The seminars will be held virtually, using MS Teams and in order to attend, please register in advance by emailing renaissance@warwick.ac.uk, so that you can be included in the Teams meeting invite. The deadline for registration is Monday afternoon, 24 hours before the seminar. (Alternatively, to register for the entire programme of seminars, please simply specify this in your email.) We look forward to seeing you!

Dr. Eugenio Refini (New York), Virtual book launch: The Vernacular Aristotle: Translation as Reception in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Respondent: Prof. David Lines.

In response to Covid in 2020-2021, our CHM research seminars ran virtually on MS Teams integrated into the wider programme of History Departmental research seminars here at Warwick. Following the success of this model and a degree of uncertainty about ongoing social distancing in 2021-2 we are continuing with this model in 2021-2 with upcoming seminars on How Epidemics End, the History of Student Health, the rise of child health as a specialty, and the History of AIDS activism (in collaboration with the Feminist History Group). Although other papers in this series are not organised by CHM many have a strong history of medicine flavour.

Sophie Mann, 'Histories of the Body: Current Approaches and Avenues for Future Research'

SPARK Festival Lost

All seminars will take place on Microsoft Teams, 6pm-7.30pm UK time. All are welcome. To access the events please click on the Teams link for the relevant seminar, displayed below. We recommend you download the (free) Teams app for ease of access. Please email the convenor, Oliver Davis, at O.Davis@warwick.ac.uk, with any questions. Recordings of papers from 2020-21 can be accessed here.

Colin Davis (RHUL)

Interpretation and Overinterpretation: Camus’s ‘Jonas ou l’artiste au travail’

This paper has three parts. The first revisits issues in hermeneutic theory concerning interpretation and overinterpretation, with reference to Gadamer, Eco and other theorists. How do we acknowledge the fluidity of meaning whilst retaining a sense that some interpretations are better than others? How do we distinguish between creative overreading and mere error or nonsense? The second part attempts a reading of Albert Camus’s short story ‘Jonas ou l’artiste au travail’, from the collection L’Exil et le royaume, giving particular weight to its epigraph from the Biblical Book of Jonah. My suggestion is that, whilst foregrounding a self-ironising portrait of the artist as flawed and all-too-human, the epigraph and its resonance through the story suggest a much more Romantic vision of the artist as the unacknowledged saviour of humankind. The third part of the paper attempts to look back, self-reflexively, on the interpretive moves involved in this reading, to assess its plausibility and value.

Colin Davis is Emeritus Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, having previously held posts at Cambridge, Oxford and Warwick. His work focuses mainly on the connections between literature, film and philosophy. His most recent publications include Traces of War: Interpreting Ethics and Trauma in Twentieth-Century French Writing (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2018), Freedom and the Subject of Theory: Essays in Honour of Christina Howells, co-edited with Oliver Davis (Oxford: Legenda, 2019), The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, co-edited with Hanna Meretoja (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), and Silent Renoir: Philosophy and the Interpretation of Early Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

To join the seminar on Teams click here.

The Responsibilities of Caribbean Intellectuals

This year’s annual Walter Rodney lecture is “The Responsibilities of Caribbean Intellectuals” which will be given by Professor Aaron Kamugisha from the University of the West Indies.

Aaron Kamugisha is the Ruth Simmons Professor of Africana Studies at Smith College, the University of the West Indies. He is the editor of ten books and special issues of journals on Caribbean and Africana thought, and author of Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition(Indiana University Press, 2019).

To register please email Fabienne Viala at F.Viala@warwick.ac.uk

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Dr Zhongli Yu (University of Nottingham Ningbo China): ‘From Western Feminism to Chinese Feminism: A Translational and Historical Perspective’

The event takes place on MS Teams. We would kindly ask you to register in advance: registration form closes on Tuesday 26 October midnight (UK time) - you will be provided with the relevant link Teams invite on the day of the talk.

