Welcome back to KAT Blad!

Welcome to a new era of KAT Blad ‒ a new board, a new look, and lots of new ideas! With linguistics being a subject close to all our hearts, we can’t wait to continue to contribute to our community at UvA and provide a platform where students and staff alike can showcase their thoughts and projects with each other. From casual readers to die-hard linguists, KAT Blad aims to enrich students’ lives at UvA through community and creativity. Sadly due to some delays with the pandemic and the new board getting its footing, we will only have one issue out this year towards the end of spring, but rest assured, it will be as good and filled with information as the regular two!

"Wait I’m new, what even is KAT Blad?”

KAT Blad is the linguistics and sign language linguistics magazine at the University of Amsterdam. First published in January 1970, we’ve produced 114 issues covering developments in the field, language communities, research at the university by students and staff, and much more! As a student-run magazine, we aim to empower our peers and to create opportunities for them to share their passion for linguistics.

First a print publication, KAT Blad has been expanding to offer its publication online as well, allowing for audio and visual elements to complement our articles. In addition, we host a blog on our website and keep members updated via social media (Instagram & Facebook: @katblad).

As previously mentioned, we have a new board this year. Third-year BA Linguistics students Linn Berkvens and Zoe Jensen are the co-editors in chief. They play a large role in organising the magazine and manage a lot of the important and behind-the-scenes admin work. In order to better support our website and create a more engaging project, second years Sayuri Deokar and Sanne van den Biggelaar are our media directors. They will help add another dimension to KAT Blad, for instance by posting regular blogs like the one you’re reading now! We will be doing more in-depth introductions of our team members on Instagram, so be sure to keep an eye out for that!

The New Era

In 2022, a revamped and more accessible KAT Blad is coming to you! We’ll be bringing you an immersive language experience with articles, illustrations, pictures, audio files, and videos, so you can enjoy your favourite topics the way you like. Though publishing digitally provides these opportunities for a multimodal experience, we understand the feeling of holding a nice real print, so we plan to continue physical publication as well. Both will continue to be free of charge! Whether it will be possible to publish a print version this year still depends on updates regarding the pandemic, but once we have made our final decision, you will be the first to know!

Communication is important to us, so in order to increase interaction between the KAT Blad team and our readers, our social media will be updated regularly ‒ not just with updates and announcements, but also with fun content pertaining to UvA, linguistics, and student life in general. As such, we are also open to submissions and content ideas from you all, so that the website is filled with information you want!

In addition to KAT Blad’s own fun events, it is our hope to continue to collaborate with UvA’s linguistics study association VOS (check them out on Instagram @voslingusitics or via their website https://www.voslinguistics.nl) and to reach out to other magazines at the university. In the past, we have hosted a few events, namely Qué Taal and a few Language Cafe collaborations with VOS.

What now?

We hope you are as excited as we are about the future of KAT Blad. This magazine could not be possible without the support of lovely readers like you, so we appreciate your continued interest and support! We will be posting more often across our social media and adding new content to our website, so stay tuned for more information about upcoming events and projects. KAT Blad is by students and for students, so if there is anything we can do to make your reading experience better or more tailored to the needs of you and your peers, please do not hesitate to reach out.

The next big step for us is our writers’ call for the upcoming publication. More information will follow in the next few days. Just can’t wait? Feel free to reach out now!

Until then, stay warm and dry in these last few weeks of winter and enjoy the new semester!

Much love,

Linn, Zoe, Sanne, and Sayuri