Events archive
2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007
2011
English studies research seminar series - Spring 2011
1 February
Chloe Preedy (University of York)
'Crown Property: Negotiating Royal Status in Tamburlaine, Edward II, and Dido Queen of Carthage.'
8 February
Dr Stephen Colclough (Bangor University)
''Papa reads beautifully': Emily Shore and Domestic Reading in the 1830s.'
1 March
Dr Rebecca D'Monté (UWE, Bristol)
'The Empty Space: British Theatre during the Second World War.'
8 March
Dr Monika Smialkowska (Northumbria University)
'Democratising Shakespeare: the 1916 Shakespeare Tercentenary in America.'
26 May 2011
Dr Chris Wigginton (Sheffield Hallam University)
'Modernism, monsters and madness: Dylan Thomas and the 1930s'.
2 June 2011
Professor Philip Martin (Sheffield Hallam University)
'Johnson's Body'
The singer not the song - narration in the short story
Conference at Sheffield Hallam University
24 June 2011
Michèle Roberts, whose latest collection is 'mud: stories of sex and love' (Virago 2010), read from her short fiction, and 'In Conversation' about writing short stories with Jane Rogers, author of many short stories as well as novels 'Island' and 'Mr Wroe's Virgins'; Jane's story 'Hitting Trees With Sticks' was shortlisted in the BBC Short Story Competition 2009.
Plenary speakers included Dr Ailsa Cox (Edge Hill University, editor 'Short Fiction in Theory and Practice') and Ra Page (managing editor, Comma Press).
It could be said that the narrative voice is the most important feature of the successful short story, and that plot, character and dialogue can be dispensed with, but the voice is everything. Although he wouldn't agree with this statement, Frank O'Connor called his book about the short story 'The Lonely Voice', recognising the importance of the speaker.
The short form is less neglected in academia than it once was, but tends, nevertheless, to be included in courses as an afterthought. The 'Story' campaign, supported by the BBC and the Booktrust, has done much to raise the profile of the form in recent years. It seems timely to bring scholars together with writers and publishers, to share ideas, theory, criticism and experience.
Programme - sessions included
- narration and gender
- reading the story
- the road to the end
- Victorian stories
- the short story and nation
2010
English research seminars
| Date and time | Speaker | Seminar title |
| 17 March 12-1pm |
Kristin Ewins, University of Salford |
Storm Jameson on popular fiction and the political novel |
| 25 March 12-1pm |
Leigh Wilson, University of Westminster |
'talafana, alavatar, hatakalda, wataklasat': *Ulysses* and magic |
| 5 May 12-1pm |
Rebecca Lemon, University of Southern California |
Drinking Habits in Shakespeare |
If you would like further information about these open lectures, please contact Chris Montgomery.
'Lost London' - explorations of a dark metropolis
Monday 14 to Tuesday 15 June 2010
Sheffield Hallam University
This interdisciplinary conference engages with the writings of Iain Sinclair. Following his interest in London writers, it proposes a vision of London that concentrates on the marginal, the 'lost', and the 'underground'. It takes an interdisciplinary form spanning the disciplines of history, English, film and architecture.
The conference will be held in conjunction with the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, and will open a week-long series of short films about London.
More information on this event
2009
History research seminars
| Date and time | Speaker | Seminar title |
| 18 November 2009 5-6.30pm |
Dan Spence (Sheffield Hallam University) | Beyond Talwar - a cultural reappraisal of the 1946 Royal Indian Navy Mutiny |
| 2 December 2009 5-6.30pm |
Professor Clare Midgley (Sheffield Hallam University) | Commemorating Rammohun Roy - creating a cross-cultural community of reform in an imperial age |
If you would like further information about these open lectures, please contact Alison Twells.
Language and linguistics research seminars
| Date and time | Speaker | Seminar title |
| 4 November 2009 1-2pm |
Dr Jodie Clark (Sheffield Hallam University) | 'Being bougie' versus 'shrugging off redneck roots' - race, language and the American myth of upward mobility |
| 3 December 2009 1-2pm |
Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham) | Re-cognising emotion in literary texts |
For further information about these open lectures contact Sara Mills.
