CREW Blog

NAASWCH Extended Deadline

2011-12-22T13:41:00.000Z

North American Association for the Study of Welsh Culture and History (NAASWCH)

International Conference on Welsh Studies
Bangor University
Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales
26-28 July, 2012

Call for Papers
The NAASWCH Program Committee seeks diverse perspectives on Wales and Welsh culture – as well as proposals focused on the Welsh in North America – from many disciplines including: history, literature, languages, art, social sciences, political science, philosophy, music, and religion. NAASWCH invites participation from academics, postgraduate/graduate students and independent scholars from North America, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.
Those wishing to present a paper suitable for a 20-minute reading may submit an abstract (maximum one-page). Proposals for thematic sessions, panel presentations, or other formats are also welcome. Please include a brief (one-page) c.v. with your abstract submission. The abstract-proposal deadline is 2 January 2012 but early proposals are encouraged. Participants will be notified by mid-February. E-mail submissions are welcome and will be acknowledged promptly. If you have not received confirmation of your electronic submission within one week, please resend the document.
NAASWCH works to promote scholarship on all aspects of Welsh culture and history; to develop connections between teachers and scholars in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom who are committed to the study of Welsh culture and society, history, language, and literature; to provide an intellectual forum in which scholars and teachers of Welsh culture may share their research and teaching experience, and to provide support for the study of Welsh-North American history and culture.
Please see the NAASWCH website for additional information: www.naaswch.org

Please submit abstracts or session proposals by no later than 23 January--PLEASE NOTE
EXTENDED DEADLINE--(electronically if possible) to Professor Tony Brown, School of English, Bangor University, Bangor, LL57 2DG (els015@bangor.ac.uk) and Dr Andrew Edwards, School of History and Welsh History, Bangor University (a.c.edwards@bangor.ac.uk).
Those who are not submitting proposals but would like to receive conference information should contact Linda Jones, Conference Administrator, College of Arts and Humanities, Bangor University l.c.jones@bangor.ac.uk; tel. +44 (0)1248 383881.

Penyberth@75

2011-12-07T17:07:00.000Z

Seminar i nodi 75 mlynedd ers i Saunders Lewis gael ei ddiarddel o Brifysgol Abertawe

A Seminar to mark the 75th anniversary of Saunders Lewis’s dismissal from Swansea University

Gyda / With
Simon Brooks, Pyrs Gruffudd, Tudur Hallam a Robert Rhys

4pm Llun, 12 Rhagfyr 2011
Ystafell Gynhadledd y Celfyddydau a’r Dyniaethau B 03, Adeilad Keir Hardie

4pm Monday 12 December, 2011
Arts and Humanities Conference Room B03, Keir Hardie Building

This is a Welsh event with simultaneous translation into English

Am wybodaeth bellach / For further details please contact Daniel Williams daniel.g.williams@abertawe.ac.uk

Yn 1936, collodd Saunders Lewis ei swydd fel darlithydd ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe yn sgil llosgi’r ysgol fomio ym Mhenyberth gyda DJ Williams a Lewis Valentine. I nodi’r digwyddiad hwn a‘i arwyddocâd i hanes, llên a gwleidyddiaeth Cymru mae Canolfan Astudiaethau Cymreig Richard Burton yn cynnal seminar a thrafodaeth gyda rhai o’r arbenigwyr mwyaf blaenllaw ar waith a syniadaeth Saunders Lewis.

In 1936, Saunders Lewis lost his job as a lecturer at Swansea University as a result of having set fire to a military instillation at Penyberth along with D J Williams and Lewis Valentine. To mark this event the Burton Centre is hosting a seminar and discussion with some of the foremost experts on the work and ideas of Saunders Lewis.

Liza's a PechaKucha Winner

2011-11-25T14:41:00.001Z

Liza Penn-Thomas, PhD candidate researching Welsh and Irish Theatres of Nation within CREW, has won the PechaKucha Competition that was run as part of the University’s Interdisciplinary research week. The 6minute and 40 second presentations were delivered to an interdisciplinary audience and the event was intended to develop the skills of researchers to engage with a public from outside their own specialist field. As the successful student in the Postgraduate category Liza was awarded with a certificate and a prize of £500 to be spent on activities that support her personal development and research.

