The UB pays tribute to Carme Junyent

The event in memory of the professor will include the presentation of the book she co-edited in the last period of her life, a collection of academic contributions published by UB Editions.
The event in memory of the professor will include the presentation of the book she co-edited in the last period of her life, a collection of academic contributions published by UB Editions.
News | Institutional
(03/11/2023)
In homage to Professor M. Carme Junyent, the University of Barcelona has organized an event, to take place on 10 November, at 10.00 a.m. at the Aula Magna of the Historic Building of the UB. It will be chaired by the rector, Joan Guàrdia, and will include the participation of the dean of the Faculty of Philology and Communication, Javier Velaza, and the director of the Department of Catalan Philology and General Linguistics, Mariona Taulé.
The event in memory of the professor will include the presentation of the book she co-edited in the last period of her life, a collection of academic contributions published by UB Editions.
The event in memory of the professor will include the presentation of the book she co-edited in the last period of her life, a collection of academic contributions published by UB Editions.
News | Institutional
03/11/2023
In homage to Professor M. Carme Junyent, the University of Barcelona has organized an event, to take place on 10 November, at 10.00 a.m. at the Aula Magna of the Historic Building of the UB. It will be chaired by the rector, Joan Guàrdia, and will include the participation of the dean of the Faculty of Philology and Communication, Javier Velaza, and the director of the Department of Catalan Philology and General Linguistics, Mariona Taulé.

The event will include the presentation of the book Molts camins per caminar. Una aproximació a les literatures africanes, coedited by M. Carme Junyent and Pere Comellas, lecturer of the Faculty of Philology and Communication, who will present the book. Also, two researchers that took part in this work will also participate in the presentation: Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré, anthropologist at the CSIC’s Milà i Fontanals Research Institution on Humanities, and Asmaa Aouattah, Catalan-Berber writer. The event will finish with the reading of extracts written by M. Carme Junyent by lecturers, colleagues and students.

Molts camins per caminar. Una aproximació a les literatures africanes is a compilation of studies by several authors from the African writers exhibition held in the hall of the Historic Building in 2020, which was curated by Carme Junyent. It offers a general view of African literatures such as the Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone, Hispanophone, Berber, and the Pacific cultural area, with references to languages and literatures of the continent such as the Arabic one. It embraces the period from the 16th century to the present times, and it constitutes an invitation to overcome Eurocentrism and delve into the most enriching literary contributions from the African continent.   

Pere Comellas highlights “a chapter on Berber literature, which, in Catalan, may not have any bibliography”, as well as “a couple of texts on Equatorial Guinea”. “In general — he continues —, although colonial languages are a majority, we have tried to relate different traditions, such as the Indic one, for instance”.

Pere Comellas Casanova (1965) is a lecturer at the area of Galician and Portuguese Studies of the UB and researcher at the Endangered Languages Study Group (GELA) and at the Research Centre on Sociolinguistics and Communication (CUSC). Translator of Portuguese, and of African authors, he received the Giovanni Pontiero Translation Prize on Portuguese translation in 2005 and 2017, and the PEN Catalan translation award in 2019. His most recent book is Portuguès per a catalanoparlants (2022).

Carme Junyent (1955-2023) was a linguistics professor at the UB and founder of GELA and the Linguists for Diversity Group (GLiDi). She published several works on African languages, languages of immigration and linguistic anthropology. Among her last books are El futur del català depèn de tu(with Bel Zaballa, 2020); Els colors de la neu(with Pere Comellas, 2021), and, as an editor, Som dones, som lingüistes, som moltes i diem prou (2021) and El català, llengua efervescent (2021).