Welcome to the November 2018 edition of our School of English and Drama newsletter.
Our main photo is from The Last of the London, a project led by Nadia Valman (English) as part of Being Human festival 2018. She is collaborating with projection artist Karen Crosby for ‘The Last of the London’ an event reanimating the derelict Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel Road with the ghosts of its past, using archive texts and spectacular photographic projections on the building’s facade.
As we celebrate the birth of the NHS 70 years ago, ‘The Last of the London’ remembers the struggle to provide health care to East Enders in the nineteenth century. See glimpses of the figures, illustrious and ordinary, that haunt its corridors; the doctors and nurses from across the globe who worked at the London; the impact of war and epidemic; and the patients whose lives began and ended here.
Read our blog post to see all of our events in the festival including:
EVENTS | NEWS | LINKS
Events
Applications now open
UCAS and Postgraduate applications are open for 2019 so please do apply. If you have applied we will be in touch regarding future events you can attend to get to know us better.
POSTGRADUATE OPEN EVENINGS
Wednesday 7 November 2018, 16:30-19:00
QMUL – Mile End
Applying for a PhD can be a long process and most funding opportunities close for applications in Janaury. So come along to our open evening to help plan your application and maximise your chances of finding funding.
MA English Literature Open Evening
Wednesday 28 November 2018, 18:00-20:00
QMUL – Mile End
Join us for a nevening reception with drinks to find out about our English Master’s offering.
NOVEMBER HIGHLIGHTS
Is ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ really a feminist text? – Panel for Year 12 & 13 Students
Wednesday 21 November 2018, 15:15
QMUL- Mile End
Experts from our School of English and Drama come together to discuss Margaret Atwood’s famous dystopian novel. This panel discussion will explore the extent to which we can describe The Handmaid’s Tale as a feminist text.
It will challenge many opinions that readers hold regarding the novel, as well as placing it within the current political climate in the UK and USA. You will have the opportunity to question our experts, as well as having the chance to speak with undergraduates about what it is like to study literature at university level.
NOVEMBER LISTINGS
S A L O N – LONDON presents Carla Harryman in conversation with Redell Olsen
Saturday 3 November 2018, 19:00
Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster
Our Centre for Poetry will co-host this event where Carla Harryman will read from her recent works including Sue in Berlin and Hannah Cut-In. Redell Olsen will be discussing and showing extracts from her recent performance and film works.
New Suns: A Feminist Literary Festival at the Barbican
Sunday 4 November 2018
Barbican, London
Inspired by African -American author Octavia Butler’s epigraph New Suns: A Feminist Literary Festival is a day of talks, workshops, screenings and feminist discussion at the Barbican features our very own Nisha Ramayya (English).
Writers, artists, academics, poets and publications will explore contemporary feminism through the lens of mythology, discussing topics as varied as the #MeToo movement, occult poetry, bodies and sex work.
Tristram Hunt (V&A) and Paul Nurse (Francis Crick Institute) in Conversation The Two Cultures Debate: Science and the Arts in the Twenty-First Century
Wednesday 7 November 2018, 18:00
People’s Palace (Great Hall), QMUL – Mile End
Sir Paul Nurse, Director of the Francis Crick Institute, and Tristram Hunt, Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, revisit the “Two Cultures Debate” and set out the future of the arts and the sciences.
The Tragedy of King Richard II
Friday 9-Sunday 11 November 2018, various times
The Rose Playhouse, South Bank
The Centre for Global Shakespeare at Queen Mary, in association with the Rose Playhouse and Anərkē hosts a revival of The Tragedy of King Richard II, performed in a directorless, race and gender-blind production inspired by the working conditions in which Shakespeare conceived his plays.
Stage 3 at The WriteIdea Festival
Saturday 17 November 2018, 13:00
Ideastore Whitechapel
People’s Palace Projects’ new student theatre company at Queen Mary University of London performs Stage 3, a theatre experience that looks at the bureaucracy and power of the naturalisation system. A mock citizenship process generates discussion about migration, discrimination and belonging and challenges the process of being categorized based on race, age and class background. The production is strongly linked to young people’s sense of belonging and citizenship rights. Read more in this blog post.
