|
Please note: For events from 1999 to September 2005 you will need to view our Events Archive. |
|
|
|
|
01 June 2011 |
Young Muslim Writers Awards 2011
The Muslim Writers Awards seeks to encourage and support young writers to become the confident communicators of tomorrow. MWA provide the platform which young writers can use to harness their skills, investing in their writing talent and turning it into a long-term interest kept up way into the future. Organised in association with the Institute of English Studies. CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.
|
01 June 2011 |
Institute of English Studies Director's Seminar
Kate Macdonald (University of Ghent): 'The English novels of Elizabeth van Hoof: a literary time capsule from the 1930s' Description: After the recent death of a Belgian civil servant, Elizabeth van Hoof, her family donated her collection of English books to me, in order for them to kept together, just as she had done for over seventy years. The collection consists of 39 English novels, largely in cheap or first editions, many of which are now very rare. This talk discusses the methodology of collating and researching such a capsule collection, determining its provenance within twentieth-century Belgian social history, and its significance for study within popular fiction and book history. Biographical Note: Kate Macdonald is a Visiting Research Fellow at the IES, and a lecturer at the University of Ghent. She has published on the fiction and bibliography of John Buchan, on late Victorian women's reading and periodicals, and on middlebrow literary culture and publishing history.
|
01 June 2011 |
Senate House Library Friends Talk
Senate House Library Friends Book Club: Bestsellers 2 Sally Dugan (Oxford Brookes University) on The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy. The recommended edition is the Modern Library Paperback (New York: Random House, 2002). To most people, the Scarlet Pimpernel is simply a romantic swashbuckling hero: Zorro crossed with Superman, with a dash of eighteenth-century elegance. Thanks to the global success of film and musical versions of the story, his daring rescues are as much a part of the French Revolution as the howling mob and the toothless tricoteuses knitting at the foot of the guillotine. To his creator, Baroness Orczy, the Scarlet Pimpernel was the archetypal English gentleman, spreading English values among benighted savages. Such jingoism may seem unsurprising for a character conceived at the turn of the nineteenth century – but this masks the story’s astonishing and complex origins. For the Baroness herself was Hungarian not English – and the Scarlet Pimpernel was originally conceived as an anarchist Pole plotting against Tsarist Russia, rather than a counter-revolutionary Englishman. Moreover, if you read the original novel – first published in 1905 – you could be forgiven for thinking that its real focus is the heroine, not the hero. Readers are invited to think about its theatrical elements, about the role of the heroine, and the techniques Orczy uses to guide our sympathies. We will also look at film and TV adaptations in an attempt to answer the question: Why do the ludicrously unbelievable adventures of a fictitious English aristocrat continue to capture the imagination of a multinational audience? All welcome. Attendance free. 5.30 for 6.00pm. If you would like to attend please contact Library Office, Senate House Library, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel. 020 7862 8411.
|
02 June 2011 |
Hilda Hulme Memorial Lecture
H. R. Woudhuysen (University College London): ' "Ha-ha-ha. Hi-hi-hi. Ho-ho-ho. Ha-hi-ho": Representing sounds in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature. Henry Woudhuysen joined UCL’s English department in 1982, was head of department from 2002 to 2007, and is currently Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. For nearly twenty years he has been involved in editing volumes relating to English Renaissance drama published by the Malone Society and is a General Editor of the third series of the Arden Shakespeare. He is co-general editor of the Oxford Companion to the Book, a series of 51 essays followed by an A-Z containing over 5,100 entries covering all aspects of the book from ancient to modern times throughout the world. From 2005 he has been principal adviser to the Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700, an AHRC-funded project based at the Institute of English Studies, which will be a freely accessible online record of surviving manuscript sources for over 200 major British authors of the period 1450-1700. He is currently editing the poems of Sir Philip Sidney for Longmans Annotated Poets. Free and open to the public, and followed by a wine reception. If you would like to attend please contact Jon Millington, Institute of English Studies: jon.millington@sas.ac.uk; tel +44 (0)207 664 4859. NB: ROOM CHANGE.
