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Culture, Text and History Early Modern and Shakespeare Life writing, Creative writing and Performance

Reflections from ‘The Early Modern Inns of Court and the Circulation of Text’ Conference

The Dolphin's Back performing The Misfortunes of Arthur on June 14th at Gray's Inn Chapel
The Dolphin's Back performing The Misfortunes of Arthur on June 14th at Gray's Inn Chapel

By Dr Romola Nuttall and Julian Neuhauser

‘The Early Modern Inns of Court and the Circulation of Text’ was one of the events supported by the King’s English Department and two of its research groups (the Text Histories and Politics Research Cluster and the Collaborative Seed Fund Partnership) in the academic year 2018-19. This ambitious two-day conference took place in Bush House on 14-15 June 2019. What began as a conference expanded to include a talk at Middle Temple by the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, (and Middle Templar) Lord Igor Judge, an event at Temple Church held in conjunction with the Inner Temple Historical Society and the Inner Temple Drama society, a Middle Temple Library exhibition of materials curated especially for the conference, and a professional revival of The Misfortunes of Arthur (1587) by the Dolphin’s Back theatre company in Gray’s Inn Chapel on 14 June 2019.

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Life writing, Creative writing and Performance Modernism Visual and Material Culture

The Modernist Revue: A ‘whole made of shivering fragments’

Photo from Debussy’s La boîte à joujoux (The Toy Box), 1919

by Emily Moore

Emily Moore is a Master’s student at King’s College London, taking the ‘Modern Literature and Culture’ course. Interested in rhythm in modernist literature, she is currently working on a dissertation that compares the works of Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein.

On Friday 21st June, Kings’ Gilbert Scott Chapel rang with fragments of modernist culture. Forming part of the British Association for Modernist Studies’ 2019 Conference ‘Troublesome Modernisms’, ‘The Modernist Revue’, organised by Anna Snaith, Clara Jones, and Natasha Periyan, saw an evening of music, dance, and poetry performances inspired by, or seeking to evoke, the character of the era. This it did, calling to mind a watchword of modernist studies that is constantly being reanimated and reinterpreted: fragmentation.

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Culture, Text and History Early Modern and Shakespeare Gender and Sexuality Life writing, Creative writing and Performance

Engendering the Stage in London

Shakespeare's Globe, London

by Hailey Bachrach and Dr Romola Nuttall, King’s College London

An Apology for Actors: Early Modern Playing Then and Now, King’s College London, Friday 10 May 2019

Research in Action: Engendering the Stage, Shakespeare’s Globe, Monday 13 May 2019.

“Engendering the Stage in the Age of Shakespeare and Beyond” brings together scholars, actors and theatre practitioners to analyse the performance of gender in early modern drama and investigate the effects of women’s performance on the skills, techniques and technologies of the performance of femininity in the drama of Shakespeare and his English and European contemporaries. In May, the project held two events in London at King’s and Shakespeare’s Globe.

The workshop at King’s considered children’s companies and female performers at court as well as professional, more typical, “actors”. The Research in Action event at Shakespeare’s Globe used scenes which include gendered expressions of rage for public performance and audience discussion.

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Categories
20th - 21st Centuries Modernism

Gabriella Hirst on the Ivan Juritz Prize

Still from Gabriella Hirst's Force Majeure shortlisted for the 2018 Ivan Juritz Prize

Gabriella Hirst is an artist exploring the place of intimacy and the personal within the institutional. She is interested in the labour involved in the upkeep of illusions of permanence, with specific reference to gardening, art conservation and archive maintenance. Working across video, performance, ceramics, sound and poetry, she is inspired by cinematic tropes, slapstick routines and romantic clichés. She was shortlisted for the Ivan Juritz Prize in 2018.

Still from Gabriella Hirst’s Force Majeure shortlisted for the 2018 Ivan Juritz Prize
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Interviews

“In a time of chaos, create”: The First Generation Network

Dr Daniel Smith interviews current second-year Rufeida Alhatimy about a new network for King’s students from backgrounds under-represented among university students.

Dr Daniel Smith (DS): So, Rufeida, you and I spent a lot of time last semester talking about wordplay in English Renaissance literature, but now I hear you’re taking on a new challenge, representing the First Generation Network as an officer within the Student Union. I’m particularly interested in this wonderful initiative as I’ve been co-ordinating the English Department’s Widening Participation (WP) programme this year. Can you start by telling me what First Generation Network is?

Rufeida Alhatimy (RA): Studies have shown that students from a first generation background find the transition to higher education and beyond more taxing and challenging, and the network seeks to help tackle the boundaries and barriers that some of these students face. First Generation Network is one of eight “liberation networks” built into the KCLSU structure, run by students for students to promote positive change and representation. We cater to students who are from Widening Participation backgrounds, those in or leaving care, those whose parents didn’t go to university and those from low-participation neighbourhoods to improve their university experience and create a home away from home.

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