We were reading this rather excellent article for World Book Day (2 March) on Huck Magazine’s website about books that have the power to transform our lives.
So we decided to launch a competition on World Book Day 2017 to celebrate the books that transform us.
We’ve got 3 prizes to give away to celebrate the launch of our very own Jerry Brotton’s :
1 x This Orient Isle paperback + 2 x tickets to A Wheeling and Extravagant Stranger: Othello, Elizabeth and Islam event with Jerry Brotton on Thursday 9 March.
2 runners up prizes of 2 x tickets to Jerry Brotton’s event (detailed above).
For generations race has defined interpretations of Othello. Important though this tradition has been in addressing issues like civil rights and apartheid, Jerry Brotton will argue in this talk that current preoccupations with race obscure how Elizabethan England’s religious and imperial relations with the Islamic world shaped the dramatic action of plays like Othello.
In close readings of key passages (Othello’s ‘travel’s history’, the ‘Willow song’ scene and Othello’s last speech), Professor Brotton offers a new interpretation of the play that resonates with our current anxieties about religious extremism, immigration and cosmopolitanism.
“Where better to speak about Othello and its reflection of our current global predicament than at a place called the Globe? Such predicaments are now understood as much through debates about faith and belonging as race…”
Terms and conditions: Competition closes on Tuesday 7 March at 5pm GMT. The competition is open to anyone based in the UK. 3 winners will be selected to win a prize. There are 3 prizes available of:
1 x This Orient Isle paperback + 2 x tickets to A Wheeling and Extravagant Stranger: Othello, Elizabeth and Islam event with Jerry Brotton on Thursday 9 March.
2 runners up prizes of 2 x tickets to Jerry Brotton’s event (detailed above).
We welcome Dr. David Higgins to our English Postgraduate Research Seminar for a session entitled: ‘Planets turn to ashes’: Byron, Climate Change, and Extinction.
“New Diorama Theatre has just launched the search for the best six graduating, or recently graduated, companies from across the UK to take part on our artist development programme 2017.
Companies taking part showcase their work at New Diorama, receiving 100% of their box office and a series of workshops lead by industry professionals on subjects such as Marketing, Access, Finances, Charity status, Fundraising and producing amongst others. They also receive the support of New Diorama Theatre’s staff team over the course of the whole year, and beyond!
Companies have gone on from the course to be part of the Emerging Companies programme, which has featured companies such as LOST WATCH, BREACH THEATRE and SMOKE AND OAKUM, who are now both regular features on the New Diorama Theatre season programme.
We are looking for the next really exciting generation of theatre companies, and your course was highlighted to us as somewhere encouraging the making of unique, exciting theatre. If you know anyone who might be interested in taking part on our Graduate Emerging Companies programme, please send them this link, or ask them to get in touch with me directly and I can advise them on how to apply. https://goo.gl/rZaKEc
“Freshly Scratched is an open platform for emerging artists to try out new ideas, in an early stage of development, in front of an audience.
We are interested in artists that push boundaries, who want to reach out to people who would not otherwise go to art centres, and we are interested in work that looks and feels new. Each idea can last anything up to ten minutes, and we usually programme six or seven pieces alongside each other, creating an evening of rough and ready flashes of inspiration.
Want to get involved? Visit our website for more information on how to apply.”
Calls for Papers & Contributions
Literary London Conference 2017 – Call for Papers | Deadline: Fri 17 Mar
Literary London Society is looking for papers around the theme of: ‘Fantastic London: Dream, Speculation and Nightmare’.
To add a listing to next week’s digest please email us by Monday 6 March 2017 at 5pm
We try and keep these listings as accurate as possible but errors can occur. Please check with the relevant party before going to an event or taking up an opportunity.
The Department of English is co-hosting three events at the London Review Bookshop in collaboration with New York’s 92nd Street Y cultural centre (92Y). Featuring:
The Writers on Writers series invites contemporary authors to discuss the legendary voices that have meant the most to them.
Each conversation is led by Bernard Schwartz, who is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow within the Department of English, and the series is a collaboration between him and QMUL’s Dr Peter Howarth.
Join Warren Boutcher, Professor of Renaissance Studies and Head of School of English and Drama, for his Inaugural Lecture.
