Past Events

Please note: For events from 1999 to September 2005 you will need to view our Events Archive.

London Nineteenth Century Studies Seminar
Seminar
Time: 11:00 - 13:00
'Close-reading Victorian Poetry.' Led by Professor Catherine Maxwell. (Queen Mary, UL). PLEASE NOTE ROOM CHANGE.

London Rare Books School: Week 2
Summer School
Time: 00:00
Speakers: Martin Davies, Catherine Delano-Smith, Jane Everson, Paul Goldman, James Mosley, Douglas Muir, Nicholas Pickwoad, Denis Reidy, Iain Stevenson, Peter Stokes, Simone Testa, Sarah Tyacke, Rowan Watson, Laurence Worms
A series of five-day, intensive courses on a variety of book-related subjects to be taught in and around Senate House, which is the centre of the University of London's federal system. The courses will be taught by internationally renowned scholars associated with the Institute's Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, using the unrivalled library and museum resources of London, including the British Library, the British Museum , the Victoria and Albert Museum, the University of London Research Library Services, and many more. All courses will stress the materiality of the book so you can expect to have close encounters with remarkable books and other artefacts from some of the world's greatest collections. Each class will be restricted to a maximum of twelve students in order to ensure that everyone has plenty of opportunity to talk to the teachers and to get very close to the books. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND APPLICATION.

Literary London 2010: Representations of London in Literature
Conference / Symposium
Time: 00:00
Speakers: Professor Michael Slater (Birkbeck, University of London): Hilda Hulme Memorial Lecturer 2010; Professor Susan Alice Fischer (Medgar Evers College, City University of New York); Professor Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck, University of London); Professor Douglas Tallack (University of Leicester)
Each year, the Literary London conference invites scholars working in a broad range of literary and related areas to consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-classical times to its imagined futures. The conference aims to:
• Read literary and dramatic texts in their historical and social context and in relation to theoretical approaches to the study of the metropolis.
• Investigate the changing cultural and historical geography of London.
• Consider the social, political, and spiritual fears, hopes, and perceptions that have inspired representations of London.
• Trace different traditions of representing London and examine how the pluralism of London society is reflected in London literature.
• Celebrate the contribution London and Londoners have made to English literature and drama.

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION AND MORE INFORMATION.

Caine Prize for African Writing 2010 Symposium
Conference / Symposium
Time: 13:30 - 17:00
Speakers:

Chaired by Dr Mpalive Msiska (Birkbeck College). Panel includes Ellah Allfrey (deputy editor, Granta), Ranka Primorac (University of Southampton), Lizzie Attree (Rhodes University).

The Caine Prize, widely known as the ‘African Booker’ and regarded as Africa’s leading literary award, is now in its eleventh year. The chair of judges, The Economist literary editor Fiammetta Rocco, said: "Africa has much to be proud of in these five writers. Not only are their stories all confident, ambitious and skillfully written, each one boasts an added dimension – a voice, character or particular emotional connection – that makes it uniquely powerful." 

The five shortlisted writers for the Caine Prize 2010 will participate in a seminar on African writing organised by the Royal African Society, the Centre for African Studies (SOAS), and the Institute of English Studies.  Venue: Room 116, School of Oriental and African Studies.  Attendance free.  All welcome.  CLICK HERE FOR THE SHORTLISTED WRITERS AND THEIR SUBMISSIONS, AND TO REGISTER THE SYMPOSIUM.

Hilda Hulme Memorial Lecture
University Trust Fund Event
Time: 18:00 - 19:00
Speakers: Professor Michael Slater (Birkbeck College & Institute of English Senior Research Fellow), 'Dickens's Shakespeare'
In this lecture Michael Slater, author of an acclaimed new biography of Dickens, will seek to explore the nature of the great novelist's lifelong passion for Shakespeare's work, his extraordinary in-depth knowledge of it as reflected in his extensive use of it in his own writings, and his vivid sense of being, in certain important respects, Shakespeare's successor.  Professor Slater will also be making reference to the closeness of Dickens's involvement with some of the leading contemporary interpreters of Shakespeare, notably his beloved friend William Charles Macready, 'the eminent tragedian'.