Jerry Brotton: Raleigh in the Americas
Thursday 29 November 2018, 19:00 – 20:30
British Library, London
Having recently travelled across Guyana in Raleigh’s footsteps, Jerry Brotton (English) offers a new perspective on Raleigh’s colonial adventures, situating him at the heart of a global network stretching from Munster to London’s livery companies to Munster, the Orinoco, and ultimately his execution at the Tower of London in October 1618.
Image: Walter Raleigh trading with the King of Aromaia. Expedition to Guyana in search of Eldorado, 1595. Image taken from [America.-Part VIII.-German.] Originally published/produced in M Becker: Frankfurt, 1599. © British Library.
News
Serena Ceniccola (MA in Victorian Literature) from the School of English and Drama- successfully presented her paper “Nobody/Nowhere: the alienation of the Hybrid in Sui Ishida’s Tokyo Ghoul” at the two-day student conference “Exploring alterity in fantasy and science fiction” at the University of Freiburg, making QMUL the only one London based University to take part in the event.
Matthew Ingleby and Shahidha Bari (English) hosted Frankenreads x QMUL to celebrate 200 years of Mary Shelley’s seminal gothic horror novel on Halloween 2018. Pic from left to right: David Duff (English), Shahidha Bari (English) and Cousin Itt i.e. Rupert Dannreuther (Marketing). See the Frankenreads x QMUL photo gallery
Tiffany Watt-Smith (Drama) has been awarded the Philip Leverhulme prize, which recognises all of her past work and supports her future project on the performance of sleep. Philip Leverhulme Prizes recognise the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising. Every year the prize scheme makes up to thirty awards of £100,000, across a range of academic disciplines.
Caoimhe McAvinchey (Drama) was in conversation with Clean Break’s former CEO Lucy Perman MBE to talk about the women’s theatre company changing lives and changing minds – on stage, in prison and in the community.
Hetta Howes (English PhD graduate)‘s BBC New Generation Thinkers programme featuring the stories of the Passion as dreamed by medieval devouts is available on iPlayer now.
Contemporary Theatre Review 28.3 special issue on feminisms co-edited by Jen Harvie (Drama), Sarah Gorman, and Geraldine Harris came out in October including Jen Harvie (Drama)‘s article on Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone and Split Britches’ Ruff, co-written by Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw, starring Shaw, and directed by Weaver.
Press from last month
26/10/2018 Shahidha Bari (English) BBC 2
Front Row with Mike Leigh (pictured above)
26/10/2018 Jerry Brotton (English) BBC Radio 4
In Search of El Dorado
24/10/2018 Di Beddow (English) British Library Blog
The Cambridge Love Letters from Ted Hughes to Liz Hicklin
21/10/2018 James Vigus Coleridge blog
Coleridge and Plato’s Luminous Gloom
20/10/2018 Jerry Brotton (English) Aljazeera
A portrait of Othello as a black Muslim tragic hero
18/10/2018 Aoife Monks Times Higher Education Top tips on how to make your lectures interesting
10/10/2018 Lois Weaver / Jen Harvie (Drama) Contemporary Theatre Review
Review: The Only Way Home is Through the Show: Performance Work of Lois Weaver
05/10/2018 Lara Mills (English student) On History
Walking and Talking Feminist History in the East End
01/10/2018 Bridget Escolme (Drama) The Lancet
Community, context, recovery: Edinburgh Fringe Reviews
See more news on the SED blog
Links
Jen Harvie (Drama)‘s recently published book on Scottee: I Made It has some eye-popping (book porn) visuals see the book in all it’s glory in this blog post.
Pippa Sa (Drama graduate) is one half of Bechdel Theatre see their amazing work here: https://bechdeltheatre.com/
James Vigus (English) is giving a talk on 28 November at Senate House, ‘Henry Crabb Robinson and the Diffusion of German Literature in Britain’.
Julie Rose Bower (Drama PhD researcher) presents her show Foley Explosion at Hackney Showroom, 12-13 November.
Barbara Taylor (English): ‘Solitude and Loneliness in the Academy’ is the first event in ‘Pathologies of Solitude, 18th-21st century’ a major Wellcome-funded project hosted by the Schools of History and English and Drama at Queen Mary on 29 November in the People’s Palace. To RSVP email Clare Whitehead.