Lecture Synopsis As the United Kingdom prepares to leave the legislative and economic union of Europe, it is a good moment to think about our membership of cultural Europe. For part of the shock felt by many people who voted to remain is cultural: it took the Brexit vote to make them realise how connected to Europe they felt in many different spheres, including the arts, and how disconnected others felt.
But what, if any, has been the contribution of literature to this sense of connectedness? The connections of English literature now are global, like the language. But if we go back in time to the medieval and early modern period (1300 – 1750) we find that the cities and nations of what is now the United Kingdom and Ireland were embedded in a Europe-wide literary culture. How should we describe this culture and recount its history while avoiding the pitfalls of Eurocentric and nation-centric perspectives? Is it the case that a common body of texts from Rome, Greece, and the Levant disseminated classical and Christian values across a continent and then across the globe? Or are there other ways of tracing the literary connections across and beyond the western peninsula of the Eurasian landmass?
Theatre, Performance & Employment will bring together scholars, artists, and activists from the theatre and performance industries.
23 February, 18:00-20:00
Keynote Event: Professor Kate Oakley (University of Leeds) & Dr Cristina Delgado-García (University of Birmingham), chaired by Professor Jen Harvie (Queen Mary).
“We are excited to invite you to the launch party for the second issue of The Still Point Journal, The Researcher’s Notebook, featuring creative non-fiction, poetry and visual work, produced by researchers in London.
Join us for an evening of live readings and music at The Gallery Café, Bethnal Green, and pick up a free copy of the print edition. We have a limited number of copies to gift to our launch party attendees, so come along to adopt your own!”
Exploring both analogue and digital experiences of performance and live art, this event looks at how the fields of design and performance are shaping contemporary identities and features our very own Jen Harvie.
Tank has a vacancy for a full-time social media editor to join its editorial team. Since the magazine started in 1998, Tank has remained dedicated to the printed form, producing a quarterly publication of arts, fashion, politics, science and literature. As we advance our digital output we are looking for someone to join us in developing and managing Tank’s social media channels, podcast, newsletter and online content. It’s a chance to work with us to think about, shape and develop the way that people engage with our print magazine. As part of the editorial team, the social media editor will have the chance to work on both our print and online editions, oversee the maintenance and repurposing of the web archive, as well as produce and edit our fortnightly podcast.
The Literature team in the UK work with British Council offices in more than 100 countries around the world to create programmes that help to build those important connections and increase mutual knowledge and understanding. We work with individuals and organisations from all parts of the UK literature sector and their international counterparts. In all our programmes we focus on creating international opportunities for emerging and mid-list writers; building an international network for the next generation of literature producers; and raising awareness of UK literature areas of strength that are less well known abroad. Due to the high profile success of our London Book Fair Market Focus programme, there has been a recent significant increase in invitations to the UK to be Guest of Honour at Book Fairs around the world. The core part of the internship will be focused on helping the literature team to support the response to this demand as well as managing other exciting new projects, notably a new children’s literature focus and our input into the ‘Hull City of Culture 2017’. The ideal candidate will have some digital experience of working on materials for social media, online campaigns and commissioning, writing and uploading content. A proven experience and interest of Literature, particularly contemporary UK writing is a must, as is some experience working on projects with digital communications & social media through professional experiences or other means.
“DIY is an opportunity for artists working in Live Art to conceive and run unusual research, training and professional development projects for themselves and other artists.
We want to hear from you if have an idea for an exciting, innovative and idiosyncratic Live Art professional development project.
Past DIY projects have taken many forms: a silent retreat with noise music in Folkestone, a temporary biker gang in Cambridge, eavesdropping in Bournemouth, a workshop for assholes in Glasgow, skirt-raising in Newcastle, looking for missing black histories in London, an Elvis Presley pilgrimage in Porthcawl, exploring the potential of ‘inabilities’ in Colchester, armed resistance training for women in Norwich, and a lapdancing weekend in Birmingham.”
Calls for Papers & Contributions
‘William Godwin: Forms, Fears, Futures’ | Newcastle University on Sat 24 Jun | Deadline: Wed 15 Mar
To add a listing to next week’s digest or to help us update this edition please email us by Friday 24 February 2017 at 5pm
We try and keep these listings as accurate as possible but errors can occur. Please check with the relevant party before going to an event or taking up an opportunity.
Please join us for a reading by Juliet Jacques from her recent book Trans: A Memoir, followed by a conversation with Dr. Sam McBean (QMUL SED) and questions.
