Departmental Pop Quiz type thing: Preliminary Pie Chart

Pie Chart graphic is indicative and subject to amendment. Information relates to prior post: Departmental Pop Quiz type thing.

What Day is it again?

National Poetry Day, brilliant! And how nice to mark the day by having a new Miriam Allott Creative Writing Fellow: Sean Borodale. Here’s some stuff about Sean (below), in case you want to know more, and look out for his inaugural lecture/reading type thing that is scheduled for Tuesday 3rd November 2015 at 5:15pm, Centre for New and International Writing, L7 7EE.

Biography (taken from Sean’s site):
Sean Borodale is one of 2014’s Next Generation Poets. He is currently Creative Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. His second collection, Human Work (a poet’s cookbook) will be out with Jonathan Cape in February 2015.

He was selected as a Granta New Poet in 2012, and his debut collection Bee Journal was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and the Costa Book Award in 2013. Mighty Beast, his documentary poem for Radio 3 won the Radio Academy Gold Award in 2014 for Best Feature or Documentary.

His topographical poem Notes for an Atlas was recommended by Robert Macfarlane in the Guardian Summer Books 2005. It was performed in 2007 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, directed by Mark Rylance, as part of the first London Festival of Literature.

Other projects include Grey Matter with artist Jonathan Houlding which included a residency at the Fundacion Pilar i Joan Miro, Mallorca, 2009. He was Guest Artist at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam in 2002 and Northern Arts Fellow at the Wordsworth Trust in 1999. From 2002-7 he was a teaching fellow at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.

Departmental Pop Quiz type thing

Here’s some info about the next Postgraduate Staff-Student Liaison Committee (PGSSLC) meeting from English postgraduate student representative Matthew Alexander (matthew.alexander@liverpool.ac.uk), along with a pop quiz type thing at the foot of the page:

Firstly, a welcome to all new PGRs and PGTs. I hope that you have settled in well, and invite you (along with returning PGR/Ts) to the first of the year’s PGSSLC–Postgraduate Staff-Student Liaison Committee–meetings. The meeting will take place on Monday 19th October at 12:30pm in Matthew Bradley’s office: Room 2.15, 19-21 Abercromby Square.

The meeting, usually lasting no more than an hour, is an opportunity to engage with university representatives in order to address your concerns, put forward suggestions, etc., the aim of which being the betterment of student experience at University of Liverpool. Please canvas fellow students’ opinions/suggestions so that a multiplicity of voices may be heard, and forward any items for the agenda to Matthew’s( email address with the subject heading, ‘PGSSLC Agenda.’

Please note: It would be ideal if at least one representative from each year of study (full and part-time, MA and PhD) could attend.

Pop quiz type thing element…

Given that there are very few items raised prior to said meetings, historically, Matthew would like to ask the following with the aim of understanding better the feelings of fellow students:

A) Are you so pleased with the whole student experience that you have no suggestions/comments to make?

B) Do you feel ambivalent about the whole thing, and don’t really see the point of making suggestions/comments in this area?

C) Is it that you feel little will change from making suggestions/comments and therefore you do not do so? Or is there another reason?

Matthew would be modestly satisfied if two or more students respond to the above pop quiz type thing, and may even attempt a bar/pie chart based on data received. Email Matthew with your answer (A, B, or C) at matthew.alexander@liverpool.ac.uk

School of the Arts Events

Click on the image below to access Eventbrite, detailing current events at University of Liverpool.

Site page accurate as at 26th September 2016

James Ellroy: Visions of Noir

‘James Ellroy: Visions of Noir’, 2nd July 2015, will be held at the University of Liverpool and sponsored by the Department of English. This conference will examine Ellroy’s influence on the genre, his inspirations as a writer and his achievements in forging an idiosyncratic and unique style. We seek to foster an interdisciplinary approach in order to explore subjects such as Ellroy’s reinterpretation of the history of Los Angeles and the United States, as well as the connections between genre fiction and cinema through film noir. Our keynote speaker is journalist and critic Woody Haut, who has written on how Ellroy’s work has led to a reassessment of crime fiction as ‘at its most subversive not when it retreats into the confines of the genre, but when it stretches its narrative boundaries and rules regarding subject, style and plot.’ His works include Neon Noir: Contemporary American Crime Fiction (1999) and Pulp Culture: Hardboiled Fiction and the Cold War (2014). Click the image to register for this event.

