SED at Being Human Festival

Being Human Festival 2017 #BeingHuman17 is festival celebrating the humanities.

This year the theme is ‘Lost and Found’ and our School of English and Drama are involved with exciting events and coverage in the following ways:

#BeingHuman17

Shahidha Bari

BBC Radio 3: Free Thinking at Being Human

Tuesday 21 November, 10pm

Shahidha Bari will co-host a special studio discussion looking at how the themes of loss and rediscovery play out in discipline across the humanities, featuring research from

Matthew Ingleby

Bloomsbury and the grounds for philanthropy

November 25, 6:30 pm8:00 pm
Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square
London, WC1N 1AZ United Kingdom
+ Google Map

In this event, Dr Matthew Ingleby will lead a panel discussion exploring the role urban geography has played historically in revising the bounds of human sympathy. Bloomsbury has been associated with philanthropic innovation since 1739, when Thomas Coram established the Foundling Hospital in fields on what was then the northern edge of London. The Foundling was followed by a plethora of pioneering charitable organisations, such as Great Ormond Street Hospital for children (founded 1852), the first of its kind in the UK. Both of these institutions popularised new ways of thinking about the recipients of their care, and each became fashionable within London society partly through their endorsement by cultural celebrities, including the composer Handel and the novelist Dickens.

This event is supported by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP).

Nadia Valman

Left luggage: reading Sam Selvon in Waterloo Station

Last immigrants arriving off the SS Empire Windrush at Waterloo Station, London.
November 18, 2:30 pm4:00 pm
Waterloo Station, Waterloo national rail station, Waterloo Road
London, London SE1 8SW United Kingdom
+ Google Map

The dramatic backdrop of Waterloo Station, point of arrival in London for Caribbean migrants in the 1950s, provides the setting for this guided walk. Experience the vibrant writing of Trinidadian-born novelist Sam Selvon, who evokes the expectations and apprehensions of new arrivals at Waterloo, as well as feelings of loss and nostalgia. Our stroll around the station and its environs will take in Selvon’s lyrical and witty reflections on London Transport, on railway travel and waiting in stations, on the pleasure of chance meetings and the alienation of encountering a city of strangers. In partnership with the Migration Museum Project.

Assemble at the Left Luggage office, Waterloo rail station. The office is located close to the Waterloo Bridge exit from the concourse.

The great Yiddish parade

November 19, 11:00 am12:30 pm

Free

‘The great Yiddish parade’ is a re-enactment of a protest march by Jewish immigrants in Victorian Whitechapel, demanding better conditions for all East End workers. Experience the urgency, fervour and intensity of political culture in the Victorian East End. Join a band of klezmer musicians and singers performing newly discovered Victorian Yiddish protest songs in their original setting. Participation is warmly encouraged, and song sheets will be provided (no knowledge of Yiddish is required). March from Aldgate to Mile End Waste (about 1 mile), where you will find out more about east London’s forgotten heritage of protest in poetry and song.

 

Book online via the event title links above for all events.

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All Things SED Editor

I am the Web and Marketing Administrator in the School of English and Drama. Amongst my various roles, I run the School's website (www.sed.qmul.ac.uk) and its Twitter feed (@QMULsed). I also manage the running of the School's Open Days and draft promotional materials.