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Annual Distinguished Lecture on Europe. "Language and National Identity in Europe."

Thursday, March 15, 2012
4:00 AM
1636 International Institute/SSWB, 1080 S. University.

Part of LSA Theme Semester, “Language: the Human Quintessence.”
The Center for European Studies is pleased to announce that the Annual Distinguished Lecture on Europe will be given by Diego Marani, a novelist, translator, and newspaper columnist, who is currently serving as senior linguist and policy officer at the European Commission. He will talk about how languages preserve separate and distinct national identities, often undermining the full potential for unity within Europe. While the European Union has fostered cooperation across the continent on monetary, social, and legal policy, the EU shares no common language and its citizens are often unable to communicate with each other, and Marani will argue that this is problematic for truly meaningful integration. He will ask how Europe can build a common identity out of the melting pot of languages and national identities, and question whether the nation-state model can be applied to Europe as a whole.
Diego Marani, novelist, translator, and newspaper columnist; senior linguist and policy officer, Directorate General for Interpretation, European Commission.
Diego Marani was born in Ferrara (Italy) in 1959. He received a degree in classical studies from the Liceo Ludovico Ariosto in Ferrara and in Simultaneous interpretation and Translation at the University of Trieste (Italy), specializing in French and English. He has worked as a translator at the Council of Ministers of the European Union and subsequently as policy officer at the Directorate General for Culture of the European Commission. He now works for the Directorate General for Interpretation of the European Commission, where he is in charge of international cooperation, training and support to universities. Marani has published many novels and essays. New Finnish Grammar, recently translated into English, received the Grinzane-Cavour prize in Italy, and The last of the Vostyaks received the Italian Campiello prize. Diego Marani is also the inventor of a language, Europanto, in which he wrote columns for a number of European newspapers and published a collection of short stories entitled Las adventuras des inspector Cabillot. He is also a columnist, a blogger and commentator for Italian newspapers, including Il Sole 24 Ore, Il Fatto Quotidiano, and La Nuova Ferrara.