#English – Arts Matter

Publishing Success for Creative Writing PhD Student Ash Bond – Peregrine Quinn

Posted on September 27, 2023 by George Thomas

By Ash Bond, PhD Creative Writing student, School of Humanities

As the first proofs of her debut novel arrive in bookshops, PhD Creative Writing student Ash Bond introduces us to the wonderful world of Peregrine Quinn and explains how her time at Bristol has influenced her writing.

My debut novel Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm is the first in a fantasy series, aimed at – primarily – an audience of nine to twelve-year-olds, what those in the publishing sphere refer to as ‘Middle Grade’. Middle Grade is where you will find The Chronicles of Narnia, Artemis Fowl, and Percy Jackson. It is also where you used to find Harry Potter, but now of course he gets his very own section (with matching rucksacks and light-up pens).

The idea that a magical world is just a wardrobe or a train platform away is commonplace on these shelves. In Middle Grade books if you say the right spells, tap the right rock, or mess with the wrong fairy, you could end up – quite literally – anywhere. In Peregrine Quinn, the entrance to the Cosmic Realm lies behind a bookshelf in a library (I am a writer with a vivid imagination, but I am also an academic and, as the adage goes, write what you know). It is in one of these libraries where the first book begins, with Peregrine and her godfather Daedalus breaking into Portal Number Nine in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

One of my greatest joys in writing fantasy books for children is in framing these opportunities for the reader to look at this world, a world that can often appear so devoid of wonder, with renewed curiosity. Is that person on the Tube looking at a map of the London Underground, or the Under-Underground? Check next time, you just never know.

“The weaving of myth and imagination, of research and creativity, is a skill that the Creative Writing PhD at Bristol offers much practice in”

As I transition into the second year of my PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol, I am also moving onto write the second in the Peregrine series. In this second book, the library door is opened wider, and the reader is invited further into the Cosmic Realm. As the world expands, I find myself drawing more and more upon the mythology that forms the basis of much of Peregrine’s universe, a universe that is at once both familiar, and deeply strange. Hekate for example, the classical goddess of witchcraft, in Peregrine’s world runs HekTek Laboratories and specialises in poisons. Daedalus, the architect who designed Minos’s famous labyrinth, in this novel has designed the portal system that connects the Terran Realm (Earth) with that of the Cosmic Realm (Olympus).

The weaving of myth and imagination, of research and creativity, is a skill that the Creative Writing PhD at Bristol offers much practice in. The Creative Writing PhD itself is made up of two strands: one creative and one critical, and is designed so that both strands complement and elevate each other. Like all PhD students, I am lucky enough to have two supervisors; one in Creative Writing, Dr Joanna Nadin, and one in Myth, Dr Vanda Zajko. Both of my supervisors are incredibly generous with their support and rigorous in their feedback, offering me the opportunity to grow as both a writer and as an academic.

The second book is only half written, and with at least one more book to write in this series I am beyond grateful for the consistent opportunities for inspiration – mythological and otherwise – that are offered by the dynamic, interdisciplinary academic environment provided by the university. And while I am very much at the beginning of both my PhD and my publication journey, I look forward to working with Bristol University as Peregrine’s adventure continues.

Ash Bond is a PhD Creative Writing student who recently secured a three-book deal with Piccadilly Press to bring her Peregrine Quinn series to life. The first book, Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm, will be published in April 2024 by Piccadilly Press which you can pre-order now. To find out more about Ash’s research, please email xn22400@bristol.ac.uk.

Place and Space in the Early Modern World Workshop, 10 May 2023 – Early Modern Studies Research Group

Posted on August 31, 2023 by George Thomas

By Dr Sebastiaan Verweij, Senior Lecturer in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature, and Amy Smith, PhD History candidate

To continue our Faculty Research Centre and Group catch-ups, Dr Sebastiaan Verweij and PhD History candidate Amy Smith tell us about the highly innovative and interdisciplinary May workshop put on by the Early Modern Studies research group.

On 10 May, the Early Modern Studies (EMS) research group ran a workshop: ‘Place and Space in the Early Modern World’. Place and Space studies, including attention to landscape and environment, cuts through the research activities of EMS members in many different disciplines (including English, History, History of Art, Modern Languages, Theatre, Philosophy, Archaeology), and the workshop was organised as a way to share research methods, materials, and findings. Among our c. 40 delegates were also five colleagues from the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff, in part because EMS is keen to develop research collaboration with members of GW4, a research alliance group made up of the universities of Bristol, Bath, Cardiff and Exeter. We were also joined by PhD students in the Faculty currently on the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWWDTP) scholarships (with thanks for some additional funding from SWWDTP!).

