Kentucky Foreign Language Conference (KFLC) 2026

 
graphic banner for KFLC the languages literatures and cultures conference
 
Founded in 1948, the KFLC is one of the country's longest-running literary, linguistics, pedagogy, and technology conferences.  Our event takes place each April at the University of Kentucky campus, in Lexington, Kentucky. We are delighted to welcome Javier Muñoz-Basols as our keynote speaker. He is an outstanding scholar, and his keynote address, “The Accent of the Algorithm: Language, Identity, and the Humanization of AI,” will address one of the most timely and interdisciplinary topics in the humanities today.
 
 
Venue information, parking and more can be found here.

 

About Javier Muñoz-Basols

Javier Muñoz-Basols outside, smiling.

Javier Muñoz-Basols
Javier Muñoz-Basols is currently Executive Director at the Instituto Cervantes in Los Angeles and an Honorary Faculty Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and at the University of Seville. His research interests focus on the connections between language contact and multilingualism, the integration of technology and AI in language learning, and the impact of institutional contexts on language teaching. He has delivered keynote addresses at international conferences and events in more than 20 countries and has an extensive publication portfolio that includes 19 books and edited volumes and has published in top academic journals such as Applied Linguistics, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), Modern Language Journal or International Journal of Multilingualism. He is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Spanish Language Teaching (Routledge) and Dr. Muñoz-Basols’ societal contributions include serving as President of the Asociación para la Enseñanza del Español como Lengua Extranjera (ASELE) (Association for the Teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language), Trustee of the Instituto Cervantes, and corresponding member of the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (ANLE) (North American Academy of the Spanish Language).


 

Date:
Location:
Gatton Student Center, Grand Ballroom C (212C)

An Evening of Piano and Poetry

You're invited to a Piano Ensemble and Poetry Concert organized by professor Irina Voro of the School of Music in the College of Fine Arts and senior lecturer Anna Voskresensky of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures in the College of Arts and Sciences. The program will be presented 7 p.m. Sunday, April 19, in the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

Twenty students from the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literature and Cultures will recite poetry in Russian and English followed by 20 students from the School of Music performing piano ensemble compositions. This event features a diverse range of authors and composers and combines music and language to engage the audience in the experience of beauty through works of literature and music.

Join us for an unforgettable evening celebrating poetry and music performed by talented university students. Experience the beauty of spoken verse intertwined with live music, where words and melodies come together to create powerful emotion and meaning. Discover how poetry truly comes alive when it is heard alongside music.

Date:
Location:
Recital Hall, Singletary Center for the Arts

The (De)Fortification of Life: Montaigne and the Elements of Ethics and Politics

From tiny kidney stones to the hydraulic fountains of Italian gardens, from the fortification of castles against fire-powered war to the Heracletian flux of being that renders all attempts at security ultimately vain: An elemental interplay of stonelike fixity and watery fluidity composes the crux of Montaigne’s corpus from his objects of fascination to his ailing body to the still-ongoing, unfinished form of his thought. Focusing on accounts of travel, illness, fortification, diplomacy and home invasion in Montaigne’s writings, this talk brings forth the materialist duet of stone and flow and ponders its untimely eco-ethico-political significance. Rather than indulge in the fantasy of sovereign immunity, these texts promote a hospitality that risks everything to foster community or communication with others. The gesture could not be more precarious, or more contemporary. 


Chad Córdova is assistant professor of Romance studies at Cornell University.  His first book. Toward a Premodern Posthumanism: Anarchic Ontologies of Earthly Life, was published in 2025 with Northwestern University Press. His writings on Montaigne have appeared in such venues as Exemplaria, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes and in the forthcoming new edition of the Cambridge Companion to Montaigne. He is now working on two books: one dealing with Descartes and environmental thought, and another, which this talk is from, that re-reads Montaigne in the context of recent discourses in theory and vice versa.
 


 

Date:
Location:
Niles Gallery (Little Fine Arts Library)

2026 Hajja Razia Sharif Sheikh Lecture Photos

Four Years of War: Perspectives on Russia and Ukraine in 2026

Please join the Patterson School, MCLLC and the Department of History for a panel discussion on the Russia-Ukraine war. After four years, what has changed? What progress has been made? What might the future of the war look like, and how has this war affected how future warfare will be conducted? The panel discussion will be in GSC 330AB from 4-5:30 on Wednesday, Feb. 25. A zoom option will also be available; if you are interested in joining remotely, please email nash.meade@uky.edu.
 
A recording will be made available after the event.
Date:
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Location:
Gatton Student Center 330AB

2026 Hajja Razia Sharif Sheikh Lecture

Join us for the annual Sheikh Lecture with Dr. Shenila Khoja-Moolji, associate professor and Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Endowed Chair of Muslim Societies at Georgetown University as she discusses the displacements of Shia Ismaili Muslim communities in the twentieth century and women's critical role in remaking their communities.

shenila khoja-moolji outside, she has shoulder length dark hair and wears glasses and a blue and white floral blouse

The Sheikh Lecture Series is open to the campus community and the public. The Sheikh Lecture series promotes cultural awareness, tolerance, and understanding while countering Islamophobia. It honors the late Hajja Razia Sharif Sheikh (1920–1989), a devout woman committed to higher education and respecting all cultures, creeds, and religions.

For questions, please contact: nslitine@uky.edu

About Shenila Khoja-Moolji

Professor Khoja-Moolji is an award-winning interdisciplinary scholar of gender, religion, and migration whose work has shaped debates in Islamic studies, gender studies, and comparative and international education. Her most recent book is Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Date:
Location:
Gatton Student Center, Room 330 AB (floor 3), 160 Avenue of Champions, Lexington, KY 40508
Event Series:

Fiber Arts

Come join UK's Folklore & Mythology Club for a lovely craft night that will include crocheting and talking with club members.

Date:
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Location:
Chem Phys Rm 211

Scooby Doo Night

Join UK's Folklore & Mythology Club for an evening of watching old episodes of our favorite gang.

Date:
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Location:
Chem Phys Rm 211
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