|
03 June 2011 |
Finnegans Wake Research Seminar
|
03 June 2011 |
The Poet Laureate presents 'Poetry Cuts' in support of the Poetry Book Society
After hearing the news that the PBS' funding will be completely withdrawn, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has invited 30 fellow poets to take part in an evening celebrating the best of contemporary British poetry to benefit the Poetry Book Society. "At the time of the ACE cuts to the PBS and to several much-loved festivals and important publishers of poetry, many poets and readers felt a sense of anger and grief. This event is intended to put a spotlight on the passionate support there is in the UK for our poetry institutions and to share, through poetry and audience, our love for our national art" - Carol Ann Duffy 'Poetry Cuts' will feature 30 British poets reading a poem or two each, in a poetry-packed evening that begins at 7pm on Friday 3rd June in the Logan Hall in Bloomsbury, London. As well as a well-stocked bar, the PBS will be running a bookstall selling titles by the authors, and we hope that most of the poets will be available to sign copies of their books. Three of the publishers who have also had their funding withdrawn will also be represented with bookstalls - Enitharmon, Flambard and Arc. Readers include: Elaine Feinstein, David Harsent, George Szirtes, Gillian Clarke, Imtiaz Dharker, Daljit Nagra, Rosie Bailey reading for U A Fanthorpe, Ruth Fainlight, Clare Shaw, Carol Rumens, Patience Agbabi, Annie Freud, Christopher Reid, Mimi Khalvati, Fiona Sampson, Caroline Bird, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Jane Draycott, John Agard, Michael Symmons Roberts, Jacob Sam La-Rose, Luke Wright, Pascale Petit, Ann Gray, Grace Nichols, Martha Kapos, Penelope Shuttle, Jane Duran, Fleur Adcock and Hugo Williams. Please come along to support us and we look forward to welcoming you to the Logan Hall, and thank you for your continued support of the PBS. Organised by the Institute of English Studies and the Poetry Book Society. Venue: The Logan Hall, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/sitehelp/1072.html. Minimum donation of £10 at the door (cash or cheques if possible please).
|
04 June 2011 |
EMPHASIS (Early Modern Philosophy and the Scientific Imagination)
cancelled
Hannah Dawson (University of Edinburgh): Title tbc. SEMINAR POSTPONED.
|
06 June 2011 |
Senate House Library Friends Visit
Senate House Library Friends Visit: The National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, Kensington, London SW7 2RL. The NAL is a major public reference library, as well as being the Victoria and Albert Museum's curatorial department for the art, craft and design of the book. The library's strength lies in the range and depth of its holdings of documentary material concerning the fine and decorative arts of many countries and periods. This visit will take us on a ‘behind the scenes’ exploration of the Victorian Library and learn about the history of the collections and about how the library operates today. We will then have the opportunity to see some treasures from the special collections including an illuminated medieval book of hours, an example of one of William Morris' Kelmscott Press printed books and a piece of 20th century book art. Maximum group: 15. Friends members only. If you would like to attend please contact Library Office, Senate House Library, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel. 020 7862 8411.
|
07 June 2011 |
Literary and Critical Theory Seminar
Dr Dan Varndell (Southampton and Winchester): 'Excrementality' in the movies: Can Hollywood be 'incoherent'? For details and reading see: http://www.21stcenturytheory.blogspot.com/
|
08 June 2011 |
Inter-University Seminar in Romantic Studies
cancelled
NB: THIS MEETING HAS BEEN POSTPONED.
|
09 June 2011 |
London Theatre Seminar
Jerome De Groot (University of Manchester): 'Performing Remains and Reenactments' - introducing discussion of Rebecca Schneider's new book, Performing Remains: art and war in times of theatrical reenactment (Routledge).
