News Archive August 2009-July 2011
The following news items are archived from the Department's New Page.
An Invitation to Open the Vaults
On Tuesday 23rd August, a one-day symposium - 'Opening the Vaults' - is being held at Gloddaith Hall, (St. David's College), Llandudno; one of the ancestral residences of the Mostyn family. The event will revolve around current studies of Welsh families and their archives c.1500-1850. The prospective presenters range from archivists and art-dealers to doctoral candidates and university lecturers whereas presentation topics will focus on a wide variety of themes including portraiture, creative writing, conspicuous consumption, Welsh-language poetry, slavery, Puritanism and archival issues. We would welcome a large audience drawn from the IMEMS community. (Posted 6 July 2011)
Scottish Retreat
Lecturet and Poet, Tiffany Atkinson has been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. Hawthornden Castle is an international retreat for writers and stands on a secluded crag overlooking the valley of the river North Esk, just to the south of Edinburgh. The view is impressive, as is the silence surrounding the glen. Just what's needed to refresh the creative spirit at the end of the academic calendar. (Posted 24 June 2011)
Chawton House Library Fellowship
The Centre for Women's Writing and Literary Culture is delighted to announce that doctoral student Mary Chadwick has been granted a Chawton House Library Fellowship for Autumn/Winter 2011.
Chawton House Library holds a collection of books focusing on women's writing in English from 1600 to 1830. Set in the home of Jane Austen’s brother, the library offers a unique opportunity to study texts in a peaceful, beautiful and supportive setting.
Mary will spend November and December 2011 working with the library's collection of late eighteenth-century novels. She will focus on those written by women and set in Wales, as part of her AHRC-funded PhD research into the literary pursuits and representations of the Welsh gentry. During her time at Chawton, Mary will present a paper based on her research and may contribute a short piece of work to the library’s journal The Female Spectator. (Posted 22 June 2011)
Fellowship at Wolfson College
Congratulations to Professor Sarah Hutton who will be taking up a visiting fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge for the Michaelmas Term commencing this September. (Posted 22 June 2011)
Leverhulme Research Fellowship
Senior Lecturer, Dr Martin Padget has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to begin work on a critical biography of Paul Strand, one of the leading photographers and creative intellectuals of the 20th Century. (Posted 11 May 2011)
Launch of new Research Centre
The official launch of the Centre for Women’s Writing and Literary Culture (CWWLC) will take place at The Drwm, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth on 31 May 2011
After introductions the Centre’s Inaugural Annual Lecture, in collaboration with the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS), will be presented Professor Margaret J. M. Ezell, Distinguished Professor and Sara and John Lindsey Chair of Liberal Arts, Texas A& M University. The title of lecture is Seventeenth-Century Female Author Portraits, Or, The Company She Keeps.
The afternoon programme includes: poetry readings from Gwyneth Lewis and Alicia Stubbersfield, a lecture entitled 50 rooms of their own: Chawton House Library and Jane Austen in 2011 by Dr Gillian Dow of the Chawton House Library, University of Southampton and a presentation of plans for future collaboration between the library and the CWWLC by and Stephen Lawrence (Chief Executive, Chawton House Library) and Dr Rebecca Davies (Aberystwyth University). Honno Press will generously donate a collection of books to the Centre to mark the launch. (Posted 4 May 2011
Nomination
Congratulations to Tyler Keevil, postgraduate student of Creative Writing, who has been longlisted for the Wales Book of the Year for his first novel, Fireball. Tyler was delighted at the nomination: "I’m very grateful that readers have taken to ‘Fireball.’ It’s a pretty weird book, really – about a couple of misfits from suburban Vancouver – and I had no idea how people would react when it came out. But the response has been super positive. I’ve had a lot of support along the way – from my editor Lucy Llewellyn, of course, and also my teachers at Aberystwyth, most notably Matthew Francis (who’s currently supervising my PhD). I don’t think any of us expected this fortuitous turn of events, and it’s both exciting and humbling to have made the longlist for Wales Book of the Year." (Posted 20 April 2011)
Wednesday 6th April 2011
Dr Ivan Hristov of the Bulgarian Academy of Science gave a paper entitled 'The Dragon's Wedding: A Mythological Motif in Bulgarian Literary Modernism'
Literary scholar and poet, Ivan Hristov, is visiting Aberystwyth from Sofia. He is a specialist on 1920s Modernism and a prize-winning poet: his first book of poetry, Sbogom devetnajsti vek (Farewell To the 19th Century, 2001) won the prestigious 2002 Southern Spring award for the best debut book. His second collection, Bdin (2004) won the 2006 Svetlostrui Prize for poetry. Dr Hristov is also a leading Bulgarian literary critic.