Panels at the conference may include, but are not restricted to:

• Historical Crime Fiction: Ellroy’s manipulation of history, comparisons to other authors such as Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal
• True Crime: the writer’s place in solving crimes; Ellroy’s relationship with police and true crime writers
• Mapping Los Angeles: The history and geography of Ellroy’s LA
• Pulp and Porn: The voyeurism of tabloids and film in Ellroy’s work
• Film Noir: Ellroy’s adaptation of film and film’s adaptation of Ellroy
• Femme fatales: Exploring the genre’s gender lines
• Ellroy and after: Ellroy’s influence on a younger generation of crime writers

Walter Mosley Event – 2nd July

Walter Mosley heads to the city from New York for a rare UK appearance. Hosted by Writing on the Wall, the event will explore a shared literary heritage and transatlantic experiences of race, class and equality. Walter Mosley is one of the most versatile and admired writers in America today. He is the author of more than 43 critically acclaimed books, including the major best selling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins and Devil in a Blue Dress. His work has been translated into 23 languages and includes literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs, and a young adult novel. He is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Click the image below for a link to ticket sales for this event.

Madeline Heneghan Co- Director, Writing on the Wall says:
‘It’s a real coup to have such an iconic American writer as Walter Mosley in the city. This is an exceptional treat for fans of crime fiction and an absolute must for those interested in contemporary US politics and culture’.

New Generation Thinker

Dr Sandeep Parmar will become the University of Liverpool’s fourth BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker in the five years since the scheme was launched in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Dr Parmar, a poet and Lecturer in the University’s Department of English, will follow in the footsteps of her colleagues, Dr Alexandra Harris, Professor Nandini Das and Professor Sarah Peverley, after being selected ahead of hundreds of academics to take part in the project.

Dr Parmar, who is also co-director of the Department’s Centre for New and International Writing, said: “This is a wonderful opportunity. I am looking forward to rethinking the research that I do and coming up with ways to make it even more interesting.

Thriving research community

“I’m fortunate to be part of a thriving research community that engages with writing in English from across the world. I’m so pleased to be able to extend that international dialogue and my own research in women’s writing and international poetry to a wider audience.”

New Generation Thinkers is a nationwide search for the brightest minds with the potential to share their cutting edge academic ideas through radio and television.

Dr Parmar’s success, alongside those of nine other academics selected from higher education institutions across the country, was announced on Sunday at the Hay Festival.

“I’m so proud to be part of the English Department; all of my colleagues bring their tremendous knowledge and passion for research to the classroom and that’s one of the reasons we have had so much success becoming New Generation Thinkers”
The final ten were chosen by a panel of BBC Radio 3 and BBC Arts producers and AHRC representatives, following a six month selection process that involved a series of day long workshops at the BBC in Salford and London.

Dr Parmar, and her fellow New Generation Thinkers, will spend one year working with Radio 3 presenters and producers to develop their ideas into broadcasts. They will make their debut appearance on Radio 3’s arts and ideas programme, Free Thinking, on successive editions beginning with a special edition of the programme recorded at Hay Festival and broadcast on Thursday 28 May. All of the New Generation Thinkers will be invited to make regular contributions to the network throughout the year.

Each New Generation Thinker will also have an opportunity to develop their ideas for television, by making short films for BBC Arts Online.

Matthew Dodd, BBC Radio 3 Head of Speech programming said: “Some of the very first graduates of the New Generation Thinkers Scheme are now experienced TV and radio broadcasters.

“We’re sure that this year’s intake will prove just as insightful and enticing to our audience who are always thirsty for knowledge.”

