Jane Wilkinson
jane wilkinson

Dr Jane Wilkinson

Lecturer

 0131 455 4550

  J.Wilkinson@napier.ac.uk

  

Biography

I joined the Tourism and Languages group within the Business School at Edinburgh Napier University as Lecturer in Intercultural Business Communication in January 2019 and became Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) in Languages and Intercultural Communication in August 2019. I previously worked at the universities of Leeds, Aberystwyth and Lancaster after completing a PhD in German Studies at the University of Glasgow.

My research interests and expertise lie in the broad areas of border studies, migration and intercultural communication, and I am currently working on the following projects:
- 'Creating cross-border communities: The European Capital of Culture 2022, Esch-sur-Alzette' explores the representation and creation of place, sense of place and cross-border community in some of the participatory, 'grassroots' projects and events featured in the Capital of Culture programme. I am particularly interested in multilingual events, including theatre productions, which focus on the border between Luxembourg and France and on expressions and constructions of local, regional, national and 'European' identities.
- 'Representations of Migration and 'Post-Migration' in Recent German-Language Drama', explores thematic and aesthetic responses to migration to and settlement in (West) Germany and Austria from the 1960s to the current day. Using theories of borders and hospitality, I look at dramatic and theatrical engagement with both the 'guest worker' era of temporary labour migration in the 1960s and 1970s, which led to the long-term settlement of many people from southern Europe and north Africa, and the more recent arrival of refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

In May 2023, I worked with colleagues in Intercultural Communication to organise the international research symposium 'Imagining and Experiencing Hospitalities in a Mobile World' at Edinburgh Napier. This symposium featured a range of papers exploring the intersections between 'hospitalities' and 'interculturalities' in diverse contexts, including migration and asylum, internationalisation of Higher Education, and tourism.

I am currently supervising 4 PhD students working on interculturality, mindfulness and migration; translation markets in the UK and the EU; students' reverse intercultural adaptation in Chinese universities; and translation of intangible cultural heritage texts in China.

I lead and teach on postgraduate modules in intercultural communication and on undergraduate modules in intercultural communication, translation and German language.

I am a member of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication (IALIC) and of Edinburgh Napier's Mobilities and Movement Research Network (MMRN).

I am a fellow of the HEA.

School

Research Groups

Themes

Research Areas

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • Lead organiser: Imagining and Experiencing Hospitalities in a Mobile World, Edinburgh Napier University, May 2023
  • Co-organiser of research symposium: Interculturality in a Precarious Future, University of Leeds, October 2018
  • Co-organiser of international conference: Travelling Languages: Culture, Communication and Translation in a Mobile World, 10th Annual Conference of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication, University of Leeds / Leeds Beckett University, December 2010
  • Organiser of research symposium: The Intercultural Writer, University of Leeds, October 2009
  • Programme Committee Member: The Intercultural Narrative, 4th annual conference of the Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication, University of Lancaster, December 2003.
  • Programme Committee Member: The Transcultured Self: Experiencing Languages and Intercultural Communication, 3rd annual conference of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, December 2002

 

Editorial Activity

  • Co-editor with John O'Regan and Mike Robinson of Special Issue of Language and Intercultural Communication: 'Travelling Languages: Culture, Communication and Translation in a Mobile World' (2011) and book version published by Routledge (2014)
  • Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Language and Intercultural Communication (2007-2017)

 

External Examining/Validations

  • External examiner for undergraduate and postgraduate modules and programmes in Luxembourg Studies, University of Sheffield
  • External examiner for undergraduate and postgraduate modules and programmes in German at Aberystwyth University

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Fellow of the HEA

 

Grant Reviewer

  • Grant Reviewer for DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)
  • Grant Reviewer for the FNR - Luxembourg National Research Fund
  • Grant Reviewer for the GACR - Czech Science Foundation

 

Invited Speaker

  • Symposium talk: 'Rewriting(s) in Post-Migrant Theatre' - invited talk at symposium on 'Post-Migrant Theatre in / from Germany' at the University of Edinburgh, May 2015
  • Seminar Speaker: Constructing the German-Polish Borderland as Transnational Space in Literature and Theatre, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, March 2010
  • Seminar speaker: Theatrical Negotiations of the German-Polish Border, Aberystwyth University, March 2009
  • Symposium talk: The Intercultural Speaker as Border Crosser, The Intercultural Speaker, 1st IALIC research symposium, Edinburgh Napier University, June 2009
  • Seminar Speaker: Cultural Crossings at Germany's Eastern Border, University of Bath, July 2008

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Co-Chair of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication 2008-2010
  • Member of the Association of Borderland Studies
  • Member of Women in German Studies
  • Member of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural communication

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Community Engagement: Intercultural activities to support the work of third sector organisation Forth Valley Welcome, Sanctuary for Refugees in the Heart of Scotland
  • Invited panel speaker following performance of Brecht's Mother Courage at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, October 2018
  • Public Lecture: Shifting Borders in a Changing Europe, University of Wisconsin, Madison, March 2010
  • Community Engagement: 'Borderlines' - collaborating with West Yorkshire Playhouse (Leeds) and Theater an der Parkaue (Berlin) to run theatre workshops for young people

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External Examiner for MPhil on 'Foreign Language Anxiety and its Effect on Language Ego and Performance', Kayleigh Rippingale, Aberystwyth University
  • External Examiner for PhD 'Representations of Germany and its people in Maltese GFL learning contexts', George Cremona, Institute of Education, University College London

 

Reviewing

  • Book Proposal Reviewer for Routledge Handbooks Series
  • Journal Reviewer for Edinburgh German Yearbook
  • Journal Reviewer for Journal of Multicultural Discourses
  • Journal Reviewer for German Politics and Society
  • Journal Reviewer for the German Quarterly
  • Journal Reviewer for the Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change
  • Regular Journal Reviewer for the Journal of Language and Intercultural Communication

 

Current Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • PhD Student, Jade Douglas: Reclaiming the Local and Person(al) in Memory: The Articulation of Traumatic Legacies in Minority German-Language Literature, University of Leeds, funded by White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities
  • PhD student, Richard Boffey: 'Fixpünkte des "antitotalitären Konsenses"? The Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen memorials, Germany's "double past", and cultural memory in the Berlin Republic’, University of Leeds, funded by AHRC
  • MA by Research student, Richard Boffey: Germany's 'Double Past' and Cultural Memory in the Berlin Republic
  • Phd Student, Anja Henebury: ‘Engagement and authenticity: Poetics and politics in the late works of Martin Walser and Gunter Grass’, University of Leeds