Archive of Conferences, Seminars, Readings and Other Events, February 2009 - June 2012

Poetry Archive Live

Wednesday 13th June, from 2pm. At the Storey Institute, Lancaster.

Poetry Archive Live is an afternoon/early evening symposium for teachers and students interested in how poetry is taught in the classroom. The event will begin at 2pm with workshops with the leading poets, Sir Andrew Motion, Daljit Nagra and Jean Sprackland, and opportunities for discussion and networking.

This will be followed by a reading, beginning at 5pm.

To register for the symposium or to reserve a seat at the reading (or both), please email Karen Lockney at lockney_k@yahoo.com Places are limited, so book early to avoid disappointment.

This event is free, open to all and is sponsored by the Lancaster University FASS Enterprise Centre.

A Series of Lectures and Seminars with J. Hillis Miller

In May 2012, J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Research Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Irvine, will be visiting Lancaster. We are proud to host (with the Department of Linguistics and English Language) the following events:

Monday 28th May:

Public Lecture: 'Literature Matters Today'

Cavendish Lecture Theatre, 6pm.

Wednesday 30th May:

Open Research Seminar: 'Some Versions of Romance Trauma as Generated by Realist Detail: Ian McEwan's Atonement'

Bowland North Seminar Room 6, 2pm-4pm

Thursday 31st May:

Film Screening: The First Sail: J. Hillis Miller (2011) (dir.) Dragan Kujundzic. The screening will be followed by a question and answer session with Dragan Kujundzic and J. Hillis Miller.

Marcus Merriman Lecture Theatre, 6pm

Friday 1st June:

International Symposium: J. Hillis Miller and the Theory to Come. An international symposium on the thought of J. Hillis Miller with keynotes lectures from J. Hillis Miller and Dragan Kujundzic.

Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts Auditorium, 9.30am-4.30pm.

Jacob Polley Reading

23rd May 2012, Peter Scott Gallery

The award-winning poet and novelist and Lancaster alumnus, Jacob Polley will be giving a reading on 23rd May at 4pm in the Peter Scott Gallery.

Jacob Polley was born in Carlisle in 1975. Picador published his first book of poetry, The Brinkin 2003, and his second, Little Gods in 2006. His first novel with Picador, Talk of the Town, came out in 2009 and won the Somerset Maugham Award. Jacob was selected as one of the Next Generation of British Poets in 2004. In 2002 he won an Eric Gregory Award and the Radio 4/Arts Council 'First Verse' Award. For more infromation, please see www.jacobpolley.com

All welcome.

This reading is part of the MA in Creative Writing Open Day. For more information, or to register your interest in attending the Open Day, pleae contact Lyn Kellett at l.kellett@lancaster.ac.uk

Rethinking Contemporary Gothic: Postgraduate Study Day 2012

Friday 18th May 2012

The second annual postgraduate Contemporary Gothic Study Day took place on Friday 18th May, and featured papers from current and recent postgraduate research students with an interest in all things Gothic. Keynote lectures were also given by Dr Kamilla Elliott (Lancaster University), whose paper was entitled 'Almost Alice: Tie-in Merchandise for Disney's and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and Dr Isabella Van Elferen (University of Utrecht), who spoke on 'Gothic Music: Sounds of the Uncanny'.

Read a report of this successful day here.

Shakespeare Inside-out: Depth / Surface / Meaning

British Shakespeare Association: 10th Anniversary Conference

24-26 February, 2012, Lancaster University

Shakespeare’s texts produce meaning by turning insides out. We are drawn into the plays and poems from the outside through surfaces: books, screens, words, objects, costumes, the surfaces of actors' faces and bodies, retellings or adaptations, teaching spaces and theatres, and via our experiences of immediate effects like music, laughter, tears, movement. The texts, meanwhile, turn deep human questions, emotions, subjectivities outwards by projecting them as words and performance. This conference will ask how the relationship between surface and depth operates in Shakespeare's work. Download a full description of Shakespeare Inside-out.

The Fanatic

An interdisciplinary research workshop, Friday September 9th 2011 (Storey Institute, Lancaster)

During the last 20 years a new wave of thinkers have mobilised the figure of the fanatic as a means of re-visiting such core political problems as the relationship between religion and politcs, faith and knowledge, theory and practice, reason and revolution. This symposium explores the figure of the fanatic in political, historical and cultural discourse from pre-modernity to the present day. Download details of the event.