John Koch on Wales and India

2011-11-14T00:07:00.003Z

RICHARD BURTON CENTRE SEMINAR SERIES
SEMINARAU CANOLFAN RICHARD BURTON

Prof. / Yr Athro John Koch
Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd, Aberystwyth
Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth

Wales and India, Welsh and Sanskrit, Indo-European and Celtic Studies

Monday 14 November, 4.00 pm
Conference Room (B03), Basement Floor, Callaghan Building

Dydd Llun 14 Tachwedd, 4.00 pm
Ystafell Gynadledda (B03), Llawr Isaf, Adeilad Callaghan

Jam Jam Jam: John Goodby Reports

2011-10-25T16:47:00.007+01:00

Report on the 3rd Hay Poetry Jamboree, Oriel Gallery, Bell Bank, Hay-on-Wye, 2-4th June 2011.

Thursday evening, 2nd June, 2011. Glorious early summer weather. Jammers slowly assembling from Salford, Essex, Hereford, Bangor, London, all over; slowly milling around inside and outside the Oriel Gallery, waiting for Ralph Hawkins and Allen Fisher, the opening event. Thanks from organisers Lyndon Davies and John Goodby to the sponsors, including the funding body formerly known as Academi, Literature Wales, and Marjorie Perloff, who has generously agreed to be our first patron. A brief tribute by Lyn to Geoff Evans, proprietor of Oriel, who first made the Jam possible, and who died in May. And so, on with the motley; Ralph reading first, from his coruscating Gone to Marzipan, Allen from a range of things, including newish pieces from Birds, ten of which resurface in the splendidly lavish Proposals 1-35, this taking early pride of place on the bookstall. Retire for food back at Lyn and his partner Penny’s place in Llangattock, with wine and chat in their garden for some, me included, until way too late, under the stars.

Friday morning, 3rd June: kicked off early, but only slightly bleary-eyed, with Colin Still’s enlightening and often hilarious introduction to a showing of his C4 film ‘In search of Frank O’Hara’, which seemed to be set largely in the Cedar Tavern, NY. This set things up nicely for the afternoon readings by John Freeman, Angela Gardner, Paul Green and the bardic staff-wielding, fernfrond-sporting, Rhys Trimble.

Apologies had arrived from Helen Lopez, absent because about to become a grandmother—another reminder that birth and death wait for no poet, and aren’t distinct from poetry. Brief break, and then Robert Sheppard’s lecture on ‘The Innovative Sonnet Sequence’: ingeniously constructed, in fourteen parts, saying much about the strange reanimation of the once-moribund form, and taking in a good number of practitioners, from Ted Berrigan to Geraldine Monk. And so to the big evening reading, Carol Watts and Sean Bonney. Great stuff, this, with Sean giving his all, as ever, Carol reading from her latest, the Reality Street published Occasionals, with its miraculous sense-twisting and sense-extending weavings (‘Hindsight, if only we had. / Known, that. Or, yes. Enjoy this culpability and then. / There is no imagining otherwise, even when spring is / indulgent’).

