Public Lectures and Readings

Peter Porter: A Memorial Celebration
Venue: Other
Time: 18:00 - 20:30

Presented by Kings College London and the Institute of English Studies, Mrs Christine Porter and family, friends and colleagues will celebrate the life and work of Peter Porter.

Speakers include Martin Bax, Alan Brownjohn, Adrian Caesar, Wendy Cope, Roger Covell, Warwick Gould, John Kinsella, Tim Liardet, Sean O’Brien, Don Paterson, and Anthony Thwaite, with reflections on the wide range of Peter Porter’s contributions to Australian and British culture, and readings from his work.

Venue: The Australian High Commission, Strand, London WC2B 4LA (corner the Aldwych and the Strand). As there will be security checks, you are requested to keep bags to a minimum.

If you would like to attend please contact rsvp.london@dfat.gov.au by February 10.

Jacques Rancière in London
Venue: The Beveridge Hall (Senate House, Ground Floor)
Time: 18:00 - 16:00

Lecture: 9 March: 6.00pm: ' "Modernity" Revisited'.
Followed by a wine reception.  All welcome. 

Working against simplistic visions of the historical break and the conquest of autonomy which underpin the modernist doxa, the aim is to bring out once again the multiplicity of interweavings that have made up what is called artistic modernity: articulations of heterogeneous temporalities, the diagonals traced between artistic practices separated by their own particular primary material, the constant borrowings by the noble arts from the popular arts, the crossings and tensions between the forms of art and those of everyday experience, and between its paradigms and the modes of interpretation of the common world and of the causality of collective action.

Seminars: 10 March: 10am-4pm: Jacques Rancière will participate in two seminars, on 'Aesthetics' (10 am -12 noon) and 'Contemporary Culture' (2pm – 4pm).  Places are limited and applications are invited.  CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION AND FURTHER INFORMATION.

Organised with the Humanities & Arts Research Centre at Royal Holloway, and with the support of the the English Department and the School of European Languages & Cultures at University College London.

Jacques Rancière is emeritus professor at the University of Paris VIII, where he taught in the Philosophy Department from 1969 to 2000, and visiting professor in several American universities. Most of his work has been devoted to the articulation of politics and aesthetics. Among the books recently translated into English are The Future of the Image (Verso), The Emancipated Spectator (Verso), Politics of Literature (Polity Press), Mute Speech (Columbia University Press) and Chronicles of Consensual Times (Continuum). His last book Aisthesis. Scènes du régime esthétique de l'art has recently come out in France (Galilée).

John Coffin Memorial Annual Palaeography Lecture
Venue: The Chancellor's Hall (Senate House, First Floor)
Time: 18:00 - 19:00

'Inscribed images and inspired scribes' by Dr Jennifer O'Reilly, FSA (University College Cork)

Dr. Jennifer O'Reilly is a member of the Royal Irish Academy.  Her research interests include:  1. The transformation of the inheritance of Late Antiquity in the early medieval West, particularly in Irish and Anglo-Saxon monastic culture, including: ideas of Rome and Jerusalem, the centre and the periphery; the literature of conversion and pilgrimage; patristic and Insular biblical exegesis and hagiography; the work of Adomnán and Bede; the Book of Kells and the art of the Insular Gospel-books.  2. Issues of text and image and various iconographic themes in Early Christian, medieval and Renaissance art, including: aspects of the Incarnation and Passion; the Tree of Life; Virtues and Vices; symbolic architecture, maps, diagrams and images of divine order and inner journeys; scribal, author and donor portraits.

Recent Publications include: ‘Bede on seeing the God of gods in Zion ’, in Alastair Minnis and Jane Roberts (ed), Text, image and interpretation. Studies in Anglo-Saxon liturature and its Insular context in honour of Éamonn ÓCarragáin (Brepols, Turnhout 2007) .  ‘Two pages from the Book of Kells’, in James Elkins (ed), Visual practices across the University (Munich 2007).  ‘Signs of the Cross. Medieval religious images and the interpretation of Scripture’, chapter commissioned for T.Ayers (ed),  The History of British art, 600-1600  (Tate Britain and the Yale Center for British Art 2008) .  ‘“All that Peter stands for”. The romanitas of the Codex Amiatinus reconsidered’, in James Graham-Campbell and Michael Ryan (ed), Anglo-Saxon/Irish relations before the Vikings, Proceedings of the British Academy157 (Oxford 2009).

