Theatre censorship in Spain

Dr Michael Thompson

The Faculty of Education and Society Research Institute is holding its next School of Culture Research Seminar on Wednesday 1st May 4-5pm at St. Peter’s Campus in David Goldman Room 312A.

All staff and students are welcome as Dr Michael Thompson from Durham University presents his research on theatre censorship in Spain. Work on censorship in modern Spain (both his own and that of other scholars) focuses primarily on the period of the Franco dictatorship (1939-75). This is a rich field and in some ways a very accessible one: Franco’s censorship apparatus was methodical and centralized, and almost all the information needed for an in-depth investigation is contained in the Spanish state archive in Alcalá de Henares. The administrative documents and thousands of censors’ reports provide concrete evidence of what was censored, by whom, and according to what criteria. However, Dr Michael Thompson’s research has sought to compare this model of censorship with those in operation before the establishment of the dictatorship. Theatre censorship during the Second Republic (1931-36) was decentralized and much less reliant on prior vetting of texts, and became radically fragmented by the social, political and economic upheaval triggered in the Republican zone by the civil war (1936-39). Evidence of the operation of censorship in these periods is therefore scarcer, and particularly elusive with reference to the confused war years. Dr Michael Thompson’s talk will present examples of the different kinds of evidence available from the three periods and reflect on what they show about different models of cultural control.

Languages and TESOL research seminar

Dr Steve Cannon

In this Languages and TESOL research seminar, Dr. Steve Cannon (Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, University of Sunderland) will be addressing the topic of awards ceremonies. These events have received little attention from Film Studies academics, most often represented simply by listings of winners in general histories. Quite apart from their marketing role for the industry as a whole, and promoting (and sometimes reviving) particular films, awards ceremonies are also themselves a space for performance and popular entertainment, reflected in their lengthy primetime broadcast slots.

 

In his paper, entitled 'The Politics of the Awards Ceremony: The ‘Goya’ Awards of the Spanish Film Academy, 2003 and 2004',  Steve will analyse the ways in which ceremonies also offer a space for political statements and mobilisations, echoing and expressing wider social and political struggles but also intervening in them in specific and sometimes organised ways.

 

Date: Tuesday, 20th February, 4pm
Room: DG 313A

Cross-discipline research seminar

School of Culture PhD student Malik Alkhawaldeh will be speaking at the next Cross-discipline research seminar in the series. His topic is ecocriticism in Assia Djebar's Children of the New World, Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North and Fadia Faqir's Pillars of Salt. It takes place on Thursday 22nd February at 2pm (there will also be two other talks from research students from Business and Pharmacy).

When minorities say no

School of Culture PhD student Wjoud Almadani will be speaking at the first seminar in a series designed to showcase the work of PhD students across the university (details above). Everyone is welcome!

English Research Seminar

Dr Dale Townshend

The next English research seminar features Dr Dale Townshend (University of Stirling) on Wednesday 16th March at 5pm in Priestman 216. He will be giving a talk on Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1765). Ever since Walpole disclosed the authorship of his ‘Gothic Story’ in the second edition, it has been assumed that the ‘real’ and ‘particular’ castle to which he, in his guise as the ‘translator’ William Marshal, referred in the Preface to the first edition of the novel was Strawberry Hill, the ‘little Gothic castle’ in Twickenham that he had set about ‘Gothicizing’ since the late 1740s. However, according to Dr Townshend this is really only half of the story, for while the castle at Otranto certainly, as Walpole would later phrase it, ‘puts one in mind’ of Strawberry Hill, it also looks to the architectural formations of ‘ancient’ or ‘Gothic’ romance for its structure, its effects, and even its eventual disappearance. More specifically, Manfred’s castle at Otranto is, in a number of respects, a reworking of the trope of the enchanted castle that featured so prominently in the epic romances of Torquato Tasso, Ludovico Ariosto, Edmund Spenser, and others.  And if The Castle of Otranto is, indeed, closely linked to Strawberry Hill, this is not simply because Walpole ‘writes’ his home into his novel, but because both fiction and house looked to the architectural structures of medieval romance as their ultimate point of inspiration.  Having explored the trope of the enchanted castle as it figures in The Castle of Otranto and Walpole’s correspondence around Strawberry Hill, Dr Townshend concludes by tracing its uptake in the later Gothic dramas and fictions of Miles Peter Andrews, Clara Reeve, Anna Laetitia Aikin, and Ann Radcliffe.  

Languages Research Seminar

Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder c.1563

The second talk in the new series of Languages Research Seminars will be given by Dr Susan Mandala on the topic of 'ESL and EFL voices in English literature’. It takes place on Monday 8^th February at 6.00pm in FR 302 (Forster building , City Campus). All welcome!

Brothels and booksellers

The North East Forum in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Studies is holding an event on Friday 27th November (Priestman 215, 3-5pm). There will be two papers: Catherine Ellis (Durham), ‘Sensual Suppers: Eating and Drinking in the Parisian Brothel’; and David Fallon (Sunderland), ‘Gillrayand Faulderversus the Lascivious Earl: A Bookseller in the Tides of Culture’. All are welcome and the talks will be followed by free drinks!

The forum was founded in 2004. It is a collaboration between Durham University, Newcastle University, Northumbria University and Sunderland. The forum hosts a number of seminars each year in the North East, and aims to foster discussion and research into all aspects of British culture of the long-eighteenth century and Romantic period.

Languages research seminar series

Dr Sheila Walsh (French) is pleased to announce the inaugural event in a new research seminar series. Dr Miguel Gomes (Spanish) will present 'The Challenge of Translating Literature: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Words.' The talk will take place on Monday 30th November at 5pm in Forster 302. All welcome.

