The Laboratory of Multimedia and Language Applications and the Research and Study Laboratory of German Language Literature and Comparative Literature of the Department of German Language and Literature of the TH AB partner university National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) in collaboration with the Language Centre and the TH AB Institute for Intercultural Communication organised the interdisciplinary International Language Week (ILW) 2022 from October 10 to October 14, 2022.
Initiated in 2015 by Prof. Dr. Renate Link, the ILW has so far been hosted seven times by Aschaffenburg UAS and partner universities in Taipei/Taiwan, Billings/Montana (USA), Seinäjoki/Finland and now in Athens/Greece.
Under the motto "Mapping Cross Roads: Cultures, Languages and Literatures", the hybrid ILW 2022 provided a suitable framework for around 200 participants from all over the world to expand existing collaborations, but also to form new intercultural and interdisciplinary partnerships.
The ILW program included a total of 35 scientific lectures and 10 workshops in three conference languages: German, English and Greek. Participants included both established and young scholars from the following disciplines:
- Intercultural Communication
- Foreign Language Didactics
- Literature and Comparative Literature
- Didactics of Literature
- Cultural Studies
- Applied Linguistics
- Theoretical Linguistics
The Athens ILW was rounded off by a cultural social programme with highlights such as the Parthenon on the Acropolis, the Onassis Library and participation in the ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Goethe-Institute of Athens, the world’s second oldest Goethe-Institute after Munich.
For the first time, the ILW also included a special track for master's students and doctoral candidates in order to integrate and promote young scientists in particular. Thus, the three student teams with the best seminar projects in the module "International Competencies: Intercultural Cooperation and Communication" of the TH AB Master's programme International Management from the summer semester 2022 presented their contributions as best practices. They had been given the task of preparing a talk for a real conference in the 2022 summer semester and thus received wildcards for the ILW. As part of Internationalisation@Home, TH AB bachelor students from the 1st semester of the Business Administration and Law course of studies also connected online to the presentations of the Master’s students.
In a special PhD track, the cooperative PhD students Birgit Kraus and Angela Warkentin, who are doing their doctoral theses with Prof. Dr. Link at the TH AB Institute for Intercultural Communication and the TU Darmstadt, presented and were supported by funds from the iDok (interdisciplinary doctoral programme of the TH AB). Another speaker was Marcel Rother, TH AB lecturer and PhD student at the University of Vaasa. Professor Link presented two papers - one of them in a hybrid manner together with colleagues from Asian partner universities of TH AB.
A publication of selected ILW papers as conference proceedings in the monographic series of the NKUA's online journal Lexis http://lexis-de.gs.uoa.gr/ is envisaged, which will further increase the visibility of the ILW and underpin its scientific claim.
Applications are currently underway to host ILW 2023 and 2024, before ILW 2025 is expected to return to its Aschaffenburg home.
More information about the ILW in Athens can be found on this padlet https://padlet.com/ilwathen2022/p4m5jfdjuw7wfjhi and in these two videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLPEm3En1no and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm24zWN5Akg.
