Monday 29 September 2014

"Cultivating Research" talks at Manchester University

University of Manchester: Drama
‘Cultivating Research’
Seminar series, Autumn 2014
All talks held in the Martin Harris Centre.

 



1.    Dr. Hayley Bradley & Dr. Felicia Chan (University of Manchester): “Rethinking Auteur and Artisan in Film and Theatre Historiography”
Tuesday 14th October, 5.15pm SLO1
Coming from different disciplines, Hayley Bradley (theatre history) and Felicia Chan (film and cultural studies) will explore questions arising from their current research into “forgotten” figures in theatre and film history — Henry Hamilton (1854 to 1918) and contemporary Chinese women filmmakers (Ann Hui et al). Although unlikely to appear together in any anthology or scholarly context (other than this one!), there are resonances across how these figures seem to have been written out of the history and frameworks of our disciplines. Through this inter-disciplinary conversation, we seek to rethink the politics of representation beyond grand narratives of ‘discovery’ and ‘innovation’, and to reconsider how the auteur and artisan have been conceptualised in/across our disciplines.


2.    Dr. Liz Tomlin (University of Birmingham): ‘The agency of the spectator in the individualized society’   
Tuesday 4th November, 5.15pm, SLO1
Leading sociologists, such as Zygmunt Bauman and Ulrich Beck, have been defining global capitalism as the age of ‘institutionalised individualization’ since the early 1990s, yet such theories retain their currency and urgency today. This research presentation will highlight key aspects of their analysis in order to ask difficult questions about the efficacy – or inefficacy – of theatre as a vehicle for political change in the twenty-first century. Beginning with the familiar premise that political theatre should seek, in the broadest terms, to shift each spectator’s perception of the reality in which they live, I will suggest that this emphasis on the individual spectator, and his or her own responsibility for change, runs up against problems in the light of recent theories of individualization.


3.    Professor Dan Rebellato (Royal Holloway, University of London): “Naturalism and the Problem of Homosexuality”
Tuesday 2nd December, 5.15pm, SLO1
Naturalist theatre was a movement that placed the highest priority on representing the contemporary world, exposing social problems, and drawing on the latest scientific thinking to do so. So why didn’t it address homosexuality, which would seem to meet all of these requirements? Or, since it’s too crude to say simply that it didn’t, in what ways did it not address homosexuality and why? What does it mean to say historically that ‘something didn’t happen’? In this paper, part of a larger book project on Naturalism on stage, I want to look at the multiple absences of homosexuality in Naturalist Theatre, drawing on a range of different instances and case studies. The talk will touch on theatre and literature, urban studies, psychology and sexology, military and art history, international relations, legal theory, criminology, cultural studies, and late-nineteenth-century French history.

Friday 26 September 2014

Salford's CCM Research Centre Newsletter: September 2014

 

Welcome to the inaugural newsletter of Communication, Cultural and Media studies researchers at Salford. The last year has been a vibrant and highly successful one for CCMers who have been really active at home and internationally across a wide range of fronts. Read on…..

CCMers Produce Leading in International Research Outputs



The year has already been marked by the release of a wealth of major international research outputs from CCM members in print and audiovisual form. Published in late 2013, Michael Goddard’s Impossible Cartographies: The Cinema of Raúl Ruiz (London/New York: Wallflower Press/Columbia) looks set to become a leading work in the field. Reviews of George McKay’s latest book Shakin’ All Over: Popular Music and Disability (Univ Michigan Press) have declared it ‘a first for the field’ (Times Higher Education) and an ‘astonishing work….that will inspire and entertain audiences for years to come’ (Popular Music & Society). Erik Knudsen’s latest film The Raven on the Jetty won the Jury Prize at the 2014 Madrid International Film Festival (see: http://www.onedayfilms.com/raven-jetty-wins-jury-award-madrid-international-film-festival/) and looks set for wider acclaim.


Elsewhere CCM staff have published in journals of international repute, such as: New Media and Society (Michael Goddard), Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (Kirsty Fairclough Issacs), Film International (Andy Willis), the Journal of Historical Pragmatics (Carole O’Reilly), Government Information Quarterly (Seamus Simpson), the Journal of Media Practice (Erik Knudsen), Journalism (Sharon Coen) and Theory and Event (Ben Halligan) to mention just some.


