European Day of Languages 2021

Peggy Mohan was born in Trinidad, West Indies, and studied linguistics, French and Spanish at the University of the West Indies, did graduate work in linguistics and Sanskrit at the University of Michigan, and her Ph.D. on Trinidad Bhojpuri, the ancestral language of Indians in Trinidad, which she also studied as a dying language.

She has taught linguistics at Howard University, Washington DC, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and Mass Communication at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, taught music, and written on language issues in India.

"Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through its Languages" is her fourth book.

Anoushka Maskey is a singer-songwriter, based in Sikkim/Mumbai, India. She identifies as a lyrics-first musician and plays the guitar and ukulele. Anoushka's sound, as well as song writing, connotes a warm, almost nostalgic feel. Her debut album 'Things I Saw in a Dream,' released in August 2020, features just her vocals accompanied by an acoustic guitar. Derived from and inspired by the lockdown, she explores themes of skin hunger and the value of touch; appreciating the little things in life that we often forget to value. Her second EP, C.E.A.S.E. (Contemplating Existence and Sorry Ends) came out in September 2020, a fictional narrative of an apocalyptic world. Her third release, 'September Embers' is a single – for and about people who make a habit of constantly giving, despite it being at the cost of their own wellbeing.​

Janice Pariat is the author of Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories and Seahorse: A Novel. She was awarded the Young Writer Award from the Sahitya Akademi and the Crossword Book Award for Fiction in 2013.
Her novella "The Nine Chambered-Heart", bestselling in India, was published in the UK and in ten other languages including Italian, Spanish, French, and German.

She studied English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her work—including art reviews, book reviews, fiction and poetry—has featured in a wide selection of national magazines and newspapers.  In 2014, she was the Charles Wallace Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Kent, UK, and a Writer in Residence at the TOJI Residency in South Korea in 2019.

André Velter was born in 1945 in Signy l’Abbaye in Ardennes, France. He published his first book Aisha, with Serge Sautreau. André Velter splits his time between extensive trips (Afghanistan, India, Tibet) and giving voice to poems from all over the world. He also hosted Agora (from 1995 to 1998), Poésie Studio (from 1997 to 1999), and les Poétiques, recorderd monthly in front of a live audience at the Théatre du Rond-Point in Paris, with Claude Guerre (from 1995 to 1999). Orphée Studio, contemporary poetry read out loud, presented a “livre-témoignage” on the experience of Poétiques, which was published as part of the collectioin Poésie/Gallimard.
 
Velter’s literary reviews that appear in the French newspaper Le Monde are focused mainly on the East.  He attempts to invent a new orality by working regularly with performers, actors, and musicians of various polyphonies. He won the Goncourt/ Poésie prize in 1996.

Christian Filips lebt und arbeitet als Autor, Übersetzer, Musikdramaturg in Berlin-Moabit. Zwischen 2000 und 2007 studierte er in Brüssel und Wien, 2001 erhielt er den Rimbaud-Preis des Österreichischen Rundfunks. Literarische Texte erscheinen vor allem beim Schweizer Verleger Urs Engeler, mit dem Filips seit 2010 gemeinsam die Reihe roughbooks für zeitgenössische Poesie herausgibt. Theaterarbeiten waren vor allem an der Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz zu sehen. Zuletzt: Heiße Fusionen, Beta-Album. Gedichte und Analysen zur poetischen Ökonomie (2018), Der Unsterblichkeitsclown (2020), Rosa Kollektiv (Webserie, 2021). Seit 2006 arbeitet Filips als Programm- und Archivleiter für die Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, 2017 gründete er das arabisch-deutsche Übersetzer*innenkollektiv WIESE (Wie es ist).

Iris Blauensteiner works as a filmmaker and author. She studied ‚Art & Digital Media‘ at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Film- and Theatretheory at the University of Vienna.

