Researchers from the Department of History will be delivering a series of talks at Warwick Words History Festival. Now in its twentieth year, Warwick Words is a popular annual event, bringing internationally acclaimed historians to share stories from the past to venues around Warwick.

Since 2012, the University of Warwick has collaborated with the festival on a series titled Tea Time talks, where academics from the Department of History discuss their research. This year, topics are:

History and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Professor Christoph Mick and Dr Claire Shaw, Saturday 8 October

Picking up the Pieces: Gender and Romantic Failure in late 20th Century Britain – Dr Zoe Strimpel, Saturday 22 October

The Politics of Touch in the late 18th Century – Professor Mark Philp, Saturday 26 November

The programme also includes a play written by PhD student David Fletcher and performed by Loft Theatre company. Taking the Waters tells the story of a cholera epidemic that took place in Leamington Spa in 1849, and the medical and political conflicts that surrounded it.

Other speakers at the festival include Tracy Borman, Max Hastings, Dan Jones, Adam Rutherford, Charles Spencer and Alison Weir. Tickets are available from Warwick Words’ website: https://warwickwords.co.uk/ 

Dr James Hodkinson from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures has been collaborating with Birmingham-based Soul City Arts on their latest project, Waswasa: a multi-disciplinary art show staged in an immersive setting at Birmingham Hippodrome, using real-life community narratives to explore the act of Islamic prayer and what that means in a modern, secular society.

Lead artist Mohammed Ali and his team aim to demystify this familiar yet misunderstood tradition through an extraordinary multi-media show that will challenge perceptions. The show relates deeply to people of no faith too, as we all struggle with achieving that higher state of focus with things like social media, technology and other distractions dominating our lives.

Thursday 25 Aug – Saturday 3 Sep 2022 at Birmingham Hippodrome

Part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival

Buy Tickets for Waswasa: www.bit.ly/waswasa

• Read more about Waswasa: www.soulcityarts.com/waswasa
• View the Waswasa Press Release: https://www.soulcityarts.com/waswasa-press-release

How do you find that elusive flow state? How can we focus in a world of distractions?

Join the conversation: #WaswasaShow #B2022Festival @SoulCityArts @AliAerosol @BrumHippodrome

Warwick Celebrates: 5 - 15 July 2022. Congratulations to all our wonderful Arts students from classes 2020-2021-2022 who are attending the graduation ceremonies this summer. Wonderful to see you all back on campus.

Have a taste of what it is like to be a Faculty of Arts student through the video of the recent FAB Festival and opening of Warwick's new Arts Building.

Congratulations to Damien Homer (Faculty of Arts Widening Participation Coordinator) and Claire Eddon (Faculty of Social Sciences Widening Participation Coordinator) for their work to create the Easter residential school.

Watch the video by the architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios detailing how the building was designed. Hear excerpts from Raymond Antrobus reading his poem "Resonance" commissioned specially for the building.

Students, staff and members of the local community are invited to the official opening of the Faculty of Arts Building (FAB) taking place at midday on Friday, 20 May. The opening ceremony, where a festive glass of fizz will be provided for all guests, will be followed by FAB Fest – a festival celebrating the arts at Warwick.

The Resonate FestivalLink opens in a new window is due to culminate in a multi-day festival on the University of Warwick campus from 19 - 21 April. Helen Wheatley, Festival Director and Arts very own Professor of Film & Television Studies, is inviting you to come and participate in an exciting programmeLink opens in a new window of activities and events. The FAB, Warwick's stunning new Faculty of Arts Building and the Warwick Arts CentreLink opens in a new window are at the very centre of these arts and cultural events, which include contributions from Arts colleagues as follows:

Classics and Ancient History

Michael Scott’s Was Fake News a Problem in Ancient Athens https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/was-fake-news-a-problem-in-ancient-athens

Paul Grigsby’s Roman Coventry Activity Day https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/roman-coventry-activity-day

Francesca Modini’s Roman Coventry and Music https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/roman-coventry-and-music

Cross Faculty Studies

Kirsten Harris’s Freedom in Utopia  https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/living-free-utopian-worlds

English and Comparative Literary Studies

Justin Tackett’s Make Some Noise https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/make-some-noise-exploding-the-poet-voice

History

Beat Kümin’s Rethinking Hospitality https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/rethinking-hospitality

David Lees’ Cooking up the Past https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/cooking-up-the-past

Martha McGill’s Invisible Worlds: Humans and the Supernatural Enlightenment in Britain https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/invisible-worlds-humans-and-the-supernatural

School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures

Ronan Hatfull’s To Tell My Story: Remaking Hamlet – workshop on restaging Hamlet with Zoe Templeman Young and Devon Glover https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/remaking-hamlet

Michael Pigott’s Listening to our Environments workshop https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/listening-to-our-environment and Concrete Cinema installation https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/concrete-cinema

Vishalakshi Roy’s Coventry Made Me ­https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/coventry-made-me

School of Modern Languages and Cultures

James Hodkinson’s The Art of Visual Storytelling https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/the-art-of-visual-storytelling-voices-of-faith-and-migration

Alison Ribeiro de Menezes’s Rewind https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/rewind-with-ephemeral-ensemble

Kate Astbury’s Celebrating Languages https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/celebrating-language

Zhiyan Guo’s Chinese Culture in Words, Voices and Music https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/chinese-culture-in-words-voices-music

Mary Harrod’s Let’s Talk About Sex – https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/campus-festival/lets-talk-about-sex

Coventry residents will be able to travel back in time thanks to an exclusive compilation of archive TV news and other documentary footage, brought together by researchers at the University of Warwick, and on show for three days in the city centre.

Theatre Absolute’s Shop Front Theatre in City Arcade will host the unique newsreel from Thursday 14 April until Saturday 16th.

A Coventry community language project involving the city’s schools, universities, local council, businesses and MPs has been named Parliament UK Community Campaign of the Year in the Your UK Parliament Awards 2022.