Saturday morning 4th June: third and final day, gorgeous weather still, and back into Hay, through the sweet especial Marches scene, all cow-parsley hedges and twisty B-roads, to hear Frances Presley and Glenn Storhaug, main man of Five Seasons Press, but no mean lyricist in his own right on this showing. During the later, afternoon session it briefly tipped down outside, the only rain of the Jam, but even though the door was open, few among the engrossed audience—and it was standing room only at this point—noticed; Gavin Selerie had kickstarted this session, and was succeeded by an enthusiastic David Annwn, who treated us to some of the shorter pieces from Bela Fawr’s Cabaret, including a performance of/on ‘Mein Steinway’ and, with suitable mitteleuropean inflections, things with titles that were poems in themselves (I think I remember ‘Depravity, Horror & Ecstasy, / The Seven Addictions and Five Professions / of the Daughter of Vice, Dammen und Herren / Ich stele stolz mich dar: Anita Berber’). From noon onwards, in the chapel next door, Elysium Gallery had been showing a sequence of short films under the title Bus Stop Cinema": Jammers and passing families dipped in and out, fascinated by pieces ranging from the antics of an ice-cream van in traffic to a jaffa cakes take on the Downfall meme, grateful for the coolness and shade too. On to Tiffany Atkinson’s wryly intelligent, humorous reading, and Zoe Skoulding of Poetry Wales—one of few journals continuing to confound the ‘mainstream’ / ‘alternative’ binary—who presented guests Richard Gwyn, Carrie Etter, and the precociously impressive Steven Hitchins (seek out his Fisheresque The Basin, from Literary Pocket Books). Followed, after a break in the beer garden, by a grand finale worthy of the name: Kelvin Corcoran in stomping form, reading a new sequence about his stroke and recovery therefrom, moving and brilliant in the last of the sun, and then the closing set by Maggie O’Sullivan, who hit her top form and soared. We were brought back down to earth by a session from a local band, Chris Twigg’s Chicken of the Woods—bluegrass with teeth, catch them on YouTube—a last repairing to the Kilvey Arms, and then home. All in all, the best of the Jams to date; for some reason, despite the packed agenda, time seemed to pass generously, allowing space to talk, link up, share ideas, swap books and numbers, plan future meetings. Lyn and I will be doing it next year, for sure.

Thanks to all who attended and made the Jam such a memorable one—to Steve, Tim, Chris, and Penny, as ever; and to the individuals and organisations who sponsored us: Llenyddiaeth Cymru / Literature Wales, Poetry Wales, Marjorie Perloff, Elysium Gallery, CREW (Centre for Research into the English Language and Literature of Wales, College of Arts and Humanities, Swansea University).
Pics and more information at the Jam website:
www.lyndondavies.co.uk/w/361/hay-poetry-jamboree-2011/

Dana Polan on Raymond Williams and Film

2011-09-29T16:32:00.004+01:00

October 5th. Kier Hardie Room 216. 4pm.
Professor Dana Polan, New York University
‘Raymond Williams and Film’.

Dana Polan is Professor of Cinema Studies at the Tisch Centre for the Arts, New York University. He is the author of 8 books in film and media and approximately 200 essays, reviews, and review-essays. He is a former president of the Society for Cinema Studies, the professional society for film, and a former editor of its publication, Cinema Journal. He has been knighted by the French Ministry of Culture for contributions to cross-cultural exchange, and in 2003, was selected as one of that year's two Academy Foundation Scholars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Recent books include Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of Film (UC Press, 2007), The Sopranos and The French Chef (Duke University Press). He has done 7 DVD commentaries including, most recently, The Third Man (Criterion Collection), and is the translator of Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka; Towards a Minority Literature.

*Please note: The lecture will be followed by a reception to welcome people back, to welcome new people, and to mark the appearance of the Raymond Williams Archive Online (made possible by a donation form the Amiel-Melburn Trust, secured by Alan Finlayson, PCS).*

Hydref 5ed. Kier Hardie Ystafell 216. 4:00.
Dana Polan, Prifysgol Efrog Newydd
'Raymond Williams a Ffilm'

Mae Dana Polan yn Athro Astudiaethau Sinema yn Nghanolfan Tisch ar gyfer y Celfyddydau, Prifysgol Efrog Newydd. Mae’n awdur 8 o lyfrau ar ffilm a'r cyfryngau a thua 200 o draethodau, adolygiadau ac yn y blaen. Mae wedi cael ei urddo'n farchog gan Weinyddiaeth Diwylliant Ffrainc am ei gyfraniadau i hybu perthnasau traws-ddiwylliannol. Ef yw cyfieithydd cyfrol Deleuze a Guattari, Kafka: Towards a Minority Literture, sydd wedi bod yn ddylanwad ar ysgholheigion Cymraeg fel Angharad Price a Simon Brooks. Mae hefyd wedi cyhoeddi cyfrol yn ddiweddar ar gyfres deledu Y Sopranos.