|
10 June 2011 |
Ezra Pound Cantos Reading Group
un-led session reading Canto 7
|
10 June 2011 |
Sally Ledger Memorial Lecture
Professor Catherine Robson (New York University): 'Reciting Gray's Elegy: Cultural Capital and the Scholarship Boy' Catherine Robson is the author of Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentleman (Princeton University Press, 2001) and the forthcoming Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem (Princeton University Press), and co-editor of the Victorian section of The Norton Anthology of English Literature. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at NYU and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and winner of the Donald Gray Prize for outstanding work in Victorian studies for 2005. The biennial Sally Ledger Memorial Lecture is held to commemorate the work of Professor Ledger and reflects her commitment to the democratic possibilities of education, the rich interdisciplinarity of nineteenth-century literature and culture, and the lively research culture of the University of London. The lecture is supported by donations from Professor Ledger's colleagues and friends and the nomination of speakers is shared between Royal Holloway, University of London, where Ledger was Hildred Carlile Chair of Victorian Studies at her death, and Birkbeck, University of London. This first lecture is organised by the Centre for Victorian Studies, Royal Holloway. NB: THE VENUE IS SENATE HOUSE, MALET STREET, LONDON WC1E (not Royal Holloway). Free, open to the public and followed by a wine reception. If you would like to attend please contact jon.millington@sas.ac.uk | tel. +44 (0)207 664 4859.
|
11 June 2011 |
Uncertainty: Theory in the 21st Century: Royal Holloway Postgraduate Symposium
Keynote Speakers: Professor Martin McQuillan (Kingston), Professor Mark Currie (Queen Mary) 'The most harrowing contemporary fears are born of existential uncertainty' – Zygmunt Bauman We enter the second decade of the 21st Century less certain than ever about who 'we' are, where we are heading, or what kind of a society we want to be. This interdisciplinary symposium aims to interrogate the role of theory – literary, political, philosophical and sociological – in an uncertain time. In doing so, it hopes to render the very concept of uncertainty uncertain: that is, to place it under examination in a way that might help us think our way into a more ethically responsible future. Venue: Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG. Attendance is free but places are limited. To book your place, please email 21stcenturytheory@gmail.com by 3rd June. For more details about the event, please visit our webpage: http://www.21stcenturytheory.blogspot.com/
|
13 - 14 June 2011 |
Joycean Literature: Fiction and Poetry 1910-2010
Plenary Speakers: Professor Derek Attridge (York) and, as John Coffin Memorial Lecturer, Professor Michael Wood (Princeton)
|
13 June 2011 |
John Coffin Memorial Lecture in English
Michael Wood (Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University): ' "What room for worse": Adventures of Disorder in Joyce and After'. The lectureis given in conjunction with the conference, 'Joycean Literature: Fiction and Poetry 1910-2010'.
|
14 June 2011 |
History of Libraries Research Seminar
Christine Penney (Hurd Librarian): 'A Bishop and his books: the Hurd Library at Hartelbury Castle'. Richard Hurd (1720-1808) became Bishop of Worcester in 1781 and moved to Hartlebury Castle, where he built a magnificent room to hold his fine library, which includes books belonging to Alexander Pope and William Warburton. It is the finest surviving Georgian episcopal library and the only one still on its original shelves in the room built for it.
|
15 June 2011 |
The Dean's Seminar
Susan Morrison (Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies): 'Waste and Literature: The Poet as Ragpicker' This talk emerges out of two cultural conversations: the first focused on the ethics of waste and the second focused on the relationship between ethics and poetry. Literary examples function to demonstrate the ways waste in its myriad forms has caused division and alienation. Yet literature presents complexly textured models for ethical societal and individual behaviour and relationships with the world around us. The French poet Charles Baudelaire characterized the poet as "ragpicker." Poetry, itself inherently metaphorical, can be see as gleaning and sacrifice, leading to the creation of community and affinity.
