By Prof. Josephine McDonagh, Professor of Nineteenth Century Literature and Dr Rowan Boyson, Lecturer in English Literature
How might the humanities contribute to an understanding of the current refugee ‘crisis’? That was the general question that generated the informal session of staff and researchers in the English Department held on 10th February, 2016.
By Frances Carey, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, English Department, and co-curator of Painting Norway. Nikolai Astrup 1880-1928, Dulwich Picture Gallery 5 February to 15 May 2016.
An elephant’s gestation is ‘but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night’ compared with that required for most museum exhibitions. The one just opened at Dulwich Picture Gallery was not even a twinkle in anyone’s eye at the seminar I was invited to join four years ago in Bergen, to consider how to raise the international profile of Nikolai Astrup.
February 13-14th saw the launch of a festival celebrating 400 years of Shakespeare’s legacy. King’s College London are part of this year-long series of cultural events called Shakespeare 400.
In this video director of the London Shakespeare Centre, Professor Gordon McMullan and English department scholars Dr Emma Whipday and Dr Elizabeth Scott-Baumann talk about the festival and their involvement.
Introduction by Max Saunders, Professor of English and Director of the Arts and Humanities Research Institute (AHRI)
The idea for Wax Virginia was developed by Prof. Clare Brant, Co-Director of the Centre for Life-Writing Research, and Ruth Richardson, Visiting Research Fellow of the Centre, who both worked closely with the artist Eleanor Crook, on the design of the installation. The project is characteristic of the creativity and imagination they have brought to the Centre. At the unveiling during the Arts & Humanities Festival people were astounded by the way the sculpture transformed the lobby space. It was just what was needed to realise the presence of Arts & Humanities at 22 Kingsway.
Watch a time-lapse video of the artist Eleanor Crook producing the work, then read more about the project in a post from Catriona Livingstone.
By Penny Newell, PhD student in the English Department
Ever since I attended one of Lois Weaver’s Long Tables on Live Art and Feminism, I have been paying a special attention to tables. Tables structure conversations. Tables anchor discoveries. Tables form communities. Tables ground critique.
In Weaver’s Long Table, the table is a centrepiece of a performed conversation, in which you can choose whether or not to participate. It’s an amazingly simple yet effective performance work. It makes you re-think your critical relationship with tables. It makes you ask: Who sits at my table? Who can sit at my table? Who listens? Who speaks? Continue reading Sitting at a table in Berlin, thinking about Aretha Franklin