Four important collections edited by CCMers have emerged in the last year: Michael Goddard’s Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context (with Ewa Mazierska) (Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press); Michael Goddard and Ben Halligan’s Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Musics (with Nicola Spelman) ( New York, London: Continuum); Kirsty Fairclough Issacs and Ben Halligan’s (with R Edgar) The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop', (Routledge); and David Kreps’s Gramsci and Foucault: A Reassessment (Ashgate).


Finally, CCMERs have been active in contributing to edited collections with international reach, such as Erik Knudsen’s ‘Dependencies and Independence in British Independent Film’ in Independent Filmmaking Around The Globe, edited by Baltruschat, D. & Erickson, M. (University of Toronto Press), Kirsty Fairclough Issacs’s ‘Growing old in the spotlight: Social Media and Ageing ‘, in: Martin, W & Twigg, J (eds.),Routledge Handbook of Cultural Ageing and Andy Willis’s 2014 ‘British Chinese Short Films: Challenging the Limits of the Sinophone’ (co-written with Felicia Chan) in Sinophone Cinemas, Audrey Yue and Olivia Koo (eds.), Palgrave, to name just three.



A longer list of our publications in no particular order is as follows:


Fairclough Issacs, Kirsty ( 2014), “Lost Voice Guy: Transcending Barriers of Disability through Technology in Live Comedy Performance”. Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering Volume 136, 2014, pp 91-98


O’Reilly, Carole (2014) ‘Dirt, Death and Disease’: Newspaper Discourses on Public Health in the Construction of the Modern British City. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 15: 2, July 2014, p. 207-228.


Coen, Sharon and Jones, C. (2014) A matter of Law and Order: reporting the Salford riots in local webpages. Invited paper for Special issue on Social Sciences and Social Movements, in Contemporary Social Sciences 9 (1) 1-16.


Goddard Michael (2013) Impossible Cartographies: The Cinema of Raúl Ruiz (London/New York: Wallflower Press/Columbia)


Knudsen, Erik (2014) The Raven On The Jetty, fiction, 88 minutes, One Day Films Limited.


McKay George (2013) Shakin’ All Over: Popular Music and Disability (Univ Michigan Press)


Simpson, Seamus (2014)‘ Next Generation Network environments in Europe: the significance of the EU as a policy actor’, Government Information Quarterly, 31(1), 100-07.


Christou, George and Simpson, Seamus (2014) ‘Shaping the global communications milieu: the EU in global Internet and telecommunications policy. Comparative European Politics, 12(1), 54-75


Goddard, Michael (2014) “Opening up the Black Boxes: Media Archaeology, ‘Anarchaeology’ and Media Materiality”, New Media and Society.


Knudsen, Erik (2014) Eyes and Narrative Perspective On Story: A Practice Led Exploration of the Use of Eyes and Eye-lines in Fiction Film. Journal of Media Practice (Vol. 15 No. 1):


Willis, Andy (2013) ‘Neo-noir: the cultural significance (and insignificance) of a film style’. In Film International 65, 11:5.


Curran, J., Coen, Sharon, Soroka, S. Hichy, Z. et al. (in press, 2014). Reconsidering ‘virtuous circle’ and ‘media malaise’ theories of the media: an 11-nation study. Journalism.


Halligan, Ben (2014) “‘({})’: Raunch Culture, Third Wave Feminism and The Vagina Monologues” in Theory & Event, 17.1, March.


Goddard, Michael (2014) Polish Cinema in a Transnational Context. Co-edited with Professor Ewa Mazierska. Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press.


Halligan, Ben, Michael Goddard and Nicola Spelman (2013) Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Musics. New York, London: Continuum.


Fairclough Issacs, Kirsty, Ben Halligan and R Edgar (2013) 'The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop', New York: Routledge.


Kreps David (2014) (ed.) Gramsci and Foucault: A Reassessment, Ashgate Publishing



Chapter contributions to Edited Collections


Knudsen Erik (2014) ‘Dependencies and Independence in British Independent Film’ in Independent Filmmaking Around The Globe, ed. Baltruschat, D. & Erickson, M. (University of Toronto Press, due 2014):


Fairclough Issacs, Kirsty (2014) ‘Growing old in the spotlight: Social Media and Ageing ‘, in: Martin, W & Twigg, J (eds.),Routledge Handbook of Cultural Ageing , Routledge, London, UK.


