Late Summer Lecture Series Returns to Durham and Newcastle

Image designed by Lorna Urwin

The Late Summer Lecture Series returns to Durham and Newcastle in 2013. Postgraduate research or postdoctoral students in the Departments of English at Durham and Newcastle Universities are invited to submit proposals in response to the call for papers below. The deadline for abstracts is Thursday, 4th July, 2013.

This lecture series aims to showcase doctoral and postdoctoral research in the Departments of English at Durham and Newcastle Universities. By participating in the series, research students have the opportunity to present and effectively communicate scholarly papers to a highly diverse academic and non-academic audience. Presentations will take place twice a week: once in Durham and once at Newcastle University from the period of 13th August to 2nd October.

Lectures should be 45 minutes long.  Joint lecture proposals of an hour’s duration are also welcome.  A contributor ought to choose a topic within their expertise; this may include research concerning your thesis, a side project, or a personal literary pursuit.  However, such material must be designed to provide an accessible introduction to non-specialists.  In order to generate ongoing interest for our attendees, we are especially keen on topics with some element of popular appeal.  Be creative!  A catchy title can give a clear idea of the lecture’s contents whilst giving a new means to structure your presentation of scholarly work.

Our target audience reflects the nature of this lecture series as a public outreach project, aiming to inform and interact with those working outside of the university environment.  This may include Durham/Newcastle postgraduates across all academic disciplines, Durham/Newcastle university staff, local book clubs and library users, local schools, the Centre for Lifelong Learning (Newcastle and Stockton), locally based Durham/Newcastle alumni, and local community members. 

Please submit your lecture proposal of 300 words maximum with a tentative title and your availability from 13^th August to 2^nd October by the deadline above. Our e-mail is latesummerlectures@gmail.com.

When indicating your availability, remember that each lecture will be delivered twice and as such you should be available on both a Tuesday and a Wednesday of your proposed lecture week.

We will select proposals in collaboration with members of staff and hope to issue a programme by late July.

In order to make the lectures viable for widespread access, the audio portion of your presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the Internet with your consent.  If you wish to opt out or have other concerns, please include a note with your proposal.  We respect your privacy and will make all necessary accommodations for speakers and audience members. Recordings of some of last year’s lectures can be heard here.

For more information about Late Summer Lectures 2013, please feel free to say hello at latesummerlectures@gmail.com! For updates on the series and event announcements, visit our social media outlets on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

John Clegg Wins the Eric Gregory Award

PhD research student John Clegg has won the Society of Authors 2013 Eric Gregory Award for his first book of poetry, Antler. 

The award, which this year was shared between four winners, is given for a collection by poets under the age of 30. Antler features prehistoric landscapes, folk tale and myth. The book’s centrepiece, the sequence “Vaisala and Sinuhe,” charts an astronomy professor’s infatuation with one of his postgraduate students, who is almost certainly a werewolf.

As well as being a published poet, John Clegg is studying for a PhD under Dr Gareth Reeves, writing a thesis on the Eastern European influence in contemporary British poetry. In a pair of podcasts for READ, John can be heard reading from Antler and then discussing the challenges of both researching and writing poetry in a conversation with Gareth, who is another published poet working in the Department of English Studies.

Join the Editorial Board of the Postgraduate English Journal

The Postgraduate English journal is seeking new members to join its prestigious editorial board. 

Postgraduate English is a professionally reviewed journal for postgraduate students of English. In addition to scholarly articles, the journal also invites book reviews, reflections on postgraduate teaching, and free-wheeling polemics on all things academic, from intramural malfeasance to the education cuts.

The journal recently launched its 26th issue. From issue 27 onwards, the journal will be moving to an Open Journal Systems publishing platform. This will ensure that all past and future issues of the journal are securely preserved and well indexed, thus guaranteeing the journal’s ongoing prominence as a space for publishing by and for postgraduate and early-career researchers.

If you are interested in joining the prestigious Editorial Board at this exciting time in the journal’s history, please email the advisory editor, Timothy Clark, with a copy of your CV and details of your research interests. Members of the Editorial Board are asked to peer-review journal submissions, and to offer a “First Response” which will be publicly visible on published articles. From time to time, members of the Editorial Board may be called on to offer informed advice as to the journal’s aims and organisation.

T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry Annual Reading, with Sean Borodale and Jacob Polley

On 13th June at 7.30 the Durham University Centre for Poetry and Poetics in association with the Poetry Book Society presents the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry Annual Reading, with Sean Borodale and Jacob Polley.

Jacob Polley is the author of three acclaimed poetry collections, The Brink (2003), Little Gods (2006) and, most recently, The Havocs (2012), as well as a Somerset Maugham Award-winning novel, Talk of the Town. Born in Cumbria, he lives in Scotland where he teaches at the University of St Andrews. Polley has always been a poet of unease and the makeshift; where the structure of family and the domestic acts as a framework for his untamed, disruptive dreaming and loving self, and for whom rhyme is both security and seducer. The Havoc finds Polley writing with energy and maturity, maintaining his humility as well as his panache as he unsettles an unsettling universe.

Sean Borodale is a poet and artist, making descriptive and documentary poems written on location, including Notes for an Atlas (2003), a 370-page topographical work written whilst walking around London, and Walking to Paradise (1999), written whilst walking in the footsteps of Wordsworth and Coleridge around the Lake District. Bee Journal (2012) is his first collection of poetry. He was Northern Arts Fellow of the Wordsworth Trust in 1999 and Guest Artist at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam in 2002. From 2002-7 he was a teaching fellow at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.

This is the only affiliated reading to be held outside of London, and the Durham Centre for Poetry and Poetics looks forward to welcoming you to what should be an evening of excellent poetry and convivial discussion. The reading is on 13th June 2013, at 7.00 in the Debating Chamber, Durham Union Society, Palace Green.

“Unravelling Shakespeare’s Life,” a Lecture by James Shapiro

The leading Shakespearean scholar, Professor James Shapiro, will give a public lecture on 12th June at 6.00pm, in Elvet Riverside 145, Durham University.

James Shapiro’s talk unravels Shakespeare’s “life” as currently written and explores a number of important questions. Why have his biographers drifted toward fiction? To what extent have biographical approaches premised on reading early modern writers’ lives through their works distorted Shakespeare’s accomplishments? And what alternatives are there?

Professor James Shapiro is Visiting ST Lee Professorial Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He is the author of several books, including Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? and 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare.

Students, staff and members of the public are warmly welcome to this public lecture. For more information, please contact jason.harding@durham.ac.uk.