Taylorian 2020

52 T his year’s Panglossia meetings en - compassed a wide range of subjects from the high culture of Romantic poetry to the rather more prosaic issue of plastic pollution and efforts in Germany to tackle it. In the first two terms, we were lucky to have two visiting lecturers from Lancaster University. The first was Mr Ro- main Bardot, who gave a talk on ‘La cuisine à la television et la gastronomie française’. In this informative talk Mr Bardot outlined the evolution in media, social and culinary trends since the 1950s and how food pro - grammes represent a microcosm of French society. The talk involved plenty of scope for audience contributions, although many were speechless after the clip of the mas - sacre of the live eels at the hands of the in - comparable Landaise chef Maité. We are keen to let pupils showcase their talents, and this academic year saw four impressive U6th linguist presentations, which all drew impressive attendances. Vincent Mastin kicked off the year with a talk about the subversion of the classical image of beauty in French poetry. Vincent spoke confidently and used examples by Verlaine, Apollinaire and Rimbaud to dem- onstrate the atypical representations of fe - male beauty that diverged from that of the Romantics. Rishi Pattni followed this with a talk on his chosen Pre-U oral research investigation on the Napoleonic Code and its considerable legacy in both French and international contexts. Tom Barnett then gave an informative talk on the represen- tations of violence and the supernatural in Guillermo Del Toro’s two films based on the Spanish Civil War. Tom clearly felt at home with the topic and delivered a pol - ished performance that made the most of both his subject knowledge and his enthu- siasm. Stewart Hewins followed this with a presentation on the highly topical issue of plastic pollution and the leading measures in Germany to limit the problem. Stewart spoke confidently on a complex theme and impressed those present with his com - mand of the subject. Our second visiting speaker was Dr Sascha Stollhans, also from Lancaster University, who gave a talk on ‘Divided Germany - East and West’ to a large gathering in the ExamHall in November. His talk made use of visual stimuli, audience participation and his own personal experiences as he noted the vast changes that took place be- tween 1945 and the aftermath of Reunifica- tion. Dr Stollhans’ address was particularly appealing to a large number of both 5th and 6th Form Germanists as it is the basis of our thematic study in the Pre-U course. Although our planned events this year were curtailed by the onset of virtual schooling, we were happy to have held a good number of meetings. We look for- ward to the opportunity next year to con - tinue these events and we are grateful to our visiting speakers and U6th participants for their input this year. Mr R P Bailey S&A Societies & Activities Panglossia