|
15 June 2011 |
Inter-University Seminar in Romantic Studies
Dr Sibylle Erle (Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln) and Dr Philippa Simpson (Tate Britain): 'John Varley's Visionary Heads and William Blake's The Ghost of a Flea (1819-20, Tate Britain)' Sibylle Erle and Philippa Simpson have curated the current display of 'Blake and Physiognomy' at Tate Britain. Sibylle is the author of Blake, Lavater and Physiognomy (Oxford: Legenda, 2010) and Philippa an expert in late eighteenth-century exhibition culture and the reception of the old masters. Philippa co-curated the exhibition 'Turner and the Masters'.
|
16 June 2011 |
London Theatre Seminar
Panel on costume: 'Wearing, Working, Feeling, Acting'
|
17 June 2011 |
Irish Studies Annual Symposium: "The Provisional IRA"
This year's London Irish Studies Symposium will take place on 17 June at King's College London. The theme is 'The Provisional IRA' and the event is being organised jointly with the Centre for the Study of Nationalism and Organised Violence at NUI Galway. Speakers will include Niall Ó Dochartaigh, Lorenzo Bosi, Kevin Bean, Neil Cobbett, Brian Hanley, Peter McLoughlin, Marc Mulholland and Maria Power, There will be a £15 fee (to cover lunch and refreshments), to be paid on the day itself. Please contact Ian McBride (ian.mcbride@kcl.ac.uk) to book a place: we have room for 30 maximum.
|
17 - 18 June 2011 |
The Power of the Word: Poetry, Theology and Life
Keynote Speakers: Professor Gianni Vattimo (University of Turin), Professor Helen Wilcox (University of Bangor), Professor M. Paul Gallagher (Gregorian University, Rome), Professor Paul Fiddes (University of Oxford). Other invited speakers include: Professor John Took (UCL), Professor Jay Parini (Middlebury College, Vermont), Olivier-Thomas Venard (Professor Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem), Dr Antonio Spadaro (Gregorian University, Rome), Dr Stefano Maria Casella (IULM University, Milan), Dr Florian Mussgnug (UCL), Prof. Georg Langenhorst (University of Augsburg). Religion has always been part of Western literary traditions. Many canonical literary texts engage extensively with theology and religious faith and practice, and theological and spiritual writers make liberal use of literary genres, tropes and strategies. Recent work in philosophy of religion, theology, the study of religions and literary criticism has once again brought to the fore issues which arise when literature, faith, theology and life meet, whether in harmony or in conflict. This international conference aims to: foster a dialogue among scholars in theology, philosophy, spirituality and literature and between these and creative writers; discuss the ‘truth’ of poetry and the ‘truth’ of theology in relation to each other; reassess the idea of poetry as a criticism of life; discuss the relationship between faith, theology and the creative imagination through an examination of theoretical issues and the study of specific texts; examine the importance of poetry for personal and social identity, social cohesion and relations between faiths and cultures. This conference is organized by Heythrop College and the Institute of English Studies, University of London. Heythrop College, University of London, Kensington Square, London W8 5HN Tel: (+44) 020 7795 6600 Fax: (+44) 020 7795 4200. CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION AND MORE INFORMATION.
