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.

Northern City Renaissance

While we're gearing up for Anna's session on the 2nd May, just a quick note to say that there's still time to catch the 'Northern City Renaissance' exhibition at the Laing gallery, Newcastle. Place and space enthusiasts will enjoy depictions of the city's changing cityscape from local and national artists, including the Ashington group - who are coincidentally the subject of Lee Hall's hugely successful play, running at the Live theatre this month.

Arguably the  jewel in the crown, Stephen Hannock's eponymous 'Northern City Renaissance' is a deceptively complex work composed of mini narratives  about the city, alternately personal and factual. The exhibition is well worth a visit, whatever your thoughts on the painting's patron (I jest):

Finally, thanks to all those who have signed up for the Shandy Hall session/trip next month- it's looking to be a great day.

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!
 

Spaces in Theory trip - Literary Houses: Theory and Practice

We're excited to announce that on Friday the 18th of May we will be holding the reading group at Shandy Hall, the literary house where Laurence Sterne lived and wrote his most famous works. Attendees will also be able to view the Precious Cargo exhibition, which explores Sterne’s epistolary relationship with Mrs Eliza Draper as she sailed back to India on an East India vessel.

We hope the location, the readings (to be confirmed) and the exhibition will inspire discussion and debate on such themes as literary pilgrimage and tourism, Empire, site-specific writing, artists/writers in residence, and the interpretation of historic spaces and places through art installations and curatorial practice.

Places are limited, so we ask that all postgraduates and staff book their places before Friday 30th of March by emailing spacestheory@hotmail.co.uk. There will be a small fee of £4.50, payable on the day. We will set off from Northumbria at 1pm and full travel information will be circulated before the trip.

For more on Shandy Hall and the Laurence Sterne Trust visit http://laurencesternetrust.org.uk/. Information about the Precious Cargo exhibition can also be found here: http://laurencesternetrust.org.uk/.

Change of Date and Upcoming Events

The session planned for Friday 17th February has been postponed until Tuesday 28th February, at 4.30pm in Lipman 121. Laurie McKee will be leading the session on Robin Hood, Jacques Derrida and hospitality. We'll send the readings around shortly.

The following meeting will take place as planned on Friday 16th March, led by Anna Hope.

In the mean time, there are a couple of events over the road at NCLA to keep you busy...

• 22 Feb TippingPoint: An evening of readings and multimedia artworks. Editor Gregory Norminton will be in discussion with some of the authors (Jay Griffiths; Lawrence Norfolk) who have contributed to his anthology Out of Chaos: Short Stories for our Shared Planet (Oneworld, 2012). The stories were specially commissioned for Norminton’s collection and respond to ecological crisis.
• 23 Feb NCLA Water Poetry Competition Award Ceremony with John Burnside and W.N. Herbert.

...and a new website featuring Prof Donald Hayden’s photography of locations and routes from Wordsworth’s Travels in Scotland and his walking tour of 1790 is now online.

CFP: Spatial Perspectives

On the 22nd June, Oxford University will be hosting an excellent-sounding conference investigating the ways in which literature and architecture interact. Writers and researchers are invited to propose papers discussing textual spaces and spatial texts, narrative and architecture, interiors and design and many other topics. For more information and details of how to get involved  head over to http://spatialperspectives.wordpress.com/.

Events in February

A couple of events at the Lit & Phil this month will appeal to those of us interested in places and spaces. On the 22nd Natasha Vall of Teeside University will examine how, after 1945, the North East struggled to create cultural policies which would support its vernacular culture. Then on the 29th a number of creative writing staff from Northumbria University will read from their work, including Ian Davidson and Michael Cawood Green whose rich works explore issues of space and location (see: http://www.litandphil.org.uk/events.shtml for more information).

Some other snippets: the London Review of Books has some excellent articles this month, including Jeremy Harding's discussion of European borders and John Burnside's moving recollection of his time in the Arctic Circle (http://www.lrb.co.uk/).

We'll see you again towards the end of this month (date tbc) for a session on Derrida, hospitality and (believe it or not) Robin Hood.