Fairclough Issacs, Kirsty (2013) ‘Nothing less than perfect: female celebrity, ageing and hyper-scrutiny in the gossip industry’, in: Female Celebrity and Ageing Back in the Spotlight, Routledge, London, UK.


Willis, Andy (2014) (in press) ‘Hong Kong Noir and the Limits of Critical Transplant’. In East Asian Film Noir, Mark Gallagher (ed.), London: IB Tauris.



Willis, Andy, (2014) ‘British Chinese Short Films: Challenging the Limits of the Sinophone’ (co-written with Felicia Chan). In Sinophone Cinemas, Audrey Yue and Olivia Koo (eds.), Basingstoke: Palgrave.



Willis, Andy (2014) ‘Amando de Ossario’s “Bind Dead” Quartet and the Cultural Politics of Spanish Horror’. In Screening the Undead: Vampires and zombies in film and television, Leon Hunt, Sharon Lockyear and Milly Williamson (eds.), London IB Tauris, 233-248.



Halligan, Ben (2014) “From Countercultures to Suburban Cultures: Frank Zappa after 1968” for Countercultures and Popular Music, eds. Sheila Whiteley and Jedediah Sklower, Ashgate, 2014.


Kreps, David (2014) 'Virtuality and Humanity' Chapter in Grimshaw, M (Ed.) Oxford Handbook of Virtuality Oxford: Oxford University Press



CCMers Edit Journal Special Issues


Seamus Simpson recently co-edited (with Katharine Sarikakis, University of Vienna) a special issue of the International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics on Imposing Freedoms: New Defaults in Media and Communications Governance. This special issue emerged from a joint effort to draw together work from communication law and policy experts aired in 2012 at the conferences of the largest media and communication academic associations: ECREA, IAMCR and ICA. The 2012 conference questioned normative assumptions about the constitution of freedom through media policy and media governance. Andy Willis co-edited with Sarah Perks a special edition of Film International on ‘My Noir’ where a wide range of artists, filmmakers and critics reflected on the idea of film noir. Seamus Simpson also edited a special issue of the Journal of Information Policy on Contemporary Issues in European Media Policy. This special issue is a product of the 2013 workshop of the ECREA Communication Law and Policy section which took place at MediacityUK, 25-26 October.



CCMers in Research Funding Success


Michael Goddard along with Adriana Amaral and a team of researchers at Unisinos, a leading University in Brazil, was awarded funding of over £60,000 to become Special Visiting Researcher in Brazil form 2014-2016. The award was accepted by CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), and is funded through the Science without Borders scheme, a Brazilian Government scholarship programme. Michael Goddard is undertaking a project which researches music scenes in Manchester and Porto Alegre in relation to popular music studies, post-industrial cities, creative industries and social edia.

Whilst something of a departure from his recent, more local research into music, media and noise, the work will take forward earlier conducted collaborative research work with CCM's Dr Benjamin Halligan and others at the University Salford into popular music, media and noise since their first collaboration on the music of The Fall in 2008. In addition to research in Brazil, the project will involve return visits of several of the members of the Brazilian research team from Unisinos to Salford, as well as the organisation of international research events in both locations, publications and technical applications.

The project began in April 2014 and so far there has been a series of presentations of Michael’s research in Brazil, a postgraduate seminar at Salford, and initial meetings and discussion groups between the research group. There have also been several appearances in Brazilian media both in print and on TV, and work has begun to develop the project's website and mobile application in additions to the already existing blog and social media sites. The first academic publications related to the project, and first academic events, are anticipated for 2015.


Elsewhere, David Kreps is Principal Investigator on an ESRC Knowledge Transfer Partnership project with Sigma Consulting Solutions Ltd valued at £122,345.00.


Finally, George McKay secured £7270 from the AHRC to run the ‘Carnivalising the Creative Economy’ Showcase held in March 2014 in London. George organised a panel, a stand and funded a film on the subject of ‘AHRC Research on and with British Jazz Festivals’ at the event. This featured academics from Salford and Glasgow universities, a CDA student from Glasgow, as well the directors of London, Glasgow and Cheltenham Jazz Festivals. The 15-minute film, Carnivalising the Creative Economy, was directed by professional filmmaker, Gemma Thorpe.



