Dr Jennifer Bruen

Dr Jennifer Bruen is currently Research Convenor, Research Ethics Adviser and Lecturer in German in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University. Her research interests lie primarily in the field of applied linguistics and include aspects of foreign language acquisition and language teaching and learning, in particular, the role of language learning strategies in the language learning process and the study of individual learner differences (in particular preferred learning styles and motivation). Other areas of interest include Teaching German as a Foreign Language (DAF), preparation of students for study abroad, the European Language portfolio initiative, language planning and policy, and German for Business.

She is a reviewer for the International Review of Applied Linguistics and Language Learning and has acted as an Adviser to the Irish branch of the Committee of the Regions (2006) as well as to the HEA-funded Transferable Skills in Third Level Modern Languages Curricula project (2003-6). In addition, she was the National Relay Point Coordinator on the European Network for the Promotion of Language Learning Among All Undergraduates (2002-6) and from 2001-4 acted as Treasurer for the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics. She has published widely both nationally and internationally.

 

Dr Mark Chu

Mark Chu is Senior Lecturer in Italian at University College Cork, where he has worked since 1991, having previously taught English at the Università degli Studi di Palermo (1985-1991). He received his PhD from the University of Hull (UK) in 1992, for a thesis on ‘“Power” and “Reason” in the Works of Three Sicilian Writers: Federico De Roberto, Vitaliano Brancati and Leonardo Sciascia’.

His main areas of research are (i) Sicilian literature since 1870, and (ii) Italian crime fiction in its European and global context. Providing cohesion across these two apparently disparate areas is his concern with theoretical questions regarding representation and his cultural studies approach. These, in turn, are reconciled in his work, through a commitment to ethico-political engagement with the text and its intended and unintended meanings, with a deconstructionist method.

His research on Sicilian literature has evolved from a thematic study in his doctoral thesis, to a focus on the very nature of the representation of the region by authors working predominantly in a realist mode and frequently referring to aspects of the island’s history.

Since January 2004, he has served as Head of the Department of Italian. He teaches Italian language and modern Italian literature and the media, and supervises research postgraduates working on modern and contemporary Italian narrative.

 

Professor Maeve Conrick

Maeve Conrick is Principal of the College of Arts and Celtic Studies at University College Dublin (UCD). She holds a Doctorate in Linguistics from the Université de Provence, Aix-Marseille 1, France. Research interests include the Linguistics of French and English, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, Language Policy and Language Planning, Canadian Studies and Québec studies. She is co-author of French in Canada: Language Issues (Oxford, Peter Lang, 2007), co-editor of From Applied Linguistics to Linguistics Applied: Issues, Practices, Trends (Birmingham, British Association for Applied Linguistics, 2007) and Multilingualism, Diversity and Identity: Canadian and Irish Experiences (Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press, 2010). She has published articles in international journals such as the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, British Journal of Canadian Studies, International Journal of Francophone Studies, Québec Studies, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies/ Revue canadienne d’études irlandaises. A recipient of the Prix du Québec, awarded by the Québec Government, she is currently President of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Council for Canadian Studies (Ottawa). She was appointed in 2009 by the UK House of Commons as a Specialist Advisor on Language Policy. In 2011, the Irish Government appointed her as a member of the Higher Education Authority.
http://www.ucd.ie/artsceltic/

 

Dr Mary Noonan

Dr Mary Noonan is Lecturer in French at University College Cork (http://www.ucc.ie/en/french), where she teaches modern and contemporary French theatre and theories of performance. She has published widely in the field of contemporary French theatre, including articles and chapters on the drama of Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute and Hélène Cixous, the history of French women playwrights of the twentieth century, the voice in contemporary French theatre and the emerging ‘theatre of the text’ in contemporary France, in particular the work of contemporary playwright Noëlle Renaude. In 2005, she organized an international conference entitled 'The Contemporary French Theatre: Writing, Performing, Teaching'. Her recent publications include: ‘L’Art de l’écrit s’incarnant: The Theater of Noëlle Renaude’, Yale French Studies 112, Fall 2007; ‘A travers le miroir acoustique: les membranes audio-vocales du théâtre durassien’, chapter in Marguerite Duras: Écriture, écritures, edited by Myriem E-Maïzi and Brian Stimpson (Paris: Minard, 2007), and ‘An Archaeology of Soundscapes: The Theatre of Noëlle Renaude’, Studies in Theatre and Performance, Vol.30, No.1, 2010.
She is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Society for French Studies (UK), with responsibility for coordinating the Society’s Gapper Postgraduate Essay Prize.
 

