Registration for 'Other Eliots: Contemporary Trends in T. S. Eliot Studies 2014' is now open!

Registration for 'Other Eliots: Contemporary Trends in T. S. Eliot Studies 2014' which is to take place at the University of Birmingham on Friday April 18th is now open.

The conference seeks to draw attention to the multifarious research into Eliot's life and work which is currently being undertaken. It will take place on the main Edgbaston campus in the Arts Building (lecture room 1).

Keynote speakers for this event:

Dr. Jason Harding (University of Durham) 

Prof. Steve Ellis (University of Birmingham)

Confirmed chairs for the panels: 

Dr. Gail McDonald (Goldsmiths)

Dr. Scott Freer (University of Leicester)

Dr. David Barnes (University of Oxford).

Follow the link for programme and registration details, and further information:

http://othereliots2014.wordpress.com/registration/

For further details contact:

Matt Geary - mkg703@bham.ac.uk

Jeremy Diaper - jxd668@bham.ac.uk

 

 

Research Masterclass with The Thesis Whisperer: Your thesis, so what?

CAL Graduate School proudly invites you to a workshop with The Thesis Whisperer (aka Dr Inger Mewburn) on the most important topic of all: how to speak concisely, eloquently, persuasively and inspirationally about your research and why it matters. Inger was instrumental in the development of the Three Minute Thesis competition, and in line with the principles of the competition, this workshop will help you to focus on what really matters about your research. In the process, you should find yourself newly able to communicate your expertise in eloquent and exciting ways. Next year, the Birmingham Three Minute Thesis winner might be you! This is an ideal opportunity to learn strategies for explaining and highlighting the significance of your research in ways that will make sense to people other than your supervisors or examiners – and of course, this is a skill with enormous scope for transferability well beyond your research thesis The workshop begins at 9.30am on the 4th of October (Venue: G51 European Research Institute ERI) and is an excellent opportunity to learn strategies for explaining and highlighting the significance of your research in ways that will make sense to people other than your supervisors or examiners — this is your opportunity to learn public engagement skills from the horse's mouth, and we hope that new and continuing PhD students in particular will attend. If you've ever felt stumped by the 'so what?!' of your thesis, this is an event you should be at, and it's a skill with enormous scope for transferability well beyond the research thesis itself. For queries or to reserve a place at this fantastic event, please email: calpg-research@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Second UoB Psy Lit Network Meeting: Friday October 11th 2013

The second UoB PsyLit Network meeting will be held on Friday 11 October, 2013, between 2-3pm in the Arts and Humanities building (room 104 – main campus) at the University of Birmingham.

 

Oliver Penny (University of East Anglia) will be delivering a 20 minute paper entitled ‘Empty Rooms: Style and Negativity in The Death of the Heart’ which looks at Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘The Death of the Heart’ through Andre Green’s work on the negative.

 

Texts to be read and discussed for this session:

 

Andre Green – ‘The Intuition of the Negative in Playing and Reality’

 

and Elizabeth Bowen’s – The Death of the Heart

 

PDF copies of Andre Green’s essay ‘The Intuition of the Negative in Playing and Reality’ will be circulated to all PsyLit members at least a week before the meeting.

 

More News:

 

A schedule is currently being put together for PsyLit for the academic year 2013/2014 with meetings to be held on the second Friday of every month during term time.

 

If you would like to attend future PsyLit meetings or would like more information, please email Matt Geary and Rosie Reynolds at uob-psylit@contacts.bham.ac.uk. You can stay up to date by following PsyLit on Twitter (@uob_psylit) or WordPress (http://uobpsylit.wordpress.com/).

 

Also, if your work explores the intersection between psychoanalysis and literature and you would like to give a 20 minute paper at one of PsyLit's future meetings please submit a 100-200 word abstract to uob-psylit@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

UOB PSYLIT NETWORK MEETING - FRIDAY 19 JULY

“The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious.  What I discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied.” – Sigmund Freud 1928

 

The University of Birmingham Psy Lit Network is a new subject network started by doctoral researchers in the English department for people interested in psychoanalysis, literature, and the relationship between these two fields of study.

 

We will be holding our first meeting in the Constance Naden Room (Room 103) on the first floor of the Arts Building, from 2-3pm on Friday 19th July. We welcome staff and students either working on, or interested in, literature and psychoanalysis.

 

The meeting will consist of an informal discussion of a short text exert (circulated by email before the meeting) but most importantly will be a chance to informally discuss current research in this area going on at the University and to look forward to a series of events which will be running in the next academic session, designed around feedback we receive in this first meeting about what would be useful to support research in the field.

 

For our first meeting we will be discussing  Cinderella by the Brothers Grimm alongside Adam Phillips’ ‘Mothers and Fairytales’ - taken from his book On Balance.

 

If you would like to attend or would like more information, please email Matt Geary and Rosie Reynolds:

uob-psylit@contacts.bham.ac.uk

English Classes for Partners/Spouses

English Classes for Partners/Spouses of UoB Staff are running again this term, every Saturday 11am – 1pm.

