A new partnership agreement between Kent Law School and a leading university in Brazil sets the seal on a long-term collaboration that will benefit academics and students alike.

The agreement has been signed this month with the Law Faculty of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte.

Head of Kent Law School Professor Toni Williams said: ‘This exciting new partnership with one of South America’s pre-eminent law schools builds on existing research activities with Brazilian colleagues (such as the Bingo Project and Inclusionary Practices in Europe and Latin America) to strengthen further the Law School’s international reputation and create a host of new opportunities for our students and staff to study, learn and research in collaboration with academics and students in one of the world’s largest and most diverse societies.’

Five undergraduate law students from Kent have already benefitted from the partnership through participation in an inaugural five-week Winter School in August. The Winter School enabled students to enjoy an academic and cultural exchange visit with both UFMG and the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre. Kent Law School students studied aspects of Brazilian law (constitutional law, private law, criminal law) and international legal studies as well as learning about Brazilian legal culture and taking lessons in Portguese.

In addition to providing opportunities for exchange visits between undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty members from both universities, the partnership is intended to be a long-term strategic collaboration, focused on research.

Professor Williams said: ‘This partnership contributes to our global objectives of strengthening the capacity of both schools to contribute to policy debates in Brazil and Europe, increasing the international exposure of the research conducted in both our schools and deepening understanding between EU and Latin American scholarly circles.’

Writing, producing, recording, mixing and mastering for his band, Real Life Charm, a self contained Pop and Art Collective that bring together video, illustration and music as one experience, Frank Walker, Music & Audio Technician in the School of Music and Fine Art is now curating an innovative arts, music and performance exhibition called The Tame Modern. Taking place on 12th December at Norwich based Dove Studios, the event seeks to distort, critique and compliment the idea of high brow and low brow and comment on its existence in Western culture, a major influence being the works of Herbert Gans and in particular his seminal book Popular Culture and High Culture.
Run by Dyad Creative in partnership with East Street Arts, Dove Street Studios works with writers, video and sound artists, installation artists, performance artists, prop makers and multi-disciplinary artists.

Real Life Charm’s music has been played on BBC Radio 1 (Huw Stephens, Phil Taggart, Annie Mac), BBC Radio 6, XFM, and playlisted on amazing radio, I-D magazine, Clash magazine, Indi shuffle and were hailed as ones to watch in 2016, playing the Radio 1 Academy at OPEN in the build up to the 2015 BBC Big Weekend.

Members of the band are Frank Walker, TP Hyland, Adam Avery, Jason Naylor, George Welsh, Dan Fretwell and Narayan O’Hanlon. Their recent releases can be heard over at spotify

More information and tickets available at www.reallifecharm.com
Venue information http://dovestreetstudios.com/dovestreetstudios/

Staff Tennis Ladder

Staff tennis ladder aims to encourage University staff to play fun yet competitive matches. The players can challenge, accept challenges and report scores online, which makes it flexible. The players can arrange their matches between themselves whenever is best suitable for them.

The ladder is open for all levels!

To sign up please contact the Tennis Coordinator, Teele Annus at t.annus@kent.ac.uk

Dr Antônio da Silva,  Language Coordinator in Portuguese from the Department of Modern Languages, will be presenting and running a workshop at King’s College London (KCL) on Friday 27 November 2015, entitled ‘Synchronous and Asynchronous Connectivity through Blended Learning: Language Teaching in the Post Method Era’.

Learning a foreign language nowadays involves various contexts (e.g. class, online) and resources, particularly because of the use of technological devices. Hence, there has been much discussion about the incorporation of blended learning not only in language teaching but also in education in general. This presentation will explore the advantages of embedding blended learning in the language teaching curriculum and how this facilitates the implementation of synchronous and asynchronous activities. It will show some examples of work developed by learners of Portuguese at various levels and also develop some practical activities with those attending the workshop. Moreover, it will encourage attendees to give suggestions about resources and activities that can be explored as part of the teaching/learning process in blended learning.

Further details of the event will be available at: www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/mlc/index.aspx