Since 2004 she is making films, especially in the fields of writing and directing. Her films, the latest „The world is blue at its edges", „the_other_images“, „Rest“ and „Sweat" were screened at international festivals. 2016 her first novel „Kopfzecke“ was published by Kremayr & Scheriau. Since 2010 shorter texts were published in anthologies and literature magazines. She is a member of the Golden Pixel Cooperative.

Awards and grants for film and literature (selection): Award at the filmscript-competition „If she can see it, she can be it“ by Drehbuchforum Vienna 2019, Award promoting literature by the City of Vienna 2018, Residency at Literarisches Colloquium Berlin 2017

Poet and essayist Rui Cóias was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1966. He studied Law at the University of Coimbra, worked as a legal advisor, and also pursued studies of Philosophy at University Nova in Lisbon. He has published several poetry collections, the first one “A Função do Geógrafo” (The Role of the Geographer) appeared in 2000. His book“La Nature de La Vie” (The Nature of Life), a French/Portuguese bilingual edition translated by Marie Claire Vromans, was published in Belgium, and was presented at the Transpoesie Festival 2014 in Brussels, organized by EUNIC. In 2015 his book “L'Ordre du Monde” (The World's Order - L'Ordre du Monde), was published in France, in a French/Portuguese bilingual edition. Recently his new book “Europa” was published in Portugal and, among other texts, contains a series of poems about the Great War and the battle of the Somme in France in 1916.

Besides French, his work has been translated to English, Slovakian, Dutch, and Macedonian. Cóias keeps a blog about travelling and literature, and presently lives in Lisbon.

Subhro Bandopadhyay (b. 1978, Kolkata) a lover of the feline family, an ardent admirer of dramatic landscapes, lives on an overdose of Hispanic culture. He has received a few important prizes for his poetry including the Antonio Machado poetry fellowship (Govt. of Spain) and the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2013, for his poetry. He has five published poetry books in Bengali and four of them are translated into Spanish and published in Spain.  

Sabika Abbas Naqvi is a performance poet and Founder of Sar-e-rahguzar: Poetry on the streets. 
 
She is also the Co-editor of the Bystander Anthology and Senior Editor of the SAAG Anthology. She is an INK Fellow, formerly, a campaigns strategist with Change.org and an alternative educator. Her work revolves around gender and minority rights and inclusive curriculum design. She has spoken at multiple platforms including TEDx, RightsCon, BOMA India. Her work is taught at prestigious universities across the world.

She currently works at the Fearless Collective.

Rahul Putty currently heads the Department of Languages at Manipal Academy of Higher Education. Besides developing language programs and curricula at Manipal since 2010, he is in-charge of Manipal’s academic liaison with Alliance Française Manipal Chapter, the Polish Institute, Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange, British Council, and Instituto Cervantes. He curates the Department’s flagship program BA Foreign Languages and Intercultural Studies and teaches French society and literature, European history and society, and comparative cultural representations; he led the Jean Monnet module European society and culture through cinema between 2018-2021 at Manipal Centre for European Studies. His areas of interest include development of pedagogical tools and resources for teaching of subjects such as history and literature, cultural diplomacy, and comparative India-Europe cultural studies within language learning programs.  He was Erasmus Mundus bursary of the Master program, Euroculture at the Universities of Goettingen and Uppsala, and DAAD bursary for doctoral studies between 2012-2015 at the International Centre for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel. He also holds a Masters degree in French from the University of Pondicherry.

Babu Thaliath ist seit 2013 Professor für Philosophie und Germanistik am Zentrum für Germanistik der Jawaharlal Nehru University in Neu Delhi. Er studierte Bauingenieurwesen (College of Engineering Trivandrum) und Germanistik (CGS, JNU) in Indien und promovierte zwischen 1997 und 2003 in Philosophie an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg und an der Universität Basel. Anschließend absolvierte er mehrere Postdoc-Forschungsprojekte im Bereich der frühneuzeitlichen mechanischen Philosophie an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und an der University of Cambridge (2005-2013). Er hat zahlreiche Publikationen in den Bereichen Theoretische Philosophie, frühneuzeitliche Wissenschaftstheorie, Wahrnehmungstheorie und Ästhetik veröffentlicht.

