30 November 2013
22 November 2013
Dr Andy Hamilton (Durham University, philosophy) will be speaking at the Staff-Postgraduate seminar on Wednesday November 27.
Dr Andy Hamilton (Durham University, philosophy) will be speaking at the Staff-Postgraduate seminar on Wednesday November 27. The title of his paper is: “The
Autonomy of Art and the Heteronomy of Entertainment: Louis Armstrong,
Charles Dickens, and Howard Hawks” and he has supplied the following
abstract:
Louis Armstrong
was a very great musical artist, who always thought of himself first as
an entertainer: “My life has been music, it’s always come first, but the
music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay
it on the public”. But he knew that his clowning and crowd-pleasing
were compatible with being an artist: “…it’s got to be art because the
world has recognised our music from New Orleans, else it would have been
dead today”. This lecture argues that, like
the modern Western system of the arts, the modern system of
entertainment – music-hall, circuses, professional sport… – did not
assume definite shape till the 18th or 19th century, though its
ingredients were found in classical, medieval and Renaissance periods.
It argues that the highest humane art seeks a broad audience, in a way
often deemed unique to entertainment. The examples of Louis Armstrong,
Charles Dickens and Howard Hawks are contrasted with the more hermetic
high art of Lennie Tristano, Marcel Proust
and Andrei Tarkovsky.
21 November 2013
Dr Marilynn Richtarik (Georgia State University) at Staff PG seminar
Just a reminder that
Dr Marilynn Richtarik (Georgia State University) will be speaking at
the Staff-Postgraduate seminar today on the subject: Northern Irish
drama in the context of the political 'Troubles’.
Dr Richtarik was
educated at Harvard and Oxford University and has been an Associate
Professor at Georgia State University since 2001. She has teaching and
research interests in Modern and contemporary
Irish literature, twentieth-century English literature, drama, world
literature. Her most recent publication,
Stewart Parker: A Life
(Oxford UP, 2012), won the 2013 SAMLA Studies Book Award from the South
Atlantic Modern Language Association and the 2012 Robert Rhodes Prize
for Books on Literature from the American Conference
for Irish Studies.
9 November 2013
Dr Tom Mole (University of Edinburgh; IAS Fellow, Durham), ‘Scattered Odes’ in ‘Shattered Books’: Romantic Poems in Victorian Anthologies
On Wednesday 13 November,
Dr Tom Mole (University of Edinburgh; IAS Fellow, Durham), will address
the Staff and Postgraduate Research Seminar. The title of his paper
his:
‘Scattered Odes’ in ‘Shattered Books’: Romantic Poems in Victorian Anthologies
Tom
Mole is currently Reader in English Literature and Director of the
Centre for the History of the Book at the University
of Edinburgh. From 2005 until July 2013 he was Associate Professor and
William Dawson Scholar in the Department of English at McGill University
in Montreal. He specializes in the Romantic period in Britain,
especially Lord Byron. His research focuses on three
areas: the cultural history of celebrity, print culture and book
history, and reception history. His monograph,
Byron's Romantic Celebrity (Palgrave, 2007), won the Elma Dangerfield prize from the International Byron Society. Professor Mole edited
Romanticism and Celebrity Culture (Cambridge University Press,
2009, paperback 2012), which brings together twelve contributors to
assemble the most complete account of Romantic celebrity available.
Arguing that celebrity emerged in several areas of
cultural production almost simultaneously, the book includes case
studies from literature and the theatre, music and visual culture,
fashion and boxing.
The seminar will be chaired by Professor Michael O’Neill and take place in Hallgarth House seminar room at 4:30, followed by drinks in The Victoria.
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