Different research areas

Since being selected among the first New Generation Thinkers in 2010, Dr Alexandra Harris has gone on to present a BBC Four programme about Mrs Dalloway and a Radio 3 documentary on the artist, Eric Ravillious. Professor Nandini Das presented BBC Four programme, The Cabinet of Curiosities earlier this year. A BBC Arts programme on Henry V’s spy and Scottish Independence, which is based on Professor Sarah Peverley’s research for her edition of John Hardyng’s Chronicle, is forthcoming in June.

Dr Parmar added: “All my predecessors are women and they are all brilliant, even though they each have very different research areas.

“I’m so proud to be part of the English Department; all of my colleagues bring their tremendous knowledge and passion for research to the classroom and that’s one of the reasons we have had so much success becoming New Generation Thinkers.”

Dr Parmar’s research explores avant-garde modernist women writers including Nancy Cunard, Hope Mirrlees and Mina Loy. She is currently writing and researching a novel about wheat cultivation during the Green Revolution in India, for which she received an Arts Council/British Council Artist’s Development Fund award.

The @JoBakerWriter Public Event

What a great event. Some wonderful questions, and dialogue between Dr Simon Marsden and Dr Jo Baker (@JoBakerWriter), and engaging readings of Jo’s texts. What a pleasure to be a part of it. Thanks to all PGs at Liverpool, and to all the supervisors and anyone else who turned up – especially @BlackwellLiv for bringing a selection of Jo’s books for sale.

L to R: Matthew, Jo, and Grace

Some Fun @JoBakerWriter Based Facts

 (clickable)

Fun Fact 4: Jo Baker’s novel, Longbourn, is due to be made into a film in 2016.

Some Fun @JoBakerWriter Based Facts

 (clickable)

Fun Fact 3: Jane Austen is known to have employed two sisters to sew for her. Their surnames? Baker.

English PG Staff-Student Liaison Committee Meeting 27.5.15 12pm

The next PGSSLC (Postgraduate Staff-Student Liaison Committee) Meeting will take place next Wednesday 27th May at 12pm in Matthew Bradley’s office: Room 2.15, 19 Abercromby Square.

Please note: It would be ideal if at least one representative from each year of study (full and part-time, MA and PhD) could attend.

The meeting, usually lasting no more than an hour, is an opportunity to engage with university representatives in order to address your concerns, put forward suggestions, etc., the aim of which being the betterment of student experience at University of Liverpool. Please canvas fellow students’ opinions/suggestions so that a multiplicity of voices may be heard, and forward any items for the agenda to this email address (enpgsslc@liverpool.ac.uk) with the subject heading, ‘PGSSLC Agenda.’

I do hope to see you there.

Best regards,

Matthew Alexander
Postgraduate Student Representative
Department of English

Programme Update

There is one small amendment to the programme running order. This is due to a clash of papers leaving a supervisor unable to attend both. The amendment concerns the 11:30-13:00 panels in Room G09, where an extra paper has been added. The conference programme is printed ready for the day and will not reflect this change. Please take a look at the panel mentioned above so that you can amend your programme by hand if necessary.

Thank you.

Academic Soundbites #3

Too lazy to be bothered doing any more Academic Soundbites, but not too lazy to press ‘Reblog.’ This is a particular favourite, and, after reading J. Jack Halberstam’s advice, just think, if you’re not actually English, you’ve way less to worry about.

English Postgraduates

…and from sunny California, J. Jack Halberstam, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies, Comparative Literature, and English, University of Southern California.

Jack Halberstam is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at USC. Halberstam works in the areas of popular, visual and queer culture with an emphasis on subcultures. Halberstam’s first book, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995), was a study of popular gothic cultures of the 19th and 20th centuries and it stretched from Frankenstein to contemporary horror film. Her 1998 book, Female Masculinity (1998), made a ground breaking argument about non-male masculinity and tracked the impact of female masculinity upon hegemonic genders. Halberstam’s last book, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005), described and theorized queer reconfigurations of time and space in relation to subcultural scenes and the emergence of transgender visibility. This book…

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Some Fun @JoBakerWriter Based Facts

 (no clicky, no linky)

Fun Fact 2: Jo Baker completed a PhD at Queen’s University, Belfast, with a thesis based on the work of the Anglo-Irish writer, Elizabeth Bowen. Bowen died in 1973, the year Jo was born. So really, that’s two fun facts for the price of one.

