Join us for a FREE Noughts & Crosses (Malorie Blackman) panel event that asks questions like: ‘What wider questions does this production raise about drama and power? How is drama power for you?’. Join Esther Richardson (Director of Noughts & Crosses) and cast members, Drama academics and students from Queen Mary University of London to discuss and explore the powers of Drama. Book here
The panel includes: Heather Agyepong (Sephie, Noughts and Crosses), Esther Richardson (director, Noughts and Crosses), Gail Babb (QMUL and Goldsmiths lecturer and theatre producer, Talawa), Avaes Mohammed (poet, playwright, performer), Dee Ndlovu (QMUL Drama student and theatre maker).
Join us for inspiring mini talks in the park at this free festival which has top street food, stalls and free activities.
Our line up talking about studying and working in the creative industries includes comedian Ahir Shah (BBC3, Live at the Apollo), writer Ayisha Malik, Masterchef winner Natalie Coleman and more pictured above. RSVP here
Is your English teacher always telling you to refer to
literary and historical context but you’re unsure what this looks like in
practice? Have you heard that there are theoretical and philosophical
approaches to texts but aren’t confident using them yourself? Do you wish you
knew more about the Gothic genre and how this could link to more contemporary
genres, such as Science Fiction?
Three outstanding academics, from Queen Mary’s School of
English and Drama, are here to help.
An expert in the body and technology in contemporary
culture, Zara Dinnen, a specialist in the Gothic across the nineteenth century,
Sam Halliday, and an expert in Romanticism with interests in theory and
philosophy, Shahidha Bari, will be unpicking issues around context, theory,
genre and ‘Frankenstein’. They will share their expertise on context, theory
and genre, to unpack how the text could have been received then and how readers
receive it now. They will discuss different frameworks that can be used to
interpret this seminal text, and demonstrate to you what it looks like to apply
those frameworks in practice.
You will leave this event with a better sense of how to
use literary and historical context to develop your analysis of this text; and
you will leave knowing what it would be like to study English at Queen Mary,
where diversity of ideas is at the heart of what we do.
It promises to be the type of lively and engaging
discussion our School of English and Drama is known for!
Queen
Mary University of London presents Show
and Tell, a podcast recording of over 10 inspiring mini talks from
current students and special guests on studying and working in the creative
industries.
Discover
the insider secrets to working in the arts, humanities and social sciences and
hear young people with something to say from one of London’s most inclusive
universities.
Show
and Tell has been running for 2 years at Queen Mary with over 35 speakers from
TV producers, award-winning writers, researchers and journalists inspiring over
300 people to enter these industries.
LINE
UP
Alain English: Scottish actor, writer,
autism advocate and performance poet.
Ayisha Malik: Ayisha Malik is author of
this year’s CityReads London book, ‘Sofia
Khan Is Not Obliged’ (often called ‘The Muslim Bridget Jones’), ‘The
Other Half of Happiness’ and upcoming novel, ‘This Green and Pleasant Land’.
She is also the ghost writer for Great British Bake Off winner, Nadiya
Hussain’s adult fiction.
Ahir Shah: Ahir Shah (BBC Three, Live at the
Apollo) is a stand-up comedian and writer based in London. He has been twice
nominated for Best Show at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, in 2017 and 2018.
Gabriel Krauze: QMUL English
graduate and ‘estate-noir’ author Gabriel Krauze (Vice) has just signed with
publisher 4th Estate publish his first novel ‘Who They Was’. Gabriel
Krauze grew up in London in a Polish family and was drawn to a life of crime
and gangs from an early age. Now in his thirties he has left that world behind
and is recapturing his life through writing.
Mile End Community Project: MCP will
show their Chicken Film, which explores the fried chicken shop phenomenon in
Tower Hamlets and provided insight into what fried Chicken means to different
communities.
Nadia Valman: Dr Nadia Valman is a literary
historian at Queen Mary University of London who has led various public
projects including on the history of Jewish people in the East End, The Royal
London Hospital and Brick Lane.
Natalie Coleman: Natalie
Coleman was winner of MasterChef in 2013. Since winning MasterChef Natalie
Coleman has worked with some of the UK’s best restaurants including Le Gavroche
(Michel Roux Jr) and is currently the head chef at immersive dining concept in
Waterloo, Hello Darling.