|
17 June 2011 |
John Coffin Memorial Poetry Reading
'The Power of the Poetic Word': a poetry reading by Michael Symmons Roberts. The reading is given in conjunction with the conference, 'The Power of the Word: Poetry, Theology and Life'. Venue for both conference and reading: Heythrop College, University of London, Kensington Square, London W8 5HN. The reading is free an open to the public, and will be followed by a wine reception. Please contact jon.millington@sas.ac.uk to reserve a seat. For details of the conference please see: http://www.heythrop.ac.uk/about-us/conferences-and-seminars/the-power-of-the-word-poetry-theology-and-life.html
|
17 June 2011 |
The Charles Peake Ulysses Seminar
|
20 - 24 June 2011 |
London Palaeography Summer School
Debby Banham (Birkbeck and Cambridge), Elizabeth Danbury (UCL), Charalambos Dendrinos (Royal Holloway), Carlotta Dionisotti (KCL), Anthony Edwards (De Montfort), Carol Farr, Peter Kidd, Georgios C. Liakopoulos (University of Athens), Patricia Lovett (Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society), Dorothea McEwan (Warburg Institute), Marigold Norbye (UCL), Anna Somfai (Central European University), Jenny Stratford (Institute of Historical Research), Hanna Vorholt (Warburg Institute), Rowan Watson (V&A), Claudia Wedepohl (Warburg Institute), James Willoughby (Oxford) A series of intensive courses in Palaeography and Diplomatic. Courses range from a half to two days duration and are given by experts in their respective fields from a wide range of institutions. Subject areas include Latin palaeography, Medieaval music notation, pigments, German palaeography, Papal diplomatic, illuminated manuscripts and Books of Hours. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND APPLICATION.
|
22 June 2011 |
Senate House Library Friends Talk
cancelled
|
23 June 2011 |
The Romantic Book
A Day Symposium Co-organised by the Open University Romantic Period Research Group and Book History Research Group. Organisers: Dr Nicola Watson (n.j.watson@open.ac.uk) and Dr Shaf Towheed (s.s.towheed@open.ac.uk) From plain text pocket editions of Byron's Don Juan and the novels of Sir Walter Scott, to the richly illustrated volumes of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, the book in the Romantic period became a central point of cultural engagement for writers and readers in the British Isles and beyond. But what did the book represent for writers and readers in the Romantic period? How did the material form of the printed book shape readers' engagement with the literature of the period? How did the established culture of manuscript circulation engage with the rise of mass print culture? How did Romantic period poets and novelists conceive of their writing within the structures of the printed book? What were the opportunities for illustration opened up by innovations in book production? This day symposium brings together speakers from book history, literary studies and visual and material culture to investigate the topic of the ‘Romantic Book' from a range of perspectives. CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION AND MORE INFORMATION.
|
25 June 2011 |
London Nineteenth Century Studies Seminar
'GLOBAL CITIES: A Literary Atlas of Nineteenth-Century Urban Cultures' 10am Simla and Hong Kong (Chair: Alison Wood, King's College London) 11.00am Coffee 11.30am American Cities (Chair: Ian Henderson, King's College London) 12.30pm Lunch 2pm World Cities (Chair: Josephine McDonagh, King's College London) 4pm Close If you would like to attend please contact: jon.millington@sas.ac.uk.
|
27 June - 01 July 2011 |
London Rare Books School: Week 1
Michelle Brown, Alan Cole, Catherine Delano-Smith, Anthony Edwards, John Feather, Irving Finkel, Matthew Nicholls, Marigold Norbye, Nicholas Pickwoad, Kathryn E. Piquette, Jill Shefrin, Sarah Tyacke 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.
|
28 June 2011 |
John Coffin Memorial Lecture in the History of the Book
Adrian Johns (University of Chicago; Chair, Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science); ‘Imperialism, Ecology, and the Origins of the Anti-Copyright Movement in the 19th Century’ Recently published: Death of a pirate: British Broadcasting and the Origins of the Information Age (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010). The book focuses on a shooting in 1960s Britain that brought to a head the challenge of pirate radio stations to the public broadcasting monopoly held by the BBC. From this starting-point it expands to address the politics of broadcasting, culture, and public authority that lay behind the incident. It also outlines the role of pirate media in the emergence of neoliberalism, with connections to today’s digital culture. Free and open to the public, and followed by a wine reception. If you would like to attend please contact Jon Millington, Institute of English Studies: jon.millington@sas.ac.uk; tel +44 (0)207 664 4859.
|