Identity and Form in 20th and 21st Century Literature
3 - 4 July 2009
Sheffield Hallam University
The aim of this conference was to provide a forum to discuss the following issues from a range of critical perspectives, with reference to 20th and 21st century literature in English - specifically the
- role of literary form in literature and the rise of alternative literary canons
- emergence of authenticity as a way of evaluating literature
- growing (or renewed) tension between (New) Formalist and identity-centered approaches
- desirability/undesirability of establishing boundaries between cultural and literary studies
- ways in which writers play up to or by-pass ideas of identity
- impact of identity studies on the production/reception/marketing of 20th/21st century literature
- impact of a return to form on the academy's engagement with/commitment to identity-politics
- interrelations between individual and collective politics in the evaluation of literary works
The conference included an evening reception at the stunning Millennium Galleries/Winter Gardens, with the highlight being Marina Lewycka's first reading from her new novel, 'We Are Made of Glue' (published 2 July 2009). For more details please download the press release (PDF 395KB).
To view the conference programme, please choose a day below.
Friday 3 July
| 9.00 | Registration and welcome | ||
| 10.00 | Plenary: Official Identity and Clandestine Experience Professor Thomas Docherty (English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick) |
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| 11.00 | Coffee | ||
Parallel sessions - between 11.15 - 12.35pm |
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| Session name and room | Paper titles | ||
| London (Chair: Rebecca Mallett) |
Flouting Convention: Identity and Form in Bernardine Evaristo's 'Lara and The Emperor's Babe' KATHARINE BURKITT |
Narrating a Performed Identity and the Critique of Ethnicity in 'Londonstani' DAVE GUNNING |
Between Londinium and London: Narrative Form and Historical Intervention in 'The Emperor's Babe' CATHERINE OZMENT |
| Authorial absence (Chair: Harriet Tarlo) |
'The between of earth and sky': A World of Indifference in Jim Crace's 'Quarantine' NIAMH DOWNING |
The Pastoral in V.S. Naipaul's Fiction MARIUS HENTEA |
'Who am I? An obvious question for an orphan': From Identity Politics to Traumatic Authenticity in Jeanette Winterson's Oeuvre to Date REINA VAN DER WIEL |
| Autobiography and myth (Chair: Jonathan Ellis) |
Sally Morgan's 'My Place': Authenticity versus Assimilation LIZZY FINN |
The Graphic Novel as Memoir and Memorial FREYJA PETERS |
Shape-Shifting: Forms and the Self in Automythography KAREN WEEKES |
| 12.35 | Lunch | ||
Parallel sessions - between 1.45 - 3.10pm |
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| Unstable Identities (Chair: Ana María Sánchez-Arce) |
Irony and the Fallible Narrative in Rachel Cusk's 'Arlington Park' ELIZABETH FULLER |
'I'm a shadow of my former self': The Quest for Identity and Its Literary Representation through Narrative Techniques in the Works of Kate Atkinson SANDRA MEYER |
Robert Coover's Empty Core: Community and Identity in 'John's Wife' MALCOLM SUTTON |
| Alternative Forms (Chair: Alice Bell) |
McSweeney's and Identity Formation through Formal Cannivalization KEVIN O'NEILL |
Beyond Literary and Cultural Studies. In Search of a New Paradigm URSZULA TERENTOWICZ-FOTYGA |
'Narcissistic narratives': B.S. Johnson, a Case Study KAREN ZOUAOUI |
| Sexuality and Gender (Chair: Claire Drewery) |
'The Love that Will Not Shut Up': Queer Identity Politics in Will Self's 'Dorian: An Imitation' HELEN DAVIES |
The Role of Jeanette Winterson's Sexual Identity in the Academic Reception of Her Work 'ZITA FARKAS' |
'Sometimes I look in the mirror and 'I 'don't recognize me': Feminist and Queer Identity in Neil Gaiman's 'A Game of You' LAURA HILTON |
| 3.10 | Coffee | ||
Parallel sessions - between 3.30 - 4.30pm |
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| Fragmented Subjectivity (Chair: Rebecca Mallett) |
The Urban Spatial Logic of John Self: Martin Amis's 'Money', National Identity, and Thatcher's London KIM DUFF |
A.L. Kennedy on Form JULIE SCANLON |
|
| Masculinities (Chair: Ana María Sánchez-Arce) |
James Kelman's Textual Masculinities CAROLE JONES |
From the 'other side': the Rewriting of Lad Lit in Beryl Bainbridge's 'Sweet William' HUW MARSH |
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| 4.30 | Break | ||