This is the first public event of the newly founded Sexual Cultures Research Group (SexCult).
It is FREE to attend and the event will be followed by a drinks reception.
Juliet Jacques has published two books: Rayner Heppenstall: A Critical Study (Dalkey Archive Press, 2007) and Trans: A Memoir (Verso, 2015). As well as contributing to several anthologies, her short fiction has appeared in Five Dials, Berfrois, 3:AM and elsewhere; her essays and journalism have featured in Granta, Sight & Sound, Wire, The Guardian and many other publications and websites. She lives in London.
QMUL’s Graduate Festival is an exciting cross-disciplinary week of events that aims to showcase the cutting-edge research being conducted by PhD students at QMUL and to bring researchers together.
No listings this week. If you spot anything interesting please email sed-web@qmul.ac.uk and we’ll add in to this post.
Opportunities & Volunteering
No listings this week. If you spot anything interesting please email sed-web@qmul.ac.uk and we’ll add in to this post.
Calls for Papers & Contributions
No listings this week. If you spot anything interesting please email sed-web@qmul.ac.uk and we’ll add in to this post.
To add a listing to next week’s digest or to help us update this edition please email us by Friday 17 February 2017 at 5pm
We try and keep these listings as accurate as possible but errors can occur. Please check with the relevant party before going to an event or taking up an opportunity.
Maggie Inchley gives us insight into The Verbatim Project, which won a Public Engagement Award for Influence:
‘Right now, according to the system, kids have become just another number, another statistic, and it’s not whether a child is being cared for it’s whether they’re being dealt with. And that’s not the same.’
This is part of a testimony given to us by a 14 year-old care experienced girl as part of our applied theatre research project, The Verbatim Formula.
It’s powerful material, especially when perfomed anonymously to the adults who are responsible for children in care.
Verbatim makes them stop. And listen.
This week , the project – a collaboration with Maggie Inchley, Sylvan Baker, Sadhvi Dar and People’s Palace Projects – won the 2017 Centre for Public Engagement Award for Influence.
We’re thrilled – and hope it helps the project develop further. If you’re studying at QMUL and interested in working with young people or applied theatre do get in touch with Maggie (m.inchley@qmul.ac.uk). We’ll be running another workshop in the summer.
Morag Shiach tells us about the impact of the Creativeworks London project, which won an award for Academic Innovation in Non-Commercial Enterprise:
Since its launch in 2012 Creativeworks London has transformed the landscape of collaboration between arts and humanities researchers and the creative economy in London. Through more than a hundred funded collaborative and co-created research projects and other research activities, and also through partnership in London Creative and Fusion, Creativeworks London has significantly increased the number of small and micro creative businesses working with research institutions in London. It has built capacity for collaboration with the creative economy across a wide range of arts and humanities disciplines, and significantly raised the level of engagement and investment in this activity by partner universities. It has enabled the development of significant new networks that will have a major impact on the future growth and success of the creative economy in London.
Fourteen of the projects supported by CWL have had outputs that are ‘spin outs’, and the range and diversity of innovation and research assets generated by the project is a clear indication of the power of the collaborations it enabled and supported. Other outputs have included new products and services, apps, performances and exhibitions, new business models, evaluation reports, films, software, training in creative skills, policy reports and more than fifty publications.
Recently Creativeworks London has begun working in Brazil, in partnership with People’s Palace Projects. The focus of this work is on the development of creative hubs in the State of Sao Paulo. A volume of essays exploring collaborations supported through Creativeworks London’s creative voucher scheme has recently been published by Palgrave Macmillan: Morag Shiach and Tarek Virani (eds.), Cultural Policy, Innovation, and the Creative Economy: Creative Collaborations in Arts and Humanities Research (2017).
Here’s our list of events and opportunities we’ve just discovered and that are coming up in the next week (from Thursday to Wednesday).
If you’d like to add anything to next week’s digest then please email us.
Events
FEATURED
GALACTICS | Term-time Fridays from Friday 10 February | 5pm-6:30pm, Film and Drama Studio, Arts 2 | Free
A series of laid back scratch performance events followed by music and chit-chat MA Independent Practical Project students Alex Lyons and Camilla Canocchi are excited to invite you to MA Independent Practical Project students Alex Lyons and Camilla Canocchi.
We welcome Esther Leslie, Professor in Political Aesthetics and Acting Co-Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities for a postgraduate research seminar entitled ‘Animating Clouds’.