CCMers Deliver Papers at a Wide Range of International Conferences


CCM staff have travelled far and wide this year to present the results of their research at high quality gatherings of international scholars. Papers have been presented across the UK, as well as the USA, Austria, Ireland, Finland and Holland. Some examples are:



Sharon Coen (2014) ‘Mediating effects of State secularism on the relationship between religious orientations and same-sex marriage’ – EASP General Meeting Amsterdam July 2014.



Sharon Coen (2014) ‘I dig therefore I am: place identity and attachment & participation to community-based Archaeological initiatives’ – BPS Social Psychology Section Canterbury September 2014.



Carol O’Reilly (2014) European Social Science History biennial conference, Vienna - Selling Utopia: Urban Journalism, Town Planning and the Idea of the City, April.


Kirsty Fairclough Issacs (2014) Lost Voice Guy: Transcending Barriers of Disability through Technology in Live Comedy Performance (Intetain: 6th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment, Columbia College Chicago, United States, July 2014.



Kirsty Fairclough Issacs(2014) Prime Time: Jane Fonda, ‘appropriate’ ageing and the re-making of a Hollywood persona. Celebrity Studies Conference, Royal Holloway, June 2014



Kirsty Fairclough Issacs (2014) Invited opening plenary presentation: Celebrity and Ageing, Sex and the City Ten Years On: Landmark Television and its Legacy, Roehampton University, United Kingdom, April 2014).



Kirsty Fairclough Issacs (2014) Body, Ageing and Society; The Challenge of Cultural Gerontology - Celebrity Panel British Society of Gerontology (BSG), Oxford University, United Kingdom, September 2013



Andy Willis (2013) ‘Crossing Hennessey and Big Blue Lake: New Localism in Hong Kong Cinema’ Chinese Cinemas Inside and Outside China. A Chinese Film Forum Conference, Cornerhouse, Manchester, 11-13 Oct 2013.



Andy Willis (2014) ‘Interventions on Cultural Margins: The Case of the Chinese Film Forum UK’ (with Dr. Felicia Chan, University of Manchester) East Asian Screen Studies Symposium, King’s College London, 16 May.



Ben Halligan (2014)“Slutwalk”, Suffragette Legacy conference (People’s History Museum, Manchester, March 2014)



Ben Halligan (2014) “Tito Among the Serbs for the Second Time”, Film-making and the Post-Conflict City Queens University Belfast / Belfast Film Festival, March 2014.


Ben Halligan (2014) “Skanky Shamanism: Sensual Audience Participation and the Miley Cyrus Bangerz Tour”, Carnivalising Pop: Music Festival Cultures (University of Salford, June 2014)


David Kreps (2014) ‘The Time of our Lives: Understanding Irreversible Complex User Experiences’. Paper at on 11th Human Choice and Computers International Conference (HCC11) Turku, Finland, July 2014 http://www.hcc11.net/



CCMers Organise Major International Conferences


The International Communication Association Conference, Seattle.


In May 2014, Seamus Simpson co-organised (with Laura Stein, University of Austin, Texas) the Communication Law and Policy Division’s contribution to the International Communication Association annual conference, held this year in Seattle. A vibrant mix of papers was delivered by academics from across the world, alongside a lively ‘extended session’ debate on ‘communication law and policy and the good life’. The ICA conference is the largest annual gathering of academics in the field. There were 2700 attendees at the Seattle conference. Next year, ICA will be held in Puerto Rico. The call for papers is out now with a deadline of 4 November.


The Carnivalising Pop: Music Festival Cultures symposium, Salford


In June 2014, a host of leading researchers in cultural studies converged on Salford for the ‘Carnivalising Pop’ symposium organised by George McKay. Among others, Gina Arnold from Stanford University spoke on Race, Space, and Representation at American Rock Festivals. Anne Dvinge from the University of Copenhagen spoke on Musicking in Motor City: Reconfiguring urban space at the Detroit Jazz Festival. Our own Ben Halligan delivered a paper on ‘Skanky Shamanism: Sensual Audience Participation and the Miley Cyrus “Bangerz” Arena Tour’. Academics aside, Alan Lodge, veteran festivals photographer and travellers activist or led a Discussion and Showing of Some Key Photographs of Festivals, New Travellers and Alternative Culture in Britain Since the 1970s.


