English at Reading

28 January,  1 pm, Edith Morley 175
Prof. Alan Cromartie,
“John Bunyan and the Moderate Mr. Fowler”

11 February, 1 pm, Edith Morley 175 
Dr. Olivia Smith,
“Old Wives Tales: Imagined Storytellers in
Early Modern Science and Philosophy”

28 January, 5pm, Edith Morley 124

Dr Marjorie Gehrhardt (Modern Languages)

‘“Learning to be Blind”: The Role of the Blind Veterans’ Union in Post-WW1 France’

11 February, 5pm, Edith Morley 124

Professor Sue Walker (Typography)

‘Effective AMR Communication: The Role of Information Design’

25 February, 5pm, Edith Morley 124

Dr Ruth Salter (History)

‘Bathing, Bloodletting, and Bed-Rest in the High Medieval Monastery’

11 March, 5pm, Edith Morley 124

Professor Tom Oliver (Biological Sciences)

‘The Self-Delusion: How a Maladaptive Self-Identity Threatens our Personal to Planetary Health’

25 March, 5pm, Edith Morley 124

Professor Parastou Donyai (Pharmacy)

‘Talk Matters: Tentatively Exploring Language in Pharmacy’

As part of celebrations to mark its centenary in 2019, the Forestry Commission has launched a new writing competition to diversify nature writing.

From Wordsworth to J.K Rowling, England’s forests have inspired characters and chronicles that have shaped the nation’s literary history for centuries.

Now, for the first time, the Forestry Commission is today, Monday 10th December, opening applications for two national writer-in-residence opportunities, which will begin in the spring.

The Commission is particularly interested in hearing from people from underrepresented groups, young writers and emerging writers living in urban locations to offer their perceptions of nature in England. It is also looking to attract people using a diverse range of literary forms.

Applications will be judged by an expert panel including Sharmaine Lovegrove, the publisher of Dialogue Books, the UK’s only inclusive imprint, and Jay Armstrong, editor of Elementum, a journal of nature writing and visual arts.

During the residency, the selected writers will embark on a behind-the-scenes tour of the nation’s forests, spending time the people who work there, and the wildlife that calls them home. To apply, writers are asked to submit a video or written pitch (maximum 500 words) outlining their vision.

Sharmaine Lovegrove, publisher at Dialogue Books, an imprint of Little Brown Books, said,

“I am delighted to be involved in the centenary celebrations of the Forestry Commission and very much looking forward to reading diverse, multi-cultural and intergenerational perspectives of our forest landscapes.”

“As a Londoner, I’m not often perceived as someone who embraces nature all the time, but London is the greenest city in Europe! I’m always visiting our parks, urban gardens and forest trails, and reading nature writing from across the globe. Everyone can find inspiration in the natural world, wherever they are.”

Jay Armstrong, editor at Elementum, said,

“When a storyteller enters a forest, some kind of alchemy happens. I can’t think of a tale set in such a place – from Little Red Riding Hood to Macbeth, or the legend of Robin Hood to the writings of Tolkien – that didn’t grip me or leave me changed.

“These residencies offer truly unique opportunities to spend time in these wise places and return with old tales revisited, different stories to tell and new ways of telling them.”

Over several months, the writers will enjoy unique access to some of England’s most loved and spectacular landscapes. The work they produce will be a conduit for engagement, inspiring people to connect with the trees and forests, the experiences they offer and wildlife that relies on woodlands to survive.

The two positions are paid and the writers will receive mentoring support and guidance to shape their work. The work created will be published at the end of 2019, to coincide with the tree planting season.

To find out more and apply, visit: www.forestryengland.uk/writers

PK Khaira-Creswell, Director of the Forestry Commission Centenary, said,

“The nation’s forests have long been a well of creativity, inspiring work that has moved generations. To celebrate 100 years of forestry, we’re giving emerging and mid-career writers a chance to put their own stamp on what trees and woods mean to them, and share those sentiments with the wider world.”

The Forestry Commission is celebrating its centenary year with a cultural programme that reflects on its history, while looking forward to the next 100 years. The programme includes artistic works, wildlife surveys, activities for schoolchildren and projects designed to boost health and wellbeing. The centenary year is an opportunity to tell the stories of the nation’s forests, and inspire people to connect with the trees and forests on their doorstep.

