Welcome to July 2020 from English and Drama at Queen Mary.
Virtual Celebration: Next month we’re celebrating our class of 2020 with a virtual event on 5 August. Final year students can register here
NSS: We have donated £175 each to World Wildlife Fund and Student Minds on behalf of our students for completing the National Student Survey. Thanks to everyone who completed this!
New Head of Drama: We would also like to welcome Professor Dominic Johnson (pictured above left) as our new Head of Drama. Read more about his work in the interview here.
Our student of the month for July is English student Eve Bolton.
Online Events
OPEN DAY RELOADED
Virtual Open Day – for 2021+ Applicants
Friday 17 July 2020, 1-4pm BST, Online
We’re offering another opportunity for prospective undergraduate students to explore our courses and get their questions answered.
LISTINGS
Performance, Possession & Automation Series
Read more about the series
Automation & Cultural Production
17 July, 6-8pm (BST), Online– Free
Seb Franklin and Annie McClanahan join Nick Ridout (Drama) for a conversation about automation and cultural production.
Register here
Possession & Performance
24 July, 6-8pm (BST), Online– Free
Paul C. Johnson and Rebecca Schneider join Nick Ridout for a conversation about possession and performance.
Register here
Possession & Subjectivity
31 July, 6-8 pm (BST), Online – Free
Kyla Wazana Tompkins and Roberto Strongman join Nick Ridout for a conversation about possession and subjectivity.
Register here
Online Porch Sitting – Split Britches
28 July, Online – Free via Barbican
Join queer-feminist theatre icon, Lois Weaver (Drama), in this re-imagined online version of her Porch Sitting. Sit, think, dream, wonder and take part in conversation around our collective future. Photo by Alex Legge (Drama alumna).
Find out more
BOOK AHEAD
Utopian Bloomsbury
Sunday 18 October 2020, Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury has at times in its history been much associated with visionary, utopian thinking and writing. This walk with Dr Matthew Ingleby will explore that history.
From socialists and anarchists to feminists and queer artists, the neighbourhood has inspired a distinctly futural imagination, which has allowed readers to see how things might be, not only what they empirically, provably are.
FREE – but pre-booking is essential.
News & Links
Bim Adeyemi and Dee Ndumiso (Drama Master’s Students) have made a powerful video about Black Lives Matter and the Why We Kneel campaign.
Arts & Culture at QMUL have a range of support for artists throught the Queen Mary Arts & Culture Support Centre.
Nadia Atia (English) and Malachi McIntosh (Wasafiri Magazine based at QMUL) presented on Iraq and Teaching Migration and Empire respectively at British Empire in English Studies event at University of Kent.
Julie Rose Bower has had her second ASMR video published by Victoria and Albert Museum and it features work using our Drama department’s very one ambisonic microphone. This video has costumes worn by Vivien Leigh, Sandie Shaw, PJ Harvey, Belinda Wright and Adzogbo dancers. JRB was also named as one of the artists you need to know for ‘carving out space to reflect on the world today’ in Elephant magazine.
Jerry Brotton (English)’s Mapping the Future programme is on BBC iPlayer now. In the programme he navigates the transformation from paper to digital mapping, from print to pixels, asks what is being gained and lost and in whose interests the evolution serves.
Dr Duckie aka Ben Walters (Drama PhD)’s Dr Duckie website is full of useful information about the project focused on the concept of ‘Homemade Mutant Hope Machines’ – a way of describing how people without much clout can start to build better worlds on their own terms.
Feather Pen (Blog by English student Aysel Kasap) are pleased to announce their new travel column, Seoul Searching by Ruby Punt, a QMUL student about her year abroad in South Korea! New entries are coming every month starting from July 15 on featherpenblog.com.
Georgia Haseldine (English) has written a piece called Pandemic Objects: Cash for Victoria and Albert Museum and The virtues and vices of virtual museum tours for Apollo Magazine.
Olga Kravchenko (Drama alumna) is interviewed by our alumni team on her about being CEO of Musemio, a virtual reality app that connects children with content from museums around the world and seeks to turn them into museumgoers of the future.
PEACH Magazine has officially opened up for applications for their 2020/21 committee. If you are interested in being part of the only Queen Mary Student Medium that is solely dedicated to publishing students’ creative expressions, then click here to learn more about the different roles and how to apply. The deadline to apply is 31 July 2020, 11.59 pm. You can also follow PEACH on: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook.
Charlie Pullen (English PhD) shared a touching tribute by Lynsey Hanley in the 90s about English at Queen Mary in this tweet.
Nisha Ramayya (Creative Writing) has a short essay in Frieze Magazine: Rethinking Community in the Wake of the Pandemic and has wrote a review in Map.
Sh!t Theatre (Drama graduates)’s award-winning show Letters to Windsor House is streaming until 27 July. It costs just £4 to stream on demand and £1 from every rental goes to Shelter!
Stage 3 Theatre Company:Stage3 Extended is a platform which continues to encourage activism through creative responses for an extended week after a commemorating event has occurred.
We believe that we should keep the activist momentum alive.
Their first project was ‘Refugee Week Extended’ and this Saturday (11 July) they are launching the next one – ‘Remembering Srebrenica Extended’. Stage 3 Company is a performance-based activist group, tackling a vast range of political, social and humanitarian issues from immigration and discrimination to identity, belonging and empathy. Established in April 2018, as part of STAGES (PPP, QMUL), the group has since then performed at numerous venues around the UK.
For more info follow on Facebook and Instagram
Barbara Taylor (English/History) had her Solitary Citizens: The Politics of Loneliness piece is published in the Guardian. The Solitudes blog has all new content here and for those interested in the poetry of Denise Riley, Barbara has published an open access piece here.
Rosie Vincent (Drama Alumna) and her organisation Roman Road Trust’s Transform The Common Room campaign successfully reached target to provide a new community space. After receiving the maximum pledge of £50,000 from the Mayor of London, they then received an amazing pledge of £10,000 from the Tower Hamlets Innovation Fund and then a brilliant pledge of £5,000 from the Centre for Public Engagement at QMUL!
Jeremy Weller (Drama Master’s Student)’s work for Beyond Walls around art and mental health including an NHS Residency and Edinburgh Festival 2018 Production: Where it hurts is available to explore online here. Find out more about his work on his website and Instagram.