In April, an internationally co-produced symposium on Teaching Screenwriting: Creativity, Innovation and Professional Practice held at Mediacity. CCM’s Erik Knudsen co-organised this highly successful event with Craig Batty from RMIT, Australia. The symposium was supported by UK Higher Education Academy.



CCMers Play Prominent Role in the 2014 Salford International Media Festival


This year’s Festival has three component parts: The Challenging Media Landscapes conference; The 21st Nations and Regions Media Conference and Next Gen. CCMers make up the Programme Committee for the CML conference, running over 17th and 18th November. The conference promises to be an international event with paper givers lined up from universities in the UK, USA, Australia, Norway, Finland, France, the Ukraine, Nigeria, Ireland, and Canada among others.


Seamus Simpson is Content Director for NARM 2014, the centrepiece of the Festival. The conference this year features keynote addresses from Harriet Harman, Ed Vaizey and Peter Fincham as well as a diverse range of panels in which leading media industry professionals will speak on topics such as the future of the UK licence fee, new digital technologies, the radio business, diversity in the media sector, the internationalisation of media formats and the future of commissioning in the UK.





CCMers Deliver Keynote Addresses at Major International Conferences



In July 2014, Garry Crawford delivered a keynote lecture at the 2014 Leisure Studies Association conference in Glasgow. The event was hosted by University of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus. LSA 2014, Sport, Festivity and Digital Cultures, brought together comparative and contrasting perspectives upon both the digital age in leisure and upon digital practices as leisure - as prevalent in cultural forms, such as sport or festivity and other leisure pursuits. The conference occurred in a particularly important year for both Scotland and the global sporting and cultural communities.



In March, Erik Knudsen delivered a keynote address on The Meaning of Independence: Challenges and Opportunities for Ghanaian Film in an Age of Abundance at the Legon International Film Event, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana. HE also gave a keynote address in June at the Journal of Media Practice Symposium, Roehampton University, London.


In 2014, George McKay gave a keynote lectures at the University of Porto and Birmingham City University. George also gave addresses at the Foundation Bec Zmiana, Synchronicity conference, Warsaw; the 2014 Cheltenham Jazz Festival; and the On Invasive Grounds Exhibition, Marabouparken art space, Stockholm;



Spring 2014 was a busy period for CCMers. Kirsty Fairclough lectured on gender and stand up comedy at Columbia College Chicago. Andy Willis led a one hour introduction as part of Viva Spanish and Latin American Film Festival at Manchester Cornerhouse. David Kreps was invited speaker at Camp Digital held at Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Sharon Coen gave a talk on Empowering citizens: media, identity and engagement at the Media Research Seminar Series at Aberystwyth University. Andy Willis co-ordinated a screening and led Q&A with director Andrew Leavold of the film The Search for Weng Weng at Cornerhouse, 5th June. He did a Q&A with director Ken Loach at the preview of his latest film Jimmy’s Hall at Cornerhouse May 29th.


CCMers Bring Forward the Next Generation of Academic Talent


This year has seen a significant number of PhD completions in CCM. The growing number of successful candidates, making contributions to knowledge in a diverse range of fields, is testament to the quality of supervision received and the growing reputation of Salford as a place to undertake internationally outstanding media research. Congratulations to:



Abdullah alMaghlooth (2014) The Relevance of Gatekeeping in the Process of Contemporary News Creation and Circulation in Saudi Arabia. Supervisor: Carole O’Reilly


Sharon Coleclough (2014) Film performance; the role of the actor in cinematic expression (Steve Davismoon, Erik Knudsen)

Greg Bevan (2014) Voice, Language and Texture: The Myth of Objectivity and the Renegotiation of Documentary Aesthetics. Supervisor: Erik Knudsen


Lisa Morriss (2014) 'Accomplishing social work identity in interprofessional mental health teams following the implementation of the Mental Health Act 2007'. Supervisor: Greg Smith


Everette Ndlovu (2014) The role of diasporic media in facilitating citizen journalism and political awareness in Zimbabwe. Supervisors: Seamus Simpson and George McKay


Deborah Gabriel (2014) African Carribean bloggers in the UK: Alternative voices on the web. Supervisor: George McKay


Tom Sykes (2014) Jazz for the ipod generation. Supervisor: George McKay


Mary Oliver (2014) The digital performer: performance, technology and new performance paradigms. Supervisor: George McKay


Lloyd Peters (2014) Media practice and new approaches to mise-en-scène and auteur theory in broadcast radio. Supervisor: George McKay


Eileen Wattam (2014) Social Media and Community Empowerment Supervisor: Kirsty Fairclough


Mikko Sihvonen (2014) ‘Public Service Priorities in Transition – Catering for Minority Interests in the Public Service Media Environments of the UK and Finland’ non-Salford candidate supervised by Seamus Simpson


Politics, Protest: British Political Posters conference

People's History Museum: Friday 10th October
 


 
In the run-up to the General Election 2015, curators, campaigners and designers will explore the significance of the poster to British political debate.
 