 

Dr. Carol O’Byrne

Carol O’Byrne studied as a Honan Scholar at University College Cork, and was conferred with a BA (Joint Honours) in French and German in 1994 and an MA in Applied Linguistics in 1995. Since graduation she has been involved in third level language education, and has lectured in both the Institute of Technology and University sectors. She has been a permanent lecturer in German at Waterford Institute of Technology since 1999, where she has been actively involved in the promotion of languages and in teaching and supervision at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels across a variety of different discipline areas, as well in funded research in the area of supported self-directed language learning. Her current research interests lie in the field of higher education studies and include reflexivity in social science research, narrative and life history methodologies, higher education and active citizenship and the micro level impact of macro and meso level education policies. Her doctoral research examined the impact of policy on the evolution of academic professional identities in the Institute of Technology sector of Irish higher education and she was conferred with an Ed.D. in Higher Education Studies by the University of Sheffield in 2009

 

Professor Vera Regan

Professor Vera Regan is Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics in University College Dublin. Her research interests are Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition. The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence, Multilingualism, Language, Migration, Integration and Interculturalism. The acquisition of French by speakers of Irish-English. Sociolinguistic analysis of variation in French (including French-Canadian forms). IRCHSS Senior Research Fellow. Chevalier de l’ordre des Palmes Académiques. Holder of two Fulbright Research Awards. Visiting professorships, University of Pennsylvania, University of Ottawa. President, AFLS (Association of French Language Studies) Chair, Research committee, Executive Committee, AFLS. Associate Member, Centre for Research on Language Contact (CRLC), York University, Canada. President of EUROSLA (former) (the European Association for Second Language Research). Director, Ireland Canada University Foundation. Member, ICoSLA (the International Commission on Second Language Acquisition). Treasurer, Secretary and Vice President, EUROSLA. President of ACSI (former) (Association of Canadian Studies of Ireland). Member, Editorial Board of Eurosla Yearbook. Member, Advisory board of the International Journal of Canadian Studies. Member, Editorial board of Synergies: an interdisciplinary journal. Member, Committee of Heads and Professors of French. Former member, Governing Authority, University College Dublin (UCD) and University Committee for Appointments Promotion and Tenure (UCD). Member, Management committee UCD Press. Former member, Editorial Board, UCD Press. Member, Canadian Studies Centre committee, UCD.
She has published ten books and numerous articles in her research area.http://www.ucd.ie/sllf/Staff/Regan_Vera_profile.html
 

 

Dr Alison Ribeiro de Menezes

Dr Alison Ribeiro de Menezes is a Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese at University College Dublin, where she has taught since 1995. Her main research interests lie in the fields of cultural memory in late twentieth-century Spain and Portugal, especially in relation to the remembrance and representation of war and dictatorship in fiction. She won a prestigious Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Fellowship for this project in 2005-06, and is currently preparing a monograph and several journal articles on cultural memory in contemporary Spain. She has written on identity and gender in various Spanish writers, and in 2005 published a monograph study of the major contemporary novelist and essayist, Juan Goytisolo. More recent publications include A Companion to Carmen Martín Gaite(with Catherine O’Leary; Tamesis, 2008), and the edited volume, War and Memory in Contemporary Spain/Guerra y memoria en la España contemporánea(with Roberta Quance and Anne Walsh; Verbum, 2009). A second co-edited volume, Legacies of War and Dictatorship in Contemporary Spain and Portugal (with Catherine O'Leary) is to be published by Peter Lang in 2010, and includes essays by Ribeiro de Menezes on memories of war and dictatorship in contemporary Portuguese fiction.

 

Mr Alan Wilson

Alan Wilson BA(Hons), M ès L, PGCE, MA has been Head of Modern Languages at Ballyclare High School (Grammar), County Antrim since January 1997. He moved there from Belfast Royal Academy where he had taught French from 1989.
He taught in France for four years. He started his teaching career as an English Language Assistant and after his degree, he spent two years as «Lecteur d’anglais» at the University of Tours, during which time he completed a «maîtrise d’anglais». He also spent a year in France as a teacher of English, on a teacher exchange programme.
He has been an Assistant Examiner with the Northern Ireland Examinations Board since 1992 and is presently a Visiting Examiner and a Reviser with the Advanced Level French team.
In 2009 he was appointed «Chevalier des Palmes académiques» by the French government for the teaching of French language and culture and for his leadership in promoting a school exchange between Ballyclare High School and the Lycée Camille Sée in Colmar, France.