The University of Reading has been ranked in the top 150 in the world for the study of Arts and Humanities subjects, according to the latest release of the 2019 Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject.

The University is ranked 126-150 worldwide in the Arts and Humanities subject ranking, a jump from 176-200 last year.

This reflects year-on-year improvements in the ranking’s assessment of both teaching and research of Arts and Humanities subjects at Reading.

The Times Higher Education analysis judged Reading to have improved against other global institutions in the quality and number of citations (up 63 places to 128), international outlook (up 32 places to 133), research reputation (up 32 to 183) and for teaching (up 11 places to 167).

Professor Roberta Gilchrist, Research Dean for Heritage & Creativity, said: “We are delighted to see Reading’s global reputation for excellence in Arts and Humanities subjects continues to grow.

“Reading benefits from an embedded culture of collaborative research, strong international links and, most of all, the talent and commitment of our wonderful staff and students.”

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject for Arts and Humanities covers all Reading’s subjects categorised within the areas of Languages, Literature & Linguistics; History, Philosophy & Theology (including Archaeology); Art, Performing Arts & Design; and Architecture.

‘Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue’:

Hamlet’s advice to the actors who visit Elsinore is, ironically, easy to say but difficult to do. That is why I invited Jenny Caron Hall, an actress and artist, to work with some University of Reading undergraduate students and me in a workshop in which she could teach the verse-speaking method of her late father Sir Peter Hall, the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and later the Director of the National Theatre. Sir Peter, one of the most influential theatre and opera directors of all time, has been credited by famous actors, including Dame Judi Dench, with teaching them how to speak and interpret Shakespeare’s language and thereby truly understand his plays. You can watch an interview with Sir Peter Hall discussing his career here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUZq2vDcqaU

You can read about Jenny’s career here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Caron_Hall

Jenny and I had met over Twitter about four years ago when I was tweeting from my feed @ProfShakespeare about her father’s many contributions to Shakespearean theatre and offering numerous links to interviews and film clips. I had also tweeted about her brother Ed Hall’s amazing work as director of Propeller Theatre, whose all-male production of The Taming of the Shrew had greatly impressed my students and me in 2008. So, when Jenny said a few months ago that she wanted to start teaching her father’s verse-speaking methods, I convinced her to try a workshop with our students.  Of course, it helped that Jenny and I shared a California connection—I grew up in Los Angeles and she lived there as a child when her mother the actress and dancer Leslie Caron was working in Hollywood.

Neither Jenny nor I had ever run a practical workshop solely on verse, so we decided to recruit a few students, hire a film studio and camera operator George Ormisher and technician Christopher Bacon in the Minghella Building and see what happened over two hours. Fortunately, Sir David Bell had awarded me a grant from the Vice-Chancellor’s Endowment Fund to cover the Minghella filming costs and Jenny’s preparation and work.

So, Jenny and I and the students, Maria Ieridou, Raj Khan, Natasha Clarke, Millie Farquhar, Tzeitel Degiovanni, Emily Johnson, Eleanor Dewar and Lauren Collard, all turned up on September 28^th at 1pm not quite sure what we were going to do. But within a few minutes, Jenny masterfully explained that her method of speaking verse had been developed by actor-manager Thomas Betterton in the 17^th century and then passed on to such later actor-managers as David Garrick, Charles Macready, William Poel, Dadie Rylands and her father and then to her. Jenny also discussed how she thought that she knew Shakespeare’s language while performing in major productions at the National Theatre until she was directed by her father, who showed her how much more command she could have of Shakespeare’s verse.

In the workshop, Jenny began working with students on passages from Henry V, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest. As you can see from the clips on YouTube, students who were hesitant at first quickly gained in confidence as Jenny showed them the rhythm and pace of the verse and how to hold the last syllable at the end of a line. As the workshop went along, I also added commentary on my own research and publications into how Shakespeare composed his plays in manuscript form and then transmitted them to the actors and the censor and finally to theatrical audiences in the 16^th– and 17^th-centuries. When the workshop ended, not only were the students and I impressed but so was George the camera operator, who, it turns out, is an actor with a special interest in Shakespeare. So we all felt that we had learned quite a lot from each other about Shakespeare’s language and plays. I can honestly say that Jenny taught me a great deal about language that I thought that I had understood but clearly had never considered.