Dr Sebastiaan Verweij opens the ‘Place and Space in the Early Modern World’ workshop

Most of the workshop took the form of five-minute flashpapers, delivered by 17 colleagues in short panels. For any academic researcher to stop talking at the five-minute mark is no easy feat. However, all speakers deliver punchy, thought-provoking, and cutting-edge papers on diverse topics that felt nonetheless connected and in immediate conversation with others on the day. Topics included sea board spaces, Arthurian landscapes, castle gardens as women’s spaces, portable places and soil in cemeteries, British cathedral precincts, recreating the perambulation of Bristol’s city boundaries, flood lands, Italian urban space, dramatic space in the early modern theatre, the spaces of city comedy, urban space in Manilla, the philosophical precepts of space in time from Aristotle to Newton, the space of tragedy, and what urban planners refer to as ‘Space Left Over After Planning’. The day was concluded with an interdisciplinary and wide-ranging keynote address by Professor Nicola Whyte, a social and landscape historian at Exeter, on ‘Sacred landscapes and the subterranean imagination’, which took in Renaissance Italian painting, contemporary art, the seventeenth-century travel journals of Celia Fiennes, and heritage studies, as a way to understand premodern and contemporary response and approach to the landscapes that lie beneath our feet.

Taking too long?

Reload document

Open in new tab

Download

The workshop left us feeling like there was a great deal more to discuss, and so EMS has resolved to work out a way in which conversations can continue: perhaps in the form of future meetings, and through exploration of funding opportunities such as those offered by GW4, in order to organise more ambitious events (conferences, symposia, or collaborations beyond the university).

The PGR perspective by Amy Smith, PhD History candidate

PGR students (postgraduate research students) often chat about how ‘at home’ we feel in the School of Humanities. Whether we’ve been kicking around Bristol for years or only just joined, we all feel welcome at higher level academic events across the department. The Place and Space workshop on May 10th was no different. With so many stimulating topics, we joined in lively Q&A sessions and indulged in the sacred landscapes explored in Nicola Whyte’s keynote.

It was especially inspiring to see recently graduated doctoral students speaking alongside academics with a long publishing record. With several of us in the latter stages of our doctorates, it was a comforting glimpse into a potential future. Next time, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a number of PGR faces on the panels as we start to develop our scholarly profiles within the University and beyond.

The workshop was made possible by Faculty of Arts research group core funding, some additional funds from the Faculty, and a travel subvention for SWWDTP students.

The Early Modern Studies Research Group aspires to generate a sense of community for scholars from across the faculty (and beyond) who work on some aspect of the period from c.1400 to c.1800. To find out more about the Group’s activities, research and to join the mailing list, please contact s.verweij@bristol.ac.uk or richard.stone@bristol.ac.uk.

New Directions in Black Humanities Conference, 18 April 2023 – Centre for Black Humanities

Posted on August 18, 2023 by George Thomas

By Dr Saima Nasar, Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa and its Diasporas, School of Humanities

With the advent of a new academic year fast approaching, we caught up with some of our Faculty Research Centres and Groups to see what they got up to last term. Here, Dr Saima Nasar tells us about the Centre for Black Humanities’s highly successful April conference.

The aim of this conference was to bring together researchers to reflect on ‘New Directions in the Black Humanities’. It sought to showcase the exciting research that is being carried out by a dynamic, interdisciplinary group of early career researchers. In doing so, one of the key ambitions of the conference was to support community building.

This was an in-person conference, hosted at the University of Bristol by the Centre for Black Humanities. Thanks to generous funding from The Social History Society’s BME Small Grants Scheme and the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Arts Fund, we were able to offer travel bursaries for our conference delegates who joined us from Royal Holloway, the University of Oxford, the University of West London, the University of Bristol, QMUL, the University of Birmingham, SOAS, and the University of Leicester.

Dr Amber Lascelles opens the conference with reflections on Black Humanities

We began the conference with an introductory talk by Dr Amber Lascelles (RHUL), who reflected on how it might be possible to create a critical mass of Black Humanities scholars in Britain. Lascelles posed the questions: how do we work with and expand the often US-centric scholarship in Black Studies? And how do we network and build, both as practice and method? In so doing, Lascelles stressed the need for community building and mentorship.

Our first panel on ‘Literatures’ started with University of Bristol MA Black Humanities student, Kennedy Marie Crowder. Crowder’s paper (‘Fabulation, Physics and Racial Horror: The Non-local Unreality of Black Literature’) probed what ‘reality’ to a Black person is. She explored how speculative fiction by Black authors represents racialised geographies. Her paper was followed by Andrea Bullard (doctoral researcher, University of Bristol) who presented on romance representation in media and Black historical fiction. The panel concluded with Tony Jackson’s (MA Black Humanities, University of Bristol) paper on ‘The Thin Line Between Love and Obsession’.

