Language games, lectures and launches will be among the activities on offer for visitors to Swansea University’s stand at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, Wrexham and District, from Saturday, July 30, until Saturday, August 6.
Further to its launch at last year’s National Eisteddfod at Ebbw Vale, Academi Hywel Teifi – the University’s powerhouse for Welsh medium teaching and scholarship – will hold its first interactive Welsh language games.
The launch of these games – one for first-language Welsh speakers and the other for Welsh-language learners – will begin at 12.30pm on Thursday, August 4, at the University’s stand, where Eisteddfodwyr will be able to test their Welsh language skills against Glew the Dragon, in an open competition.
Academi Hywel Teifi has also sponsored the second annual Hywel Teifi Edwards Memorial Lecture, which will be held in the Literature Pavilion, starting at 11am, on Thursday, August 4.
The lecture, which commemorates the unique contribution of the late Professor Hywel Teifi Edwards to the University and to Wales, will be given by Professor M Wynn Thomas, Emyr Humphreys Professor of Welsh Writing in English at the University’s College of Arts and Humanities.
The title of the lecture will be “Colli Hywel Teifi: Ymadawiad Arthur?” and T Gwynn Jones’s “Ymadawiad Arthur”, one of the most famous Eisteddfod poems of the 20th Century, will serve as the focal point for reflections on the development of a bilingual and bicultural Wales.
There will be an opportunity for former University staff and students to catch up with old colleagues and friends at a reunion event at 11.30am, on Wednesday, August 3.
Throughout the week, there will also be an exhibition of archive photographs on the University stand, and the opportunity for alumni to share memories of their time at Swansea.
The School of Law’s recently established Hywel Dda Research Institute will launch its new website at 3.30pm on Saturday, July 30, followed by a discussion on the future of the Welsh Legal System, led by the Institute’s Director Professor Gwynedd Parry.
And Dr Daniel Williams, Director of the University’s Richard Burton Centre for Welsh Studies, will discuss Wales’s role in the Abolition of Slavery, at 11am on Friday, August 5, as he reveals the connections between Wrexham and a key figure in the Abolitionist Movement, Frederick Douglass.
The University is also pleased to note Tudur Hallam, Academi Hywel Teifi Professor of Welsh and winner of the Chair at last year’s National Eisteddfod, will also become an Honorary Druid on Monday, August 1, in a special ceremony on the Eisteddfod field or ‘Maes’.
This year’s National Eisteddfod of Wales, Wrexham and District, runs from Saturday, July 30, until Saturday, August 6, at Lower Berse Farm, off Ruthin Road, Wrexham. For more information visit www.eisteddfod.org.uk/english/.
For full details of activities at Swansea University’s stand throughout the week, visit www.swansea.ac.uk.