Libreria & Second Home present the third edition of Veranda, a monthly series of poetry & spoken word events, to showcase some of the freshest literary talent around London. This edition will be an intimate evening of poetry exploring the theme of ‘Truth To Power’. The line up includes Victoria Bulley, Inua Ellams & a special appearance from Brooklyn poet, R.A. Villanueva.
L-PRS are delighted to welcome Lynda Pratt, Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Nottingham, who will present a paper entitled Romanticism and the Culture of Non-Publication. This will be followed by a discussion and a wine reception, to which all are invited. Admission is free.
Please join the MSc in Creative Arts and Mental Health and the Drama Department at Queen Mary University of London for: “Gazing with alterity in Titicut Follies, Blue/Orange, and Ship of Fools” Dr Anna Harpin (University of Warwick, Theatre and Performance Studies).
“The Institute is delighted to announce a new funded studentship for one place on our MA/MRes History of the Book programme. The award covers fees in full at the Home/EU rate. The studentship will be offered every year over the next four academic years.
Our MA/MRes in the History of the Book provides an unrivalled base for the study of a subject that has been the focus of increasing scholarly attention over the past 30 years. Originally considering mainly physical aspects of the book and the details of its manufacture and trade, scholars have come to see the study of the book as an aid to understanding literary texts and as a focus for insight into social, cultural and intellectual processes in history. The course focuses not only books, but also newspapers, magazines, chapbooks and broadsides. Because the book did not begin with the invention of printing, the course will also consider the manuscript period before print–as well as the book in the digital era.
VOGUE Talent Contest for Young Writers – Entry now open
The annual VOGUE Talent Content 2017 is now open for entries. The annual talent contest for young writers is one of the most prestigious awards in the industry and has helped launch the careers of authors, playwrights and poets, as well as members of Vogue’s own staff. Entrants must be under the age of 25 and I wondered whether it might be of interest to any of your students? I attach details in the hope that it might be and that you might be willing to share them. The closing date for entries is Friday 7th April.
2017 Cambridge Long Vacation Scholarship Scheme has been launched (Current QMUL students only)
The College has again been invited to send up to 8 students to spend over three weeks at King’s College and one student to St John’s College, Cambridge during the Long Vacation, which this year will be from Monday 17th July 2017 to Saturday 12th August 2017. These Long Vacation scholarships commemorate the period during the Second World War when Queen Mary College was evacuated to King’s College, Cambridge.
All non-final year undergraduate students (home and international) who do not have academic commitments during the Long Vacation are eligible for consideration.
Each student will receive a scholarship of £455 from QMUL to cover travelling expenses to and from Cambridge, together with maintenance during the 4 week period. It is expected that they will spend their time at Cambridge in using the academic facilities in the furtherance of their undergraduate studies and would be expected to devise their own study programme. Each School can nominate 2 candidates to the Dean.
In order to apply, students must first discuss their application with their adviser or a tutor who knows them well, either face to face or by email. If you are approached by a student and asked to support their application, they must email you a completed version of the attached application form no later than midday on Monday 27th February. If you have agreed to support the application, please complete the second part of the application form and email the complete form to me sed-hos@qmul.ac.uk), no later than midday on Friday 10th March. I will then consider all the applications and will forward the names of two shortlisted candidates to the Dean for Taught Programmes,
Eligible students have been told about the Scheme today, sent a copy of the application form and told about the 27th February deadline. Please note that final year students, MA students and Associate students are not eligible. The School normally shortlists current second year students. There is information about the Scheme at
The Captivating Criminality Network is delighted to announce its fourth UK conference. Building upon and developing ideas and themes from the previous three successful conferences, Crime Fiction: Detection, Public and Private, Past and Present will examine what is arguably the very heart of this field of critical study.
Please send 300 word proposals to Dr. Fiona Peters (f.peters@bathspa.ac.uk) by 13th February 2017. The abstract should include your name, email address, and affiliation, as well as the title of your paper. Please feel free to submit abstracts presenting work in progress as well as completed projects. Postgraduate students are welcome. Papers will be a maximum of 20 minutes in length. Proposals for suggested panels are also welcome.
Attendance fees: £155 (£105 students)
To add a listing to next week’s digest or to help us update this edition please email us by Friday 10 February 2017 at 5pm
We try and keep these listings as accurate as possible but errors can occur. Please check with the relevant party before going to an event or taking up an opportunity.
