I only kept... Continue Reading →
This weekend was under the sign of cosmopolitan literature. First of all, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio received the Nobel Prize in literature: 'author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.' This was the occasion for me to deepen my acquaintance with Le Clézio's works.... Continue Reading →
My Armenian Iranian friends tell me a lot about the state of the Iranian state -- or the lack thereof. I was surprised to hear that there are no taxes in Iran, neither direct or indirect. Sounds like paradise for neo-liberals -- besides the absence of liberal rights. And in return for the 0% tax... Continue Reading →
Todorov, Tzvetan. La conquête de l'Amérique : la question de l'autre. Paris: Seuil, 1982. In this book, Tzvetan Todorov, renowned Franco-Bulgarian writer and director of research at the Centre National de Recherches (CNRS) in Paris, investigates the Spanish conquest of Central America (the Caribbean and Mexico) during the sixteenth century. His research topic is the... Continue Reading →
In Vienna I have been living in a student hall of residence for two years. Not all rooms are rented to students. Some are also rented to Iranian refugees of Armenian decent -- the most important Christian minority in Iran. The manager of the house is Armenian himself. But apparently there is no philanthropy there,... Continue Reading →
Frank Ejby Poulsen 