Parallel sessions - between 4.45 and 6.15pm |
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| Myth and Rewriting (Chair: Harriet Tarlo) |
Penelope's (Re)Identity: From Mythic to Contemporary Gaze MARY ECONOMOU BAILEY |
Identification and Identity: Jonathan Coe's 'What a Carve Up!' and 'The House of Sleep' ORSETTA INNOCENTI |
Identifying with the Dead: T.S. Eliot's Self Construction as Poet and Cultural Authority CARL KROCKEL |
| The Visual (Chair: Jonathan Ellis) |
Identity, Aesthetics and the Visual Arts: Constructions of 'Self' in Selected Contemporary Art Novels STEFANIE ALBERS |
A Portrait of the Artwork: Ekphrasis and Identity in 'What I Loved' ANNA BARTON |
Poetics of the Snapshot: W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice TERESA BRUS |
| 6.15 | End of day one | ||
| 6.45 | Reception (Millennium Galleries/Winter Garden) Reading: Marina Lewycka's first reading from her new novel, 'We Are Made of Glue' (published 2 July 2009) |
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Saturday 4 July
| 9.00 | Registration | |||
| 9.30 | Plenary: Virginia's Sister: Identity, Metaphor and the Persistence of Disability Professor Stuart Murray (School of English, University of Leeds) |
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| 10.30 | Coffee | |||
Parallel sessions - between 10.45 and 12.45pm |
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| Session name and room | Paper titles | |||
| Poetic Forms (Chair: Stuart Murray) |
'Co-opted and obliterated echo' - Formal Poetry and the Negotiation of Identities TORSTEN CAENERS |
'Not yet not yet…': Forms of Defiance in Alice Oswald's Poetry KYM MARTINDALE |
Hybrid Identity in the Sonnet Form: Cullen and Millay's Cultural Engagement in the 1920s PAUL MUNN |
Personal Pronouns and Ambiguous Identity: CSI for the Contemporary Lyric NOEL WILLIAMS |
| Changing National Identities (Chair: Deborah M. Poe) |
Sea Changes: Fluid Identities and Story Telling in Amitav Ghosh's 'Sea of Poppies' KERSTIN FEST |
Life in the Contact Zone: Practising a Postcolonial National Identity JENNIFER LAWN |
The Pitfall of National Allegory in the 'Third-World' Literature: A Critique of National Identity in Salman Sushtid's 'Midnight's Children' YOUNG-HYEON RYU |
Skin, Writing and Authenticity: Representations of Mixed-Race Subjectivity in F. Tennyson Jesse's 'The Lacquer Lady' and Ma Ma Lay's 'Not Out of Hate' MICHELLE AUNG THIN |
| 12.45 | Lunch | |||
Parallel sessions - between 1.45 and 3.10pm |
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| The Body (Chair: Claire Drewery) |
Subject-Object Relations Manifest: Thing Theory and Byatt's 'Possession' KATE LIMOND |
Reading the Body: Michael Ondaatje and the Memory of Human Remains J EDWARD MALLOT |
Writing the Self into Being: Illness and Identity in Inga Clendimen's 'Tiger's Eye' and Hilary Mantel's 'Giving Up the Ghost' AMY PRODROMOU |
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| Kazuo Ishiguro (Chair: Ana María Sánchez-Arce) |
Whart Remains: The Use of Silence in Dismantling Essentialist Notions of Identification and Nationalism in Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day' DEBORAH M. POE |
The Impossibility of the Mother Quest in Kazuo Ishiguro's 'When We Were Orphans' MITOKO HIRABAYASHI |
Novel Encounters: The Convergence of the Postmodern and the Postcolonial RANU SAMANTRAI |
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| 3.10 | Coffee | |||
Parallel sessions - between 3.30 and 5pm |
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| The Author and Criticism (Chair: Rebecca Mallett) |
Imaginative Identity in the Writing of John Cowper Powys's 'A Glastonbury Romance' EMILE BOJESEN |
Reflections on Affect and Authorial Identity in Angela Carter's 'feminist' Fiction MICHELLE RYAN-SAUTOUR |
The Time of our Singing: Biraciality and Musical Bifurcatoin in the Work of Richard Powers HAZEL SMITH |
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| Trauma (Chair: J. Edward Mallott) |
'Strange, stranger, strangled': Wah and Sedwick's Bid to Un-Form, Reform, and Perform Identity through Generic Ambivalence CATHERINE BATES |
Literature in Process: the Deluzian Textual Dynamics of Toby Litt's 'deadkidsongs' LUCY PRODGERS |
Identity, Trauma and Narrative Form in Anne Enright's 'The Gathering' ULRIKE TANCKE |
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| 5.00 | Closing remarks and end of conference | |||
For more information please e-mail identityandform@shu.ac.uk.
