Academic exchange to India

Dr Geoffrey Nash has recently visited the Aligarh Muslim University under an academic exchange programme undertaken as part of the Sir Syed Bicentenary celebrations. He engaged around 110 AMU faculty members and research scholars for workshops and tutorials on academic writing. The English Department also organized a three-day special lecture series delivered on 17th, 19th and 22nd of January. In the lecture, ‘From Postcolonialism to Islamophobia: An Academic’s Research Trajectory’, Dr Nash traced his journey as a scholar aiming to understand the East. In ‘Postcolonial Translation: The Arabic and the Anglophone Arab Novel’, he focused on the publishing industry and explicated how fiction writers from Arab countries struggle to get a wider audience for their works. In the last lecture on ‘Post 9/11 Writing and Islamophobia: Martin Amis’s Last Days of ‘Muhammad Atta’”, discussion focused on the problematic manner of representation of the mind of an ‘Islamic Fundamentalist’. Watch the lectures below.

 

 

 

 

Angela Smith's professorial lecture

Angela Smith has recently been promoted to Professor of Language and Culture within the Faculty of Education and Society. Her research interests are in gender, discriminatory practices, media discourses and language in popular culture.  The various contexts of her research range from the home front in the First World War to the pioneering broadcast career of Kate Adie. Angela is interested in the various forms of confrontational language that is found in broadcast media, from Radio 4's Today programme to Top Gear. In her professorial lecture, entitled 'War, Conflict and Sid the Seagull', Professor Smith will also mention Paddington Bear and how he actually links these seemingly distinct themes.  Recently, her research has expanded into a project with other members of the English team at Sunderland to explore the city's literary and cultural history, and this feeds into the City of Culture 2021 bid.  This talk will explore these issues in more detail and will identify the key themes that connect these diverse interests.

Thursday 23 February 2017 6.00pm
Prospect Building, Room 009

This event is free but must be booked. For further details and to register go here.

National Portrait Gallery lecture

William Gifford Palgrave
© National Portrait Gallery, London

Dr Geoff Nash will be giving the lunchtime lecture at the National Portrait Gallery on 21st January 2016 (1.15pm). Drawing on the Gallery’s current display, Geoff looks at the extraordinary life of the leading British explorer and scholar of the Middle East, William Gifford Palgrave (1826-1888). After serving for a time in the Indian army, Palgrave converted to Roman Catholicism and worked as a missionary in southern India until 1853. He began his long engagement with the Arab world in 1855 as a missionary in Syria, where he witnessed the persecution of Syrian Christians. Palgrave’s most notable achievement lay in exploring Arabia, which had for years been closed to Europeans. In 1862 and 1863 he became the first Westerner to cross Arabia by a diagonal route, from north-west to south-east, travelling in disguise and at great risk as a European. A deep interest in identity, whether racial, national and religious is made evident in Palgrave’s writings, his propensity for disguise and by his multiple name changes.

William Gifford Palgrave: Master of Disguise.

Tickets: £3 (£2 concessions and Gallery Supporters). Book online, or visit the Gallery in person.

Witchcraft and The Wicker Man

This Hallowe'en, Professor William Hughes of Bath Spa University will be giving a lecture at Sunderland which provides an eco-critical reading of the 1970s British cult horror movie The Wicker Man. The event, organized by the Department of Culture's Spectral Visions team takes place at 6.00pm on Thursday 31st October in Priestman 118 (the lecture theatre). Admission is free but please book early to avoid disappointment as places are limited. For further details and to reserve your place email colin.younger@sunderland.ac.uk.

Spectral Visions II online

Keynote lectures from the Spectral Visions II conference can be viewed below.

Dr Alison Younger (Sunderland University) on 'Gothic Monstrosities'

Professor John Strachan (Bath Spa University) on 'Gothic and Surrealism'

Why Wittgenstein Matters

Dr Ian Ground has been invited by Bloomsbury to contribute a monograph on Why Wittgenstein Matters to their new high profile series “Why Philosophy Matters” edited by Constantine Sandis. As part of the promotion of the series, Ian has been invited to give a public lecture in 2014, on the impact of Wittgenstein, under the auspices of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

On 14th May 2013 Ian gave the Tenth Annual British Wittgenstein Society lecture. You can read a report of it by Neil O'Hara here.

Ian Ground on why beauty matters and animal minds

Dr Ian Ground (NECLL) will be giving a keynote address entitled 'Why does beauty matter?' at the Ethics and Aesthetics of Architecture and the Environment conference at Newcastle University (July 11th-13th 2012).

Ian has also been invited to give the 10th annual British Wittgenstein Society lecture in May 2013 at the University of Hertfordshire. He will be speaking on Wittgenstein and animal minds.