A significant portion of the talks given at the recent Protolang2 conference in Torun, Poland were recorded and are now available to watch online. The Protolang website has links to the videos here.

Might be of interest to those interested in language evolution:
The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) on Neuroscience of 
Communication: Function, Structure, and Plasticity is based at the Max 
Planck Institute (MPI) for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, and 
the University of Leipzig (Germany). The IMPRS also involves the MPI for 
Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, and the Institute of Cognitive 
Neuroscience at University College London, UK. The graduate programme will 
start with the Summer Semester 2012 at the University of Leipzig (1 April, 
2012). 

The IMPRS on Neuroscience of Communication: Function, Structure, and 
Plasticity offers a unique interdisciplinary graduate programme to study 
the functional, structural, and plastic bases of human communication 
through an integrative and interdisciplinary approach. Its overriding goal 
is to train PhD students in multidisciplinary aspects involved in 
communicative action. Besides behavioural work, the programme draws on 
elaborate modern imaging techniques, including a 7-Tesla MRI scanner and a 
306-channel MEG system. 

The school invites applications for PhD scholarships. 
More details here.

Call for Commentators: 15 October 2011
Event Date: 15 -18 December 2011
Event Location: Durham, UK
Event URL: http://www.dur.ac.uk/conference.booking/details/?id=97

Grammar is universal in human populations, pathologies aside. A theory of grammar should thus be a universal theory in this sense. Yet it is widely contended today that it need not be the theory of Universal Grammar (UG), in the sense of its early generative formulations, which have taken UG to be a linguistically specific and species-specific biological endowment consisting of functionally arbitrary formal rules. Theories of universal grammar have also been formulated in a number of different ways in the past, with far from identical underlying axiomatic assumptions. Furthermore, the modern theory of UG itself is currently undergoing a significant reformulation, following the development of Minimalism. This conference aims to provide a forum for assessing and (re-)directing the course that research on universal grammar and the biological foundations of language should take over the coming years and decades, bringing together linguists, psychologists, philosophers, and biologists.

Call for Commentators:

We hope to offer a conference fee waiver plus financial help towards accommodation and/or travel costs to all commentators. The call for commentators will be released in August.