Research Paper and Roundtable at British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (BSECS) Annual Conference
Jan 8, 2025
Location
Pembroke College, Oxford University, Oxford.
Description
"Bodies and Embodiment" BSECS annual International conference. I will be discussing the concepts of beauty and ownership in the eighteenth century (research paper) and organising a roundtable discussing the conceptualisation of skin and appearances in the period.
Gender and Sexuality Research at Edinburgh Napier University
Mar 6, 2024
Location
Merchiston Campus, room: MER_H11
Description
Let’s get together and listen to colleagues working on gender and sexuality! And then let’s talk about their fascinating ideas, and how they relate to our own work and topics! This event is envisaged as informal and friendly gathering, following the success of similar gathering in 2023. We want to continue on this good tradition, and build new connections, learn about inspiring research we are doing across the university, feel inspired and nurtured.
Please send any queries to: Dr Roberto Kulpa (r.kulpa@napier.ac.uk)
SCHEDULE
14:00-14:10
Welcome (Roberto Kulpa)
14:10-15:00 TRANS LIVES
GUEST: Gina Gwenffrewi (University of Edinburgh) will start with an input about trans* people's cultural production online (i.e. YouTube, Twitter/X), framing the moral panic, and its impact on the trans* communities.
Rob Clucas (Law) will speak to the latest ‘gender critical’ challenge to the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the appeal to the Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland case. He suggests that a solution to the current poisonous polemic around trans* rights can usefully be sought in the dialogic theory of Martin Buber (Buber 1958).
Toni Kania (Social Sciences) will introduce their PhD project about conceptualising bodily autonomy and sovereignty of trans* people – and from trans* peoples’ perspective – in Poland.
15:00-15:10 Coffee and pastries break
15:10-16:00 GENDERED VIOLENCE
Amy Beddows (Counselling) will speak about the potential of horror texts as tools for survivors processing the experiences of gendered violence.
Anne Schwan (English) will reflect on femicide, perpetrator narratives and the challenge of restorative justice, drawing from her analysis of Em Strang's novel “Quinn” (2023).
Fiona McQueen (Social Sciences) will conclude this section pondering on her project on Scottish young men’s attitudes towards prevention messages on violence against women, incl. queer & trans men’s accounts and insights.
16:00-16:10 Coffee and pastries break
16:10-17:00 REPRESENTATIONS
Yen Nee Wong (Social Sciences) will introduce us to queer cultures of ballroom dancing and the role of Strictly Come Dancing’s representations and mainstreaming.
David Bishop (Creative Writing) will speak about his creative writing PhD, instigation into the scarcity of queer sleuths in historical mystery fiction set before the Victorian era, and the politics of outing and authorship.
Phiona Stanley (Tourism) will talk about labels – ‘spinsters’, ‘crazy cat ladies’, ‘witches’. It is also, in theoretical terms, about queering queerness by negotiating the queer and deeply gendered queerness of spinsterhood.
17:00-17:10 Coffee and pastries break
17:10-17:45 POP!
Ashley Stein (Music) will introduce their PhD project on how hyperpop and other electronic music practices can be used to destabilise gender binaries.
Frederik Byrn Køhlert (English, Visual Cultures) will close this input section with a reflection on the representation of gender and sexuality in comics & graphic novels, incl. examples from work as editor of a Routledge series on Gender, Sexuality, and Comics.
17:45-onwards: Post-Event Drinks & Food at nearby The Golf Tavern
30-31 Wright's Houses, Bruntsfield, EH10 4HR
Event Organisation:
Dr Roberto Kulpa
School of Applied Sciences: Deputy Research Degrees Lead
Co-Director: MSc Applied Social Research
Co-Investigator: (2022-2026) ‘RESIST. Fostering Queer Feminist Intersectional Resistances against Transnational Anti-Gender Politics’ (EU Horizon Europe grant no. 101060749).
