On Saturday 1 June 2024, the Department of Maltese in the Faculty of Arts hosted the third annual conference of the postgraduate seminar series called Appuntamenti mar-Riċerka in which three Masters and three doctoral students presented part of their research. After every twenty-minute talk the speakers had the opportunity to engage with their peers and lecturers on specific aspects of their presentation research project.
The conference was organised by Ms Justine Somerville and Ms Kirsty Azzopardi, assistant lecturers within the Department of Maltese, who also coordinate the Appuntamenti mar-Riċerka, and was held in the Aula Magna of the Valletta Campus.
In the first part of the conference, Jean Paul Borg spoke about the myth of the father figure in his presentation entitled “Bejn xiħ u pops: il-mit tal-figura tal-missier.” He was followed by John Paul Grima whose presentation, “L-omm li tatna isimha?,” focused on the Masters thesis he recently finished with the title, “Lejn Ġabra ta' Riżorsi Terminoloġiċi bil-Malti.” The third speaker was Fiona Camilleri who discussed three novels from the Modernist period from the perspective of György Lukács in her talk on “Ir-rappreżentazzjoni tal-karattru Malti f’rumanzi ta’ xeħta soċjali mis-sittinijiet sat-tmeninijiet.”
In the second part of the conference, there were presentations by three doctoral students, two from the Department of Maltese and one from the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology. Michela Vella spoke about language acquisition in her talk on “Il-kisba tal-Malti bħala l-ewwel lingwa: analiżi morfosintattika.” She was followed by Matthew Chappell whose talk on “Is-Seħer tar-Re” focussed on the politicization of death in contemporary Maltese literature, and by Dwayne Ellul, who spoke about developments in Maltese lexicography in a talk on “Il-lessikografija Maltija: ħarsa storika u l-qagħda attwali.”
In his opening remarks, the Head of the Department of Maltese, Prof. Adrian Grima, talked about the fostering of a healthy community of both up-and-coming and established researchers within the Department of Maltese and beyond. He also highlighted the sense of responsibility required from researchers in their use of language at a time when it is being manipulated in malicious ways and thus seriously undermining the relations of trust between people within the national community and between national communities.
The postgraduate seminars of the Department of Maltese, which have now been going on for the past three years, are held regularly during the academic year and feature both separate and combined sessions for students who are working on language and literature, including a full day writing retreat. In the annual conference, postgraduate students are invited to make presentations of their work in an environment of constructive discussion with their peers and lecturers from the Department of Maltese and other departments and institutes.