Plus: Five current
students will give their creative manifestos for the future: Blanka Plocha,
Aamir Ayyub, Simone Hazanavicius-Lovisone, David Mitchell and Saramarie Harvey.
About
All Points East: In the Neighbourhood
Bank Holiday Monday 27 to Thursday 30 May 2019 | Opening Hours: 10am –
9.30pm daily
Four days of Free Entry and Free Activities in Victoria Park
Four days of FREE entry and a host of FREE
activities across BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY and HALF TERM WEEK: Outdoor Cinema, Live
Music, Creative Workshops, Street Food, Pop Up Bars, Panels & Talks, Sports
& Wellbeing, Family Activities AND LOADS MORE FOR ALL THE FAMILY.
Queen Mary has just subscribed to online support service Big White Wall. It’s available for students and staff 24/7 and there are trained professionals on the platform who can help.
If you have a mental health condition, it is important that you register with a doctor so you can access the necessary support and medicine you may need. In order to ensure that you access all the support you need during your studies, please also make an appointment (preferably before the start of your studies) with the Mental Health Coordinator to discuss what can be put in place for you. Email dds@qmul.ac.uk or call 020 7882 2756.
If you’re in crisis or just need to know where to go next please come and talk to trained Mental Health First Aiders. In the School of English and Drama there are lots of us including Rupert Dannreuther and Suzi Lewis in the School office.
One in five state-educated UK
children are exposed to a language other than English at home. This figure
rises to 50% of state-educated children in areas such as London or Leicester.
And yet there is no space in the National Curriculum for children to explore
their multilingualism.
This free workshop, led by
Karina Lickorish Quinn and Rahul Bery, will explore ways to bring
multilingualism into the secondary MFL and English classroom as a resource that
can enrich all students’ interaction with the learning of reading and writing.
The session will furnish educators with practical, versatile activities and
resources to use to encourage multilingual students to make creative use of
their language skills and to get young people thinking about the importance of
language.
Karina Lickorish Quinn is
a Peruvian-English writer, an English teacher at Townley Grammar School, and a
Teaching Associate in Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London. She
was previously a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of
Reading. Her work has been published by The White Review, The Offing, and Asymptote,and she is
currently working on her debut novel, represented by Emma Paterson at Aitken
Alexander. Karina has a particular interest in multilingual literature and in
diversifying the school curriculum, especially in the English
classroom.
Rahul Bery is a translator from Spanish and
Portuguese into English, as well as a qualified secondary teacher with
experience teaching Modern Foreign Languages and English as an Additional
Language in primary and secondary schools in London, Bristol and South Wales,
where he is currently based. His translations of authors such as Álvaro
Enrigue, Guadalupe Nettel and Daniel Galera have appeared in publications
including Granta and The White Review. He is currently the British
Library’s translator in residence.
The Crown Jewels Festival is two days of exciting new performance
by final year Drama students at QMUL. Over the last five months, the
artists have been leading their own independent and group practice based
research projects. Their hard work in the studio has investigated a wide range
of topics from explorations of body and identity politics, to pushing the
form of durational performance, to using soap in performance and much, much more.
Come and join us at Chats Palace on 16th and 17th May to see some new
performance!
Follow us on social media! We will release a link to book tickets
for the festival soon. Admission is free, but book to reserve a space!
Pictured above: Our MA Live Art cohort and staff took over the Victoria and Albert Museum on for V&A Friday Late on Friday 26 April. Photo credit: Hydar Dewachi.
We’re launching a programme of 10 unmissable workshops to help you develop your skills to work in the creative and cultural industries. The creative skills project formerly known as DIY HIGH SCHOOL is back for 2019 as DIY LIFE SKILLS.
DIY LIFE SKILLS gives our Queen Mary University of London students and our community vital extra practical skills for working in the creative and cultural industries. These include making videos, photography, tax, CVs, public speaking, social media for work and WordPress/blogging. The workshops are free for our students and our local community.See the programme
May Listings
Identify: A research network for neurodivergent students – second meeting Fri 3 May | Room 2.18, ArtsTwo, QMUL, Mile End
Identify is a postgraduate study group that will meet regularly to build a research cohort within SED. Participants identify as having Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD), including dyslexia, dyspraxia and other neurodivergent ways of being that impact our study patterns, academic activities, and research outputs.