Centre for Romantic Studies: Landor Lecture
Professor Fiona Stafford (Somerville College, Oxford), recently delivered the third ‘Landor’ Lecture on: Jane Austen, Power Relations and Social Change.
An expert in Romantic and contemporary poetry, Professor Stafford is author of The Last of the Race: The Growth of a Myth from Milton to Darwin (Oxford, 1994), Starting Lines in Scottish, Irish and English Poetry: From Burns to Heaney (Oxford, 2000), and most recently Local Attachments: The Province of Poetry (Oxford, 2010).
Poem by Creative Writing Tutor chosen as Guardian Poem of the Week
Jasmine Donahaye’s poem 'The Bus to Ramallah' was chosen by Carol Rumens for her weekly online poetry column in The Guardian. Find out more about Jasmine (pictured left) and her work and read her poem.
Head of Department made FRSA
Professor Diane Watt, Head of the Department of English and Creative Writing, has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. The RSA combines thought leadership with social innovation to further human progress. Building on a 250 year history as a beacon for enlightenment values, it undertakes influential and varied research projects and host the UK’s most ambitious free lecture series. See http://www.thersa.org/. (Posted 28 January 2011)
The Wye Valley: Romantic Representations, 1640-1830
The aim of this international conference – held on the banks of the Wye at Tintern, with views over to the abbey ruins – is to revisit one of Britain’s paradigmatic cultural sites: the Wye Valley. See more details and call for papers. (Posted 28 January 2011)
Location, Reception and Identity: Welsh Women's Writing in English 2000 - Present Day
11 March 2011. This conference seeks to ‘take stock’ of the state of Welsh women’s writing in the decade after devolution, and explore the ways in which the issues of Welsh identity and heritage, Welsh women’s writing and Welsh writing in English intersect. See more details and call for papers. (Posted 21 January 2011)
New Horizons: Crossing the Borderlands of the Humanities
This year's Postgraduate Conference entitled New Horizons: Crossing the Borderlands of the Humanities will take place on 11-13 May 2011. With the rise of interdisciplinary criticisms, new and exciting light has been shed on the humanities, whether new avenues into past or contemporary literature, art or history, new forms of fiction and poetry, or blended methodologies and criticisms. This conference will explore various ways that the humanities might approach this new and open territory. For further information, the call for papers and a poster go to New Horizons. (Posted 21 January 2011)
Sarah Hall Shortlisted
We are delighted that former student, Sarah Hall, has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She has been a regular and welcome visitor to the department and, earlier this year, contributed to our Sixth Form Conference. Read more about Sarah Hall. (Posted 17 November 2010)
Congratulations to PhD student
Creative writing student, Seth Clabough (pictured), has been signed up, on the strength of his PhD novel, All Things Await, by prestigious New York agency InkWell Management. InkWell represent a wide range of prominent writers including Robert Harris, Lionel Shriver, Brian Cox and Simon Schama. (Posted 15 October 2010)
Department in 6th place in NSS 2010
The Department of English and Creative Writing is one of the top 6 University departments of English Studies according to the 2010 National Student Survey. 96% of students were satisfied overall with their course according to the poll. For more information go to unistats.direct.gov.uk. (Posted 6 September)
First Aberystwyth PhD under new powers
In a graduation ceremony on 13 July, Stephen Wilson, a creative writing student in poetry, received the first PhD to be awarded by Aberystwyth University. Hitherto, degrees were awarded by the University of Wales; full degree-awarding powers were granted during 2009-10. Stephen’s thesis, Heritage, was completed last year and collection of poems Fluttering Hands was published by Greenwich Exchange in 2008. Isaac Rosenberg, a short study of the First World War poet, was also published by Greenwich Exchange in its 'Student Guide Literary Series' this year. (Posted 21 July 2010)
International conference a resounding success
