Geoff Nash addresses the IDEA conference in Turkey

Dr Geoff Nash

Dr Geoff Nash has given a keynote address at the 8th International IDEA Conference: Studies in English (16th-18th April 2014). Geoff's talk was entitled 'Translating The East: from Orientalism to Migrant Literature'. He scrutinised theoretical approaches to colonial translation, specifically in the context of late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century Orientalism, and concluded by discussing the incorporation of aspects of referential systems outside standard British ones in the construction of Arab Anglophone fiction.    

Culture undergraduate to speak at Chicago conference

Chloe Campbell

Third Year English and American Studies undergraduate Chloe Campbell has been invited to speak at a conference at DePaul University in Chicago in May 2014. The invitation to Joss Whedon: A Celebration came as a result of an article Chloe wrote for the Spectral Visions blog, which was republished in the US based Watercooler Journal. Entitled 'The Chosen Ones: Feminism and Gender Studies in Buffy the Vampire Slayer', the article is a feminist primer to the Whedonverse. Chloe has received financial support from the Department of Culture to attend the conference.

First World War conference

Helmuth von Moltke

Several members of the Department of Culture will be taking part in an academic conference to be held at the university on the 5th and 6th April 2014. The First World War and Its Global Legacies: 100 Years On will explore the impact of this first truly global war on the history, culture, philosophy, language and politics of the century following it. The conference programme includes over twenty papers by scholars from as far afield as Russia, Algeria and the USA. Topics include landscapes and the imagination; computer games; colonial education in British West Africa; media representations of veterans of the Great War. Amongst the keynote speakers will be Professor Maggie Andrews, Professor Tim Kirk, Dr Martin Hurcombe and Kate Adie (writer and broadcaster). Sunderland's Dr Angela Smith will be giving a keynote talk entitled ‘Sympathy and Suspicion: State Surveillance of British Widows of the First World War’. Six other Department of Culture members will also be giving papers.

• Arwa Ebrahim: 'The Impact of the First World War on the Middle East and its Effect on Arab Women'.
• Dr Barry Lewis: 'Rechewing the Cud: Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way and the Irish Experience of the First World War'.
• Dr Kath Kerr-Koch: 'From Apokatastasis to Deconstruction: The Legacy of the First World War in the Transfiguration of Modern Thought'.
• Janet Pearson: 'Drifting into the Abyss: Twilight Consciousness in Hermann Broch’s The Sleepwalkers'.
• Dr Fritz Wefelmeyer: '"Overcome by Horror". Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of German General Staff 1906-14, in his letters and memoirs'.
• Fadi Elhusseini: 'The Great War, the Middle East and Islam'.

The Great War: The Arab World and Islamism