David Catterick workshop on video

Dr David Catterick (Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics, Briercrest College Canada) recently delivered a guest seminar to students and staff on the MA in TESOL entitled 'Beginning beneath one's feet: the journey to finding a suitable topic for your MA TESOL dissertation'. You can view the video below.

English Research Seminars

George R.R. Martin.
Source: Wikipedia

This semester there are four English Research Seminars featuring speakers from the University of Sunderland. Jamie Spears, a PhD student in English, kicks off the series with a talk entitled 'Late Victorian and Fin de Siècle Spiritualism in the North East' on Wednesday 19th February. On 19th March Dr Susan Mandala will present on 'The Archaic in George R.R. Martin's Novel A Game of Thrones: Re-Assessing Heroic Fiction on Stylistic Grounds'. PhD student Marjan Shokouhi will speak on 'Love and the Big City: Patrick Kavanagh in Dublin' on 2nd April. These events take place in Priestman 313 and start at 5pm. The final seminar will be given in June by Peter Dempsey and is entitled 'Morte D'Author: Philip Roth and the Writing Life' (date to be confirmed). As usual, student and staff from all faculties are welcome.

English Research Seminars

There are three English Research Seminars this semester. They take place on Wednesdays in Priestman 313 and start at 5pm. Staff and students from all faculties are welcome.

Wednesday 9th October 2013: 'An Exploration of the Management of 'Risk' in Young Adult Fiction: Caught in the Crossfire (Alan Gibbons) and Un-arranged Marriage(Bali Rai)'. Kim Gilligan (University of Sunderland).

Wednesday 6th November 2013: Dr Helen Freshwater (Newcastle University). 'Consuming Childhoods: Work, Pleasure and the Performing child'.

Wednesday 4th December 2013 at 5.00pm: '"Song is the Magic Cape": Thomas Pynchon's Influence on Popular Music'. Dr Barry Lewis (University of Sunderland). 

Information about past English Research Seminars is here.

English Research Seminar

Sunderland University's Kim Gilligan (Education) will be kicking off the 2013-14 season of English Research Seminars on Wednesday 9th October at 5.00pm in Priestman 313. Her talk - to which all are welcome - is called 'An Exploration of the Management of ‘Risk’ in Young Adult Fiction: Caught in the Crossfire (Alan Gibbons) and (Un)arranged Marriage (Bali Rai)'. 

Why live? The persistence of live tv in a digital age

Dr Angela Smith will be speaking at The Ross Priory Broadcast Talk Research Seminar, which takes place 8th-10th July. Her paper will suggest a reason why there is still ‘live’ tv outside of news and sporting events.  With so much television output pre-recorded, and even more watched online as downloads on iPlayer and other systems, the question arises as to why entertainment programmes continue to be broadcast ‘live’.  This is particularly the case in shows which contain largely unscripted interaction, and thus carry an underlying sense of unpredictability.   Using a case study of the The One Show (BBC1), John Durham Peters’ observation that live broadcasts are akin to gambling (2001: 19) will be drawn on to explore how this is manifest in such shows.   In particular, there is a frequently-made observation that news and sport are broadcast live in part because of their dramatic potential, the notion that viewers can be ‘witnesses’ to an event.  Angela will suggest that in entertainment programmes, this dramatic potential can be linked less to the authenticity and truthfulness of the event, but of the personalities of the presenters.

English Research Seminar

The final English Research Seminar of the semester will be given by Dr Samuel Thomas from the University of Durham. His paper -  '"Yours in Revolution": Retrofitting Carlos the Jackal' - examines representations of the Marxist-Leninist political activist and convicted murderer Ilich Ramírez Sánchez in fiction and film. Staff and students from all faculties are welcome to the talk, which takes place in Priestman 201 at 5pm on Wednesday 29th May.

Jenny Rampling in the History Lab

'The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone'
 by Joseph Wright of Derby (1771)

Dr Jenny Rampling from the University of Cambridge will be giving a talk on Thursday 25th April entitled 'Practically making the philosophers' stone: recreating alchemical experiments'. This History Lab event takes place in Priestman 102 at 5pm. All welcome.

English Research Seminar

Dr David Fallon will be speaking on the subject of Shelley, Peacock, and the Hookham's Bookshop and Library at the English Research Seminar at 5pm on Wednesday 24th April in Priestman 201. Staff and students from all faculties are welcome.

English Research Seminar

'We are Making a New World'
Paul Nash, 1918

Dr Ann-Marie Einhaus from Northumbria University will be speaking about 'Reading and teaching the First World War' at the English Research Seminar on Wednesday 20th March. The talk takes place in Priestman 215 at 5pm and all are welcome.

Helen Graham in the History Lab

On Thursday 7th March Professor Helen Graham (Royal Holloway, University of London) will be speaking on 'The past that will not pass away? Francoism and present-day Spain’s ‘memory wars’ in national and international context'. The talk starts at 5pm in Priestman 102. All staff and students are welcome.

EFL in Libya

Source: EarthSnapshot

Fathi Agill, a PhD student in TESOL, will be leading a research seminar on Thursday 7th March entitled 'Leapfrogging to the future via technology in Libyan higher education: changing EFL teachers' practices'. The talk, which takes place in David Goldman 310 from 4-5.30pm is open to all.

Henry Knight in the History Lab

'The paradox of water: Florida and environmental imagery in the Gilded Age' is the topic of the first talk to be given in the History Lab's spring semester programme. The speaker is Dr Henry Knight of Northumbria University; the time and location is Tuesday February 5th at 5pm in Priestman 102. All welcome.