Some Fun @JoBakerWriter Based Facts

Doing another round of Academic Soundbites seemed a bit too obvious and to be honest, I just couldn’t be bothered. So, what to do, I thought, to make the blog a bit lighter and a tad more fun. How about a Jo Baker ‘fun facts’ section, came the reply. Why not, came another reply. So, here it is.

(clicking the pic takes you to the place where the ‘fact’ exists on the world wide web, for verification purposes, and perhaps also useful if you’re thinking of mounting a libel case against yours truly, where your claim might be something along the lines of: ‘ill thought out blog posting w/r/t the abstract notion of facts’)

Disclaimer: the facts you are about to read here and in future posts can be considered facts only in the sense that they exist as a group of words in the realms of the world wide web, which, if you think about it, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are facts at all. They could just be opinions, or even wishful thinking. And come to think of it, they may not even be that much fun, but, hey-ho…

Fun Fact 1: On Goodreads, Shirley, of ‘Shirley’s 2015 bingo challenge fame,’ considers Jo Baker’s Longbourn to be ‘a book your friend loves.’

DIY Bios

Although the deadline has passed to have your bio typed up and passed on by the organisers on your behalf, there is nothing stopping presenters from writing their own bio (please ensure the voice is in the third person), and handing them to the panel chairs on the day.

 (no clicky, no linky)

The guidelines for this are so simple: 150 words max; written in the third person; telling us about you and your research.

Panel Chairs

Here is a list of the panel chairs. Grace and Matthew would like to extend a very big ‘thank you’ to all who volunteered to help us out with this:

9.30 – 11.00 Library Matthew Alexander

9.30 – 11.00 G06 Johann Battaglini

9.30 – 11.00 G09 Katie Patterson

11.30 – 13.00 Library Leimar Garcia-Siino

11.30 – 13.00 G06 Grace Kelly

11.30 – 13.00 G09 Glyn Morgan

14.00 -15.15 Library Grace Kelly

14.00 -15.15 G06 Matthew Alexander

14.00 -15.15 G09 Abrar Mujaddadi

Some Useful Information for those Presenting Papers

Here is some useful information for those presenting papers…

English Postgraduates

• 20 (twenty) minutes is the maximum allotted time for the presentation of papers (per person)
• Up to 5 (five) minutes of questions will follow at the end of each paper, or questions may follow at the end once all papers have been given
• Those chairing the panels will hold up a sign at the 18 (eighteen) minute mark, indicating that 2 (two) minutes remain
• At 20 (twenty) minutes, the chair will end the presentation (whether the paper is finished or not) and move to questions from the audience, or to the next presenter

The above is designed to ensure that the day keeps to time – reading the paper aloud, whilst timing yourself, is a good way of ensuring that the paper comes in under 20 (twenty) minutes.

• PowerPoint is available in all of the rooms used for panels. The Library has its own desktop, projector, and screen(s). Rooms G06…

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Conference Meal @TheQuarterLivpl

Dear All,

For those of you who are attending the conference dinner, we have booked The Quarter at 6.30. It is about a 10 minute walk from the SotA Library. If you would like to have a look at the menu and the location, please follow the link below:

http://www.thequarteruk.com/menu/food/

If anyone would still like to go to the conference dinner who hasn’t already contacted us, please e-mail Grace at gark@liv.ac.uk

Best Wishes,

Grace Kelly & Matthew Alexander

Blurb – Grace Kelly

Superbly succinct, here is Grace Kelly’s Twitter shaped blurb:

Grace Kelly – W.B. Yeats and Jorge Luis Borges, ‘infinitely in geometric progression’ #engpgconf2015

(click the birdie)

And blurbs, unlike bios (see below), can be sent right up to the conference day itself.