School celebrates Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellows

A special event has been held in the School of Modern Languages to celebrate the school's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellows.

The event was held on 14 September 2023 and celebrated the work of Dr Angela Tarantini, Mr Francesco Chianese and Dr Joanna Chojnicka.

Two of the fellows were present at the event and gave presentations on their research projects.

The first to give a presentation was Dr Joanna Chojnicka. She talked about her project, ‘Trans in Translation: Multilingual practices and local/global gender and sexuality discourses in Polish transition narratives.’ This project focussed on the language of gender transition narratives on Polish social media, such as blogs and YouTube, and the role played by multilingual practices in these narratives.

Reflecting on her time in Wales, Dr Chojnicka said: “Since I am also interested in minoritized languages and language revitalization, being able to spend some time in Wales was very valuable to me. I had learned Welsh before I even knew I would receive the grant, so experiencing the presence of Welsh in linguistic landscapes and discovering traces of Welsh speaking communities was extremely gratifying. I also spent many weekends cycling around South Wales and visiting historical sites. It is a gorgeous place.”

Dr Angela Tarantini also gave a presentation on her research project which focusses on sign language interpreted music. The project, entitled ‘When Accessibility Becomes Performance: Sign Language Interpreting in Music as Performative Rewriting,’ aims to analyse how interpreter-performers translate music into sign language, making it a visual art form, accessible to d/Deaf and hard of hearing people.

Dr Tarantini said: “The Marie Curie fellowship is an incredible opportunity for young career researchers, as it is a research and training fellowship. I had the chance to learn BSL (British Sign Language), I obtained my Agile Project Management certification, and I was able to engage in communication and dissemination activities throughout Europe.”

The third fellow at the school is Dr Francesco Chianese and his project, ‘Transit - Many Diasporas from One Transnational Italy,’ aims to expand the concept of 'Italianness' and investigate the evolution of Italian culture outside Italy.

Dr Chianese said: “I have enjoyed my work and my office at Park Place and the venues of the campus in Cathays. Outside the campus, I truly enjoyed Cardiff’s multicultural and multilingual texture, given the focus of my research I enjoyed exploring areas where the multicultural community resides, like City Road or Grangetown.”

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships, which are funded by the European Commission, allow researchers to work with the university on research projects.

Over the last two years, the fellows have been conducting research work at the school as part of their projects and have also presented special workshops to students at the School of Modern Languages.

Dr Ruselle Meade is the Director of Research at the School of Modern Languages. She said: “Our three Marie Curie Fellows have all made impactful contributions to our School and its research culture. All have engaged in collaborative activities with colleagues from across the University, as well public engagement with as organizations from the wider community in Cardiff and beyond. Students have also benefited from our Fellows’ unique expertise through their involvement in supervision and teaching. Our fellows contributed by delivering research-led teaching on our MA Translation Studies programme and by supervising undergraduate dissertations. This has made our student community a major beneficiary of their research activities.”

For more information on Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships, please visit our website.