25 November 2012

Literature and the Secret State


Please join us for the fourth seminar of the academic year:


Literature and the Secret State:
On the Secret State, Government and Propaganda in Literature
Dr. James Smith 

Durham University

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Wednesday, 5th December 2012
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Department of English Studies, Hallgarth House Seminar Room

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Speaker: Dr. James Smith, Durham University
ABSTRACT
Writers have had a long and complicated relationship with the covert arms of the British government: some major authors have been the subjects of state surveillance, others have been employed to undertake secret work, and a few managed to combine both roles at the same time. This is an issue that has come into particular focus over the past decade, with the declassification of a range of previously restricted files from Britain's intelligence and propaganda agencies (mainly covering the period from the early twentieth century through to the early stages of the Cold War). These files have revealed not only the extent of the dossiers compiled on key individuals and organisations, but also other aspects of how the secret state interacted with British culture during the twentieth century, ranging from the censorship of films to the recruitment of authors as covert propagandists.

In this paper, I shall talk about the resources that have recently become available in the National Archives, discuss some of the more interesting documents and issues that have emerged from these files, and speculate on the potential for future research.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
 James Smith is a lecturer in English Studies at Durham, and his book British Writers and MI5 Surveillance, 1930-1960, will be appearing soon.

For more information, find us on facebook, follow us on Twitter (@inventionsSem) or check our blog: inventionsofthetext.blogspot.com

14 November 2012

Literature & Law in Some Medieval Narratives


Please join us for the third seminar of the academic year:


Literature and Law
in some Medieval Narratives 

Professor Elizabeth Archibald

Durham University

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Wednesday, 21st November2012
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Department of English Studies, Hallgarth House Seminar Room

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Speaker: Professor Elizabeth Archibald, Durham University
ABSTRACT
Many medieval narratives include a legal scene, suggesting that readers/audiences were keenly interested in matters of justice and legal procedure. Often such scenes are connected to adulterous love affairs or to treason, or to both combined, but hunting is also a significant concern. In this talk I will discuss texts including Marie de France’s Lanval and the Middle English version Sir Launfal; the Latin Arthurian romance Historia Meriadoci; the Wife of Bath’s Tale and some analogues; and Malory.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Elizabeth Archibald is Principal of St Cuthbert’s Society and Professor of English; she arrived in Durham from Bristol in September 2012. Her research is interdisciplinary and focuses on reception, particularly in relation to the classical tradition and medieval romance (especially the Arthurian legend); she is also very interested in the interface between literature and social history. Her publications include Apollonius of Tyre: Medieval and Renaissance Themes and Variations (1991); A Companion to Malory (1996), co-edited with A.S.G. Edwards; Incest and the Medieval Imagination (2001); and The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend (2009), co-edited with Ad Putter. She is currently working on a study of baths and bathing in the Middle Ages, and co-editing collections of essays on the reception of the Troy story, and on Shakespeare and the Middle Ages. She is the co-editor of the journal Arthurian Literature.

For more information, find us on facebook, follow us on Twitter (@inventionsSem) or check our blog: inventionsofthetext.blogspot.com

4 November 2012

Literature & Medicine: Where Does It Hurt, Exactly? Medicine, Metaphor, & Speaking to Doctors in the Middle Ages


Please join us for the second seminar of the academic year:


Literature & Medicine: 

Where Does It Hurt, Exactly? 

Medicine, Metaphor, & 

Speaking to Doctors in the Middle 

Ages

Dr. Jamie McKinstry

Durham University

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Wednesday, 7th November2012
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Department of English Studies, Hallgarth House Seminar Room

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Speaker: Dr. Jamie McKinstry, Durham University
ABSTRACT
Medicine and metaphor are undoubtedly intertwined: when we are ill we often employ emotive imagery and appropriate comparisons to express the scale and severity of pain and discomfort to others, or even to understand our own condition.

This paper examines the expression of illness in the Middle Ages and, subsequently, the responses of doctors to their patients. The medical profession was advertised in a way that appealed to real experiences of patients through a combination of emotive, but authoritative, language. Chaucer’s “Physician’s Prologue” explores the power of such language and metaphor in the diagnosis of disease whilst the importance of the suffering, bleeding, breathing body is emphasised in a poem by William Dunbar about the alchemist John Damian. These works highlight the relationship between mind, body and affect and the literary depictions will be compared to medieval medical scholasticism and recent work in the fields of neurobiological dynamics.

The paper then considers the abilities of literature to exaggerate a corporeal state as explored in the Middle English romance of Sir Orfeo and Dunbar’s “Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins.” This discussion will conclude by asking what literature can contribute to medicine, examined
through another poem by Dunbar about a headache. This piece underlines the significance of metaphor, corporeal sensitivity, and physical expression, but also highlights the important relationship between literature and medicine. The medieval works implicitly recognise the crucial dialogue that exists between disciplines and which, here, produces a more organic, accurate impression of human life, illness, and suffering.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
 Dr. Jamie McKinstry holds a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from Durham University. His Ph.D., awarded in July 2012, examined the creative uses of memory in Middle English romances. Jamie is a member of the Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham and a former Chairman of the postgraduates in the IMRS. His current research is based in medical humanities and focuses on the corporeal experience of ‘depression’ in the Middle Ages. He has presented papers on a wide range of medieval and Renaissance literary topics including memory, the body, elegy, and medieval medicine and has also published in these areas. His most recent article, on memory and trauma in medieval romances, was published in the international BMJ journal Medical Humanities in Autumn 2012.


For more information, find us on facebook, follow us on Twitter (@inventionsSem) or check our blog: inventionsofthetext.blogspot.com