Visiting speaker, 16 Apr 2013: Andrew Mangham on early forensics and 19th-century literature

Andrew Mangham (University of Reading) will be presenting his paper, ‘Bleeding Corpses and Other Nasties: Early Forensics and Popular Nineteenth-Century Literature’, at 5.30pm on Tuesday, 16 April 2013. The talk will take place in the Cardiff University’s John Percival Building, Room 2.48.

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the rise of forensic science in the early nineteenth century, and questions the role that popular short stories from periodicals like the Terrific Register had on popular ideas of evidence, truth, and guilt. In particular, I’ll focus on grisly images of bleeding corpses and live burials to show how the 1820s marked a period of change in the interpretation of anatomical evidence: benighted notions of natural justice were beginning to be superseded by a clinical approach to truth which privileged empirical detail and hard evidence.

Visiting speaker, 26 Feb 2013: Nicola Watson on Walter Scott, Washington Irving and literary heritage

Nicola Watson (Open University) will be presenting her paper, ‘Transporting the Romantic: Sir Walter Scott, Washington Irving and the Romantic Writer’s House’, at 5.30pm on Tuesday, 26 February 2013. The talk will take place in the Cardiff University’s John Percival Building, Room 2.48.

Abstract

This paper investigates the making of Washington Irving’s house in New York State, Sunnyside, as a reworking of Sir Walter Scott’s exercise in self-promotion at Abbotsford. It argues that Irving, having presented and explicated Scott’s home in Geoffrey Crayon’s Sketchbook to a wide public, especially in the States, consciously took Scott’s house as a model for his own display of himself as a romantic writer. Sunnyside rethinks Abbotsford by sentimental referencing, by reiterating the aesthetic of the collection, and in architectural terms. Most strikingly, it mimics Scott’s fantasia by embedding the writer’s house within a ‘heritage’ landscape itself produced by his own writing. The paper enquires as to how typical this project might have become for other romantic American authors, notably Fenimore Cooper, Henry Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The conclusion speculates on whether the romantic understanding of literary genius as most intensely expressed in houses and associated landscapes survived the Atlantic crossing intact, or whether it mutated into something distinctive in the environment of New England.

Workshop on Oral Poetry Today, 15 Feb 2013, Cardiff University

Oral Poetry Today

Friday, 15 February @ 4pm

A practitioners’ workshop gathering slam artists, poets, and analysts from the academic world and the cultural economy.

What is the role and importance of oral poetry today? Are oral poetry and written poetry interconnected? Is slam a continuation of the tradition or a new genre?

Those questions and others will be addressed by our speakers:

• Camille Faucherre, slam artist (Lille, France)
• James Wheale, slam artist (UK)
• Llyr Lewis (poet, Wales)
• Glenn Carmichael (Poetry Slam, Bristol)
• Bohdan Pasieki (Apples and Snakes)
• Donatella Dubourg (La Générale d’Imaginaire, Lille, France)
• Llion Roberts (poet, Wales, and Cardiff University)
• Monika Hennemann (Cardiff University)
• Cristina Marinetti (Cardiff University)
• Alexis Nuselovici (Nouss) (Cardiff University)

The event will take place in Rooms 1.07/1.08 of the Optometry Building, Cardiff University.

For more information : Anne James, JamesA@cardiff.ac.uk

Adam Thorpe discusses translating Madame Bovary, 7 Feb 2013, Cardiff University

Respected novelist and poet, Adam Thorpe, will give a lecture entitled ‘My Nights with Emma B’ in the Optometry Building, Cardiff University on 7 February 2013 at 7pm.

Adam Thorpe

Adam Thorpe is a celebrated novelist, poet and playwright, who has recently branched out into the world of translation. His writing in various genres has garnered recognition throughout his career. His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted that year for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide.

After producing three novels in as many years, Adam Thorpe accepted a Vintage commission to translate Flaubert’s Madame Bovary with the idea that it would be a break from creating. Three exhausting years later, he was prepared to accept that literary translation is one of the hardest – if poorest paid – disciplines of all. Yet its addictive nature led him to accept a further commission to translate Zola’s Thérèse Raquin. Thorpe discusses his experience of the translator’s art and its perils, pains and peculiar satisfactions.

A panel, entitled ‘Why do we need a 20th translation of Madame Bovary?’, will take place from 3 to 5 pm on 7 February in Room 1.29 of Cardiff University’s Law Building. Panellists include Adam Thorpe, Alexis Nuselovici (Cardiff), Kate Griffiths (Cardiff), Amanda Hopkinson (City), Anthony Mandal (Cardiff) and Bradley Stephens (Bristol).

For further information on how to register for this lecture or this panel, please contact Kate Griffiths: GriffithsKS@cardiff.ac.uk

This lecture is part of Cardiff University’s Distinguished Lecture Series, which brings eminent and influential guest speakers to the University in order to showcase their work to a wider audience. It is also supported by the School of European Languages, Translation and Politics’ Research Group on Politics of Translating and the Languages, Cultures and Ideologies Research Unit. The lecture is hosted by the University’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and is free and open to all, but booking is essential.