Travel Writing and the Ethics of Observation

Workshop and Seminar at Lancaster University, Thursday June 16th, 10am - 5pm.

A free one-day event featuring a generative writing workshop, a projected photographic exhibition, and presentations from Dr Corrine Fowler and Dr Harry Whitehead (Univeristy of Leicester) and photographer Richard Hanson. Read full details

The Price of Peace: Cultures of War and Conflict Resolution Network. In conjunction with the Northern Renaissance Seminar

Friday 10th June 2011

The discourse of peacemaking in the early modern period emphasised the benefits or commodities of peace. In peacetime the arts flourished, trade expanded , cameraderie and tranquility reigned. Neverthless, peace always came with a price, and not everyone on every occasion was willing to pay it. What was the price of peace in early modern Europe? What did peace require? What did parties entering into peace have to sacrifice in order to arrive at it? What was lost when peace was gained, and why were so many people on so many occasions unable to lose it? Answers from the records of art, music, history and literature are all encouraged. See our poster and programme.

Rethinking Contemporary Gothic

An Interdisciplinary Study Day, June 3rd 2011

This study day aims to showcase some of the research currently being conducted on contemporary Gothic at Lancaster, with the intention of opening up new avenues for exploration and discussion. It will incorporate papers from current postgraduates and staff on topics as diverse as vampire humour and sarcasm in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Trauma Gothic and the creation of postcolonial England. The day will be rounded off by a keynote by Professor Fred Botting (University of Kingston) entitled 'Love your Zombie'. The day is free and open to all but requires registration.

Points of Departure

Wednesday March 16th, Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research

Bermudan Novelist Angela Barry read from her novel 'Goree: point of departure' on March 16th IAS MR2/3. She was joined by Jeremy Poynting to discuss 25 years of production from Peepal Tree Press; the event was chaired by Professor Roger Bromley, author of 'Narratives for a New Belonging'.

Re-reading William Shakespeare Twenty-five Years On: A Colloquium with Terry Eagleton

Saturday 7 May 2011

 Twenty five years ago, Terry Eagleton’s preface to William Shakespeare began by wittily comparing the foolhardy prospect of writing a short book on Shakespeare to a Monty Python sketch, before setting forward its focus on ‘the interrelations between language, desire, law, money and the body’. The 104 page book went on to demonstrate the case for re-reading Shakespeare in the light of writings by figures such as Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, Jameson, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Kristeva.

The Tom Milne Popular Fiction Archive: A Preview

From 14th January through 11th February, the Library showcased the recently acquired Tom Milne Archive of Popular Fiction. The exhibition contained dozens of paperback novels and pulp magazines. The collection is particularly strong on hard-boiled fiction of the 1940s and 1950s and on the writers whose work formed the core of canonical film noir. The archive was donated to Lancaster by Nigel Algar, Senior Curator of the British Film Institute, and the cataloguing of the collection has been financed by a generous donation from the Lancaster Friends Fund.

The Enemy: Literature, Politics, Culture

Interdisciplinary Research Workshop: 2nd February 2011

SPEAKERS:  Robert Appelbaum (English), ‘The Adversary and the Scapegoat’; Arthur Bradley (English), ‘Un-Life: The Enemy from Augustine to Schmitt’; Michael Dillon (PPR), ‘Specters of Biopolitics: Monsters and Zombies’; Liz Oakley-Brown (English) ‘Exile after Ovid’

Dr Suzannah Lipscomb on Henry VIII

Public Lecture: Dr Suzannah Lipscomb, “Renaissance Prince to Infamous Tyrant: What Changed Henry VIII?”, delivered at The Storey Institute, 6.30 - 7.30 pm, 31 March 2011. 

'Imagining Islamism: Literature, Film & Politics in the Arab World': 12th February 2011

'Imagining Islamism: Literature, Film & Politics in the Arab World' was a one-day conference at the Storey Creative Industries Centre in Lancaster on Saturday 12 February 2011. The event featured an outstanding line-up of experts on the contemporary Arab world and its literature and other creative media. It was a stimulating day of critical reflection on a topical yet much-misunderstood phenomenon. The event was part of the AHRC/ESRC-funded project 'Islamism in contemporary Arab fiction and film'.