Free and open to the public, and followed by a wine reception. If you would like to attend please contact Jon Millington, Institute of English Studies: jon.millington@sas.ac.uk ; tel +44 (0)207 664 4859.

Hilda Hulme Memorial Lecture 2011-2012
Venue: The Chancellor's Hall (Senate House, First Floor)
Time: 18:00 - 19:00

James Shapiro (Columbia University): 'Unravelling Shakespeare's Life'

Cradle-to-grave biographies of Shakespeare in the twenty-first century have steadily drifted toward fiction and toward reading the life out of the works.  James Shapiro unravels the writing of Shakespeare’s life over the past two centuries in an effort to understand when and why these trends have occurred, what price we pay for this biographical tradition, and what alternative approaches might offer.

James Shapiro is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1985.  He the author of Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare (1991), Shakespeare and the Jews (1996), Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play (2000), 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005), which was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for the best non-fiction book published in Britain, and Contested Will (2010), which was awarded the Theater Library Association's George Freedley Memorial Award. He also works with a number of theater companies, including Theatre for a New Audience and the Royal Shakespeare Company. 

Senate House Library Friends
Venue: Dr Seng T Lee Centre for Manuscript and Book Studies
Time: 18:00 - 20:00

Talk by James Shapiro.  tbc.

Senate House Library Friends
Venue: Dr Seng T Lee Centre for Manuscript and Book Studies
Time: 18:00 - 20:00

Peter Mack (Warburg Institute): 'Print and Innovation in Sixteenth Century Rhetoric: Agricola, Erasmus and Melanchthon'

Attendance free, all welcome.  If you would like to attend please contact Library Office, Senate House Library, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel. 020 7862 8411.

Senate House Library Friends
Venue: Dr Seng T Lee Centre for Manuscript and Book Studies
Time: 18:00 - 20:00

Carlos Galvis (Institute of Historical Research): 'Transport collections in the Goldsmiths Library.

Attendance free, all welcome.  If you would like to attend please contact Library Office, Senate House Library, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel. 020 7862 8411.

John Coffin Memorial Irish Studies Lecture
Venue: The Chancellor's Hall (Senate House, First Floor)
Time: 18:00 - 19:00

'Samuel Beckett: Mystic' by Professor Declan Kiberd (University College Dublin)

Declan Kiberd joined UCD as lecturer in Anglo-Irish literature in 1979, having taught English previously in the University of Kent at Canterbury (1976-7), and Irish in Trinity College Dublin (1977-9). He was appointed Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD in 1997. He has also been Director of the Yeats International Summer School (1985-7), Patron of the Dublin Shaw Society (1995-2000), a columnist with the Irish Times (1985-7) and the Irish Press (1987-93), the presenter of the RTE Arts programme, Exhibit A (1984-6), and a regular essayist and reviewer in the Irish Times, TLS, London Review of Books and the New York Times.

Free and open to the public, and followed by a wine reception. If you would like to attend please contact Jon Millington, Institute of English Studies: jon.millington@sas.ac.uk ; tel +44 (0)207 664 4859.

Senate House Library Friends Book Talk
Venue: Durning-Lawrence Room
Time: 18:00 - 20:00

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, led by Professor Michael Slater

Attendance free, all welcome.  If you would like to attend please contact Library Office, Senate House Library, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel. 020 7862 8411.

Senate House Library Friends Book Talk
Venue: Durning-Lawrence Room
Time: 18:00 - 20:00

Two stories by Arthur Conan Doyle (‘The Empty House’ and ‘The Adventures of the Speckled Band’), led by Dr. Emelyne Godfrey

Attendance free, all welcome.  If you would like to attend please contact Library Office, Senate House Library, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel. 020 7862 8411.

Senate House Library Friends Book Talk
Venue: Durning-Lawrence Room
Time: 18:00 - 20:00

The Thirty Nine Steps, by John Buchan, led by Dr Kate Macdonald

Attendance free, all welcome.  If you would like to attend please contact Library Office, Senate House Library, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel. 020 7862 8411.