Lecture at Newcastle University: ‘Parochialism – a defence’

Henry Daysh Inaugural Lecture, ‘Parochialism – a defence’, by Professor John Tomaney
Clore Suite, Great North Museum: 11th January, 2012, 4pm

Abstract:
“In this paper I present a defence of parochialism against the claims of cosmopolitanism and in the context of debates about the relational accounts of place. Against normative claims that local attachments and territorial sense of belonging lead to exclusion and cultural atrophy the paper suggests that the local, its cultures and solidarities, are a moral starting and a locus of ecological concern in all human societies and at all moments of history. I explore this idea by reference to art and literature, especially poetry. This analysis suggests the local identities should be understood contextually; there is no necessary relation between local forms of identity and practices of exclusion. The paper shows how the virtue of parochialism is expressed in art with a universal appeal. I conclude therefore that we need more detailed studies of real local identities, which avoid a presumption of disdain.” Professor John Tomaney.

This event is part of a programme of activities celebrating the 35th Anniversary of CURDS in 2012.

For more information visit the Newcastle University website.

'Pictures from Hopper' launch

Neil Campbell will introduce his new collection of short stories Pictures from Hopper at 6pm in Gallery North, Northumbria University on Tuesday, December 13th. Neil's stories are inspired by the works of Edward Hopper and engage with issues of place and location. For more on this collection visit: http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smf/9781844718306.htm

Newcastle Winter Book Festival

The Newcastle Winter Book Festival starts this Thursday 24th November and runs until Sunday 27th, featuring readings and workshops from a range of local writers, artists and historians. Events take place at a range of venues including Northumbria, Seven Stories, the Lit & Phil, Newcastle City Library, Blackwells Bookshop, and the Star and Shadow Cinema.

Place-based highlights include talks by Alistair Moffatt, 'Who do we think we are? The Scots: A Genetic Journey', and Ann Cleeves, who will talk about her story collection, Shetland Quartet. In addition, Ann will jointly run 'Crime in a Foreign Country' with Shirley McKay and Northumbria's own Jacky Collins.

Northumbria University Library will be hosting performance and installations from students and staff at the university, in An Encounter with Antigone (dir. by Jane Arnfield and Matt Cummins) and Chattering Monkey (by Alex Elliott). It would be great to see many of you there.

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.

Remember, Remember: Eventful November

Apologies for the terrible rhyme. In addition to Laurie's Robin Hood and Derrida session on Friday 18 November (readings to follow shortly), there are loads of space-related events going on this month that you might be interested in. Our very own English Literature department is hosting some great talks in the Seminar Series this month: 

• Dr David Stewart (Northumbria University), 'Reading Like a Cockney: Magazines and Romanticism', Wednesday 9 November
• Dr Ian Davidson (Northumbria University), 'The Production of Suburban Space and 1950's Fiction', Wednesday 23 November

 Over the road at Newcastle University, NCLA are hosting the following: 

• Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, 'Edgelands: Journeys into England's Last Wilderness', Thursday 17 November (£6/£4)  
• Jack Mapanje, reading and panel discussion, 24 November (£6/£4) [This reading is hosted in association with English PEN and will be accompanied by an exhibition: Beyond Bars: 50 years of the PEN Writers in Prison Committee, Percy Building foyer, 18 November to 2 December 2011]

And further afield, the Tate Modern 'Topology' project runs from 5th November 2011-May 2012, bringing together artists, writers and intellectuals to discuss topological theory. The following events are taking place this month:

• Spaces of Transformation: Borders with Étienne Balibar, Sandro Mezzadra and Bernard Burgoyne, Saturday 5 November 
• Secrets of Space seminars, Saturday 12 November 
• Embodying Transformation, Saturday 19 November-Sunday 20 November

Keep checking back for updates on the next meeting, and thanks to readers for recommending events, we're always grateful. We look forward to seeing you on 18th.

Seminar Series on Early Modern Spaces at LSE

Members of the reading group may be interested in the 2011/12 seminar series at LSE: 'The Uses of Space in Early Modern History 1500-1850'. It kicks off at 6pm on 13th October with Dr. David Lambert (Warwick) delivering a paper entitled 'Mastering the Niger: Spaces of cartography, accounting and slavery, 1797-1845'. Seminars are held in LSE New Academic Building, room 2.12. Contact Dr. Paul Stock for further details.