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/europ/research/groups/translating/index.html

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/europ/research/researchunits/lci/index.html

Jekyll 2.0: Embodying the Gothic Text

At the end of November 2012, I was lucky enough to be part of a team that won a commission through the innovative REACT Books&Print Sandbox call for early 2013. I’ll be working as lead academic partner with Bristol-based creative company, SlingShot, to create a pervasive media experience that draws on the narrative and themes of Stevenson’s gothic masterpiece.

Humanity 2.0 is an understanding of the human condition that no longer takes the ‘normal human body’ as given. On the one hand, we’re learning more about our continuity with the rest of nature—in terms of the ecology, genetic make-up, evolutionary history. On this basis, it’s easy to conclude that being ‘human’ is overrated. But on the other hand, we’re also learning more about how to enhance the capacities that have traditionally marked us off from the rest of nature.
—Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, Warwick.

The core of our project draws on the fundamental questions of Jekyll and Hyde: What makes us human? Do our minds control our bodies or are we shaped by our urges, compulsions and appetites? Will technology radically transform us into a new organism, ‘Humanity 2.0’? Such questions are nothing new: during the 19th century, the cultural implications of emerging theories of identity and the dominance of science were explored by numerous works of literature. Drawing on this tradition, our project transforms this reading into play, to create a pervasive gaming experience that links individuals’ bio-data with one such text, Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde (1886), in order to stimulate participants into considering the condition of their own humanity.

Call for Papers: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century, Sheffield 24 Aug 2013

The University of Sheffield
School of English

Rethinking the Nineteenth Century

Saturday, 24 August 2013

Keynote speaker: Professor Mark Llewellyn
(University of Strathclyde: Director of Research at the AHRC),
‘On Reciprocity, Trust and the Gift’

This one day conference will address a central question: what constitutes nineteenth century studies today? Recent years have witnessed significant shifts in the historical range and content of the long nineteenth century as the result of emerging critical approaches, historiographical debates, and the advancing claims of interdisciplinary analyses. The conference will provide a forum for taking stock of where we are now and trace possible future developments within the area. It will explore how specific engagements with a range of critical theories have developed an understanding of the nineteenth century as well as examining how the development of new cultural forms, including contemporary adaptations of the nineteenth century (on stage, film, and television), have conditioned public perceptions of the period. The conference will also address the challenges (and possible limitations) of discussing the nineteenth century as opposed to the Victorian period as well as exploring the distinctions and continuities between Romanticism and Victorianism. The conference will also reflect on how recent developments in the neo-Victorian novel have contributed to new debates about the relationship between the Victorian novel and contemporary culture, and how this enables us to reread and rewrite the Victorians.

We thus invite contributions which reflect on how texts, approaches, and concepts have enriched our understanding of the nineteenth century. We also welcome contributions which consider future developments for nineteenth century studies by plotting ways of ensuring a positive and vibrant future for our past.

Discussions are underway with a University Press with a view to publishing a collection based on extended versions of a selection of papers.

Papers might wish to address topics such as:

• Rethinking the parameters of the nineteenth century – The Romantics and the Victorians.
• New interdisciplinary approaches.
• Recovering the lost: voices, texts, artefacts.
• Theorising the nineteenth century.
• Keywords – then and now?
• The international context and transnational approaches
• Representing the nineteenth century – TV, film, galleries and museums, the neo-Victorian.
• Where next for nineteenth century studies?
• Canon formation in a digital age.
• The Digital Humanities and Social Media.

Please submit 250 word abstracts for 20 minute papers to the conference organizers (Dr Andrew Smith, Dr Anna Barton, Dr John Miller and Dr Amber Regis) at rethinking@sheffield.ac.uk by March 18th.

Visiting speaker, 12 Dec 2012: Rupert Gatti on Open-Access publishing

Rupert Gatti (Cambridge) will be presenting his paper, ‘Open Access Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences’, at 4pm on Wednesday, 12 December 2012. The talk will take place in the Cardiff Humanities Building, Room 2.48.

Please note: this paper was originally scheduled to run at 2.30pm but is now running at 4pm.

Abstract
The nature and methods of academic book publishing is transforming radically in the wake of external pressures and the rising costs of scholarly monographs. Open-Access publishing is increasingly being perceived as a solution to the problem facing both institutions, whose library budgets are being cut year-on-year, and scholars, who are attempting to disseminate their work to the widest audience possible. One company that is responding to this situation is Open Book Publishers: an imprint run by academics for academics, which is changing the nature of the traditional academic book. Its books are published in hardback, paperback, PDF and e-book editions, but they also include a free online edition.

We are in the midst of what journalists are calling an ‘academic spring’. Researchers are realising that the high cost of academic books and journals means that only a select readership can access their work. Open Access (that is, making texts free to read online) helps spread educational materials to everyone, globally, not just to those who can afford it. It is increasingly becoming a requirement for publicly funded research to be made available in Open Access format and we are able to achieve this quickly and effectively. Open Book Publishers, a signatory of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, shows that an Open Access model of publishing can be sustainable. In his talk, Rupert Gatti will discuss the transforming landscape of academic publishing and its implications, as well as talking more specifically about Open Book Publishers and its vision.

You can read more of Rupert’s reflections on open-access publishing in his article for the Guardian Online and on the Open Book Publishers YouTube channel.