War Poets Collection lecture: Prof Alison Fell
Nov 13, 2023
Location
Craiglockhart campus
Description
Glorifying Women: Remembering Women’s Roles in the First World War
After the Armistice, the British nation in mourning was most often represented by a grieving widow or mother. War commemoration tended to set in stone a traditional understanding of women as the passive observers of war, crowning ‘distant ardours’ and mourning ‘laurelled memories’. Yet not only did thousands of women actively respond to and participate in the rites and rituals of commemoration, but they also instigated, planned, designed and sculpted memorials and ceremonies. Further, some women saw themselves as having been on ‘active service’, and therefore as members of a ‘war generation’ who had more in common with the bitter soldier persona of Sassoon’s poem than with other non-combatants. This talk will examine a broad range of war memorials and commemorative activities, arguing that while many adhered to a traditional gendered view of wartime sacrifice, others offered a very different interpretation of the war and its devastating losses.
Professor Alison Fell is Dean of the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures at the University of Liverpool. She has published widely on women and war, particularly the First World War, including edited books on the women’s movement and nurses, and two recent monographs published by Cambridge University Press: Women as Veterans in Britain and France after the First World War (2018) and Warrior Women: The Cultural Politics of Armed Women c.1850-1945 (2023).
Research talk by Dr Adrian Wisnicki: ‘Collaboration Across Disciplines and Cultures with One More Voice’
Feb 8, 2023
Location
Merchiston Campus, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh, with online joining option via Teams.
Description
Hosted by the Centre for Arts, Media and Culture, guest speaker Dr Adrian Wisnicki (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) will be presenting on One More Voice, a digital humanities recovery project engaging with the voices of racialized creators in British imperial and colonial archives.
Catherine Walker Memorial Lecture: Dr Jane Potter
Nov 14, 2022
Location
Craiglockhart Campus.
Description
A lecture held at Craiglockhart in honour of the late Catherine Walker, formerly curator of the War Poets Collection.
Dr Jane Potter (Oxford Brookes University)
Strange Meeting(s): Wilfred Owen at Craiglockhart
The site of one of the most famous meetings in literary history, that of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Craiglockhart War Hospital is embedded in the cultural memory of the First World War. Crucial both in Owen's recovery from the trauma of his active service and his development as a poet, Craiglockhart also provided him with opportunities for many other significant meetings that were essential to his poetic and emotional maturity. This talk will highlight some of these 'strange meetings' and reflect on the lasting legacy of the place that Owen called 'this free-and-easy Oxford'.
Research Talk by Dr Arianna Introna, ‘Crip Enchantments: Autonomist Narratives of Disability in Scottish Writing and Culture’
Oct 12, 2022
Location
Merchiston Campus E14
Description
This research talk by guest speaker Dr Arianna Introna is hosted by the Centre for Arts, Media and Culture (CAMC). All welcome.
Organiser: Prof. Anne Schwan. Chair: Dr. Scott Lyall.
Research Roundtable on 'Global Atrocities in Literature and Culture' (online)
Dec 8, 2021
Location
Online via WebEx
Description
The Centre for Literature and Writing (CLAW) is hosting a research roundtable online, featuring Dr Kelsie Donnelly (Queen's University Belfast), Dr Arin Keeble (Edinburgh Napier University), Dr Edel Lamb (Queen's University Belfast) and Dr Georgina Lucas (Edinburgh Napier University)
Neoliberalism and Contemporary American Literature
Dec 9, 2019
Location
Edinburgh Napier University
Description
This symposium brings together a spectrum of new research on the broad subject of neoliberalism and American literature. Though numerous panels and publications have questioned the enduring uses of neoliberalism as a cohesive concept, a keyword or framework for interpretation, this symposium demonstrates a range of productive applications and interpretive possibilities. There will be eight papers (across two large panels) on writers including Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, Helen DeWitt, Rivers Solomon, Thomas Pynchon, Attica Locke and many others. Following the presentations and discussion, we will celebrate the release of six new academic books over a glass of juice or wine.
Lead Organiser 'Crime Fiction(s): Victorian and Neo-Victorian Narratives of Crime and Punishment'
Apr 27, 2018
Location
Merchiston Campus
Description
One-day interdisciplinary conference under the auspices of the new Scottish Centre for Victorian and Neo-Victorian Studies, co-sponsored by the British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS), the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at Glasgow University, Strathclyde University and Edinburgh Napier's Centre for Literature and Writing. Aside from academic presentations, there will be a talk by the National Library of Scotland's Rare Books Curator and a performance of Martin Travers' new play 'Annville' about two murders in Victorian Lanarkshire.
