SCIO Studievereniging

SPUI 25 | Nicole Seymour: A Brief History of Environmental Humour
2026-09-03 20:00 - 21:00 (Europe/Amsterdam) | SPUI25, Spui 25-27, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, 1012 WX, Nederland
Speaker: Nicole Seymour
Location: SPUI25
Title: A Brief History of Environmental Humour
Abstract: Seymour will place these phenomena in their larger contexts, including the development of queer ecologies as a critical framework and the rise of meta-modernism as a cultural sensibility. After her talk, she will be joined in conversation by Peter van Dam, Barnita Bagchi, and moderator Jesse van Amelsvoort. Together, they will think about environmental humour in other literary and cultural traditions and histories across Europe, South Asia, and North America. How do protest movements use humour and other playful affects? How to read Dutch environmental discourses and genres in this respect? And how does children’s literature incorporate humour?
Register at SPUI25

VOX-POP: Warm Welcome Week 2026
2026-09-07 - 2026-09-11 | VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1012ZA, Netherlands
Start date: 7 September 2026
End date: 10 September 2026
Location: BG 3
Room: VOX-POP

Starting a new chapter can be exciting. New faces, a new environment, and perhaps you don’t know anyone at all yet. During Warm Welcome Week, VOX-POP is a friendly place where you can settle in in a fun and creative way. Whether you pop in on your own or with others, all the activities are perfect for meeting new people, even if you don’t know anyone yet. Make a collage, try Japanese ink painting or glow-in-the-dark ‘sip & paint’, play board games or a spot of table football, experience Mario Kart in Concert with live game music, and round off the week with the epic Hitster Bingo hosted by Joost de Host.

Check the full programme

ACLC Seminar | Maria Arredondo: Learning in Two Languages: Neural Signatures of Word Learning in Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers
2026-09-18 16:00 - 17:00 | P.C. Hoofthuis, Spuistraat 134, Amsterdam, Nederland
Organized by the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication! (ACLC)
Speaker: Dr. Maria Arredondo
Location: P.C. Hoofthuis
Room: 5.08
Title: Learning in Two Languages: Neural Signatures of Word Learning in Monolingual and Bilingual Toddlers
Abstract: Language development is a foundational predictor of later academic achievement, social functioning, and long-term well-being. Much of early vocabulary growth occurs in ambiguous contexts in which children must infer the referent of a novel word. Despite this uncertainty, toddlers are remarkably adept at determining word meanings. However, little is known about the neural systems that support these processes or how bilingual experience may shape them.
This talk integrates findings from two neuroimaging studies examining fast word-mapping in monolingual and bilingual toddlers. Children viewed familiar and unfamiliar objects as they were labeled (e.g., “look at the car!”, “look at the dax!”). Eye-tracking measured recognition of the labeled referent, while functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recorded brain activity in frontal and temporal cortical regions.
Together, these studies will illustrate how early word learning is shaped by both bilingual experience and proficiency within each language. More focal left-hemisphere recruitment may support efficient learning under conditions of greater language familiarity, whereas broad bilateral and right-hemisphere recruitment may reflect the additional processing demands associated with learning in a less-proficient language. These findings highlight the importance of considering children’s experience in each language when examining the neural organization of bilingual word learning.

ACLC Workshop | Marie Beauchamps: Creative Writing for Academics
2026-10-23 09:30 - 13:00 | Oudemanhuispoort, Oudemanhuispoort 4, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1012 CN, Netherlands
Organized by the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication! (ACLC)
Course Dates:
Fridays 9:30-13:00
On campus
23 October
30 October
Location: Oudemanhuispoort
Room: A0.08
The choices we make when we write have profound effects on the reality that we observe. Giving an account of our observations requires a multitude of styles of writing for achieving the greatest accuracy. Finding the most accurate style of writing for a particular purpose sometimes implies letting go of a seemingly neutral style of writing, instead embracing a plurality of voices, such as staging a dialogue or exploring a more poetic style. This workshop aims to explore what happens when we loosen up the frame of our habitual academic writing practice, inviting multi-layered stories to bubble up and become part of the conversation unfolding on the page.
In this two-sessions interactive workshop, Marie Beauchamps will lead you through a series of hands-on exercises to make you experience creative writing within your academic practice. You will practice writing scenes, working with sensory details, defining the main characters driving the story of your work, and staging conversations between them. There will be time for peer-review, and we will take time to reflect on what it takes to make space for creativity within our academic work.
Practicalities
Participants will be asked to bring a text of their own to work on during the workshop. It can be an outline, a very first draft, a finished article, or everything in-between, as long as they feel comfortable working with it for the time of the workshop.

Register here! https://uvaforms.formstack.com/forms/phd_skills_registration_creative_writing_autumn_2026

ACLC Workshop: Daria Evangelista |Argumentative, Rhetorical and Linguistic Dimensions of Climate Crisis Discourse
2026-12-10 13:00 - 17:30 | Amsterdam
Organized by the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication! (ACLC)
Speaker: Dr. Maria Arredondo
Location: P.C. Hoofthuis
Room: 2.14
Title: Argumentative, Rhetorical and Linguistic Dimensions of Climate Crisis Discourse
Abstract:
Climate crisis discourse is perhaps one of the most central to societies nowadays. Due to its complexity and, in some regards, controversial nature, scholars have paid particular attention to its potential effectiveness, namely whether it can make itself understood and whether it can persuade and convince the addressees. Up until now, however, little if anything is known about the specific linguistic, rhetorical and argumentative means that are employed to discuss the climate crisis across different contexts, such as the journalistic, legal and political spheres and how these interact to shape our understanding of the climate crisis.
Bringing together perspectives from argumentation studies, rhetoric, discourse analysis and text linguistics, this workshop explores how different stakeholders deploy linguistic and rhetorical strategies such as metaphors, framing devices, polyphony, and a range of argumentative means, to influence perceptions of climate-related issues or to raise awareness around specific challenges posed by climate change.
There are no registration costs, but a short message to Daria Evangelista confirm your presence would be appreciated.
Programme
13:00 – 13:15 – Opening remarks by the workshop organisers
Daria Evangelista and Corina Andone (University of Amsterdam)
13:15 – 14:00 – Resistance to climate science: the metaphor of the “doughnut”
Anais Augé (UC Louvain)
14:00 – 14:45 – Talking the future into being. The role of rhetorical presence in climate
activist discourse
Jelte Olthof (University of Groningen)
14:45 – 15:15 – Coffee break
15:15 – 16:00 – The ‘energy transition’ at the intersection of multiple discursive
formations? A lexicometric, pragma-enunciative, and argumentative analysis of Le Monde articles (February 2022–2024)
Thomas Franck (Ghent University)
16:00 – 16:45 – Arguing to raise awareness. A text-linguistic account of climate crisis discourse
Daria Evangelista and Corina Andone (University of Amsterdam)
16:45 – 17:15 – Final discussion
17:15 – 17:30 – Closing remarks
17:30 – Dinner for speakers
