Saturday 16 February 2013

Northern Modernism Seminar - University of Birmingham Friday 15th March

Northern Modernism Seminar
University of Birmingham
Friday, 15th March 2013

10.15-10.45 Registration & Coffee

10.45-11.00 Welcome: Andrzej Gasiorek

11.00-12.00 Kirsten Shepherd-Barr (University of Oxford) ‘Biology and the
Female Body on Stage: Reproductive Issues in Early Modernist Theatre’.

12.00-1.00 Claire Warden (University of Lincoln) ‘Saluting the Red Army: Basil
Dean's Russian adventures’.

1pm-2.00 Lunch

2.00-3.00 Daniel Moore (University of Birmingham) “A revolution of
incalculable effect”: Marion Richardson and Modern Art at School.

3.00-3.15 Tea & Coffee

3.15-4.15 Scott Klein (Wake Forest University) “You Must Speak”: Silence,
Scale, and Politics in Chaplin’s The Great Dictator

4.15-5.15 Michael Valdez Moses (Duke University) “Saved from the blessings of
civilization”: John Ford, the West, and American Vernacular Modernism

Enquiries and Registration to Rebekah Lockyer: rlc832@bham.ac.uk

Friday 15 February 2013

THE SUNDAY TIMES OXFORD LITERARY FESTIVAL

KATHLEEN JONES AND GERRI KIMBER IN CONVERSATION:

‘Katherine Mansfield 90 Years On’

12:00pm | Sunday 17 March 2013

 
Two experts on Katherine Mansfield look at the life and legacy of the writer on the 90th anniversary of her death. Mansfield was one of the 20th century’s most accomplished short story writers and counted D H Lawrence and Virginia Woolf among her close friends. Among her best-known stories are The Garden Party, The Daughters of the Late Colonel and The Fly. She died at the age of 34 after contracting tuberculosis. 

Dr Gerri Kimber has co-edited The Collected Fiction of Katherine Mansfield to coincide with the anniversary. It is the first truly complete collection of Mansfield’s stories. Gerri Kimber is a senior lecturer at the University of Northampton and co-editor of the journal, Katherine Mansfield Studies. Kathleen Jones is a biographer and poet. Her most recent biography is Katherine Mansfield: The Story-Teller.

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Literature and Learning Conference, c.1120 – 1189



University of St Andrews
7th – 9th June 2013

The Literature and Learning c.1120 - 1189 conference aims to provide a platform for inter-disciplinary discussion and debate on the intellectual activity taking place in mid twelfth-century Europe. This has traditionally been viewed as a time of introspection in the fields of literature and learning. In particular from an English perspective, this has in the past been viewed as a period of anarchy, and little attention has been paid to development in intellectual life.
We wish to create the opportunity to explore a number of themes, including, but not limited to, the development of the use of the vernacular; historical writings and their audience, for example chronicles, short histories and poetry; the expansion of law; provision of education in the Schools; peregrinations of scholars and therefore the dissemination of knowledge and ideas across Europe; and the changing cultural climate in the years c.1130 to 1160.
Call for Papers
We hope the conference will provide the opportunity to create a nexus of scholars and enable the sharing of ideas.  By encouraging attendance of postgraduates, early career academics and established academics from Britain, Europe and further afield, we hope to re-evaluate the traditional view of the period.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
  • historical writings and their audience, for example chronicles, short histories and poetry;
  • development of the use of the vernacular;
  • palaeographical development;
  • the illustration of manuscripts
  • the expansion of law;
  • provision of education in the Schools;
  • peregrinations of scholars and the dissemination of knowledge and ideas across Europe;
  • the arts, for example architecture, sculpture
  • re-evaluation of intellectual contribution of the period;
  • the changing cultural climate in the years c.1120 to 1189.
Please send an abstract of your 20 min. paper (max. 300 words) by 28 February 2013 to the organisers, Jane Edwards and Maxine Esser at litlearn@st-andrews.ac.uk

Thank you to those of you who have already submitted extracts, your work is under consideration.

If you have any questions or queries please do not hesitate to contact the organisers.

CALL FOR PAPERS - EMREM Postgraduate Forum Annual Symposium

EMREM POSTGRADUATE FORUM 
Early Medieval~Medieval~Renaissance~Reformation~Early Modern
CALL FOR PAPERS
The EMREM Postgraduate Forum Annual Symposium
Birth, Sex and Death
Rites of Passage in the Medieval and Early Modern World
Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th May 2013
 
University of Birmingham
Papers are invited for the 2013 EMREM two-day interdisciplinary symposium at the University of Birmingham.
This year’s theme focuses on birth, sex and death as rites of passage. How were life stages demarcated in medieval and early modern societies and how were transitions between them negotiated? In what ways were the defining acts of birth, sex and death understood and represented in records, rituals, art and literature? What social and religious factors determined how they were celebrated and regulated, and how were these norms challenged or changed over time? How closely related were the concepts and imagery of birth, sex and death?
Postgraduate speakers from all disciplines are welcome to share their research at this friendly and well-established symposium.
Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:
·         Rituals and sacramental practices
·         Representations in literature, visual and material culture and music
·         Scientific (mis)understandings of life processes
·         Pregnancy, birth and baptism
·         Family ties, ancestry and inheritance
·         Courtship and marriage
·         Extramarital sex and illegitimacy
·         Widowhood, holy orders and the single life
·         Disease, medicine and the Black Death 
·         Vanitas, memento mori and the Danse Macabre tradition
·         Self-mortification, martyrdom and saints’ cults
·         Burial rites, funerary monuments and commemoration
·         Areas of overlap: death in childbirth; ideas of rebirth; death and sex in the mystic tradition
 
Papers should be 20 minutes in length. Please send proposals of approximately 300 words to emremforum@googlemail.com by Friday 22nd March 2013.
Limited funding is available to help cover external speakers’ travel and accommodation expenses. Refreshments and numerous networking opportunities provided.