In Search of the Missing England

On this coming Saturday Northumbria university will host this one-day event which will undoubtedly interest Spaces in Theory attendees as well as anyone with an interest in emigration, ethnicity or family history. The event will provide both a platform for debate about English emigration and enable discussion on locating and using source materials. To register, please contact events@englishdiaspora.co.uk.

For more information on the excellent 'Locating the Hidden Diaspora Project', visit the project's website here.

Upcoming Events

Here are some events and a new book that might be of interest to readers.


Transnational Solidarities

This conference will explore the ways in which activists have embraced the causes of groups – or even entire nations – of which their knowledge and experience was often limited. Taking place at Northumbria University on Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April, the event hopes to discuss such themes as the relationship between ‘solidarity’ and ‘philanthropy’; and the domestic implications of transnational campaigns. You can download the provisional programme for this event here. Places are limited; to register for this event, please send an email to AZ.TransnationalSolidarities@northumbria.ac.uk by 23 March. Please specify whether you intend to come for both days or only for one day.



Venice and the Cultural Imagination

This new book, edited by Michael O'Neill, Mark Sandy and Sarah Wootton, has just been published by Pickering and Chatto. The interdisciplinary Venice and the Cultural Imagination: 'This Strange Dream upon the Water' explores the representation of Venice in Western culture (poetry, fiction, art, music, film) since 1800, with particular attention to artistic and cultural legacies and the relationships between art and money, history and myth.



Spaces of (Dis)location
 
This two-day multidisciplinary graduate conference is hosted by the College of Arts, University of Glasgow, and takes place on 24th - 25th May 2012. The notion that ideas of space and location - whether physical or metaphysical, real or imaginary - are evolving provides the stimulus for a conference that aims to inspire creativity and debate across many subjects in the arts and humanities. See the conference website for more information. 


Stanza Stones

Stanza Stones, a Poetry Trail from Marsden to Ilkley, is a new collaboration between imove, Ilkley Literature Festival, Simon Armitage and Pennine Prospects, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Simon Armitage and some of Yorkshire’s most talented young writers, dancers and film makers celebrate the Pennine landscape in a series of performances combining dance, poetry, bicycles and film. The project also includes a series of walks as well as a stone carving workshop.
The events are free but must be booked in advance, here. 

And don't forget the most important date of all - the Spaces in Theory Trip to Shandy Hall, Friday 18th May. Email us to register your place before Friday 30th March. It's proving popular so make sure you've got a seat on the bus!
 

Interdisciplinary Conference at Northumbria

Readers may be interested in the following conference hosted by Northumbria's 'States of Mind' research group:

Situating and Interpreting States of Mind 1700-2000

An Interdisciplinary Conference

14-16 June 2012

Northumbria University

Keynote Speakers

Professor Joel P. Eigen (Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology, Franklin and Marshall College, Pennsylvania)

Professor Melinda A. Rabb (Professor of English, Brown University, Rhode Island)

Dr. Judith A. Tucker (Lecturer in the School of Design, Leeds University)

This cross-period and interdisciplinary conference seeks to situate and interpret states of mind from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first questioning how the space, place and historical context in which mental states are experienced shaped the narratives produced by individuals. Interweaving perspectives from across such disciplines as literature, history, philosophy, art history, creative writing, psychology and sociology, the conference will explore accounts of states of mind including mental illness, dreams, sleep-walking, imaginative states and self-awareness. The conference seeks to assess how these varying states of consciousness are expressed and how such narratives are influenced by historical change, continuity or the reconfiguration of these forms of expression.

We would like to invite abstracts for papers from across disciplines on the theme of the conference, particularly related, but not limited, to the following key strands:

Experience and Representation of Mental Illness

- the gap between individual experience and interpretations by medical and legal practitioners

- the relationship between mental distress, agency, literature and cognition

- representations of mental derangement and criminal responsibility

Liminal States of Mind

- representations of liminal states of consciousness

- the relationship between experiences and representations of dreams and sleepwalking

- categorisation of imaginative states in cognitive science and philosophy

- concepts of interiority, selfhood and imaginative processing of real or fictional worlds

Self-awareness and Place

- relationship between self and place, particularly regarding the past, decay and dilapidation

- artistic expressions of situating self-awareness

- creative representations of landscape as a geographic metaphor

Abstracts of 300 words for 20-minute papers should be submitted no later than 31 January 2012 to the conference organisers: anita.oconnell@northumbria.ac.uk or leigh.wetherall-dickson@northumbria.ac.uk.  Please see www.northumbria.ac.uk/statesofmind for details.