Introduced by Margaret Timmers V&A and Louise Sutherland (PHM)

 

An Overview of the British Political Poster
James Thompson (Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of Bristol)
 
Posters and the archive: The political meaning of poster collections
Chris Burgess (Curator, People’s History Museum),
Disucussion chaired by Catherine Flood (V&A) with
Monica Cash (Deputy Librarian, Linen Hall Library, Belfast) and Cathy Ross (Honorary Research Fellow, Museum of London) 
 
Organising Election Campaigns
Conservative Party Campaigns
Jeremy Sinclair (Founding director of M & C Saatchi, formerly founder member of Saatchi and Saatchi)
Labour Party Campaigns
Speaker tbc
Discussion Chair: Margaret Scammel
 
Art and Design as Activism
Suzy Mackie and Pru Stevenson (See Red Woman’s Workshop)
Ross Colquhon ( Designer and member of Artists and Creatives for Scottish Independence)
Noel Douglas (Occupy Movement)
Clifford Singer (My David Cameron.com)
Discussion Chair Matilda Pye, V & A
Art as a political weapon
Peter Kennard and Cat Picton Philipps


Come and debate these issues at the People’s History Museum Manchester (PHM), organised in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).

We should be delighted if you would like to attend. Lunch and refreshments provided. Please circulate to anyone else who may be interested. For more details, and to book, follow the Eventbrite link:



Poster Generator Day

Please note that Manchester School of Art and MMU are organising creative poster events on 9 and 10 October that will culminate in a Poster Parade from MMU All Saints Campus to the People’s History Museum (PHM) on 10 October. There is also be the opportunity to visit MMU Special Collections to view posters from its collections on the afternoon of Thursday 9 October 2014. This contains about 4,200 posters, including the Philip Granville Collection and about 3,000 British posters from the 1970s to date.

Conference delegates and students who wish to view posters from our collections on Thursday 9 October should book onto a session in advance. Sessions are running between 1.00pm – 4.30pm. Here is the link to the booking page on EventBrite:


Thursday 25 September 2014

Manchester Literature Festival

Running across October: http://www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk/


Women in Comedy (11-26 October)

Includes many free events; venues across Manchester:
http://www.womenincomedy.co.uk/2014/home.html


Life Class

 
G25, Allerton Studios, Frederick Road Campus
Representational life drawing is a fundamental and intrinsic part of developing artistic technique. Thanks to the support the Haworth Charitable Trust, the Visual Arts programme is able to host a Life Class for students of the School of Arts & Media.
The Life Class will be led by artist David Hancock. David has built up a formidable reputation as an artist nationally and internationally in recent years.
 
 
The Life class can accommodate 25 students. The Life Class is a drop-in event. Please be punctual. There will be no admission after 10.15am.


Week 2 Weds 08th October 10.00am – 12.30pm

Week 3 Weds 15th October 10.00am – 12.30pm

Week 4 Weds 22nd October 10.00am – 12.30pm

Week 5 Weds 29th All Day (Big Draw Event) 10.00am – 12.30pm and 1.30pm – 4.00pm (Visual Arts)

Week 6 Weds 05th November 10.00am – 12.30pm

Week 8 Weds 19th All Day 10.00am – 12.30pm and 1.30pm – 4.00pm (Visual Arts)

Week 9 Weds 26th November 10.00am – 12.30pm

Week 10 Weds 03nd December 10.00am – 12.30pm



The Haworth Life Drawing Prize

The Haworth Life Drawing Prize is an award of £500 to the most accomplished work produced over the course of the year to enable the successful student to visit a European art gallery to further study drawing/painting.

Thursday 18 September 2014

Manchester Uni / Art History and Visual Studies talks

Art History and Visual Studies, Seminar Series, 2014-15


Lectures will take place at 5pm, unless otherwise noted, in Mansfield Cooper (room numbers tba).