The 1989 Revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe: Twenty Years On
10 - 12 September 2009
Sponsored by the British Academy and part funded by the Philips Price Memorial Trust
Keynote speakers: Professor Robin Okey (University of Warwick), Dr Pavel Seifter (London School of Economics)
Organisers: Dr Kevin McDermott and Dr Matthew Stibbe
This conference reassessed a defining historical, political and ideological turning-point in the 'short twentieth century': the revolutions of 1989. The 20th anniversary of these seminal events was a particularly timely moment to revisit the rapid dismantling of the communist edifice, which had been in place since the late 1940s and which was widely regarded at the time as an impregnable 'totalitarian' fortress.
Papers were presented by British, European and North American experts from a variety of disciplines, including • history • political science • international relations • sociology • economics • film studies. Together they examined the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe from a broad comparative perspective.
Hence, the conference not only focused on internal processes in the former communist countries, but also sought to unravel the complex interconnections between indigenous and exogenous factors, notably the 'Gorbachev phenomenon', the impact of the 'West', and the end of the Cold War. Several papers were devoted to these important external aspects of the revolutions. The bulk of the contributions, however, were case studies of developments in the ex-Soviet bloc states - the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.
> Download the programme (Word 100KB)
2008
Cultures of war in the middle ages and renaissance
A day colloquium at Sheffield Hallam University
Saturday 11 October 2008
| 10.00 | Arrival and coffee |
| 10.30 | Jennie Cobley, University of Southampton, 'Quit your selves like men': Representing the Soldier in the Parliamentarian Print Culture of the English Civil War 1642-46'; Adam Chapman, University of Southampton, 'Bare feet and leeks: The Image of the Welsh soldier from the middle ages onwards' |
| 12 - 1.00 | Lunch |
| 1.00 | Dong-ha Seo, the Shakespeare Institute, 'Militaristic Style in the Visual Arts in Early Modern England'; Kate Wilkinson, Sheffield Hallam University, 'Playing the Men: Staging Martial Women in the Wars of the Roses' |
| 2.30 | Tea |
| 2.45 - 4.15 | Richard Wood, Sheffield Hallam University ''Think nature me a man of arms did make'?: Conflicted conflicts in Astrophel and Stella and The New Arcadia'; Alan James, King's College London, 'Re-assessing Early Modern Naval Warfare: Cultures of War and the French Navy' |
Spiritual and Material Renaissances IV
A day colloquium at Sheffield Hallam University
Wednesday 16 July 2008
| 10.00 | Arrival and coffee |
| 10.15 | Matthew Woodcock, University of East Anglia - Edmund Spenser at the Funeral of Elizabeth I |
| 11.15 | Coffee |
| 11.30 | Jayne Archer, University College Aberystwyth - Hermeticism and natural magic in everyday rituals and the household space |
| 12.30 - 1.30 | Lunch |
| 1.30 | Daniel Cadman, Sheffield Hallam University - The Politics of Stoicism in Thomas Kyd's Cornelia Chris Butler, Sheffield Hallam University - 'As You Like It' and allegory |
| 3.00 | Tea |
| 3.15 - 4.45 | Richard Wood, Sheffield Hallam University - 'Philip has the word and the substance': A Philippist reading of Sidney's New Arcadia Andrew Duxfield, Sheffield Hallam University - Hermeticism in 'Doctor Faustus' |
Models of Partnership in Digital Research
Fifth in a series of day colloquia, jointly organised by Sheffield Hallam's Department of English and the University of Sheffield's Humanities Research Institute
Tuesday 17 June 2008
| 10.15 | Ray Siemens, Victoria - 'Inter-discipline' and the study of the electronic 'book' Alice Bell, Sheffield Hallam - What is hypertext fiction and why are they saying such awful things about it? George Buchanan, Swansea - Reading and document triage |
| 10.45 | Coffee |
| 11.00 | Monica Landoni, Strathclyde - Searching E-books James Cummings, Oxford, Transforming agile editions with interoperability Claire Warwick, UCL - Reading and pleasure: humanities scholars and positive experiences of physical and virtual information environments |
| 12.30 - 1.30 | Lunch |
