International Science Film Festival Nijmegen (12 - 17 March 2024) is one of the largest international science film festivals in Europe. This year's theme is language. That means the programme is packed with linguistics, poetry connoisseurs, rhetoric experts and even some students from the Faculty of Arts. Below you will find all contributions from our faculty, so you don't have to miss a thing!
Stand-up Science
A stage, a microphone and a bunch of inspiring mini-lectures, demonstrations and workshops. Come to LUX Café on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and grab a wireless headphone to listen to Stand-up Science. The following Faculty of Arts staff will update you on their expertise in 20 minutes:
- Ruud van der Beuken (assistant professor of English Language and Culture) about the poetry of butch lesbian Joelle Taylor
- Thijs Kersten (campus poet and History student) about campus poetry
- Wyke Stommel (professor of Language and Interaction) about videocalling your doctor
- Bé Breij en Yvette Linders (rhetorics experts) about playing the electorate
- Charlie Loopuijt (PhD Candidate trans linguistics and queer health) about trans language as desire paths
Talking to aliens
Alien ships arrive on Earth. Will they arrive in peace? A linguist is summoned by the military to make contact with the aliens. That is the plot of Denis Villeneuve's film Arrival.
If anyone can decipher unknown languages it is Peruvian linguist and 'hyperpolyglot' Luis Miguel Rojas Berscia - who once spoke 18 languages but stopped counting. Everywhere he goes, he researches the grammar and structures of the local language and writes them down so they are not lost. After the screening of the film Arrival, Rojas Berscia will talk about how he does that and to what extent languages affect how you see the world. Or is the language you speak actually a reflection of your worldview?
Kletskoppen screens ET
There is also a programme for children. Together with the language scientists of Kletskoppen, you can indulge in everything to do with language from 2 pm on Saturday afternoon. Children's language festival Kletskoppen takes over the Mariënburg Library and takes you to all the nooks and crannies of our language. Admission is free.
After the workshops, you can roll straight into the cinema because after the workshops, the classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial will be screened.
And more...
- Sandy Barasa (CLS, Radboud in'to Languages) joins other Radboud Young Academy international staff in a discussion about the documentary Brief Tender Light
- Marc van Oostendorp (CLS) interviews the linguists who devised fantasy languages for franchises such as Game of Thrones
- Iris Hendricks (CLS) is hosting the Live Turing Test: do you recognise the differences between a text by a human writer and ChatGPT?
- Donna Roukens (student Art History) and Willem Baltussen (alumnus History and Tourism and Culture) create art with butterflies
- Imme Lammertink (CLS) talks about language development in children in the discussion on the wolf child film L'enfant sauvage
- Enny Das (CLS) is a jury member for the International Grand Jury Award
- Polyglot Luis Miguel Rojas Berscia (CLS), in addition to the film conversation about Arrival, also talks about his language hobby live in the NTR Focus podcast