On Thurs 28 October, 17:15-18:15, the Italian Department Research Seminar Series will host a virtual book presentation of Dr. David Bowe's recent monograph, Poetry in Dialogue in the Duecento and Dante (Oxford University Press, 2020) and edited volume Rachel Owen: Illustrations for Dante's 'Inferno' (Bodleian Library, 2021) in conversation with Prof. Simon Gilson.

Dr David Bowe is co-director of the Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland at University College Cork. He has published a monograph, Poetry in Dialogue in the Duecento and Dante (Oxford University Press, 2020), and articles and book chapters on temporality, gender, and subjectivity in medieval Italian poetry. David oversaw the first publication of Rachel Owen's illustrations of Dante's Inferno for Bodleian Library Publishing (2021). David and Federica Coluzzi are co-editing a special issue of Italian Studies, ‘Mediating Dante’, 77.2 (2022). Together with Heather Webb and Zygmunt Barański, he is also editing a collaborative commentary on Dante's Vita nova, the result of the 'Re-reading Dante's Vita nova project.

Prof. Simon Gilson is Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Magdalen College. He is the author of Dante and Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, 2005; Italian translation Carocci 2019), Reading Dante in Renaissance Italy: Florence, Venice and the ‘Divine Poet’ (Cambridge, 2018), and the co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Dante's Commedia (Cambridge, 2019).

Sign up to the event via: https://forms.gle/YqoqwHrHmwgov1X48 or

email: federica.coluzzi@warwick.ac.uk, luca.peretti@warwick.ac.uk to access the MS Teams Meeting.

Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies - Research Seminars

Teams (Term 1) Wednesdays 4pm-5pm

3^rd November 2021 Dr Paolo Ruffino, University of Liverpool [link to meeting] 

‘Union organising and workers’ visibility in the Videogame Industry’ 

In this talk, Paolo Ruffino will introduce his research surrounding the labour union IWGB Game Workers, the first and largest union of the UK videogame industry. The videogame sector has been traditionally averse to unionization. Its compulsory network sociality, and the belief that game-work should be passion-driven, limit the expression of discontent and proposals for structural change. Drawing on 2 years of participatory observation and interviews with board members, Ruffino will discuss how the union IWGB Game Workers has been introducing strategies that allow members to be more closely in control of their visibility with bosses and peers, and the implications of union organising in a sector that relies on the promotional cultures of social media.

Paolo Ruffino is Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture (Goldsmiths and MIT Press, 2018), editor of Rethinking Gamification (Meson Press, 2014), and Independent Videogames: Cultures, Networks, Techniques and Politics (Routledge, 2021). His research focuses on independent videogame development, labor unions in the videogame industry, and the emergence of nonhuman and posthuman play in the digital age. Follow @paoloruffino

Adrian Rifkin

Musical chairs, or one too many mornings: the fiction of the archive

The Hakluyt Society, the Global History and Culture Centre (GHCC) at the University of Warwick, and Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs), invite you to the Hakluyt Society Symposium 2021 – Decolonising Travel Studies: Sources and Approaches, which is taking place on 10-12 November 2021 (via Zoom).

The symposium will feature a keynote lecture by Nanjala Nyabola, author of Travelling While Black (2020). The programme is available here, and the poster is attached.

Attendance is free and all are welcome.

To register, please email: hakluytsymposium2021@gmail.com

Contacts: Natalya Din-Kariuki (Natalya.Din-Kariuki@warwick.ac.uk) Guido van Meersbergen (G.van-Meersbergen@warwick.ac.uk)

The events are open to students and colleagues, and take place on MS Teams.

We would kindly ask you to register in advance at the links below - you will be provided with the relevant Teams invite on the day of the talk.

Dr Fruela Fernández (University of the Balearic Islands) ‘Recognition vs Redistribution? Testing Political Debates Through Translation Flows’

registration form closes on Tuesday 16 November midnight (UK time)

For questions and further information email: m.milani@warwick.ac.uk

As part of our Autumn Term programme of online research seminars in Translation and Transcultural Studies at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures (University of Warwick), we are delighted to announce our forthcoming seminar:

 Wednesday 17 November 2021, 4-5pm (UK time)

Dr Fruela Fernández (University of the Balearic Islands): 'Recognition vs Redistribution? Testing Political Debates Through Translation Flows'

The event takes place on MS Teams. We would kindly ask you to register in advance by completing the short registration form by Tuesday 16 November midnight (UK time). You will be provided with the relevant link Teams invite on the day of the talk.