Their second meeting will be held on Friday 3rd May from 4-6pm in room 2.18, Arts Two. All are welcome. If anyone requires directions or wants to get in touch for more information, they’re welcome to email John Dunn on j.l.o.dunn@qmul.ac.uk.
Queen Mary Centre for Religion and Literature in English Seminar Wed 8 May, 1pm | Room 2.17, ArtsTwo, QMUL – Mile End
Mimi Ensley (University of Notre Dame, London Global Gateway) will speak on ‘Meeting Lydgate’s Ghost’.
Drama Futures Wed 8 May, 4.30pm | Theatre Peckham
If you are considering studying drama make sure to book a spot on this. Email c.palmer@qmul.ac.uk
Dr Duckie Sat 11 May, 6.30pm | Royal Vauxhall Tavern
‘Introducing Dr Duckie – aka our very own Ben Walters (Drama department) – in a public explanation ünt examination of his just completed PhD with Queen Mary University of London on Duckie in the Community
It’s about the neo-liberal wobble, the technology of queer fun, and doing family differently.
Aimed at community theatre workers and grass roots performance activists – and random interested punters – it unpacks methods of performance, cabaret and event culture interventions for so-called ‘marginalised’ communities”.
This free talk will explore the history of tea and the performance of its consumption at the Georgian tea-table. Markman Ellis (English department) will examine tea as a commodity, an event and an idea by looking at poems, essays, satires and paintings from the early 1700s. These highlight the event of tea-drinking, its context in the global trade of the East India Company and its construction among high-status women.
All are welcome to attend this insightful lecture on the connections between
Victorian and Modernist authors and writers and queer/feminist reformulations
of gender.
Queen Mary University of London presents Show and Tell a podcast recording of
10 inspiring mini talks from current students and special guests on studying
and working in the creative industries. Discover the insider secrets to working
in the arts, humanities and social sciences and hear young people with
something to say from one of London’s most inclusive universities.
Show and Tell has been running for 2 years at Queen Mary with over 35 speakers
from TV producers, award-winning writers, researchers and journalists inspiring
over 300 people to enter these industries.
At this event, Amy De’Ath and Nisha Ramayya will discuss their current research, sharing a combination of critical writing and poetry. They will consider the overlaps in their work via the concept of reproduction in feminist poetics. Book tickets
The Live Art Development Agency and the Drama Department at Queen Mary University of London present a day of discussions around kickstarting and maintaining a Live Art practice and an opportunity to find out more about the exciting new MA Live Art programme.
In a special addition to its regular programme, the London-Paris Romanticism Seminar has partnered with the Fordham Romanticism Group (New York) and the Royal Institution of Great Britain to hold a half-day symposium on the theme Romanticism at the Royal Institution.
Shahidha Bari (English department) hosted the launch of Queen Mary University of London’s Strategy 2030 at Victoria and Albert Museum on 3 May 2019. See the strategy
Jen Harvie (Drama department) appeared on two BBC broadcast discussions at BBC Free Thinking Festival which you can listen to on iPlayer:
‘The
Emotions of Now’, Sage Gateshead, 29 March 2019, BBC Radio 3, 8 April
2019, 22:00 Listen here
‘The
Actors’ Guide to the Emotions’, St Mary’s Church, Gateshead, 31 March
2019. BBC Radio 3, 7 April 2019, 18:45 Listen here
Gabriel Krauze (English graduate) has got a book deal with
Fourth Estate for a “breath-taking” debut work of autofiction about London
gang-life. Read more
Gem Stokes (English student) is our very first student of the month.
Read our interview with her here.
This is the first in the series where you can meet our students. First up is Gemma who describes herself as…
A 6 foot queer infatuated with gigs, films and literature.
Tell us about your time at QMUL. What have been your highlights?
My first year at Queen Mary has been a whirlwind. I wish my highlights were something cool like a crazy night out or a hilarious experience, but my fondest memories I’ve made are the times spent drinking tea, deep chats in the middle of the night or nerdy conversations about literature with the friends I’ve made here.