Recycling Myths Inventing Nations , held at Gregynog 14-16 July 2010, was a wonderful opportunity for scholars from around the globe to share their research and expertise. Bringing together over seventy academics from 20 countries, spanning five continents this was a genuinely international event which promises to be the starting point for future collaborations and further work in the area of myth and national identity. For further details about the conference see www.aber.ac.uk/myth2010 (Posted 21 July)
Award-winning poetry
Reader in the Department, Richard Marggraf Turley, has won the 2010 Wales Book of the Year "People's Choice" award for his poetry collection, Wan-Hu's Flying Chair (Salt 2009). Richard is pictured here at the Award Ceremony with Karen Price, Arts Correspondent with the Western Mail (copyright Academi/Emyr Young). (Posted 8 July 2010)
Major Research Grant Awarded
Congratulations to Dr Damian Walford Davies, Reader, on the award of a prestigious British Academy grant. Damian said, "I was delighted to receive a 16-month British Academy Research Development Award (BARDA) to complete my 70,000-word half of the co-written fourth volume of The Oxford Literary History of Wales: Welsh Writing in English, 1914–2009. This is the most comprehensive and ambitious history of Welsh-language and anglophone literary production ever attempted, of which I am General Editor. The grant is also excellent news for the increasingly lively and mobile discipline of Welsh Writing in English; my colleague, Dr Sarah Prescott (also part of the OLHW team), was the recipient last year of a BARDA award for a project exploring the earlier contours of Wales’s anglophone writing." Read more about Damian's research project here - Damian-research project . (Posted 1 July).
TOP IN WALES - Guardian University Guide 2011
The Guardian has published its University Guide for 2011 and Aber comes top in Wales and with some great scores compared to universities right across the UK. Check it out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2010/jun/04/university-guide-english. (Posted 10 June)
Recent Poetry Performance
Having taken a highly successful son et lumière poetry performance to the Guardian Hay on Wye Literary Festival last year, Damian Walford Davies and Richard Marggraf Turley were invited back to Hay in 2010 with their latest poetry event. In front of a sell-out evening audience, Damian and Richard presented Uncovered Beasts and Wanton Troopers, integrating image and sound with strange songs from the wood . . .. (Posted 8 June 2010)
MA student's story on Radio 4
Congratulations to Creative Writing MA student Math Bird, who has had one of his short stories accepted for radio broadcast as part of a BBC Wales series of three. Math’s A Giant’s Tears, read by Craig Ryder, will be on Radio 4 on Thursday 24 June at 15.30. The other two stories, by Niall Griffiths and Jane Saotome, are on Tuesday 23 and Wednesday 24 June at 15.30. (Posted 4 June 2010)
Columbia University Professorship
Professor Sarah Hutton has been invited to be Gildersleeve Professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York for the Spring Semester 2011. This prestigious professorship is intended to bring visiting scholars, preferably women from abroad, to Barnard College http://www.barnard.edu/. Gildersleeve Professors typically come to Barnard for a single week in which they deliver the traditional public lecture, and meet classes or informal student groups. Barnard College, was founded in 1889 to provide higher education for women in New York City at a time when American universities denied entrance to women. Today Barnard retains its commitment to women’s higher education in partnership with Columbia University. (Posted 2 June 2010)
PhD students' success
The winner of the 2010 LBA Prize for Fiction is Seth Clabough. Second place went to David Towsey, and third to Brandi Mantha. Seth receives a £250 prize and will have the opportunity to meet up with Luigi Bonomi, founder-director of LBA (LBA Literary Agency), later in the year. (Posted 25 May 2010)
Industry Recognition for Honorary Fellow
We are delighted that Luigi Bonomi, founder-director of LBA (LBA Literary Agency) and Honorary Fellow of this Department, was awarded the title of Literary Agent of the Year at this year's British Book Awards on 17 May. (Posted 25 May 2010)
Filmed Poetry Reading
Damian Walford Davies's poetry collection, Suit of Lights, has been chosen by the Wales Literature Exchange as one of its 10 ‘Bookshelf’ titles (titles which ‘represent the best in contemporary writing from Wales’) for promotion in Europe in 2010; for the promotional film, see http://www.cyfnewidfalen.org/authors.cfm?lan=e&switch=dsp&author_id=215. (Posted 14 May)
Prizewinner