The German Diaspora during World War I: Remembering Internment Camps in Britain and the Commonwealth
Mar 9, 2018
Location
The National Archives, Kew.
Description
Invited talk to promote the above project at one-day public event on Cultural History in Practice: Spies and Spying. Public study day, c. 25 attendees from both academia and general public. (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cultural-history-in-practice-spies-and-spying-tickets-42859779755)
The First World War in familiar and forgotten novels of the 1920s.
Feb 8, 2018
Location
Erewash Museum, Ilkeston, Derbyshire.
Description
Talk at Erewash museum to the Local History Café, drawing on research for Writing Disenchantment: British First World War Prose, 1914-1930 (2014). Invited public lecture to c. 20 attendees.
Detective McLevy's Rogues Gallery: Faces of Crime 1870-1917
Nov 13, 2017
Location
Both event and exhibition at General Register House, Princes Street, Edinburgh.
Description
Event to discuss new book "Detective McLevy's Casebook" featured at ‘Rogues Gallery: Faces of Crime 1870-1917’, national exhibition, 25 Oct – 1 Dec 2017, Monday to Friday, 9.30-4.30pm
Delivered by National Records of Scotland in partnership with Edinburgh City Archives, the exhibition will bring visitors face-to-face with Scotland’s criminal past – from an infamous murderer to con artists, pickpockets, petty thieves and more. It will pair striking images from mug shot albums with carefully selected extracts from trial records to convey a unique insight into criminal justice in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
Avril Gray, Programme Leader of MSc Publishing (SACI) and Publishing Manager for Merchiston Publishing said: “It is so incredibly exciting to see our students’ work showcased as part of this national exhibition. Detective McLevy is credited with being the real-life inspiration behind Sherlock Holmes, so it is highly appropriate that our book of short stories, which is based on true crimes, has a central place. It is fantastic to be working with National Records of Scotland and Edinburgh City Archives and I would like to thank them for being so supportive of our staff and our students' work.”
Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Europe, Culture and External Affairs, said: “In the Year of History Heritage and Archaeology, Rogues Gallery throws light on a shadowy side of Scotland’s story, revealing the rarely-told tales of famous and forgotten figures who are part of our nation’s history.”
Invited talk "Crime, Punishment and Social Justice: From Oliver Twist to the Suffragettes." Kilgraston School (Royal Society of Edinburgh Schools Outreach Programme)
Oct 27, 2017
Location
Perth, Kilgraston School
Description
Invited talk to young audience of 16-18 year olds from Kilgraston School, Merchiston Castle School and Queen Victoria School. Approximate number of attendees: 50 (including 7 teachers).
David Bishop & Steve MacManus: How a Comic Book Icon Rose to the Top
Aug 15, 2017
Location
Bosco Theatre (George Street), Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh.
Description
For anyone with even the merest interest in comic books, the story of 2000AD is an essential part of their education. David Bishop and Steve MacManus have been editors of the publication in very different eras and are in a privileged position to discuss the inside story
Invited talk "Books or Prisons? Reflections on Literature and Social Justice." Merchiston Castle School (Royal Society of Edinburgh Schools Outreach Programme)
Jan 24, 2017
Location
Edinburgh, Merchiston Castle School
Description
Invited speaker at Annual Scholars' Dinner with an audience of approximately 100 pupils (aged 11 to 18) and teachers.
Invited talk on Gender and the Nation in the Wake of the Florence Maybrick Trial. Symposium on Gender Stereotypes in the Long Nineteenth Century. Stirling University.
May 12, 2016
Invited talk in Dublin, to be podcast later
Apr 29, 2016
Location
University College Dublin
Description
I gave an invited lecture at the University College Dublin Humanities Institute on 'Attachments and Coping towards the end of the First World War: D. H. Lawrence's Bay (1919)', as part of the Wartime Attachments: Pain, Care, Retreat and Treatment in the First World War lecture series. The lecture will later be available as a podcast.http://www.ucd.ie/humanities/events/ourevents/archive/name,317151,en.html