The first in this year’s SMLC Explore.. seminar series will be taking place on Wednesday 17th November, 5-6pm in H0.61. This session will be on Impact & Engagement and the speakers will be James Hodkinson (German Studies) and Helen Wheatley (Film and Television Studies). Refreshments will be available. Please contact Rachel Hayes (rachel.hayes@warwick.ac.uk) or Molly Harrabin (m.harrabin@warwic.ac.uk) to confirm attendance so we can make arrangements re. refreshments. Hope to see you there!

The Critical South Asia Group at Warwick and the Warwick Interdisciplinary Centre for International Development (WICID) invite you to this book launch and panel discussion.

Indian Debates on the International Left: Selected Writings of Lajpat Rai ed. by Shirin Rai and Anand Prakash traces the Indian Left’s engagement with the international communist debates of the 1960s and 1970s, shedding new light on the fault lines within the Left as well as on its international solidarities. Lajpat Rai argued for rethinking established leftist positions, seeking inspiration in experiment and developing creative approaches for the sustainability of socialist ideas and ideals.

The panel will reflect on the critical legacies of left internationalism and its futures, as well as discuss what it means to remember and write histories of the left in India and elsewhere in the current moment.

Speakers:

Molly Andrews (Professor of Political Psychology, and Co-director of the Centre for Narrative Research at the University of East London)

Pranav Jani (Associate Professor of English, Ohio State University)

Prabhat Patnaik (Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU)

Shirin Rai (Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/indian-debates-on-the-international-left-book-launch-and-panel-discussion-tickets-197787928017

Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies

University of Warwick

As part of our Research Seminar Series, we are delighted to announce our next speaker:

Dr Michael Mitchell

The Dream of Paradise Produces Monsters: Fictional Responses to the Jonestown Tragedy of 1978 - Paul Theroux's The Mosquito Coast (1981), Fred D'Aguiar's Children of Paradise (2014) and Wilson Harris's Jonestown (1996).

Please register by emailing F.Viala@warwick.ac.uk

You will receive an email invitation with the link to access the seminar.

Dr Michael Mitchell is Honorary Associate Professor at the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick and lecturer at the University of Paderborn. During a career as a teacher of English at German secondary schools he published school textbooks on postcolonial subjects, Shakespeare and, most recently, Trump and Brexit. He is the author of Hidden Mutualities: Faustian Themes from Gnostic Origins to the Postcolonial, and numerous articles, particularly on Wilson Harris. He is a fan of Bob Dylan and Czech classical music.

The seminars will be held virtually, using MS Teams and in order to attend, please register in advance by emailing renaissance@warwick.ac.uk, so that you can be included in the Teams meeting invite. The deadline for registration is Monday afternoon, 24 hours before the seminar. (Alternatively, to register for the entire programme of seminars, please simply specify this in your email.) We look forward to seeing you!

Prof. Maggie Kilgour (MacGill), 'On First Looking into Milton's Shakespeare'

Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies - Research Seminars

Teams (Term 1) Wednesdays 4pm-5pm

17^th November 2021 Dr Ali FitzGibbon, Queen's University Belfast [link to meeting] 

The devaluation of the artist in theatre and theatre policy, evolving or recurring?

Much has been written about the precarity of the artist and their dependency on institutions. Precarity is a de-economisation of individual artists on which the economy and public policy of theatre relies. This working paper tries to bring together pre-COVID and Rapid Response research. It suggests that the separation of the artist from the language, public policies and policymaking, financial mechanisms, business practices and decision-making of professional subsidised theatre represents a structurally complicit and unethical faultline within the form. The creative and aesthetic processes on which professional theatre depends for its value must be re-embedded within its value systems. COVID19 interrupted and transformed production and delivery and also sent this research in a new direction. How does one avoid a return to an unethical system? What lessons can be taken forward?