Congratulations to Dr Martin Padget has won won the Arthur Miller Centre Prize at the annual conference of the British Association for American Studies at the University of East Anglia for his essay 'Native Americans, the Photobook and the Southwest: Ansel Adams's and Mary Austin's Taos Pueblo'. The prize is awarded annually to the best article of the year on an American subject by a member of the British Association for American Studies. (Posted 14 May 2010)
Wales Book of the Year 2010
Double success for the Department of English and Creative Writing: Dr Richard Marggraf Turley and Dr Jasmine Donahaye, who teach in the Department, have both been long-listed for the “Wales Book of the Year, 2010”. Their poetry collections, Wan-Hu’s Flying Chair and Self-Portrait as Ruth are both published by Salt. The short list will be announced at the Guardian Hay Festival on 6 June. Link to BBC coverage: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8633308.stm (Posted 14 May 2010)
Poetry published
PhD student, Seth Clabough's poem "Ribbon on the Eastern Shore" will appear in volume 47 of Magma Poetry (www.magmapoetry.com). His creative piece "Sorry to Interrupt" appears in the Fall 2010 issue of the James Dickey Review. (Posted 14 May 2010)
'Happylife' at the Impact! Exhibition
Dr Richard Marggraf Turley, reader in English in the Department of English and Creative Writing, has taken part in a unique collaboration between science and design that explores the importance of engineering and physical sciences in all aspects of our lives. “Happylife” is part of the Impact! Exhibition, held at the Royal College of Art on 16-21 March 2010. 16 EPSRC funded research teams were paired with designers from the Royal College of Art, Design Interactions Department to work together to produce conceptual designs. The exhibition is a joint project between EPSRC, Royal College of Art and NESTA. Keats-Shelley Prize winning poet, Richard Marggraf Turley, collaborated with designer James Auger to produce short fictional narratives illustrating ways in which a hypothetical “HappyLife” mood display might be used by a family of the future. For details of HappyLife, see: http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=23 (Posted 17 February 2010)
Researchers take the temperature of Love
“Steamy love poems are always popular around Valentine's Day, but can a few lines of tender verse really make people hot under the collar? Researchers at Aberystwyth University attempted to find out earlier this week, using thermal imaging cameras to take the temperature of volunteers reading the work of Romantic poets. The experiment is a collaboration between the arts and the sciences, led by Keats-Shelley Prize winning poet Dr Richard Marggraf Turley from the Department of English and Creative Writing and Professor Reyer Zwiggelaar from Computer Science. They asked six volunteers from each department to silently read 12 love poems, while a slightly less amorous text about thermal imaging served as a control. As the participants pored over poems, including ‘Bright Star’ by John Keats and ‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell, thermal cameras monitored their faces for any change in temperature that could reveal their true feelings. Initial results suggest that love poetry can indeed set the heart a-flutter.” (Posted 17 February 2010)
(from Guardian Science, 13 February 2010)
The Valentine’s Day experiments fired the imagination of press in the UK and beyond. A selection of news coverage can be sampled at the following links:
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8504616.stm
Guardian Science blog: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/feb/13/valentines-love-poetry-hot-blood
The Scotsman: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/bookreviews/-Bookworm.6069315.jp
The Western Mail: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/02/10/scientists-put-love-poems-to-the-test-91466-25800836/
Creative Writing Success for MA graduate
Joao Morais, who graduated with distinction from the department's 2008-9 creative writing MA programme, has been awarded a prize in the Academi/Rhys Davies short story competition. See http://www.academi.org/rhysdavies/ for details. (Posted 26 February 2010)
The Department of English and Creative Writing here at Aber is one of the top 6 University departments of English Studies according to the 2010 National Student Survey. 96% of students were satisfied overall with their course according to the poll. For more information go to unistats.direct.gov.uk.