MA Black Humanities student, Kennedy Marie Crowder, delivers her paper

PhD Creative Writing candidate, Andrea Bullard, presents her paper

Our second panel was on the theme ‘Black Lives and Activism’. Sascha-DaCosta Hinds (doctoral researcher, University of Oxford) chaired the session. Wasuk Godwin Sule-Pearce (doctoral researcher, University of West London) started the panel with a comparative study of ‘quadruple consciousness’. Sule-Pearce examined the transatlantic experiences of Black LGBTQ+ students in Higher Education institutes in the UK, US and South Africa. Caine Tayo-Lewin Turner (doctoral researcher, University of Oxford) followed with an illuminating paper on Black anarchism and the ‘anarcho turn’ of Black British protest and thought. He argued that the Black rebellions of the 1980s was the logical conclusion of over a decade of dissident norms established by Black radicals. Dr Melsia Tomlin-Kräftner (Lecturer in Qualitative Research, University of Bristol) then presented her research on migrations of British colonial Caribbean people.

Download

The first afternoon session focused on ‘African Studies’. We had four brilliant papers by Celine Henry (doctoral researcher, University of Birmingham), Henry Brefo (doctoral researcher, University of Birmingham), Danny Thompson (doctoral researcher, University of Chichester) and Helina Shebeshe (doctoral researcher, SOAS). The papers covered histories of Asantehene Prempeh I, educational scholarships and development bureaucracy in Ghana, and Ethiopian migrants in the United Kingdom and their understanding and experiences of belonging. The panel was chaired by Dr Saima Nasar (Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa and its Diasporas, University of Bristol).

Celine Henry-Agyemang, University of Birmingham, delivers her paper

Our final panel on ‘Fashioning Selves’ was chaired by Ross Goodman-Brown (doctoral researcher, University of Bristol). The panellists included: Natasha Henry (doctoral researcher, University of Leicester), Claudia Jones (MA Black Humanities student, University of Bristol) and Olivia Wyatt (doctoral researcher, QMUL). Each paper examined race and racialisation. Wyatt, for instance, interrogated the ambivalent attitudes towards Black mixed-heritage children between the 1920s and the early 1950s.

Olivia Wyatt, Queen Mary University of London, presents her paper

We were hugely honoured to then be joined by our keynote speaker: author, feminist and academic researcher, Lola Olufemi. Olufemi’s paper ‘Only the Promise of Liberation’ examined the purpose, utility and function of the imagination in the work of anti-racist and feminist grassroots political mobilisations in the UK.

Feedback from the day was overwhelmingly positive:

‘New Directions brought together some of the most talented emerging scholars working in Black Humanities in Britain. I thought the quality of the research on offer and the generosity of the questions and discussion made for a very warm and supportive environment. For some it was their first time giving a paper in person, and many shared with me that the collegiality in the room made this a much less daunting experience. The event made me excited and hopeful for the future of Black Humanities.’ Dr Amber Lascelles (RHUL).

‘The conference was a fantastic opportunity to bring together different voices — from around the world — working within the field of Black humanities. Not only did it provide us with refreshingly alternative concepts and methodologies, the conference also functioned as a safe space for upcoming researchers from ethnically-marginalised backgrounds navigating workplaces that are overwhelmingly White. The love, care and support that emerged within these sessions fill me with hope and excitement for the future of Black humanities in Britain.’ Olivia Wyatt (QMUL).

Olivia Wyatt, Wasuk Godwin Sule-Pearce, Caine Tayo-Lewin Turner, and Sascha DaCosta-Hinds in discussion

‘New Directions provided an encouraging and welcoming space, bringing together a diverse set of researchers united by the concern for the future of black studies. The range of focus and disciplinary methods (without the pretence of uniform expertise) made participation both rewarding and generative. Distinct ideological undercurrents did not serve to divide but rather inform a dialogue on the political dimensions of black humanities as a discourse; I gained clarity on my position as well as the field in general. I look forward to the Centre’s future events and conferences.’ Caine Tayo Lewin-Turner (University of Oxford).

‘I thoroughly enjoyed New Directions in Black Humanities at Bristol. As an Africanist it is often difficult to see how my work falls into conversations on black humanities, however the breadth of research made me feel at ease while at the programme. I heard many amazing discussions as well as questions and contributions which I will be exploring in my methodology for my own research. The key thing I am taking away from the programme is the rich network of researchers that I met and hope to keep in touch with throughout my research career. I hope this programme is organised again next year.’ Celine Henry (University of Birmingham).

Many thanks to everyone who participated in and supported the conference!

The Centre for Black Humanities is an international interdisciplinary hub for Black Humanities research in the heart of Bristol. To find out more about the Centre’s activities, research and to join the mailing list, please contact cbh-publicity@bristol.ac.uk. You can also stay up to date through the Centre’s Twitter account.

Performing Shakespeare at Sea – The Hamlet Voyage

Posted on July 13, 2023 by George Thomas

Dr Laurence Publicover discusses his contribution to a new play, The Hamlet Voyage, performed at the Bristol Harbour Festival in 2022. The project received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account Award and underlines the positive social influence arts and humanities research can effect.