Jenny recruited her husband Glenn Wilhide, a film and television director and screenwriter, to do the post-production editing of the film clips, so their quality is much better than in the usually grainy clips posted on YouTube.

The Workshop clips can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R81mZn7MzGI&list=PLO_lGJjy8GY9FrVQHjR41VZnzTCtPxrYq

Jenny has scheduled another workshop, for which I am applying for further funding, to be held in December in a replica of an Elizabethan theatre in a film studio in London. If we get funding, we plan to hold auditions and a rehearsal in late November.

So, although we may still be occasionally tripping over our tongues rather than speaking trippingly, we are very excited about the learning opportunities offered by this truly collaborative workshop series.

Professor Grace Ioppolo

6-8 pm Thursday 15 November 2018

MERL The Museum of English Rural Life

A Talk by Dr Jane Potter (Oxford Brookes)

Followed by readings from PENNIES ON MY EYES: Poems by Wilfred Owen

ADMISSION FREE: Further information: p.robinson@reading.ac.uk

The latest addition to the Two Rivers Press classic poems series, Pennies on my Eyes is a centennial collection of Wilfred Owen’s poetry illustrated by Reading-based artists. The town made its contribution to Owen’s becoming a poet through the encouragement he received from Professor Edith Morley at the University of Reading while based in the nearby village of Dunsden. Each inspired by a work in this memorial volume, the artists offer their unique responses for this celebratory gathering of Owen’s most famous war poems, published on 4 November 2018, the 100th anniversary of the poet’s death on the Western Front at the Sambre-Oise Canal just one week before the Armistice.

25 October, 4.30 pm in Edith Morley 124

Norman Housley (University of Leicester) ‘An English proposal for a crusade against the Irish, c. 1329-31’.

22 November Stenton Lecture

 Nicholas Vincent (University of East Anglia) ‘The Letters of England’s Kings and Queens 1154-1215: A Vast New Resource?’

G11 Lecture Theatre, Henley Business School, Whiteknights Campus, 18:30

and accompanying Stenton Symposium:

‘English Royal Charters 1066-1215: Discoveries, Gaps and Opportunities’ (various speakers).

Palmer Building, Room 102: 13:00-17:00

29 November, 4.30 pm in Edith Morley 124

Thomas Smith (Royal Holloway, University of London) ‘The Letters of the First Crusade and Monastic Scribal Culture’.

13 December 4.30 pm in Edith Morley 124

Janet Burton (University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter) ‘Monastic Wales: new approaches’.

Thursday 15th November (wk 7), 5-6pm
Dr Sophie Heywood (MLES, Reading), ‘Power to children’s imaginations: children’s picturebooks and ‘68’’
Edith Morley, G44

Thursday 6th Dec (wk 10), 5-6pm
Dr Sara Sullam (Milan, British Academy Visiting Fellow, MLES) ‘Reading for translation: Anglo-Italian literary transfer in publishers’ paper’
Edith Morley, G44

Thursday 28th Feb (wk 7), 5-6pm
Dr Will Davies (English Lit, Reading) Carcanet/PN Review
Edith Morley, G44

Thursday 14th March (wk 9), 5-6pm
Dr Rowena Kennedy-Epstein (Bristol) ‘So Easy to See: Muriel Rukeyser and Berenice Abbott’s Unfinished Collaboration’
Edith Morley, G44

Thursday 16th May (wk 4), 5-6pm
Dr D-M Withers (Sussex) ‘Virago Modern Classics and the Libraries’
Edith Morley, G44

In this post Hannah Ashraf, a graduate of BA (Hons) English Literature, and Dr Nicola Abram, Lecturer in Literatures in English, discuss their 2018/19 PLanT Project ‘Students Talk: Learning Journals’. 

Hannah: I first came across the journal assessment method in my third year, studying the module ‘Black British Fiction’. As this was an exercise which pushed you to think about your own reflections each week, the first few weeks with the journal were difficult. It could not be compared to some of the more familiar assessment methods such as essays and presentations. I found that the confusion was to do with the journal’s objectives. We were asking ourselves “What are we supposed to write?” “How do we cover it all?”

