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English and Comparative Literary Studies

Past Events

Past Events

Term One 2023-24

(Week 2)MaPC Meet and Greet
Wednesday 11th October, 5-6pmONLINELink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window

Join us for an informal introduction to MaPC and to meet and greet other scholars interested in this area.

(Week 8)“Pedagogy, Play, Primers and Print”
Tuesday 21st November, 5.15 – 6.45pm in FAB 5.49 (ECLS student hub).

Speakers from across the network will give 8-10min talks on a variety of research relating to the topic of pedagogy, play, primers and print.

Nancy Haijing Jiang on a bilingual Middle English and Latin primer of the Book of Hours.

Clive Letchford From Playful Badger to Printed Book - 16th school exercise books. 

John Gilmore on c18th schoolboy notebooks.

Jen Baker Transgressive Pedagogy in contemporary Gothic pop-up books.

Term 2, 2023-24

All staff and students are welcome to join the Manuscript and Print Cultures Network for our next session on Tuesday 23rd of January 5.15pm in FAB 5.49 (the student hub in English) – this session is a reading and discussion group based onthis pieceLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowonScribal Relics and the Authorial Body.

It would be great to hear what everyone makes of the arguments there, and how it intersects with their own work. We hope to see you there – no prior knowledge needed.

Week 8 - Tuesday27th February, 5.15pm (FAB 5.49)

In collaboration with theCentre for Global Jewish StudiesLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowand the Centre for Renaissance Studies, Manuscript and Print Cultures group has invited Sofer Mordechai Pinchas to come and offer a scribal ‘show and tell’, with materials. He will also talk about the history of Jewish scribing, showing us some examples of writing with the opportunity for participants to have a go!https://www.sofer.co.uk/education

Term 3, 2023-24

WEEK 2 -SHOW AND TELL -Tuesday 30th April, 5.15pm (FAB 5.49)

  • Dr David Coates (SCAPVC) "The Material Traces of Britain’s Amateur Theatrical Past (1780-1914)"

In this show-and-tell session, David will share his private collection which contains an array of materials that document a history of amateur theatre in Britain pre-1914. It includes playbills, acting manuals, newspaper cuttings, prints and manuscript items. Alongside this he’ll discuss a range of findings from archives and collections across Britain and the USA to highlight the historiographical challenges of using some of this material and of researching the amateur theatrical past.

  • Prof Ralph Hanna (Oxford) "The Book History I do"

Ralph Hanna is Professor Emeritus in Palaeography at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on medieval manuscripts and texts and spends his time rooting around in libraries. His recent books includeIntroducing Medieval Book History: Manuscripts, their Producers and their Readers(Liverpool, 2013) andLooking at Medieval Books: Learning to See(Liverpool, 2023) and he will be discussing his work and materials, as well as approaches and practice.

WEEK 8 -"Textual Transgressions: Mistakes, Forgeries & Censorship"
-Tuesday 11th June, 5.15pm (FAB 5.49)

A series of 10min talks from researchers across the Faculty.

Dr Floris Verhaart (ECLS and Renaissance Centre) -"The forgery that never was: Jean Hardouin (1646-1729) and the alleged forgery of classical literature":Jean Hardouin became notorious for arguing that virtually all of classical literature had been forged in the Middle Ages by a cabal of atheistic Benedictine monks. I will introduce Hardouin's thought and writings and will very briefly point out its relevance for eighteenth-century textual scholarship and for the present day, especially post-communist Russia.

Dr William Rupp (Liberal Arts) –“’A prodigy of one kind or another’: William Henry Ireland, the Shakespeare forgery scandal, and the desire for authenticity”: In 1795/6 the English literary world was rocked by the discovery of a trove of documents, written in Shakespeare’s hand, that answered many burning questions about the Bard’s life, his writing, his thinking, and his morals. The only problem: they had all been forged by William Henry Ireland. In this talk, a short re-examination of one of the great forgery stories allows an examination of not only the motives of one forger but of the desires of the wider public to know with certainty details of the man who had been placed as the English language’s greatest author. It also looks to critical elements relating to how English identity was being (re)created at the end of the eighteenth century.

Dr Jessica Wardaugh (SMLC) - "Fakes and Fantasies in French Print Culture, 1880–1900" -In 1883, Parisian shopowner René Pineau paid typesetters to modify a political manifesto so that it would advertise hats rather than Napoleon. Pineau’s playful text was just one of a multitude of fakes and parodies on the walls of towns and cities across France in the late nineteenth century, following the liberalizing press laws of the 1880s that had transformed print culture and censorship. Exploring these texts within a wider culture of counterfeits, this short talk will offer some new perspectives on the relationship between politics, consumerism, and fantasy in fin-de-siècle France. A censored poster and counterfeit coin will also be brought along!

Dr Anna Lanfranchi (SMLC) -“Concealed translations, authorship, and copyright in Fascist Italy”, discusses examples of the 20thc. Italian translation rights trade for Anna's forthcoming book.