Events October | November | December January | 2017–2018
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Events October | November | December January | 2017–2018 Readings and talks by J M Coetzee, Ali Smith, Monica Ali, David Olusoga, Tom Holland Being Human festival: ‘Lost and Found’ Senate House Library exhibition: ‘Queer Between the Covers’ IALS 70th anniversary celebration Plus hundreds of other events highlighting the latest research across the humanities sas.ac.uk The School of Advanced Study, University of London (SAS) is the UK’s national centre for the support and promotion of research in the humanities. Its nine institutes offer an extensive programme of seminars, workshops, lectures and conferences. Each year around 1,800 events are organised on humanities topics, attracting more than 68,000 participants from around the world. Senate House Library is the central library of the University of London. With more than two million books and 1,200 archival collections, it is one of the UK’s largest academic libraries focused on the arts, humanities and social sciences. Several of SAS’s collections are housed within the Library, which holds a wealth of primary source material from the medieval period to the modern age. The Library organises a number of events and exhibitions throughout the year. The majority of SAS and Senate House Library events and exhibitions are free and open to the public. All are welcome and encouraged to take advantage of the unique access to current research in the humanities and social sciences that these events provide. For a complete list of upcoming events and exhibitions, please visit sas.ac.uk and senatehouselibrary.ac.uk. School of Advanced Study sas.ac.uk Institute of Advanced Legal Studies ials.sas.ac.uk Institute of Classical Studies ics.sas.ac.uk Institute of Commonwealth Studies commonwealth.sas.ac.uk Institute of English Studies ies.sas.ac.uk Institute of Historical Research history.ac.uk Institute of Latin American Studies ilas.sas.ac.uk Institute of Modern Languages Research modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk Institute of Philosophy philosophy.sas.ac.uk The Warburg Institute warburg.sas.ac.uk Senate House Library senatehouselibrary.ac.uk Contents Contents Highlights 02 How to use this guide Exhibitions 27 Events are listed in date and time order. On the left we list the department responsible for Events calendar – listings 35 organising the event, the time, type of event or Seminar series 132 series and the venue. On the right we list the event title, speaker(s) and a short description Research training 137 if available. There is further information about Calls for papers 163 highlighted events at the start of the guide, and about research training events and calls How to find us 168 for papers at the end. Booking Cover image: Detail of ceiling in Crush Hall, Senate House. Photo by Matt Crossick. Most of our events are free and open to the public. Some events have limited capacity and advance booking is advised. The event information in this guide was correct at the time of going to press, but may be subject to change. Please check our websites for the latest information or email SAS at [email protected] or Senate House Library at [email protected]. Mailing lists Sign up to our mailing lists to receive information on events of interest to you by emailing SAS at [email protected] or Senate House Library at [email protected]. Event podcasts Selected events are recorded and available to view, listen to, or download online at sas.ac.uk/ events, on iTunes U, and on YouTube. Blog The School’s flagship blog, Talking Humanities, is written by academics from around the world and provides a range of thought-provoking articles on subjects that matter to humanities researchers. Talking Humanities can be found at talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk. We invite short articles from humanities researchers. Contact us at [email protected] with your proposal. School of Advanced Study 1 Highlights Highlights As part of an international conference on Coetzee and the Archive: his literary archive, the Nobel Prize-winning A Reading by J M Coetzee author J M Coetzee will give a public reading at 6 October Senate House. One of the most distinguished novelists in the world, Coetzee is also an eminent critic and reviewer. His work has been recognized through numerous literary prizes, including the Jerusalem Prize, the CAN Prize, the Prix Femina Étranger, and the Booker Prize (twice). Coetzee’s best-known novels include Dusklands (1974), Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), Foe (1986), Disgrace (1999), and The Schooldays of Jesus (2016). Coetzee has also written fictionalised autobiographies, criticism and letters, translations, poetry, and film and television adaptations. The reading will feature a performance of Bach by Kathryn Mosley (Goldsmiths). This event is generously supported by CHASE and The John Coffin Memorial Trust. See pages 38 and 40 for event information J M Coetzee. Photo credit: Bert-Nienhaus credit: Photo J M Coetzee. 