Nicola: I inherited the learning journal as a method of assessment when I first started teaching the module ‘Black British Fiction’, back in 2013. At the time the journal was a spiral-bound paper document, which students filled in and added clippings to week by week – by the end of the term these journals were often rather unwieldy. Over the following years I worked with colleagues to reform the journal and move it online: I’ve shared my account of doing this here. The journal is now a neat way for students to capture their weekly learning in real time and be rewarded for their progress. I recognise it’s a new method of assessment for most students, and I spend the first seminar on the relevant modules explaining it in detail. But students still seem apprehensive, and there are lots of questions as they attempt their first few entries.

Hannah: As much as we were given information from our tutors about the assessment, it was still quite unclear as to how we tackle the journal. As the weeks went on, I realised that I wasn’t the only one having problems with the journal as many of my course-mates discussed in class their own struggles with it. It became clear that as a more free-hand assessment method, students didn’t know where to start! Nicola, my module convenor at the time, debunked the journal for us during one of our classes, showing previous students’ entries and talking through the criteria. Personally, being able to see some of the examples from previous students really helped to make clear the journal’s objective and how it can be used creatively. As we got used to the journal, many of my course-mates and I had informative discussions in and out of the classroom about how we used it and how it has allowed us to think and write differently from more familiar assessments.

An example learning journal entry, submitted by Hannah Ashraf for the module ‘Global Literatures: Translation as Theme and Theory’ (EN3GLT).

Nicola: I’m always pleased that by the end of a module most students become really attached to the learning journal. They find it a helpful prompt to consolidate their learning each week, and it seems to support them to prepare for and participate effectively in seminars. Even more importantly, it facilitates a very personal journey through the module content. I wanted to find a way to accelerate the shift between apprehensively starting the journal and coming to love it! During a one-to-one feedback session with one particular student – Hannah Ashraf – this problem came up in conversation, and I invited her to join me in applying to the PLanT (Partnerships in Learning and Teaching) Project scheme for funding. Completing the application form helped us to focus our ideas. Happily, we heard a few weeks after submitting it that the panel really liked our idea of students briefing other students on this mode of assessment. We were awarded £500.

Hannah: Being approached by Nicola to collaborate on a project about the journal was a great opportunity to share the ideas discussed with my course-mates, and we got working on ideas for the film soon after. Reaching out to student filmmaker Rhonda Cowell really brought the vision to life as we met to discuss the film’s objective and format. Rhonda’s creative input helped us really get to producing a fully realised film. I worked on a storyboard and some project notes to accommodate our ideas and reached out to fellow course-mates for an interview style film on the journal. Nicola organised a room for us to film in, and after curating some interview questions, I interviewed four participants for their views on the journal. Our aim with the film was to present the journal’s possibilities and focused tips/advice so that future students can approach it with confidence.

Nicola: Hannah was brilliant to work with: she made the project her own, recruiting peers to participate and ensuring the content of the film was comprehensive but accessible. Part 3 BA Film student Rhonda Cowell took care of everything technical, ably assisted by Part 3 BA Film student Ben Thornley, and produced a polished and concise film that captures the participants’ personalities as well as the best bits of their interviews. The final result, which we’ve uploaded to  our Department of English Literature You Tube channel, is a credit to these students’ creativity and hard work. I’ve just shared it with the next cohort, and I can’t wait to see how they engage with the journal as a result.

Monday 22 October, 1pm, EM 124:
Dr. Laura Sangha (Exeter),
“The Social, Personal and Spiritual Dynamics of Ghost Stories in Early Modern England”

Monday 19 November, 1 pm, EM 124:
Rachel Foxley (Reading),
“Gender and slavery in Milton’s republicanism”

Wednesday 5 December, 4 pm, EM 128:
Dr. Joe Moshenska (Oxford),
“Dolls and Idols: Touching the Past, Playing the Past in Early Modern England”

For further information, please see the EMRC website: www.reading.ac.uk/emrc
or contact the Centre’s Director: Prof. Michelle O’Callaghan, m.f.ocallaghan@reading.ac.uk