Speakers
Ioannis Panagiotou, Ph.D.
Dr. Ioannis Panagiotou is a UK-based artist and composer whose work explores themes of memory, migration, and identity through cross-media narratives and oral history. His artistic output spans audiovisual performances, installations, and concerts, and he aims to engage with sociocultural memories and the ghosts of the past. His work has been showcased at prestigious festivals globally, including the b-side Festival, Dialogues Festival, and the Tériade Museum of Modern Art, and he has collaborated with ensembles such as Plus-Minus Ensemble, Red Note Ensemble, and the Edinburgh Film Music Orchestra. As the Head of Music at Lincoln College and Tutor in Composing for Screen at the University of Edinburgh, Ioannis combines his artistic practice with teaching and research in the fields of composition, sound design, and music for screen. His current research interests focus on composition, video art, and oral history, and he holds a PhD in Composition from the University of Edinburgh.
Title of Speech: Music, Identity, and Society: Politics and Poetics of Time, Exile, and Pain
Oksana Afitska, Ph.D.
Dr. Oksana Afitska is an Associate Professor in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy. Prior to joining Lancaster University, she worked at Sheffield University and at the University of Bristol. Dr Afitska’s research interests lie in the areas of educational linguistics, language assessment, curriculum design and materials development. She has extensive experience in teaching across various contexts (primary, secondary tertiary in the UK and abroad) and in research methods (action research, classroom-based research, intervention research, mixed methods research). In collaboration with Sheffield City Council, she developed Science teaching, learning and assessment resources for English language learners. Dr Afitska published papers in Science Education Journal, The Language Learning Journal, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching Journal, The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, Journal of Comparative Education, and International Journal of Educational Development. She reviews manuscripts for academic journals such as Language Teaching Research, the International Journal of Educational Development, Journal of Applied Linguistics, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Language Assessment Quarterly, Science Education, Education Sciences and Sustainability.
Title of Speech: Language, Cognition and Student Performance in Subject Classrooms: Scaffolding Learning Through Language
Previous Speakers
Enrique Mallen, Ph.D.
Dr. Enrique Mallen earned his PhD in Linguistics from Cornell University. He is Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Sam Houston State University. He has published numerous articles and books on linguistics, poetic language, semiotics and art history. Since 1997 he is director of the Online Picasso Project, a Digital Humanities publication dedicated to the analysis and dissemination of the works by the multilingual and multidisciplinary Pablo Picasso. Among his books are: Pablo Picasso: A Period of Transformation (1906-1916) (2023), Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar: A Period of Conflict (1936-1946) (2021), Pablo Picasso: The Aphrodite Period (1924-1936) (2020), Eduardo Espina: Poesía del Deslenguaje (2019), Pablo Picasso: The Interaction Between Collectors and Exhibitions, 1899-1939 (2018), Pablo Picasso: A Critical Chronology (2017), La Pulsión del Lenguaje: Diálogos y Poemas de José Kozer (2015), La Muerte y la Máscara en Pablo Picasso (2013), A Concordance of Pablo Picasso's French Writings (2010), A Concordance of Pablo Picasso's Spanish Writings (2009), Antología Crítica de la Poesía del Lenguaje (2009), Poesía del Lenguaje: De T. S. Eliot a Eduardo Espina (2008), La Sintaxis de la Carne: Pablo Picasso y Marie-Thérèse Walter (2005), The Visual Grammar of Pablo Picasso (2003) and Con/figuración Sintáctica: Poesía del Des/lenguaje (2002).
Title of Speech: Art and Literature as Alternate Forms of Expression in Pablo Picasso
Kwasu Tembo, Ph.D.
Dr. Kwasu Tembo is a multidisciplinary scholar whose research spans a diverse array of interconnected ideations centered around the concept of Intensity. His work explores subjects such as the philosophy of time, consciousness, Object-Oriented Ontology, neo-Darwinism, artificial intelligence, (de)Intensification, blackness, fascism, and the (inter)referentiality in music and archive studies. Additionally, his research delves into stochasticity and psycho-sexuality.
Dr. Tembo is an active researcher and writer in various fields, including contemporary cinema, science fiction, and comic book adaptations. His recent work includes contributions to anthologies, papers, and articles on topics such as the fiction of Stanislaw Lem, the psycho-emotional elements in the films of David Lynch and David Robert Mitchell, mind-engineering through social media in relation to psycho-economics as theorized by Edward Bernays, and the ecocritical aspects of George Miller's Maxverse.
Title of Speech: Xala: A Close Analysis
Enrique Mallen, Ph.D.
Dr. Enrique Mallen earned his PhD in Linguistics from Cornell University. He is Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Sam Houston State University. He has published numerous articles and books on linguistics, poetic language, semiotics and art history. Since 1997 he is director of the Online Picasso Project, a Digital Humanities publication dedicated to the analysis and dissemination of the works by the multilingual and multidisciplinary Pablo Picasso. Among his books are: Pablo Picasso: A Period of Transformation (1906-1916) (2023), Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar: A Period of Conflict (1936-1946) (2021), Pablo Picasso: The Aphrodite Period (1924-1936) (2020), Eduardo Espina: Poesía del Deslenguaje (2019), Pablo Picasso: The Interaction Between Collectors and Exhibitions, 1899-1939 (2018), Pablo Picasso: A Critical Chronology (2017), La Pulsión del Lenguaje: Diálogos y Poemas de José Kozer (2015), La Muerte y la Máscara en Pablo Picasso (2013), A Concordance of Pablo Picasso's French Writings (2010), A Concordance of Pablo Picasso's Spanish Writings (2009), Antología Crítica de la Poesía del Lenguaje (2009), Poesía del Lenguaje: De T. S. Eliot a Eduardo Espina (2008), La Sintaxis de la Carne: Pablo Picasso y Marie-Thérèse Walter (2005), The Visual Grammar of Pablo Picasso (2003) and Con/figuración Sintáctica: Poesía del Des/lenguaje (2002).
Cristinel Munteanu, Ph.D.
Cristinel Munteanu (PhD 2006 and 2018) is currently full professor at "Danubius" University of Galați (Romania) and director of the Center for Hermeneutics "Symbols and Texts" at the same university. He is also affiliated to the Doctoral School of Philology, within IOSUD University of Pitești. He earned his first PhD (in philology) in 2006 with a thesis on phraseological synonymy in Romanian and his second PhD (in philosophy) in 2018 with a thesis on John Dewey's "theory of inquiry" considered as a sui generis type of hermeneutics. His main research interests lie in phraseology, text linguistics, hermeneutics, semiotics, philosophy of language and the history of linguistic ideas, with a special focus on Integral Linguistics. His books include Sinonimia frazeologică în limba română (2007), Lingvistica integrală coşeriană (2012), Frazeologie românească (2013), Tradition and Innovation in Language and Linguistics (Peter Lang, 2017), John Dewey și problema sensului (2019). He has published over 200 articles and edited texts by Tobias Peucer, Bogdan P. Hasdeu and Eugenio Coseriu. He also edited (in collaboration with Klaas Willems) the volume Eugenio Coseriu. Past, Present and Future (De Gruyter, 2021). He is the editor-in-chief of Acta Universitatis Danubius. Communicatio (Galați) and a member of the editorial board and/or scientific board of journals such as Fonetică și Dialectologie (Bucharest), Limba română (Chișinău) and Energeia. Online Journal for Linguistics, Language Philosophy and History of Linguistics (Zürich).
Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of, that do the things that no one can imagine.