We’re excited to see that Jen Harvie has launched her new podcast series, which explores contemporary arts and culture with the people who make it.
The first episode which you can listen to below is with Sh!t Theatre (QMUL graduates too!) who are currently performing at Soho Theatre until 11 February.
Topics covered in the podcast range from from love to death, gentrification, friendship, money, and cardboard comets.
‘This will be an open discussion event for students and staff in the School of English and Drama at QMUL to have a dialogue about a lack of representation in the school and what can be done about it’.
Join our local history archive for a packed afternoon of talks on different aspects of theatre history in the East End. Distinguished speakers for the day are:
Dr Janice Norwood on nineteenth century theatre in the East End
Carole Zeidman on the history of Wilton’s Music Hall
Erin Lee on the Black Plays Archive, including Elmina’s Kitchen by Kwame Kwei-Armah, set in Clapton
Isabelle Seddon on the Jewish East End’s contribution to twentieth century political theatre
Ashraf Neswar on the history of Tower Hamlets Council’s annual Season of Bangla Drama
Eirini Kartsaki performing at Steakhouse Live | Photo credit: Greg Viet
Join our very own Eirini Kartsaki for Coocoolili, evening of a variety of acts brought together under a common theme; an evening of music, songs, spoken word, performance, dance, quirky tomfooleries, profound ideas and profanities.
No listings this week. If you spot anything interesting please email sed-web@qmul.ac.uk and we’ll add in to this post.
To add a listing to next week’s digest or to help us update this edition please email us by Friday 3 February 2017 at 5pm
We try and keep these listings as accurate as possible but errors can occur. Please check with the relevant party before going to an event or taking up an opportunity.
MA English Studies graduate Richard Dodwell is presenting his new show PLANES at The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick from Tuesday 31 January.
PLANES | Tue 31 Jan-Sat 4 Feb | The Yard Theatre, Hackney Wick | £15/£12 (conc)
Tell us about your new work PLANES? How did it come about?
PLANES is a “live tuning” into missing things. By that I mean it’s a live work for theatre that explores notions of remembering and processing difficult experiences, with a live accompanying score by the poet and composer Timothy Thornton. In this case, that difficulty is the suicides of people close to me. Mental Health is in crisis and more and more people seem to be suffering as services are slashed and the world becomes crueler. I suppose, as someone trying to survive, the work emerged to try and harness the truth of both what grief is and how we move forwards—but it’s a tough one! I did a couple of scratch previews of that work, with the help of Arts Council England and Battersea Arts Centre, and then The Yard invited me to present the work as part of their NOW 17 festival of new performance. So I was really chuffed about that.
Who or what inspires you to make theatre work?
Anything and everyone really. I try to make work that’s honest and not too obscured by style and posturing, although inevitably when you “make” something it always runs the risk of being perceived as such. I guess that’s the magic of any kind of art making or creativity—the multitude of ways it can be perceived. I’m not here to moderate or manipulate anyone’s feelings, although I am trying to create a world where people find some sort of connection. I’m hugely inspired by the European avant-garde and the New York experimental theatre of the 70s and 80s. The Wooster Group particularly are a huge inspiration, as is the writer and filmmaker Derek Jarman. I guess I want to make work that documents the experience of being alive, here and now, without too much thought.
What was studying English Studies at Queen Mary like? Do you have any favourite memories or tutors?
Fantastic. I have very warm memories there. The English Department is second to none: great teaching, excellent resources and the chance to really engage with literary theory—which has influenced my creative practice hugely. My favourite memory is meeting Matthew, who studied on the MA with me. He was a wonderful friend and support throughout the course, and introduced me to lots of new left-wing and radical revolutionary thought. He was a wonderful person: sensitive, vibrant and hugely caring. Sadly, Matthew took his own life in October last year. I miss him hugely. This show is partly dedicated to him.
The Edinburgh fringe institution created by our very own Dr Brian Lobel comes to London to host a three day festival ‘A celebration of the body – its problems and potential‘. There are lots of our SED current and former staff and students taking part including Daniel Oliver, Aoife Monks and Xavier De Souza. Many of the tickets are free so be sure to snap them up when they go live on Friday 27 January.