How has your course at Queen Mary helped you to progress into the world outside? What’s next?
Focusing on the study of English has made me fall back in love with literature and I’ve felt myself progress more into the literary sphere. In the last year I’ve invested more time in my journalism, writing articles (and finally being brave enough to actually share them). This will likely aid me in developing my future, as I aim to become a foreign news correspondent or music journalist.
Aside from course content what have been your favourite elements of the experience of studying here as a whole?
Coming from a small town to a big city, I’m enjoying the huge LGBTQ+ community here and the inclusive environment that Queen Mary provides.
Tell us about your life outside Queen Mary including any projects, ambitions or jobs you’ve had.
In London, I work as a nanny and back in Kent, as a customer adviser in the food service industry. Although I do not aspire to continue these positions forever, I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. I’ve possessed an interest in journalism for as long as I remember, and currently write monthly articles for a local newsletter, but aspire to progress further in this field and search for new opportunities in this field.
What could be improved to enhance future students’ experience at Queen Mary?
I feel Queen Mary as a university is very active in aiding students’ issues, but I’ve been wanting to campaign about trigger warnings for a while: lectures often bring up triggering/upsetting subject material which I myself am often unprepared for. I wondered if it would be beneficial to other students, as well as myself, to release a general list of common triggers mentioned in each specific lecture to allow students to prepare more adequately whilst dealing with trauma.
Queen Mary students going through a tough time can now access free online support with Big White Wall. Whether you’re struggling to sleep, feeling low, stressed or unable to cope, Big White Wall can help you get support, take control and feel better.
You will have access to a 24/7 online community and professional support
from trained counsellors. Big White Wall provides a safe space online to
get things off your chest, explore your feelings, get creative and learn how to
self-manage your mental health and wellbeing.
Big White Wall is totally anonymous, so no one will know you’ve chosen to use it
unless you tell them!
93% of members feel better as a result of
using the service, and nearly 90% use Big White Wall as an out-of-hours
support.
To join Big White Wall, simply go to www.bigwhitewall.com
and sign up under Queen Mary University of London with your university e-mail
address.
Our MA Live Art student Şenay Camgöz will screen her 6 minute film, ‘Introducing HALA’ at the V&A tomorrow, Thursday 25 April 2019 at 8.30pm following a talk about art school with QMUL’s Dr Dominic Johnson and Dr Martin O’Brien.
The event is free and is part of the museum’s V&A Friday Late series.
The next Victoria and Albert Museum free Friday Late event is around the idea of the art school and raises the question: ‘Do they still have the space to break rules and challenge the status quo? ‘
Our staff will join the Live Art Development Agency to host an event talking about what it is to teach radical art practice.
Taking our MA Live Art Martin O’Brien, Dominic Johnson and guests will discuss the way in which the programme runs and provides an alternative arts education.
Plus our very own Shahidha Bari will be part of a panel discussing decolonising art schools and education led by AZEEMA.
In this conversation, Martin O’Brien, Dominic Johnsonand the Live Art Development Agencydiscuss Live Art within academic institutions and what it means to teach a radical arts practice. They focus on the way in which the MA Live Art at Queen Mary UniversityofLondon and the Live Art Development Agencyteach Live Art, opening up wider questions around educationand experimental arts practices.
AZEEMA: Anti-Art School: on decolonisation and identity
The Raphael Cartoons
20.15
Discuss decolonising art schools and education in this panel talk led by AZEEMA. Joining them to explore themes of identity, inclusivity and personal experiences are Shahidha Bari, Danah Abdulla, Jannat Hussein and Shades of Noir. @azeemamagazeemamag.com
Action Lab
Learning Centre, Seminar Room 5
From 20.30
Please note, these performances contain nudity and sensitive material
Join the QMUL/LADA MA Live Art students as they perform actions in response to the spaces and collections at the V&A. Experience an exhibition of separate durational performances, sharing a space with one anothe
Develop your skills to work in the creative and cultural industries with this series of free workshops at Queen Mary University of London. The creative skills project formerly known as DIY HIGH SCHOOL is back for 2019 as DIY LIFE SKILLS.