 

Semester I

2 October, Thursday: Alistair McClymont. Artist. The Fragility of Art as Science

McClymont makes his own ‘science machines’ with beguiling outcomes: like a raindrop that never falls.



16 October, Thursday: Patrick Baty. Colour Historian and Architectural Restorer. Paint Detective.

Through in depth paint analyses of houses, bridges and more, Baty digs up surprising stories of architecture and the past.



13 November, Thursday: Elizabeth Howie, Art Historian. The Condemned Man and the Corpse: Barthesian Madness and Roger Ballen’s 'Outland'.

The daughter of a psychoanalyst, Howie takes on the Roger Ballen’s controversial black and white photography, with a focus on his pictures of Plattelanders, the socially and economically marginalized descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa, and gives us a madness to be felt.

http://www.coastal.edu/art/howie.html



20 November, Thursday: James Cahill. Theorist in Cinema Studies. Edible Beauty: Painlevé and Hamon’s kino-mouth.

A ‘strange gourmet’, Cahill sets the table with wildlife cinema, the food chain, and dissident Surrealism



Semester II

19 February, Thursday: Esther Teichmann: Artist. Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears

Through photographs, film and paint, Teichmann erotically travels inside caves, storms, grottoes, women and seashells, like a phenomenologist inside a waking dream.

www.estherteichmann.com

13 April, Monday: Catherine Jolivette, Art Historian. Promoting Power: The Visual Rhetoric of Britain’s First Nuclear Power Stations.

In 1956, 'Operation Switch' opened up the world's first atomic power station and gave birth to a new nuclear visual culture at once utopian and terrifying.



16 April, Thursday: Allison Connolly. French Literature and Film Scholar. Emptiness as a Creative Force.

Pondering the empty bed shared by Colette and her lover, Connolly takes us through a tour of emptiness (including Mallarmé’s obsession with the blank page, Ying Chen's novel Ingratitude and Kay Pollak's film As it is in Heaven ). With the work of Edouard Glissantis at hand, Connolly looks at opaqueness as both the necessary outcome of diversity in a globalized world and the form of the blank space of creation.


Viktor Wynd (date tba )The Chancellor of the Last Tuesday Society. Viktor Wynd’s Cabinet of Wonders

In regards to his recent book, Viktor Wynd’s Cabinet of Wonders, the filmmaker John Waters comments: ‘An insanely delightful how-to guide on becoming a mentally ill, cheerily obsessive eccentric hoarder told with lunatic humor and absolute joy. Viktor Wynd is a sick orchid who seems like the perfect man to me.’

http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/



Also of special interest to AHVS

13-14 May: Malcolm Bull, Visiting Pilkington Professor, details to be announced.

Malcolm Bull has been University Lecturer in Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford since 1992. His most recent books are Anti-Nietzsche (Verso, 2011); The Mirror of the Gods (OUP/Penguin, 2005), and Seeing Things Hidden (Verso, 2000). He has research interests in both art history and social and political theory.


Cornelia Parker: Visiting Artist, Whitworth Art Institute. Details tba.

Cornelia Parker is a sculptor and installation artist. She will be exhibiting her work for the reopening of the Whitworth. When Parker had the British Army blow up a garden shed and then suspended the resulting fragments from the ceiling, for Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, she touched on the fragility of experience and reconstructed memory. For The Maybe, made in collaboration with Tilda Swinton, she focused on the aura of objects owned by the famous, like Queen Victoria's stockings, which were collected and placed within museum vitrines. Even Swinton herself was shown as an object on display in her own glass case. Psychoanalysis's sexual turn was teased out when Parker made her own Rorschach blots out of sex videos dissolved in solvent for The Pornographic Drawings.


 
 

MMU / "Humanities in Public" talks

Our festival returns for another year filled to the brim with talks, debates, fairs, tours, and other events and activities, all of which are open to the public. Accompanied by music, food, film screenings, poetry and art exhibitions, there is truly something for everybody.
 
Our first three Festival strands are ‘Animal Worlds’, ‘Gothic Manchester’ (a festival in its own right) and ‘Contesting Youth’.
 
