Summary in English:

This book was suggested to me by Adrian Holliday. A great read! So much better than most scholarly books I have read on these issues! Thanks Adrian!

“From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.

As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.

Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.”

Listen to the author HERE

While some are busy reinventing the wheel about intercultural communication/global-mindedness and academic mobility (and making it potentially worse!), some others reinvent ‘new’ forms of racism… Watch and get angry! Won’t we ever learn?

Information about calls for chapter abstracts for two edited research books.

The first one is entitled “Reinventing Intimate Intercultural Relations” and is being co-edited by Dr Noah Mbano from USQ and Professor Fred Dervin from the University of Helsinki, Finland. Chapter abstracts of 300 words and brief author bionotes are due to Noah and Fred by 1 October 2013, please, with full chapters due by 10 March 2014 (CALL 1).

The second one is called “Intercultural Masquerade: New Orientalism, New Occidentialism, Old Exoticism” and is being co-edited by Dr Regis Machart from Universiti Putra Malaysia, Dr Minghui Gao from the University of Turku and Professor Fred Dervin from the University of Helsinki. Chapter abstracts of 300 words are due by 15 October 2013, please, with full chapters due by 31 January 2014 (CALL 2).

Many thanks for considering!

CALL 1       CALL 2

Associate Professor Lesley Harbon from the University of Sydney (Australia) gave a talk about Language Teacher Education in Australia at the University of Helsinki on 2.9.2013. Thank you Leslie for sharing your ideas and experiences!

Here is a summary of the discussion at the Conference on Multicultural vs. Multicultural Education that took place at  Helsinki 29-30.8.2013. Thanks to Raquel Benmergui for her precious contribution.

More pictures HERE

Welcome!

Intercultural Masquerade: New Orientalism, New Occidentalism, Old Exoticism

Editors:

Regis Machart, Universiti Putra Malaysia

Minghui Gao, University of Turku, Finland

Fred Dervin, University of Helsinki, Finland

The encounter between ‘the East’ and ‘the West’ and the resulting exchanges have become a source of inspiration in many domains: architecture (the Royal Pavilion in Brighton), design (from Chinese exported porcelain to rococo Chinoiserie), literature (Montesquieu’s Persian Letters), international relations and business (Marco Polo, the Great Navigators…), as well as politics (Meiji period in Japan), aesthetics (the influence of the Renaissance in Asia), modern education systems, and sciences (massive application of modern technologies), etc. The exchanges have left deep footprints on the development of human societies while making impressions on each other – which brings “Orientalism” and “Occidentalism” into the picture. (…) READ HERE

Associate Professor Lesley Harbon from the University of Sydney (Australia) will give a talk about Language Teacher Education in Australia on Monday 2.9.2013 at the University of Helsinki.

Welcome!