Quorum is a series of research seminars in the drama department at Queen Mary. All events are free and open to everyone. Drinks and snacks provided. Arts One building, RR2. This week we welcome Dr Catherine Hindson for a seminar entitled: ‘Off Stage Labour: Actresses, Charity Work And The Early Twentieth-Century Theatre Profession’.
See the full events schedule here for future dates
The event is an open forum for students and staff to discuss the experiences of black and minority ethnic students at QMUL. It’s happening on Thursday 26th January at 6pm. It’s organised and facilitated by students and staff in Drama and Politics alongside the Engagement, Retention and Success Team at QMUL.
The event features: an afternoon’s symposium of discussion with leading scholars in the fields of post-war British Black and Asian Literature with readings by Moniza Alvi and Courttia Newland.
Women for Refugee Women is a small, dynamic organisation, which is committed to making a real difference to the situation of refugee women in the UK, by speaking to
wide audiences and supporting refugee women themselves to tell their stories. WfRW are currently seeking a communications executive to join our team. The right person will be determined to create positive change.
The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers to do interdisciplinary work which is unlikely to be funded by existing funding bodies. It is interested in original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.
The Foundation intends to make a small number of awards to support original interdisciplinary research, across the range of the social sciences, to be held from a start date no later than the end of December 2018. Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply.
The award is intended to enable a scholar at the early career stage to pursue his/her research full-time, for a period of up to 12 months. The amount will be offered to buy out the costs of replacing all teaching and associated administration in the applicant’s home institution, and will be considered to a maximum of £50,000 per successful applicant. Within that sum, reasonable support for research expenses may be considered on a matched-funding basis with the host institution.
Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply – applicants should be within 10 years of PhD award, and they will normally have a permanent appointment at an institution of higher education and research. Career breaks may be taken into account.
Applicants should consult the Criteria as set out on theISRF website and show that they meet them. Applicants should follow the Application procedure and should present their Proposal in the format specified there.
This one-day symposium explores the contribution of Symons to the literary and artistic culture of the fin de siècle, with a particular focus on his early verse. We welcome proposals for papers, and abstracts of 500 words should be sent as Word attachments to Symons2017@gold.ac.uk by 31st March 2017. Papers should be 20 minutes in length.
To add a listing to next week’s digest or to help us update this edition please email us by Friday 27 January 2017 at 5pm
We try and keep these listings as accurate as possible but errors can occur. Please check with the relevant party before going to an event or taking up an opportunity.
Digital project brings together research from Queen Mary, Saint Louis University, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the University of Illinois, Indiana University East, and the University of Cambridge
As I began my research last year into the relationship between the poetry of Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909) and the operas of Richard Wagner (1813-1883), I became aware that the British Library held a number of musical settings of Swinburne’s verse. Very little research had been done on his affinity with Victorian and Edwardian composers – despite being thought of as one of the most musical of poets – and so, with this in mind, I started to look through whatever was available. The first items, some of the earliest musical settings from the 1860s (Swinburne’s first, notorious collection, Poems and Ballads, was published in 1866), excited my interest. I called up more, and soon these few pieces of music had turned into well over a hundred and much of it displayed a range and quality that far surpassed my expectations.
The resulting catalogue (which is still growing, song by song) now potentially charts a different reception history for Swinburne’s verse (well into the 1920s and beyond). It suggests not only an extraordinary artistic enthusiasm for Swinburne’s poems as music but also has implications for an analysis of Swinburne’s wider cultural impact. The material is rich and varied, from simple domestic piano and voice settings to unaccompanied part-songs, theatre songs, incidental music (for Swinburne’s plays), cantatas and orchestral extravaganzas. There are very well-known names amongst the catalogue, such as Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry, and Arthur Sullivan. But there are also many little-known figures who deserve far greater attention, such as Adela Maddison (1862-1929), who adapted Swinburne eight times, including an elemental and boundary-shaking version of his ‘Triumph of Time’ (available on my website here).
So that the music can be heard, I have been transcribing pieces from the original scores into notation software. In doing so, the effect has been revelatory. There is a sense, as a piece takes shape, of bringing back the dead. A good example is this rendition of ‘The Hounds of Spring’ from the 1906 production of Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon (1865) at the Crystal Palace or this version (apparently the Victorian equivalent of a ‘hit song’) of ‘The Oblation’, by the bizarre Theophilus Marzials, who (it is claimed) also wrote some of the worst poetry ever published.