The Hamlet Voyage performed aboard The Matthew in Bristol. Image Credit: Edward Felton

In January 2021, I held a video conference call with a Bristol-based American theatre director named Ben Prusiner. For some years, it turned out, both of us had been intrigued by the enigmatic evidence surrounding a specific performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: one supposed to have taken place aboard an East India Company (EIC) ship off the coast of Sierra Leone in 1607.

Shipboard theatricals

If this performance did take place—and its reality continues to be the subject of debate—then it is not only the first recorded performance of Shakespeare outside Europe; it is the first recorded performance, anywhere, of Hamlet. (Shakespeare’s tragedy was written and first performed around 1600, and versions of it were published in 1603 and then 1604-5, but there are no surviving records of specific performances before 1607.) To make things even more intriguing, the voyage on which this performance may or may not have taken place involved the first English ship to reach mainland India—a region that the EIC, at this point a fledging enterprise, would later rule.

All this interests me not only because I work on Shakespeare, but also because, in recent years, I have become interested in what people read, write, and perform on board ships; in fact, before Ben and I made contact, I had alluded to the episode off the coast of Sierra Leone in the introduction to a volume of essays on this topic.

The Hamlet Voyage

Ben didn’t simply want to talk to a fellow Shakespeare enthusiast; he wanted my help in developing a play about the possible performance of Hamlet. With staggering energy and imagination, he then realised this vision over the following eighteen months, commissioning a script from the British-Nigerian playwright Rex Obano (who had written previously on Africa and early modern England, and who had also, before becoming a playwright, been an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company) and involving a team of academics and creative practitioners with expertise relating to the story. With the help of Jiamiao Chen, who worked as a research assistant, my role in the project was to locate and help interpret primary and secondary literature concerning the third voyage of the East India Company—and in addition, to help Rex and Ben think about shipboard theatricals and about the texts of Hamlet with which the English sailors might have been working.

We trialled the first draft of Rex’s script at the University of Bristol’s Department of Theatre over the summer of 2021, working with student volunteers, and then ran a second series of workshops that autumn at the Trinity Centre in Easton, where Ben invited members of Bristol’s West African and South Asian communities to watch rehearsals and ask questions. With support from several funding bodies, including Arts Council England, the University of Bristol’s Participatory Research Fund and its Impact Acceleration Fund, and the Fenton Arts Trust, The Hamlet Voyage—as the play was titled—went into rehearsal in London in the early summer of 2022. I travelled to London to speak to the cast about the historical background of the play and about why (and how) people might have performed Shakespeare during a long voyage; in addition, I helped the actors playing English sailors to rehearse the scenes from Shakespeare that Rex had incorporated into his play.

The Bristol Harbour Festival

The Hamlet Voyage premiered at the 2022 Bristol Harbour Festival on board the Matthew, the replica of the ship on which John Cabot sailed from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497; it then transferred to London for a run at the Bridewell Theatre. On the morning of the first performance, Rex and I spoke about the play on BBC Radio Bristol, and the interviewer asked the question that I’ve been asked countless times since: Did this performance of Hamlet really happen? I direct anyone wishing for a response to that question to the piece I wrote for the project’s website.

Education Outreach

That website was also the basis for an education programme that reached around 200 students across four Bristol schools in 2022. Across four sessions, students were asked to think about the possible performance of Hamlet in a number of different ways: for example, through West African forms of storytelling and through English modes of record-keeping (specifically, diary-writing).

Future Projects

Working on this project has influenced my work in a number of ways. I now have a better sense of what is involved in turning research into a creative output, and I’ve been inspired to keep reading and thinking about the early voyages of the EIC: I’m now writing an essay on those journeys for a volume of essays to be produced by Migration Mobilities Bristol, a Strategic Research Institute at the University of Bristol. I’m also working with Rosie Hunt from Bristol’s School of Education to develop a series of Shakespeare-related materials linked to the project and aimed at A-Level and GCSE students.

The Hamlet Voyage performed at the Bridewell Theatre, London. Image Credit: Dan Fearon

Even if it never happened—and I keep changing my mind over whether it did or didn’t—this performance of Hamlet off the coast of Sierra Leone is a wonderful story to think with, posing questions concerning the social dynamics of shipboard spaces; the place of Shakespeare in histories of globalization and imperialism; and the role of theatre in diplomatic and cultural exchange. Among all the video calls I held during the pandemic, the one with Ben in January 2021 was by some distance the most consequential.

Dr Laurence Publicover is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English with research interests in Shakespeare and other English Renaissance dramatists and in the relationship between humans and oceans. To find out more about Laurence’s research and The Hamlet Voyage, please email l.publicover@bristol.ac.uk.