DIY LIFE SKILLS gives our Queen Mary University of London students and our community vital extra practical skills for working in the creative and cultural industries. These include making videos, photography, tax, CVs, public speaking, social media for work and WordPress/blogging.
DIY LIFE SKILLS is supported by Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. The workshops are free for our students and our local community.
A picture is said to be worth a 1000 words and this is more true than ever in the age of social media. Join us for an afternoon of photography with DSLR cameras for intermediates. The workshop will include a showcase of Holly Revell’s work and top tips for better performance photography.
POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE – PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS
Work with professional videographers to plan, film and edit a short film in one day with pros from Signature Pictures. The intermediate workshop will look at more advanced editing techniques and film production.
WordPress is a professional platform for creating websites and blogs, forget clunky paid for services like Wix and get familiar with customising your site.
Social media = jobs & opportunities. Ignore it at your cost. This session will cover moving away from using social for well, ‘social’ purposes and look to how these channels can be used to network and make important career connections.
Perfect your key marketing document: work in small groups to improve your CV with the help of Caroline Lisser and her years of challenging students to tailor their CVs for success.
The most boring subjects imaginable live and in 3D. But seriously, tax can be complicated so come and get this guide for beginners to the world of work.
Please note bookings are provisional and we will aim to ask you to reconfirm your attendance. Please only book for events you can attend. DIY LIFE SKILLS Events could be subject to change or cancellation.
If you have any questions or need help booking please email sed-web@qmul.ac.uk
We are currently accepting late applications for our suite of undergraduate English, Drama and joint courses. Here’s some key points about the application process for 2019:
You can still apply to study English and Drama with us in 2019
The main UCAS deadline has passed but you can still apply to our courses through UCAS.
Our undergraduate Outstanding Potential Award scheme is now closed. Congratulations if you were given the Outstanding Potential Award or other offer with us.
Don’t worry if not or you are worried about your grades we would love to hear from you on results day if you have any questions about your offer.
Our Offer holder Days have now all taken place for 2019 entry.
Missed an Offer Holder Day?
Campus Tours: To get a general tour of the Mile End campus. Book online. Let us know when you’re coming via email: sed-web@qmul.ac.uk and we’ll try to arrange someone from English and Drama to talk to you.
Questions: If you have any questions about your offer or applying please email: sed-admissions@qmul.ac.uk
Results Day and Clearing
A-level results day is Thursday 15 August 2019 and this is when the main clearing and confirmation process begins.
On Wednesday the 27th of March I was part of a
team of nine London-based drama practitioners and students armed with silent
disco headphones, laminated sheets of paper, paper plates, colouring pens and
some ipods who found themselves in an office conference room in Bristol with an
audience of around thirty office workers.
The team represented The Verbatim Formula (TVF), a collaborative participatory arts project founded by Maggie Inchley (Queen Mary University’s Senior Lecturer in Performance) and Sylvan Baker (lecturer at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama). Aiming to ‘make listening visible’, TVF specialises in sharing the stories of young people in (social) care and care leavers, including those in Higher Education.
TVF utilise the method of Headphone Verbatim in which to carry the life experiences and testimonies of young care-experienced people to a variety of audiences, most notably to the authorities that have the power to shape the care and education systems.
On this occasion, TVF were visiting the Office for Students (OfS), a newly formed body responsible for the regulation of Education across England. To put it simply, they are the Ofsted of Universities.
Headphone Verbatim requires a performer to listen to an audio recording of a testimony through headphones while saying what they hear out loud as accurately as possible. It’s a technique that requires focused attention but for those listening to the performer, the experience is very impactful; the performer becomes a vessel through which the idiosyncrasies of the original speaker add an authenticity to the speech.
The technique allows the voice of the care experienced to retain its potency and personality without their physical presence making them a fetish-ised object for the audience. When utilised in business and corporate contexts, this technique can serve to transform young people from numbers into people, hopefully reigniting the urgency and intensity of TVF’s ultimate aim; to improve the lives of the care-experienced.
The event took place during the office workers’ lunch break.