different WORLDS
The MA Creative Writing Magazine 2010 - different WORLDS - is now open for submissions. Please send your poems, stories and artwork on the theme of different WORLDS. For submission guidelines, theme overview, contact details and deadlines, PLEASE REFER to the team's website at http://differentworlds2010.wordpress.com. PDF versions of submission guidelines are also available on request. Please direct all queries/requests to the different WORLDS team at differentworlds2010@gmail.com. (different WORLDS is produced by students on the department's MA course in Creative Writing.) (posted 26 November)
PhD Open Evening, Thursday 10 December
On Thursday, 10 December, 6-7.30 pm in Hugh Owen C165, there will be an Open Evening for MA students interested in PhD study in the Department of English and Creative Writing. The evening will include short presentations on doctoral study, the application process, and funding. You will be able to discuss and ask questions about doctoral study with members of staff and current PhD students. Drinks and light snacks will be served. All MA students are welcome to attend.
If you have any queries about the Open Evening, or if you are interested in doctoral study in the Department of English and Creative Writing but can't attend the Open Evening, please email Mrs Julie Roberts or Dr Jayne Archer. (Posted 18 November)
MA Open Evening, Tuesday 8 December
On Tuesday, 8 December, 6-7.30 pm in Hugh Owen C165 there will be an Open Evening for third-year students interested in MA study in the Department of English and Creative Writing. The Evening will include short presentations on the MA schemes, the application process, and funding. You will be able to discuss and ask questions about MA study with members of staff and current MA students. Drinks and light snacks will be served. All third-year students are welcome to attend.
If you have any queries about the Open Evening, or if you are interested in MA study in the Department of English and Creative Writing but can't attend the Open Evening, please email Mrs Julie Roberts (jxr@aber.ac.uk) or Dr Jayne Archer (jea@aber.ac.uk). (Posted 18 November)
Poem for publication
PhD student in Creative Writing, Seth Clabough's poem "I Know Why" has been accepted for publication and in the winter issue of The Chaffey Review
Ethics and Politics in Modern American Poetry
Ethics and Politics in Modern American Poetry is the title of a book by John Wrighton, published recently by Routledge. John graduated with a PhD in English from the department in 2008. His book explores the relationship between the ethical imperative and poetic practice in prominent post-war American poetry. (Posted 14 August 2009)
Communities of Inquiry, Communities of Practice:
Conference 8-9 September 2009
The department will host a two-day conference and proposed edited collection designed to bring together teachers and learners interested in exploring the possibilities of Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL), particularly in the humanities disciplines. Supported by CILASS (Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences) this event will unite practitioners, academics, and learning technologists to showcase current learning and teaching practices, and explore new methods of encouraging and supporting IBL. See details here - Communities of Inquiry conference. (Posted 11 August 2009)