Annual Wordsworth Lecture:
Professor Karen O’Brien (Warwick)

March 2nd 2011, 6pm

Furness LT3  

‘Stepping Westward:  Wordsworth and Scotland' 

Professor Terry Eagleton

Monday 29th November 2010, 6.00 pm

Public Lecture
Management School Lecture Theatre 1

‘Ireland, the Brontës and Jane Eyre’

Professor Terry Eagleton

Monday 31st January 2011,  6.00 pm

Public Lecture
Cavendish Lecture Theatre

‘What is Poetry?’

AIMING HIGHER: Poetry and Fiction: 25-30 October 2010

The Aiming Higher Poetry and Fiction course, 25-30th October 2010, gave writers an opportunity to work with Sara Maitland and Graham Mort (plus guest writer, novelist Tristan Hughes). Ty Newydd National Writers' Centre offered this week-long course in partnership with Lancaster University, with a view to helping writers who would like to apply for entry to postgraduate creative writing courses. Read more about the course.

Ian McMillan

Monday 25th October 2010, 7.30 pm

Poetry Reading         
Management School LT1

Celebrated poet, Ian McMillan, gave the Annual Department Lecture/Reading for 2010. This event took place on Monday October 25th. Previous lecturers have been Iain Sinclair, Jackie Kay and Terry Eagleton.

Prof. Robert Hewison. The Mikimoto Memorial Ruskin Lecture 2010

Thursday 18th November, 6.00 pm

Management School Lecture Theatre 1

'No wealth but life': Ruskin and Cultural Value

The lecture was followed by a wine reception in The Hub area (Management School) at 7.00 p.m.
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/ruskin/event/3389

Love and Death in the Renaissance: 15 May 2010

This one day seminar event will consider the peculiar pairings of love and death that so often animate the Renaissance mind. Medical opinion, theology, historical memoirs, and drama are among the many kinds of discourse where love and death are thought to come into contact with one another as a matter of necessity. See Renaissances for more information about Lancaster's research in Medieval and Renaissance literature and culture. Download conference programme and registration form.

Monique Roffey reading art Litfest

One of Lancaster's recent PhD graduates, Monique Roffey, will be reading with Amanda Smyth at the Storey Auditorium in Lancaster on Wednesday 17th March at 7.45 pm. Monique first visited Litfest in 2002, with her first novel, Sun Dog. Her latest, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, is a love story set over fifty years in Trinidad. Read more about this LitFest event.

Sara Maitland at Lancaster's Literature Live

Sara Maitland, award-winning novelist, short story writer and writer of creative non-fiction will be reading from her work and discussing the writing process at 5pm on 11th March 2010 (Bowland North SR2).  All welcome.  For further details of the event see our page on Literature Live

Contemporary Women’s Writing: English 302 Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Lecture

Professor Mary Eagleton (Leeds Metropolitan University) will give a lecture on Contemporary Women’s Writing, 11 am, Monday 15th March 2010 (venue to be confirmed). ALL WELCOME. English 302, ‘Women Writers of Britain and America,’ was launched in 1984/5 by Dr Alison Easton and Dr Tess Cosslett. To celebrate its quarter-century, we have invited Professor Eagleton to speak about the success of the new Oxford University Press journal, Contemporary Women’s Writing, for which she is co-editor. Dr Easton and Dr Cosslett will award a special ‘Anniversary’ Prize for this year’s ‘best’ 302 essay. Download a poster for the Anniversary Lecture.

After Atheism: Religion, Literature and Science

A Symposium with Terry Eagleton, Saturday 24th April 2010: This one-day symposium gathers together a range of international experts on religion, literature and culture to consider the cultural significance of the debate about the ‘God Question’. Why has the God Question re-emerged now? How has it impacted upon literature, culture and even politics? And what, finally, might come ‘after atheism’ – a new Enlightenment or the return of the religious? For further details see our page on the After Atheism Symposium.

Black Page Auction

The Black Page exhibition at Shandy Hall celebrates the 250th anniversary of Vols I & II of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. Page 73 of Volume I is a Black Page which marks the death of Parson Yorick, and 73 artists/writers have each been asked to create a 'Black Page' for exhibition and sale by auction.

Fractured Images / Broken Words

Call for Papers:  The Luminary, our online postgraduate journal, has announced that, in addition to their annual in-house post-graduate conference, the Department of English and Creative Writing will be hosting a large-scale post-graduate conference this year.  They are welcoming submissions from post-graduate students from any institution, working in any discipline or field related to the conference themes. Read more about Fractured Images / Broken Words, which will take place 12th June 2010. 