| 1.30 | Ian Gadd, Bath Spa - EEBO, ECCO and the bibliographer's dilemma John Bradley, KCL - 'Pliny and personal notetaking: what is notetaking for, and can the computer help? Lon Barfield, Bristol - Books and ebooks, a user perspective: 'It would have to have a charm that a book could never have' |
| 3.00 | Tea |
| 3.00 - 4.45 | Steven Newman, University of Sheffield, and Kathy Rogers, University of Sheffield - 'What magical madness conjured you into this shape?': Facilitating the creation of Brome Online Steve Earnshaw, Sheffield Hallam - 'The Very Texture of the Sky': Reading 1s, Reading 0s |
Renaissance Drama: Histories and Contexts
A day colloquium at Sheffield Hallam University
Tuesday 15 January 2008
| 10:00 | Arrival and coffee |
| 10:15 | Emma Smith, Hertford College, Oxford, 'What happens in Richard II?' |
| 11:15 | Coffee |
| 11:30 | René Weis, University College London, 'Was Shakespeare a real person?' |
| 12:30 - 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 | Annaliese Connolly, Sheffield Hallam, 'Words and Pictures: Reading Royal Iconography', and Tom Rutter, Sheffield Hallam, 'Playing companies, historicism, and the problems of context' |
| 15:00 | Tea |
| 15:15 - 16:00 | Kate Wilkinson, Sheffield Hallam, 'Methinks I am a prophet new inspired': Ghosts and Prophecies in Michael Boyd's History Cycle'. |
2007
Writer as Critic, Critic as Writer; The Second 'Hallam Writers and Critics Forum'
Thursday June 28, 2007, Owen 1036
Below is the programme for the second 'Writers and Critics' conference at Hallam. As with the first conference, the idea was to provide the opportunity for discussion between literary academics and creative writers teaching within the English department. The conference aimed to share insights, knowledge and concerns.
- John Milne: 'How Did Dickens Manage without Leavis?'
- Steven Earnshaw: 'At Last! The First Person Plural! Writers, Readers, Critics, Theorists, Teachers, and Then We Came to the End'
- Felicity Skelton: 'Mucking About with Words: Fun with Jacques and Julia'
- Mike Harris: 'The Future of Creative Writing in Universities - Scholastic Dead End or Brave New Academy?'
Investigating the Middlebrow
One-Day Conference, Sheffield, 23 June 2007
> Download programme (Word 106KB)
Research speakers
Spring 2007
| Tuesday 17 April 12-1pm |
Contemporary and Modern - Ana Maria Sanchez-Arce (Sheffield Hallam University) |
'Stuck on the Margins': The Case of Kazuo Ishiguro. |
| Monday 26 March 12-1pm |
Renaissance Seminar - Cathy Shrank (University of Sheffield) |
'Trollers and dreamers: defining the subject in sixteenth-century broadside contentions'. |
| Monday 12 March 12-1pm |
Contemporary and Modern - Scott McCracken (Keele University) |
'Modernism, History and the Moment of Defeat' |
| Tuesday 20 February 12-1pm |
Contemporary and Modern - Helen Farish (Sheffield Hallam University) |
'That was what I wanted: to be naked': Desire, authenticity and the body in the poetry of Louise Gluck and Sharon Olds. |
Models of partnership in digital research
A day colloquium at Sheffield Hallam University
Monday 3 September 2007
- Ray Siemens, University of Victoria, 'A Knowledgebase Approach to Professional Reading'
- Gabriel Egan, Loughborough University, 'Electronic Publishing: Politics and Pragmatics';
- Paul Vetch, King's College London, 'On the Modes and Moments of Interaction: Creating Responsive Digital Humanities Resources'
- Lynne Siemens, University of Victoria, 'The Potential of Management Tools to Aid Research Team Development'; Paul Spence, King's College London, 'Connecting texts: markup, collaboration and digital scholarship'
- Jonathan Gibson, English Subject Centre, 'Digital Resources and the Relationship between Teaching and Research'
Sheffield Hallam Modern British History Research Seminar
For further information contact Matt Roberts.
'Empire, slavery and the making of late-eighteenth-century Britain'
Douglas Hamilton (University of Hull)
Wednesday 28 March 2007
'Priestley's England: J B Priestley and English Culture'
John Baxendale (Sheffield Hallam University)
Wednesday 28 February 2007
'The New Militia and the crisis of gender in 1750s Britain'
Matthew McCormack (University of Northampton)
Wednesday 14 February 2007
'Quixotism of liberty?': Eccentricity and the Victorians'
James Gregory (University of Bradford)
Wednesday 31 January 2007
'The happiest days? Youth, work and memory, c.1920-60'
Selina Todd (University of Warwick)
Wednesday 17 January 2007
