Power of Words (English): Room 1
11:45PM-14:40PM MADRID CEST (Complutense University of Madrid)
English Studies Matter! : Applied Critical Thinking in the Humanities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Xiana Sotelo, Marta Silvera Roig
This innovative project seeks to provide an example of practical application of the development of critical thinking skills in the Humanities and specifically, in the Degree of English Studies. It is framed in SIIM research group-Studies on Intermediality and Intercultural Mediation of Complutense University of Madrid and it aims at responding to the current emphasis in EHEA-European Higher Education Area on competences for lifelong learning able to guarantee employability, social inclusion, and citizens' participation in a globalized and changing world, a world suffering from systematic inequalities and social divisions. Many of these social and ethnic confrontations (for example, the systematic racism in the United States against the African-American population which has generated the global movement Black Lives Matter) have their origin in historical and literary periods that are covered in the curricular contents of the subjects in which this project is implemented. Thus, by bringing awareness into the functionality and relevance the subject curricula has in order to understand the historical and literary roots of many social problems, this project aims to enable students acquire critical thinking skills to contribute to these social debates by providing an objective and contrasted discussion on the origin of these social divisions. Moreover, by putting their academic knowledge at the service of an informed societal conversation, through their own learning outcomes (verified infographics, podcasts and academic papers), students become active agents of social transformation, contributing in the fight against the disinformation, manipulation, and ignorance that so deeply harms us nowadays as a global community.
Cultural Competence in Chinese as a Foreign Language Teaching in Spanish Official Language Academies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Miguel Sillero Romero
Culture pedagogy became a relevant factor in Foreign Language Teaching in the sixties. Since then, the notion of culture teaching has evolved from an anthropological approach into an approach that, in virtue of globalisation, highlights culture awareness and sensibility towards otherness. Cultural competence plays a special role when it comes to learning Chinese as a foreign language, since there are a considerable amount of cultural differences between Chinese Eastern culture and Western cultures. Therefore, this competence is an important component in Chinese Language Teaching curricula, and yet there is a lack of research literature on this topic. In this context, this study focuses on how cultural competence is taught in the Spanish Official Language Academies, a Spanish public institution that has recently implemented Chinese as a Foreign Language courses. In this study, an empirical analysis is conducted throughout the material used in this institution to teach Chinese in order to identify the approach followed in these volumes when teaching cultural competence. This analysis is based on a review of relevant literature on this topic, namely the theoretical framework set for cultural competence, from which a set of criteria is drawn out to assess this teaching material. The expected findings of this investigation will guide comprehension of how this didactic material contributes to the teaching of cultural competence for Chinese learners in the Spanish Official Language Academies.
Narratives We Live By: The Cognitive Foundations of Storytelling View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marta Silvera Roig, Xiana Sotelo
Humans are storytellers: this powerful and unique feature might be at the core of human evolution itself. This paper analyses, from the interdisciplinary perspective of neuroaesthetics, the theories which try to explain how narratives guide meaning - from the conceptual blending theory to the new studies on mirror neurons and affective neuroscience.
Posthumanist Themes in Clifford D. Simak’s Early Science Fiction (1932-1950)
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jesús Fernández
Many of the ideas that are now conceived as posthumanist were already present in the imaginary of the Golden Era of North American science fiction. Thus, a limited corpus of nineteen short stories by Clifford D. Simak is studied by focusing on four great themes: interspecies communication, hybrids, corporal transcendence, and collective identity. Shocked by fascist ideology, influenced by coetaneous authors such as Olaf Stapledon and H. G. Wells, and fascinated by the implications of Darwinism, Simak’s nonhuman characters explore how the humanist subject, typically conceived as stable and immutable, crumbles as human beings are not considered an exceptional species. Animal studies is chosen as a critical methodology in conjunction with posthumanism. This leads to concluding its interdisciplinary nature, which in turn keeps opening the debate on whether it is actually dependent on posthumanism. Seeing it is relevant to claim Simak’s work was that of a pioneer, as well as the recent academic interest on the selected schools of thought is evident, this work points at Clifford D. Simak as a forerunner of studies of the nonhuman.