Launch of Graham Mort's Touch

Graham Mort's new book of short stories, Touch, was launched at the Storey Institute by Litfest on March 3rd at 7.45pm. "Including the Bridport prize-winning story 'The Prince', Touch is an assured and absorbing collection, its twenty-one stories spanning twenty years of short-story writing from a master of the genre." All welcome. Read more about the Litfest programme.  

Ruskin Centre’s Annual Mikimoto Lecture, Wednesday 4th November 2009

Professor Barry Bullen (Reading), ‘Ruskin and Rossetti: a queer friendship’

Professor Terry Eagleton, Monday 26th October 2009                 

Professor Terry Eagleton (Lancaster) read from his memoir, The Gatekeeper.

Qaisra Shahraz performing at Ottawa Festival

Qaisra Shahraz, whose work features in the Moving Manchester Writers' Gallery, performed at this year's Ottawa Writers Festival on 24th October 2009.  She was part of a session called 'The Writing Life: Spotlight on New Islamic Fiction' - an afternoon of exciting new fiction from the Islamic diaspora featuring acclaimed voices from around the world. With Qaisra Shahraz (Pakistan/UK) Laleh Khadivi (Iran/USA) and Boualem Sansal (Algeria).

John Murray reading, Wednesday 21st October 2009 at 5 pm

John Murray read from his new comic extravaganza, The Legend of Liz and Joe, 5pm Wednesday 21st October, Cavendish Lecture Theatre.  Download the poster for John's reading.

Iain Sinclair at Lancaster, 13th October 2009

Iain Sinclair gave a lecture and interview in the Department of English & Creative Writing on Tuesday 13th October 2009.  The event was co-sponsored by the Department, ICR and Theatre Studies.

Writing Manchester Exhibition: 7 September - 17 October 2009 

This unique exhibition covered fifty years of writing in Greater Manchester, which has a growing reputation as the independent publishing capital of the North. Based on archival research by a major Lancaster University project, ‘Moving Manchester’, the Writing Manchester exhibition profiled the city’s most influential writers, publishers and writing organisations as well as providing an overview of the city’s literary trends and specialisms. Funded in part by Arts Council England North-West and co-curated by Corinne Fowler and Kate Horsley, the exhibition took place at Manchester Central Library.

Regarding War: Image/Text

The 2009 Trans-Scriptions event took place on 17th June.  It brought together a photographer, a filmmaker, a contemporary writer and a literary critic to discuss the themes of conflict, displacement and alienation in the context of the Centre’s Regarding War project. Read about the day's events.

Michael Symmons Roberts

March 2009

A Literature Live event:  Michael Symmons Roberts – in conversation with Paul Farley
On 10th March 2009, there was a reading, and a conversation on the nature of collaboration, with celebrated poet, novelist and librettist Michael Symmons Roberts. ‘Raising Sparks is as dark as Mussorgsky, as awesome as Akhmatova. MacMillan makes Roberts' words flow as naturally as psalm-pointing. One moment he is as desolate as Rilke, the next as subtle as Sappho or a Tang dynasty poem… the effect is hypnotising.’  - The Independent - Roderic Dunnett

The Wordsworth Lecture, February 2009

The 2009 Wordsworth Lecture was given by the leading Romantic biographer, Richard Holmes. As well as major biographies for Shelley (Shelley: The Pursuit which won the Somerset Maugham Award) and Coleridge (Early Visions [which won the Whitbread]; and Darker Reflections) Richard Holmes has also written a highly acclaimed memoir: Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer. In 2008 he published a major new work for the first time in a decade: The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science.  This event was funded by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences as the first of its new Signature Lecture Series.

Creative-critical synergies: CTWR Research Event, 27th February 2009

You are invited to attend Creative-critical synergies on 27th February, 3-6 pm, IAS MR3.  This is the first of three seminars for which we have 'Research Centre Seminar Series' funding. Our aim is to initiate cross-disciplinary exchanges by having members of the Centre (and other interested members of FASS) give presentations on different forms of research (theory-based, practice-based), methodological approaches and thematic focuses. There will be ten speakers from six different departments, and we are hoping for wide-ranging discussion of possible avenues of collaborative research amongst Centre members. Click here for full seminar details.