About Babylon

Babylon

History

It has been a while now since the restructuring of the university programmes. We would be the first ones to tell you that the BaMa restructuring has substantially interfered with student life. Just imagine sitting quietly with a beer in the fakbar and suddenly having to face the fact that the student union for which you still cherish some deeply rooted chauvinism, has to stop. It wouldn’t make any sense to artificially keep alive a union of which the education programme has ended. In the same fakbar, with a – now lukewarm - beer and a melancholic CD put on, we met our peers. Germania, Romania, Klio and to a lesser extent Historia, all had to reform. After the powerless depression of the first few hours the half-empty lukewarm glass was put aside and we put our heads together. The rest, as they say, is history. The experience, the passion and the love the previous three philological unions had are bundled together into a strong new student union impossible to be ignored: Babylon!

Who can actually call himself a Babylonian? Babylon is the union for Bachelor students in Linguistics and Literature (Taal- en Letterkunde). Also the students in the following Masters can call themselves proud members of Babylon: Master of Linguistics and Literature, Master of Linguistics, Master of Western literature, Master of Cultural Studies and Master of Business Communication.

Philologists, academics, linguists, writers and scientists, but above all Babylonians.

Overview of presidents

The shield

On the left side of the shield we have a tower referencing the Tower of Babel and the Confusion of Tongues. The latter is, according to Genesis, the origin of the diversity of human languages which is, of course, the topic of our disciplines: linguistics and literature. The white tower and the blue background are the colours of our Alma Mater: KU Leuven.

The yellow on the right side of the shield is the colour of the Faculty of Arts. The eight stars refer to the eight languages that were originally taught in our programme: Spanish, Italian, Latin, French, Greek, English, German and Dutch. Since 2016, Hebrew has become the ninth language available in our programme. The fountain pen and feather refer to literature, which is one of our fields of study.

The monogram in the yellow circle in the middle is composed of the letters G, R and K. They symbolise the continuity with our past: the three former faculty unions Germania, Romania and Klio which united into Babylon in 2004.

Practical information

Here is some practical information that is crucial for a new Babylon Year:

The presidium is responsible for the daily operations of Babylon. There are a lot of different committees within the presidium, each contributing their bit to ensure that the language and literature students in Leuven have a great year ahead. Wondering who is taking which tasks upon them this year?

Have a look at our team!

Wondering what we have in store for you this year? As always, there will be another edition of the Interuniversity Literary Prize and Babylon's Theatre Group will make yet another appearance, but there's a huge amount of other stuff to look forward to!

Have a look at our calendar!