Dr Ali FitzGibbon is a Senior Lecturer and Subject Lead for Arts Management and Cultural Policy at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research focuses on decision-making and the ethics and ecologies of contemporary cultural production. particularly performing arts and freelancers/artists. Her doctoral research on the artist as stakeholder was shortlisted for the 2020 ENCATC Research Award and she has published in a range of international journals. She has over 25 years’ experience as a multi-arts producer, programmer and consultant, including conceiving the world’s first Baby Rave in 2005. In 2020, she worked as a creative consultant to the Department for Communities (NI) on proposals for a Arts & Cultural Recovery Strategy, leading to the establishment of the Arts, Culture & Heritage Taskforce. She is Co-Investigator on ‘Freelancers in the Dark’ (ESRC) and ‘Future Screens NI’, part of the UK Creative Industries

24^th November 2021 Dr Mafalda Dâmaso, Kings College London [link to meeting]

Based in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, Dr Mafalda Dâmaso's recent publications are: (2021) with Andrew Murray. The EU’s Dualistic Regime of Cultural Diversity Management: The Concept of Culture in the Creative Europe Program (2014-2019; 2021-2027) and in the Strategy for International Cultural Relations (2016–), Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy. (2021) with Culture Action Europe. The situation of artists and cultural workers and the post-COVID-19 Cultural Recovery in the European Union: Background Analysis and Policy Recommendations, Research for the CULT Committee of the European Parliament. Follow @MafaldaDms.

Department of History Research Seminar (Online)

Sudhir Hazareesingh (Oxford): ‘Republican fraternity in action: Toussaint Louverture and the Saint-Domingue revolution’

Discussant: Dexnell Peters

Please see this link to register via Teams. You will need to scroll down to week 8 on the list.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/research/research_seminar_2021-22/

Naomi Waltham-Smith (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, Warwick)

Silent Feeling: What French Thought can Tell Us About the Limits of Free Speech

Feelings of Freedom Festival – Warwick Arts Centre

Join us Thu 25 - Fri 26 November for an engaging series of talks about freedom.

Organised in collaboration with Warwick Arts Centre and as part of the Resonate Festival/Coventry City of Culture, this is a two-day festival of ideas, culture, talks and provocations, exploring what freedom means to different people in different contexts. We want visitors to the Arts Centre to challenge their own thinking and beliefs, and through these events to re-examine how freedom is experienced and understood; its value and its cost; and the contested nature and significance of freedoms over time and space.

There is no limit to our exploration – from freedom of speech and no-platforming, to the policing of the pandemic; from trust in government, to fake news in ancient Greece; from the science that underpins government policy on lockdown, to local women resistance fighters in WWII; from human trafficking and slavery to ways of protecting women from sexual assault.

We want to explore whether freedom is always a good thing, and how it feels to live without it.

View the speakers and get your free tickets here: https://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/news-and-blog/feelings-of-freedom-festival/

We are pleased to let you know that the Translation Studies Team at SMLC is hosting a one-day online workshop on 'New Trends in Translation Studies: Perspectives from China, UK, and US' on the 26th of November, from 10 am to 5 pm (UK time). There will be six talks by academics from China, UK, and US, followed by a lively PhD forum. You are most welcome to join us.

The event will be held on Microsoft Teams. Please register at https://bit.ly/3HmhXmn to get the link for the event.

You can find the details of the workshop here.

We look forward to seeing many of you on the day. Please feel free to share this email with your networks.

Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies - Research Seminars

Teams (Term 1) Wednesdays 4pm-5pm

1^st December 2021 Dr. Maitrayee Basu, London College of Communication [link to meeting] 

An informal presentation of the latest research from Dr Maitrayee Basu, a Lecturer in Communications and Media at London College of Communication. Her research focuses on transnational activism, representations of marginalised bodies and experiences, and digital identities from the global south. Follow @MaitrayeeB