Events

What's Normal Anyway?
17 December 2020

Professor Kirsti Bohata discusses the relationship between ideas of ‘normal’ and ‘disabled’, and cultural constructions of disability. Taking an example from a South Wales mining novel, she looks at the language of disability and how disability was central to the development of ideas of mutualism and the rhetoric of solidarity in ways still relevant to us today.

The talk was followed by a creative writing workshop led by Dr Alan Bilton. To download a copy of the prompts and writing exercises used during workshop, please refer to the Creative Writing Resources page.

To know more about Professor Bohata, click here.

Kati Kati A State in Between; Transcultural Identities in Wales and the World
21 January 2021

Dr Sarah Younan's talk explores liminal identities and their literary and artistic expression. She also discusses multiculturalism and transculturalism, and considers how language narrates diverse cultures. Growing up a mzungu in Kenya, Dr Younan draws on her experiences of not belonging in both her talk and short story ‘Mzungu’ (included in the essay collection Just So You Know: Essays of Experience).

Dr Younan's talk (see video above) was followed by a creative writing workshop led by Kate Murray. To download a copy of the prompts and writing exercises used during workshop, please refer to the Creative Writing Resources page.

To know more about Dr Younan, click here.

A Trans* State of Mind: Transgender Saints, Medieval and Modern
10 February 2021

Dr Roberta Magnani delivers an insightful and culturally relevant talk on transgender Medieval saints. She touches upon the narrative of silenced saints and their discriminatory experiences. Dr Magnani uses her own voice to reposition transness as central to contemporary identity and society. Watch the talk below to discover more regarding Medieval trans identity, gender identity and the reclaiming of erased and marginalised voices. 

Dr Magnani’s latest publication can be found at: https://link.springer.com/journal/41280/9/3

The talk was followed by a creative writing workshop led by Dr Kamand Kojouri. To download a copy of the prompts and writing exercises used during workshop, please refer to the Creative Writing Resources page.

To know more about Dr Magnani, click here. 

Hidden Heroines
18 March 2021

Welsh women have often been kept out of mainstream narratives, without acknowledgement of their cultural and social work. Join the award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster Carolyn Hitt as she talks about capturing stories that need to be told; the necessity of cultural and literary feminine emancipation. From Welsh presenter Mavis Nicholson to Welsh history, from Betty Campbell to the Rhondda Rebel, Hitt recognises the ambition behind these Welsh women, and how this ambition transformed into the cultural project, Hidden Heroines, that juxtaposes Welsh history with feminine consciousness. 

Click here to probe into Hidden Heroines.

Carolyn's talk (see video above) was followed by a creative writing workshop led by Carolyn Lewis. To download a copy of the prompts and writing exercises used during workshop, please refer to the Creative Writing Resources page.

To know more about Carolyn, click here.

Stories and Histories
22 April 2021

Dr Canning’s talk offers a deeper understanding about historical fiction and the disparate ways through which one may approach this genre of literature, including but not limited to a ‘character-history intersection’. Dr Canning maintains that historical fiction is a pliable form of fiction, driven by the author’s approach to a particular historical subject, character, timeframe, or setting, as she reflects over a range of texts that consider the genre in distinctive and experimental flavours, including (but not limited to) The Haunting of Henry Twist (2017) by Rebecca F. John, Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) by George Saunders, and The Paying Guests (2014) by Sarah Waters. Dr Canning concludes by introducing us to one of her upcoming projects- a novel set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War between 1936-39- that revolves around the paradigmatic structure of what she calls ‘fractured (hi)stories’.

The talk was followed by a creative writing workshop by Kate Cleaver. To download a copy of the prompts and writing exercises used during workshop, please refer to the Creative Writing Resources page.

The video recording of Dr Canning's talk will be uploaded soon.

The Politics of Form in Black US Literature
20 May 2021

This talk explores the politics of form in Black U.S. poetry from June Jordan’s Dry Victories (1972), a phototext for children, to Claudia Rankine’s highly acclaimed Citizen: An American Lyric (2015), a collection of prose, poetry, and visual images. It will read these texts as signal examples of the use of productive juxtaposition for the purposes of political critique that has often been deployed by Black artists across the diaspora. Rankine and Jordan create aesthetics of assemblage by staging dynamic interplay between word and image, techniques that invite comparison with collagists like Romare Bearden and Wangechi Mutu.

Dr Farebrother's latest co-authored publication is A History of the Harlem Renaissance.

Dr Farebrother's talk (see video above) was followed by a creative writing workshop led by Dr Rhea Seren Phillips. To download a copy of the prompts and writing exercises used during workshop, please refer to the Creative Writing Resources page.

To know more about Dr Farebrother, click here. 

Harley Quinn's Tattoos and Other Stories of Women with Ink
15 July 2021

Dr Gamble's talk discusses the ability of tattoos to generate stories on both the individual and collective level. She begins with a discussion of portrayals of the comic-book character Harley Quinn, and the way in which her tattoos function as an essential element of her characterisation. For those who know how to interpret them, the story of her life is carved upon her skin, telling a story of abuse, self-abnegation, and a journey to empowerment. She may be a fictional character, but Harley Quinn nevertheless demonstrates that tattoos inscribe an autobiographical narrative upon the body that wears them. However, even though they are regarded as symbols of individuality, the narrative power of tattoos goes beyond the story of any single body, since tattooing is also a collective practice with a history of its own: and as is the case with many histories, the stories of women's participation across time tends to be forgotten. The second half of the talk looks at one example; the Barry-based tattoo artist Jessie Knight, who began her career in 1921. Her long-neglected story shows that women have played an important part in the development of tattooing as an art form and indicates that there are most stories like hers yet to tell.

To know more about Dr Gamble, click here.

The talk was followed by a creative writing workshop by H Raven Rose. To download a copy of the prompts and writing exercises used during workshop, please refer to the Creative Writing Resources page.

The video recording of Dr Gamble's talk will be uploaded soon.