My work is now to become part of the new Sounding Victorian consortium – an initiative of Phyllis Weliver of Saint Louis University – which will be a group of digital projects that create an experiential way of exploring archives that document sound (music and literature) in nineteenth-century Britain. My own website will change and form Sounding Swinburne and sit alongside Sounding the Salon (which will investigate the Victorian salon as an alternative musical space, with historically-informed performances and archival texts), Sounding Childhood (studying the sound of children’s play through recreational songs, religious pieces and hymns), and the well-known Sounding Tennyson. This site currently showcases sonic and textual versions of Tennyson’s poetry, including the first recordings of Emily Tennyson’s piano and vocal settings of ‘Break, Break, Break’, made in the drawing room at the Tennysons’ restored home, Farringford, using Queen Victoria’s piano.
All the groups under the Sounding Victorian banner will eventually use the ind ustry standard for machine-readable music (Music Encoding Initiative). Sounding Tennyson is already the first project worldwide to add sound to an International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), a standard that will also be extended to all members of the consortium. As the Sounding Victorian website states, each of the projects will be freely available, allow for concordance searching, bring together items found from scattered archives, alongside short, scholarly essays to situate the material, and bybuilding digital tools, help students, scholars and the public engage with the material, whether or not they read music.
It is, to say the least, an exciting time for my research. If you have a moment, please take a look at the current page for the Sounding Victorian site, which will give a strong sense of what the project will offer, both within its interdisciplinary field, and as an example of the potential of digital humanities.
For more information about the topics covered in this article please visit:
Comparative media history using content from beyond the English-speaking world and the British Empire is still relatively unexplored as a field for publication. This presentation proposes a way forward, by identifying the existence of transnational themes that emerged from the reality of print communications during the long 19th century: modernism, “orientalist” trade, cultural and scientific exchange, design, and fashion. Focusing on Germany, France and Japan, the pros and cons of an interdisciplinary approach are discussed in relations to science periodicals in Europe, women’s uses of periodicals in the late nineteenth century, periodicals for ex-patriot communities and satirical publications.
The journal of Contemporary Women’s Writing (Oxford University Press) is delighted to announce the launch of the 2017 Essay Prize. The Contemporary Women’s Writing Essay Prize aims to encourage new scholarship in the field of contemporary women’s writing, recognise and reward outstanding achievement by new researchers and support the professional development of next generation scholars.
Entry deadline: 1 February 2017
Calls for Papers
Bodily Extensions and Performance (Avatars, Prosthetics, Cyborgs, Posthumans) | Deadline for manuscripts to be considered for publication: Tue 31 Jan
The International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media is seeking contributions for a special issue on Bodily Extensions and Performance.
The journal is looking for full essays of between 5,000 and 8,000 words that might consider (but are not limited to) the following topics:
– The politics of bodily extension in performance
– Cultural representations of extended bodies
– Ethics and bodily extensions in performance
– Bodies in cyborg performance
– Performing avatars as extended bodies
– Posthuman performance
– Designing the extended body for performance
– Prosthetics, disability, and performance
– Bodily extension and the performance of social identity
– Augmented bodies and superhumans in performance
– Choreographing for extended bodies
– Performing with bodily extensions
– Spectating extended bodies in performance
Essays should be formatted according to the Routledge journal style.
Please contact Sita Popat at s.popat@leeds.ac.uk if you have any queries.
For volume 10 of Katherine Mansfield Studies, we invite comparative essays that explore aspects of the manifold relationship between these writers and their works, from their early meetings to the simultaneous launch of Prelude and the Hogarth Press through Mansfield’s early death and Woolf’s reflections on reading Mansfield’s published and posthumous oeuvre.
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Our roving reporters Jenny Gault (Director of Administration) and Hari Marini (Student Administrator: Research Student Support) have been to explore the new Graduate Centre. The seven-storey building includes 7,700 square metres of new learning and teaching space.
Here’s a quick collage of what they found:
Clockwise from top left:
Jenny outside the front of the new graduate centre.
Hari in her favourite new room the Debating Chamber.
Jenny taking pictures of the grassy roof and wooden roof terrace.
‘Pretty in Purple’ chairs in the postgraduate common room.
We spotted some more lovely pictures of the new building by our student Adam on Twitter:
Sat studying in the new Postgraduate Centre & I’m still overwhelmed by the view & how aesthetically pleasing it all is. pic.twitter.com/Mo2jyMFIlT