2 School of Advanced Study Highlights Indenture Abolition Centenary Conference 6–7 October In collaboration with the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick, the Centre for Postcolonial Studies will host this two-day conference to mark the centenary of the abolition of indenture in the British Empire. The conference will include presentations from new and established scholars and feature the latest research on indentureship and its legacies. It will incorporate two significant evening events: the University of Warwick’s inaugural Gafoor Lecture in Indentureship Studies on Friday, 6 October, delivered by Brinsley Samaroo of the University of the West Indies, and an outstanding panel of writers from across the indentured labour diaspora co-curated with Commonwealth Writers on Saturday, 7 October, that will feature readings by Gaiutra Bahadu (Guyana), Ananda Devi (Mauritius), Lakshmi Persuad (Trinidad), Mary Rokanadravu (Fiji,) and Agnes Sam (South Africa). This exciting literary evening is made possible with the support of Commonwealth Writers and The John Coffin Memorial Trust . See pages 40, 41 and 42 for event information Antique postcard from the Caribbean depicting an Indian woman in front of harvested sugar cane (‘cane trash’), trash’), of harvested (‘cane sugar cane depicting in front an Indian woman the Caribbean from postcard Antique 1900–15 c. Trinidad, School of Advanced Study 3 Highlights Highlights London Library Walk 8 October Spend an early autumn evening exploring some of London’s early eighteenth-century libraries. This walk, led by Alice Ford-Smith of Bernard Quaritch Ltd, will follow in the footsteps of bookseller and antiquary John Bagford, whose An Account of Several Libraries in and about London, for the Satisfaction of the Curious, both Natives and Foreigners was published in 1708. Bagford was at the centre of London’s book trade, selling collections and helping form new ones. In the process he created a unique record of the libraries that operated in the city he loved. This walk features the streets and alleyways of Bagford’s Samuel Beckett. Roger Pic [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia domain], via [Public Roger Pic Samuel Beckett. London, introducing this book history pioneer and the libraries he knew so well. Jouer Beckett / Performing See page 43 Beckett for event information 12–13 October To what extent is the interpretation of a playwright’s works determined by the performance conditions in the country where they are performed? These two study days address this question in relation to Samuel Beckett, whose plays reveal different qualities depending on whether they are staged in France or in the UK. Participants will explore the influence of cultural intermediaries on the reception of Beckett’s bilingual oeuvre through analysis of directorial customs, actor training and acting practices, theatre management, institutional financial and material resources, touring networks, and audience demographics. This event is generously supported by the Cassal Trust Fund. See page 46 for event information The walk meets at Stationers’ Hall (pictured: interior). Hall (pictured: Stationers’ meets at walk The 4 School of Advanced Study Highlights Dickens’s Dream, Robert William Buss. Photo credit: Charles Dickens Museum, London Dickens Charles credit: Photo Buss. William Robert Dream, Dickens’s Dickens Day 2017 on Sigmund Freud confirm the fertility of his 14 October work for conceptions of the unconscious and associated mental states. G H Lewes claimed This one-day conference will explore all that Dickens hallucinated his characters aspects of Dickens and fantasy. Fantasy and Robert Buss’s painting Dickens’s Dream pervades Dickens’s writing. His deeply held (above) implies he dreamt them. How does commitment to ‘fancy’, a word from the same Dickens’s creative process relate to fantasy root as ‘fantasy’, and the influence of the One in both the imaginative and psychological Thousand and One Nights on his work is well sense? In what way do Dickens’s ‘Christmas’ known. Dickens also loved theatrical fantasies. books fit within the fantasy tradition and what He often linked scientific and technological is their relationship to his other works? What developments to fancy and fantasy and was Dickens’s influence on contemporary delighted in juxtaposing the fantastic and and subsequent fantasy authors? How does the mundane. Dickens peopled his work with Dickens use fantasy motifs? How does fantasy fantasists of all sorts, from Mr Dick, Josiah use Dickensian motifs? Bounderby and Harold Skimpole to Pleasant See page 49 Riderhood’s fantasies of sailors and breadfruit for event information and Louisa Gradgrind’s visions in the fire. Oliver Twist’s hallucinatory dream, Fagin in the condemned cell, and Dickens’s influence School of Advanced Study 5 Highlights Highlights Writing Prize-Winning History Why Do We Need Monsters? 17 October 17 October Margot Finn, president of the Royal Historical Almost every society has imagined monsters, Society, talks to the winners of the 2017 RHS often hybrids of humans and beast.