In the space of one hour the TVF team introduced themselves by explaining what
belonging means to them (an important theme from university related
testimonies), encouraged the workers to reflect on their own experiences of
belonging and not belonging (which they wrote down on paper plates) , explained
the aims of TVF, performed over ten testimonies using Headphone Verbatim, and
then allowed the office participants to join the facilitators in a Verbatim
Chorus in which they too got to attempt Headphone Verbatim.
As a third year student it’s great to have been part of this process. Getting to be part of the testimony collection process and to perform with TVF’s amazing team has taught me so much. I’ve wanted to experience the powerful potential of participatory theatre since I started my degree but when I first informed Maggie that I was interested in getting involved with her project I didn’t imagine getting stuck in to something so deeply important so quickly. If this project has taught me anything it’s that: a) Great experiences are only a chat with your lecturer away and b) well intentioned projects like TVF really do have the power to affect change. The expressions of concentration and empathy on the faces of our audience proved just how powerful listening can be.
An interactive performance for 5 people at a time.
Audience-participants are invited to join Daniel and Frauke in a series of
awkwardly intimate and strange actions, rituals, dances, games, and other
dysfunctional activities brought back in time from a post-neurodivergent
revolution family fun-time future.
Daniel is dyspraxic and is too slow. Frauke has ADHD
and is too quick. They are married and have kids. This interactive performance
is rooted in their experiences of their bodies as neurodivergent lovers,
parents, and weirdo performance makers. It is a space in which clunky
experiences of bodies and actions can be discussed, explored and ultimately
celebrated through ritualisation and play.
Frauke Requardt and Daniel Oliver The Rong Table –6 Apr
Discussion
Frauke and Daniel invite audiences to explore these themes
through conversation events that use Daniel’s ‘Rong Table‘ set-up. ‘Rong Tables’ are events
for exploring and discussing the key themes of the performance. They are a
development of Lois Weaver’s ‘Long Tables’, in which
the audiences are invited to take part in a discussion by leaving their
audience seats, and sitting at a large table. Daniel has been regularly using
this format to discuss neurodiversity and art over the past three years. .
Recently he has been experimenting with adding different elements and bending
the rules in order to create a space that is more accessible, diverse and
engaging for a broad range of neurodivergent audiences. This means the table is
no longer the only place to talk, getting rid of the audience/participant
divide, allowing for smaller, more discreet conversations to happen around the
space, and for more ways of expressing thoughts to be offered.
For Dadderrs, the Rong Table is something modelled on a chaotic family dinner time rather than a more formal grown-up dinner party. Alongside den-building, and playing with dressing-up, there would also be the opportunity to make objects out of Lego – a prop used in Dadderrs – to explore and express ideas related to the themes of the performance.
Lois Weaver The Situation Room – 6 Apr
Performance
The Situation Room is a format for public
discussion created by Lois Weaver that combines theatricality and informal
conversation and encourages us to think about the interdependencies of anxiety
and desire. It’s inspired by the War Room in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964
film, Dr. Strangelove, or, How I Learnt To Stop Worrying And
Love The Bomb where a group of people
sit around a circle of tables and hold a discussion that is moderated by a ‘President’ and monitored by ‘General’ who reminds us we are ‘running
out of time.’
In The Situation Room, members of the audience will be invited to form a Council determined by loosely held affinities: a Council of Elders, an Intergenerational Council, a Council of Queers or Intersectional Feminists; a Council of Agnostics or A-politicals. They are invited to the table to share what is worrying them, from the personal to the geopolitical; to discuss, listen, and then reach a consensus on a single topic of conversation- the ‘Situation’, and finally to consider their desires, ambitions and fantasies as playful and creative solutions to the issue at hand.
Martin O’Brien – Who Cries Wins
Discussion
This discussion event questions if there is an increase in artists
identifying closely, and leading with, their own histories of trauma and/or
painful autobiography. To what extent is this true, and if true, what may have
instigated this?
As festivals, live platforms and opportunities begin to focus on the
support of these current questions and seeking out artists’ trauma, we pose the
question now: what is the tense line between raising visibility and
exploitation. Additionally, another consideration: Is there such a thing as
competitive trauma?
This is a public discussion hosted and facilitated by performance artist and scholar Martin O’Brien, with contributions from artists in the Care & Destruction programme.