Dr Nandita Wagle, Faculty for Literary Translation, Didactics and Pedagogy and Subtitling Arts and Techniques at the Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune is a French Language Master Trainer and has long experience in curriculum design and educational program development in the fields of language, arts, culture, heritage, community and social work and teachers training. She has lead multiple projects for the organisation and delivery of Training Modules for teachers and professors of FFL in India. Dr Wagle has created international edu-travel programs for students and teachers in collaboration with countries such as France, Canada, Dubai, etc. She has lead teams for conceptualisation and implementation of intercultural exchange for social development and arts. Her expertise in the development of new teaching methodologies using self-videos and multi-media tools has been appreciated in various multinational forums. She has translated and interpreted across French, English and Marathi for national and international events. Her articles and translations are published in India and France. Subtitling of Indian Language Films (Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Konkani) in French has been a passion for more than 20 years and her Doctorate on the Dynamics of Choice in Subtitling processes is the first in the country. Along with the formulation of sustainable rural educational strategies for women and children, she has worked in the field of Literature, Theatre, Choreography and Performance Arts.

German Teacher at Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan New Delhi for 20 years. From 2008 to 2012 she was a Project manager for the PASCH Project - a global project for schools promoted by the German Foreign Office.Since 2012 she heads the project „German in 1000 Schools“- a project that supports and promotes the teaching of German in government schools across the country. She is also responsible for promoting the teaching of German in universities and colleges. Ms Kaur is also a founding member and President of the Indo German Teachers Association “InDaF” – a registered society with over a 1000 members. Since 2014 she is the General Secretary of the International German Teachers Association-(IDV). This is the umbrella organization of all German Teachers Association worldwide.

Miriam Navarro Conca is a Spanish teacher and REDELE (Official DELE in charge) at Instituto Cervantes in New Delhi, the Spanish language official institution where she is also a level coordinator. Miriam has participated and tutored future Spanish teachers in collaboration with Spanish universities (UIMP Universidad Menéndez-Pelayo, Universidad Nebrija, etc.) with the most prestigious and innovative Spanish teaching programs. She has experience in giving training workshops for Spanish teachers at Instituto Cervantes and other institutions. Regarding her studies, she graduated in English Philology and has completed the Master's Degree in Teacher Training at the University of Coruña and the Master's Degree in Teaching Spanish and English as L2/FL at the University of Alicante. Her experience in the Indian context is broad as she has been teaching in India for 7 years in Delhi and Mumbai, and she also taught during a period at Jamia Millia Islamia University with the AECID (Spanish Cooperation and Development Agency part of the Ministry of External Affairs). Since 2012 she has been developing her career in different fields, countries and educational contexts.

Terry began his career as a teacher of French and German (plus some Spanish and Turkish) in London, progressing to a number of Head of Languages posts and eventually to posts in the Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield, where he focused mainly on postgraduate teacher education and urban education. He is now a Professor of Languages and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy at the University of Westminster, London, based in the Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation (which he established) and the School of Humanities, where he leads on both education research and migration research across the University. He has published widely in areas such as pedagogy, motivation, multilingual education, multilingual cities, and activist research that challenges social, cultural and linguistic injustices. His projects have included several at the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe, e.g. Supporting Multilingual Classrooms. He is a trustee of NRCSE (National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education). Terry has worked closely on languages strategy and curriculum with the UK and other Governments (Australia, Czech Republic, France and Malaysia) and is founder editor of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. He is Vice President and former President of FIPLV (Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes), an NGO of UNESCO and the Council of Europe. He has also been awarded the honour of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Prime Minister.