Saturday 19^th January – Saturday 23^rd March 2013

AIMS OF THE COURSE

·      To enable Partners or Spouses of University of Birmingham Postgraduate Students and Staff to communicate with others in the community in simple English

·     At both levels, working on skills of listening, understanding and speaking on useful everday topics such as greeting people, taking about self and family, shopping, talking to staff in medical and education services, etc…

LOCATION: Priorsfield, Edgbaston Park Road, Building G18 on the University Campus Map.

COST: £120

If you do require any further information please contact Vicky Panton at v.l.spencer@bham.ac.uk

Call for Papers - The Art of English

Queen Mary, University of London, Friday 21 June 2013.

Faced with pressure to quantify and possibly to commodify our research and our teaching through the narrow and potentially homogenizing parameters of concepts such as ‘impact’, many researchers and teachers in English departments seem to retreat from the challenge of affirming what it is that we value in the study and teaching of English.

This one-day conference to be held at Queen Mary, University of London, aims to meet this challenge by tracing and interrogating historical and contemporary debates pertaining to English and English departments. Commencing from a suspicion of certain rhetorical commonplaces, whereby the subject is discussed as something to be ‘defended’ or ‘protected’, we hope to keep in play an openness to the future(s) of the work that we do, by considering the injunction to respond, ethically and imaginatively, to our subject-matter’s indomitable capacity to surprise and alarm.

The day is structured as a sequence of three sessions, each featuring an address from a guest speaker, followed by a panel of three shorter papers. We are delighted to announce Professor Derek Attridge (University of York, Fellow of the British Academy) as our first confirmed guest speaker. For the panel papers, we welcome abstracts from all scholars, including postgraduates and early career researchers, to discuss questions such as:

The Past:

· The theorisation of literary and aesthetic study in the University from Kant, Schlegel and Schiller through to Matthew Arnold, I. A. Richards, and F. R. Leavis, and beyond.

· The formation and history of English departments, their role within the university, the theorisation of pedagogy in English departments and attendant questions of canon and canonization.

· The history of the relationship between research and teaching in the University.

The Present

Guest Speaker: Professor Derek Attridge.

Chair: Dr Andrew van der Vlies.

· The role of theory today.

· Interdisciplinarity.

· The archival turn and material culture.

· Distant reading.

· The ethical turn.

· The usefulness or otherwise of such terms, ‘turns’, and terminology?

· English departments and creative writing.

· The politics of English studies, for researchers, teachers, and students, today.

The Future

· Digital humanities.

· The role of creativity in English research and teaching.

· ‘Post-criticism’.

Proposals, of a maximum of 300 words, including a short biography (maximum 100 words), for twenty-minute papers, as well as queries and comments, should be addressed to: artofenglishconference@gmail.com.

The deadline for submissions will be Thursday 28 February 2013.

Sites of Memory- Friday 22 February 2013

An interdisciplinary postgraduate conference and interactive workshop at the University of Birmingham

Call for Papers

How is memory related to physical space, objects and texts? How do different disciplines conceptualise memory? How do we research and write about memory?

“Sites of Memory” invites undergraduates, postgraduates and early career scholars to submit papers for an interactive workshop on memory across the disciplines. Running as the first in a series of three workshops based within the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham, this session seeks to provide an informal and hands-on environment where the subject of memory can be discussed in the broadest possible sense.

The first part of the conference will feature papers reflecting on memory in different disciplines and regions. This will be followed by an interactive workshop exploring how different ‘sites’ stimulate, document and dissemble memory. Presented with a case study in which past objects and events are remembered in multiple ways, participants will discuss issues related to the processes of remembering and commemoration.

We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers on all aspects of the study of memory, particularly those which engage with the physicality of memory and its relationship to space, place, objects, texts and bodies.

Sites of memory to consider include:

·    Bodily / imagined

·    Textual (primary and secondary sources)

·    Musical

·    Oral

·    Physical / geographical

·    Artistic (pictorial / artefacts)

     Encouraging interdisciplinary study and conversation, we welcome proposals from researcher working within, but not limited to, the following fields:

·    History     

·    Area Studies

·    English

·    Art History

·    Medical Sciences

·    Archaeology

Interested participants should submit a 100-200 word abstract and a 50 word biography, along with five-key words relating to their papers or memory interests. Please submit to Tom Penfold, twp005@bham.ac.uk and Rebecca Jones, RKJ982@bham.ac.uk by 7th January 2013. Selected participants will be invited back to participate in a peer review publication workshop later in the year, with a view to preparing papers for publication. For further details please see http://sitesofmemory.wordpress.com/

The English Department invites you to the end-of-semester party for all students and staff in the Department

The English Department invites you to the end-of-semester party for all students and staff in the Department. Please join us on Friday, December 7th, from 4-7pm*, in the Mason Lounge to celebrate the end of the semester with drinks and snacks and a light-hearted ‘lit / Lang pub- quiz’** (with prizes). Please bring snacks to share. Attached is a festive poster to get you in the mood.

 

You can sign up to participate in the quiz (in teams) with Richard House (Arts, 112), or simply just turn up on the day...

 

We look forward to seeing you there.

 

* those of you who have sessions till 5 – join us once you’re done

 

** if you have questions for the quiz, send them to r.house@bham.ac.uk