Cooperating partner universities and country: Université de Tours (France), Universidad
de Sevilla (Spain), Universität Bamberg (Germany), Università degli Studi di Parma
(İtaly), Universiteit van Amsterdam (Netherlands), Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Istanbul
(Turkey), Universiteit Gent (Belgique), Universitatea din București (Romania).
This BIP focuses on Esperanto, and aims to introduce students to the theoretical issues of
constructed languages and linguistic justice, and to provide inspiration for reflection and
research on the example of the historical experience of the Esperanto community of practice.
Transnational studies, which have brought together a wide range of perspectives from the social
sciences, are based on bi- or plurilateral exchanges between nations in which nationality and
representativeness remain the key factors. However, the question of language has rarely been
at the centre of attention in these studies. What languages are the vehicle for these transnational
interactions and do they have the potential to shape a shared culture? In the field of
transnational studies, Esperanto was never an object of studies before, despite the fact that
living the Esperanto experience implies living a transnational reality independent of any
particular nation. This community of speakers develops its own shared cultural space through
diversity, above and beyond the nations. The long-term experience of Esperanto shows that
bottom up relationships have been successfully established, based on free choice of language
and linguistic and cultural equality between participants.
The BIP opens up new horizons for students, both in terms of rethinking their research on the
basis of transnational communication on an equal footing and in terms of exploring new areas
of study and research in the historical and anthropological corpus of Esperanto.
The BIP consists of two parts:

• a distance learning phase (January to May)
• a face-to-face phase (June 1 to 5, 2026 in Tours)
  During the distance learning phase, students will follow :
• an introduction to Esperanto (1h30 per week / 12 weeks)
• 6 lectures on the major themes explored during the BIP
  During the face-to-face phase in Tours (France), students will take part in :
• lectures on the various subject areas
• group work and presentations in the form of seminars
  2
  The first part provides an introduction to the language through an online course, so that
  participants can develop an understanding of original documents that attest to the unique
  functionalities involved in this communication process.
  The second part aims to bring together students from different disciplines to observe this
  phenomenon in practice on concrete examples and to conceive, from their disciplinary
  perspective, practical applications that will enable transnational exchanges to implement
  inclusive communication mechanisms. This phase will be organised at the University of Tours.
  ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF TOURS
  The workshop will take place during the first week of June at the Faculté Lettres et Langues
  (Literature, Linguistics and Languages Faculty) of the University of Tours.
  Location: Faculté Lettres et Langues, 3 rue des Tanneurs, 37000 Tours, France.
  The University of Tours was officially founded as a university in 1970, but the University of
  Tours as we know it today is the heir to an active center of learning that has existed since Gallo-
  Roman times. Nowadays, with 14 faculties and institutes, it is a multi-disciplinary university
  with 31700 students, 1490 teachers and 34 research laboratories.
  The city of Tours is also easy to get to. Tours is 240 kilometers from Paris (where two major
  international airports are located). The city of Tours is accessible from Paris by high-speed
  train (journey time is generally between 1h and 1h30). The Faculty, where the intensive BIP
  week will take place, can be reached from the train station in around 10 minutes by tram.
  The Faculté Lettres et Langues is also part of the pedestrian historic center of Tours, and is
  located right on the banks of the Loire River. The Loire Valley itself is a Unesco World
  Heritage Site. A range of cultural activities will be offered to students, outside the classroom.
  BIP TARGET AUDIENCE
  The BIP has an interdisciplinary and international dimension, and therefore aims to highlight
  the diversity of disciplines and theoretical approaches, as well as the diversity of countries,
  both for teachers and students. For this reason, a limited number of students will be accepted
  from each partner university, in order to diversify the participants’ countries of origin.
  The BIP is also open to students from other universities (as long as they are part of the Erasmus
  scheme), even if their university is not one of the BIP partner universities. It includes other
  higher education institutions holding an ECHE. This openness is precisely designed to
  encourage diversity of geographical origin and/or diversity of the disciplines involved.
  3
  The programme is open to all students in any field of the humanities and social sciences, from
  undergraduate to master and doctoral levels, as well as to staff members wishing to open up
  their research themes to certain aspects of transnational innovation by means of Esperanto.
  The course will be taught in English. However instructors may use well-known multilingual
  strategies such as lingua receptiva, consecutive interpretation by the group, code-switching
  whenever necessary. Since the basic language of instruction will be English, students must
  demonstrate a certain level of proficiency, at least B1. During the workshops, Esperanto will
  be used progressively, depending on the level of linguistic progress of the participants.
  The BIP does not presuppose any particular knowledge of Esperanto or Esperanto-related
  subjects. Students with no knowledge of Esperanto are therefore invited to take part in the BIP,
  during which they will receive initial training in the language (distance learning). This training
  will give them easier access to the documents relating to the various aspects associated with
  Esperanto, which will be developed in the online courses and during the intensive week.
  Should students already have a sufficient command of Esperanto, we invite them to mention
  this in their letter of application (in this case, a remote interview will be offered in January to
  determine whether they can be exempted from the introductory language phase).
  ECTS VALIDATION
  Students taking part in the BIP will validate their involvement in the program by completing
  various assignments. Students who successfully complete the BIP program are awarded
  6 ECTS credits. These can be directly allocated to courses already identified (depending on the
  partner universities), or will be subject to specific validation (within each university).
  FINANCIAL SUPPORT
  This BIP is part of the Erasmus program. Financial support (for travel and accommodation) is
  provided by the student’s home university, as part of a BIP Erasmus student mobility program.
  A certain number of students at partner universities have already agreed to mobility, so all you
  have to do is apply to join the scheme. For students from outside partner universities, a specific
  procedure must be carried out with the Erasmus office of their home university.
  CALENDAR
• applications and cover letters are accepted until November 15, 2026
• students selected to take part in the BIP will be notified in December
• the distance learning phase runs from January to May 2026
• the intensive week in Tours will take place from June 1 to 5, 2026
  4
  APPLICATION PROCEDURE
  To determine which students have been accepted to take part in the BIP, students are asked to
  submit a cover letter (between 10 and 20 lines) explaining their interest in the BIP theme. The
  letter must be sent to the e-mail address of the person in charge at the university of affiliation:
• Universiteit van Amsterdam: Federico Gobbo < f.gobbo@uva.nl >
• Universität Bamberg: Martin Haase < martin.haase@uni-bamberg.de >
• Universitatea din Bucureşti: Ecaterina Lung < ecaterina.lung@istorie.unibuc.ro >
• Universiteit Gent: Torsten Leuschner < Torsten.Leuschner@ugent.be >
• Boğaziçi Üniversitesi İstanbul: Başak Aray < basak.aray@bogazici.edu.tr >
• Università degli Studi di Parma: Davide Astori < davide.astori@unipr.it >
• Universidad de Sevilla: David Galvez Ruiz < davidgalvez@us.es >
• University of Tours: Philippe Planchon < philippe.planchon@univ-tours.fr >
  Students who do not belong to a partner university are advised to contact the BIP coordinator
  at the University of Tours directly: < philippe.planchon@univ-tours.fr >
  COURSE FORMAT
  The distance learning phase consists of two modules: the first phase includes an 18-hours
  language introduction to Esperanto based on active learning strategy, while the second one
  consists of a series of 6 one-hour online courses providing an introduction to Esperanto studies
  from different disciplinary perspectives.
  The online language course will be led by Dennis Keefe, an acknowledged specialist in
  teaching Esperanto in a multilingual context. He has taught at HEC Paris and Nanking
  University. He is the author of an original method called the Valencia method, named after the
  place where it was implemented.
  The 6 online lectures will be presented by professors and invited experts from all member
  universities of the consortium. The programme will cover the following subjects:

1. Introduction to the course
2. Esperanto in the world of linguistics (Philippe Planchon)
3. Esperanto as a constructed historical object (Pascal Dubourg Glatigny)
4. Sociolinguistics of Esperanto (Federico Gobbo)
5. The geography of Esperanto (Denis Eckert)
6. Philosophical background of constructed languages (Başak Aray)
   5
   During the online courses, students will take an active part, and sufficient time will be set aside
   for their questions and requests for clarification. In addition, participants will take part in two
   online seminars, during which they will be divided into groups of 4 or 5, under the supervision
   of a professor who will support the preparation of the group work. Each group will choose a
   specific focus that it will explore during both the remote and on-site phases.
   For their workshop project, the students can generate their own ideas or choose from a
   catalogue of projects proposed by the teachers. For example:

• Decolonizing discourses in the history of Esperanto
• Women and Esperanto, a language or social issue?
• Comparison between Esperanto and other languages
• Ways of translating into / from / through Esperanto
• How can Esperanto help improve language learning?
  The online phase will be followed by a 5-day workshop (7 days including travel) bringing the
  students and part of the instructors together in person. During the workshop, the students and
  professors will discuss seminal theories in the field. Further language practice will take place.
  Parallel to the lectures, the groups of 4 or 5 students, under the supervision of the professors,
  will investigate the question they selected during the virtual phase. They will present their
  research, new insights and critical views during plenary sessions, which will give rise to
  discussions with all the participants.
  At the end of the on-site phase, the students will submit a short paper on their experience,
  highlighting how the knowledge gained has led them to rethink this research question and the
  extent to which the global dimension of the transnational experience of Esperanto provides
  them with new lines of reflection and theoretical requirements.
  Total of hours guided by the professors: – Language course 18 hours
• On-line lectures 7 ½ hours
• On-line workshops 3 hours
• Workshop at Tours 32 hours
  Examination
  Participation in the online language course 10 %
  Participation in all online lectures 10 %
  Participation in the workshop 10 %
  Preparation and presentation of a project in
  groups of 4 to 5 students from different universities 20 %
  Individual paper connecting theoretical issues with a text
  discussed in the course or with their own research interest 30 %
  Language examination 20 %