You can read about all the ‘Animal Worlds’ events (including unticketed and fringe events) here: http://www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/hip/october-2014-animal-worlds/
 
You can read about all the ‘Gothic Manchester’ events (including unticketed and fringe events) here: 
 
You can read about all the ‘Contesting Youth’ events (including unticketed and fringe events) here: 

Monday 1 September 2014

Salford storms Edinburgh Festival

Here at Salford we take Comedy seriously. For years our various Performance courses have produced some of the finest comedians in the country, including superstars like Peter Kay and Jason Manford. With the introduction of the BA (Hons) Performance: Comedy Pratice pathway in recent years, our commitment to producing successful professional comedians has never been stronger.
The Edinburgh Fringe festival is the mecca for comedians from across the globe, where acts of all levels of experience get to prove how funny they are in front of comedy connoisseurs and fellow funnymen. Here’s a rundown of the comedians, performers, writers and sketch troupes at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe who all learnt their craft at the University of Salford.

Gein’s Family Gift Shop
This zany sketch troupe certainly look a bit odd when they perform their shows clad in school P.E. uniforms but it’s their quick wit, sharp writing and risqué content matter that has seen them receive 5 star reviews at this year’s Fringe. They were also nominated for the ‘Best Newcomer’ award – one of, if not the biggest awards in comedy. One of the troupe’s members, Kiri Pritchard-McLean had this to say;
“We’re elated with the response to our Edinburgh debut so far! We can’t believe that a group formed at Salford University has managed to get a five star review from The Times! We keep pinching ourselves, thinking we’ll wake up! 2014′s been a great year for us and we don’t know what’s next around the corner but whatever happens we’ll be grateful to Salford University as we met there and they offer continued support to us.”
Luisa Omielan
Since she graduated from Salford with a first class honours degree in performing arts in 2005, Luisa Omielan has made a name for herself as one to watch on the comedy circuit and she is well on her way to becoming a mainstream success thanks to her extremely funny and intelligent take on modern feminism. In 2012, her show What Would Beyonce Do? was a smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and this year she returns with Am I Right Ladies? Both shows received 5 star reviews from the likes of The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph and Chortle magazine.

The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland
This experimental piece of black comedy by the theatre group Ridiculusmus is based on “Open Dialogue”, a unique treatment for schizophrenia that actually has eradicated schizophrenia in Western Lapland. It stars our very own Performance lecturer Richard Talbot (though you may also recognise his alter ego Kurt Zarniko, who could be seen training man-sized mice at the Create Salford festival’s Joke’athon). Interestingly, the stage is divided into two by a wall running through its centre with two interconnected storylines unfolding simultaneously on each side. The audience is split down the middle so each side can only see one half of the play, while still being able to hear the other, creating a hallucinatory effect. At the interval, the audience switches sides and the play starts again. This unique approach has bagged Richard and co a stellar review in The Guardian, TimeOut and The Scotsman.

Billy, The Monster & Me
Billy, The Monster & Me was a hit with kids and adults alike at this year’s Create Salford festival and won the audience-voted ‘Best Production’ award at the previous year’s 24:7 Festival, so it’s no surprise that it’s also gone down at storm at Edinburgh Fringe. The story follows Billy as he embarks on adventure to save his family from a monster, enlisting help from the audience along the way. Among its cast are Performance graduates Christabel Brown, Callum Scott and it was written by Catherine Manford and Sarah Birch, who are also Salford alumni.

Tom Short & Will Hutchby: Only Child Syndrome
Tom Short and Will Hutchby have a few things in common: They are both Performance: Comedy Practices students and they both grew up without siblings. They are also very funny. The pair have decided to put their talents together to create a 2 man stand-up show centred around the trials and tribulations of being an only child. The show was honed in July, when Tom and Will performed a number of dates close to home at the Manchester Fringe Festival and now they’ve taken their side splitting routines to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe.

With Edinburgh Fringe acting as a kind of test paper for young actors and comedians, it is likely that you’re likely to see a lot more of this varied group of performers, all of whom learned their crafts on our campus.

Guardian's tips for PhD completion

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/aug/27/finishing-phd-thesis-top-tips-experts-advice?CMP=twt_gu

"Many PhD students are now in the final throes of writing their thesis. Turning years of research into a single, coherent piece of work can be tough, so we asked for tips from supervisors and recent PhD graduates. We were inundated with tweets and emails and @AcademiaObscura helpfully created a Storify of the tweets. Below is a selection of the best tips."