Free and open to the public. If you would like to attend please contact Jon Millington at the Institute of English Studies; tel. +44 (0)207 664 4859.

Hilda Hulme Memorial Lecture
Lecture
Time: 18:00 - 19:00
"Dicken's Shakespeare" by Professor Michael Slater.  For details see: http://www.sas.ac.uk/events/list/ies_university

John Buchan and the Idea of Modernity
Conference / Symposium
Time: 00:00
Speakers: Plenary speakers: Douglas Gifford (University of Glasgow), Douglas Kerr (University of Hong Kong)

This event will commemorate the 70th anniversary of Buchan's death and celebrate the imminent emergence of his works from UK copyright on 1 January 2011.  The conference seeks to build on recent efforts to re-establish Buchan as more than a writer of thrillers, by considering his views and influence on 20th-century politics, culture, and aesthetics. An increased level of attention to the comparatively neglected areas of his output has demonstrated his significance within early twentieth-century popular culture, and laid the groundwork for considerations of his contributions to debates about the nature of modernity.  

Josephine Hart Poetry Hour
Lecture
Time: 19:00 - 20:00
The Waste Land and other Poems by T. S. Eliot. Readers: Eileen Atkins, Josephine Hart, Ian McDiarmid, Mark Strong. Tickets £7.50 or £5.00 concessions from Jon Millington, Institute of English Studies, University of London; +44 (0)207 664 4859. CLICK HERE FOR PROGRAMME AND PRE-PAYMENT FORM.

John Coffin Memorial Poetry Reading by Robin Robertson
University Trust Fund Event
Time: 18:00 - 19:00

Robin Robertson (b. 1955) is a Scottish poet who lives and works in London as poetry editor for Jonathan Cape.  Praised by John Banville for his “dazzling metaphorical gift”, Robertson came to writing poetry later in life, but rapidly became one of the new, most admired voices of the past decade.  In 1994 his name was included, alongside Alice Oswald and Tobias Hill, on the 20 Next Generation Poets list, a competition run the Arts Council and the Poetry Book Society. His 1997 debut, A Painted Field, was an immediate success, winning the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize, the Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and the Forward Poetry Prized for Best Collection.  His subsequent volumes equally attracted much critical attention, winning the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection in 2006 for Swithering.  The collection was also shortlisted for the 2006 T.S. Eliot Prize and was the Poetry Book Society Choice for the spring of that year.  Besides being a poet, he is also a compiler of various anthologies (including the Penguin Modern Poets, prepared with Michael Hoffmann and Michael Longley, in 1998) and has edited the Selected Poems of Peter Redgrove (1999).  In 2008 he published a translation of Euripides’ Medea.  His most recent volume of poetry is The Wrecking Light, which was published this year by Picador.

John Coffin Memorial Poetry Reading
Lecture
Time: 18:00 - 19:00
By Robin Robertson.  For details see: http://www.sas.ac.uk/events/list/ies_university

Reading Conflict: Open University Postgraduate Conference
Conference / Symposium
Time: 09:30 - 17:45
Speakers: Plenary speaker: Stephen Morton (Southampton)

This one-day conference aims to provide an interdisciplinary forum for postgraduate students.  As a critical discipline, postcolonial studies has challenged traditional ways of readign and engaging with the canon, but has also often been in conflict with other literary disciplines. This conference examines the role of postcolonial studies in relation to other critical disciplines, and asks what is the role of the creative voice in conflict zones.  How do we read during conflict?  And what is the role of publishing during conflict?

Victorian Popular Culture: Prose, Stage & Screen
Conference / Symposium
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Speakers: Professor Kate Newey (University of Birmingham) and Dr Nickianne Moody (Liverpool John Moores University)
Adapting the Victorian popular novel develops our contemporary interest in nineteenth century print culture, and our understanding of the different ways in which a single text might be consumed, to acknowledge the role of theatrical, and later film, adaptations of popular fiction in maintaining the popularity of particular novels, and particular genres. Theatrical adaptations were an important means by which the Victorian popular novel found new audiences, and because of the lack of theatrical copyright such adaptations abounded. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.