* Noder: Bydd y ddarlith cael ei ddilyn gan dderbyniad i groesawu pobl yn ôl i Ganolfan Burton / CREW, i groesawu pobl newydd, ac i nodi’r ffaith bod Archif Raymond Williams bellach ar-lein. (Gwnaed hyn yn bosibl drwy nawdd gan Ymddiriedolaeth Amiel-Melburn, a sicrhawyd gan Dr Alan Finlayson, PCS) .*

M. Wynn Thomas yn yr Eisteddfod / Annual Hywel Teifi Edwards Lecture

2011-09-21T16:59:00.003+01:00

Traddodwyd Darlith Flynyddol Hywel Teifi Edwards eleni gan yr Athro M. Wynn Thomas. ‘Colli Hywel Teifi - Ymadawiad Arthur’ oedd teitl y ddarlith. Nododd Wynn Thomas fod Hywel Teifi yn awyddus i weld pontio rhwng carfannau ieithyddol Cymru, gan dynnu sylw yn benodol at gyfrol Saesneg olaf Hywel ar basiant Caerdydd. Awgrymodd Wynn Thomas bod T Gwynn Jones yntau yn ymwybodol o’r angen i greu ffurf ar Gymreictod a fyddai’n gallu pontio’r traddodiadau ieithyddol. Trawsffurfio chwedlau hanfodol Saesnig yn rhai Cymraeg a wnaeth T Gwynn Jones yn Ymadawiad Arthur, mewn cerdd hir rymus oedd hefyd yn fath o farwnad i fethiant Cymry Fydd.

This year’s Annual Hywel Teifi Edwards Lecture was delivered by Professor M. Wynn Thomas. Professor Thomas noted that Hywel Teifi was eager to reach out from the core of a Welsh speaking Welshness towards the English speaking majority and drew particular attention to Edwards’s final volume on the Cardiff Pageant. Thomas then turned back to T Gwynn Jones, the founder of Welsh modernist literature, another writer who was painfully aware of the need to create a form of Welshness that would be able to bridge the nation’s linguistic traditions. In his ‘Ymadawiad Arthur’ [The Departure of Arthur] Jones transformed a body of essentially English myths into a robust Welsh mythology. Thomas also suggested that Jones’s powerful long poem was a kind of elegy for the failure of Lloyd George and Cymru Fydd.

CFP: AWWE Conference 2012

2011-09-13T18:26:00.002+01:00

CFP AWWE conference 2012

Performing Wales: Theatre, Art, Identities

The Association of Welsh Writing in English invites submissions for conference presentations and performances for its twenty-fourth annual conference, which is to be held at Gregynog Hall, Newtown, between 30 March and 1 April 2012.

Questions around performance permeate notions of identity and culture in Wales in fundamental ways. The most often-quoted passage in Gwyn A. Williams’s When was Wales? (1984) already gestures towards an understanding of identity as socially and culturally constructed. Williams writes that “[t]he Welsh as a people have lived by making and remaking themselves in generation after generation, usually against the odds, usually within a British context. Wales is an artefact which the Welsh produce. If they want to. It requires an act of choice.” Or, as Bron, one of the characters in Ed Thomas’s play Gas Station Angel (1998) has it: “to be Welsh at the end of the 20th century you got to have imagination.” A decade into the 21st century, Wales is now widely performed as a multiplicity of such imaginings, for example in the two national theatres in Wales.

This conference asks how identities in Wales have been constructed and contested in and through performance, in the past and in the present. We are adopting a deliberately broad definition of performance. We would particularly like to encourage paper submissions on drama and theatre, but we are also interested in non-text-based performance, performance art, performance poetry, the performativity and performance of identity in cultural contexts etc. We would like to encourage submissions of academic conference papers as well as creative performances. All submissions should, however, focus on an aspect of Welsh writing in English or Welsh culture mediated through the English language. Comparative approaches are encouraged.

We would like to receive papers dealing with topics such as (but not limited to):
 Performing cultural, racial, gender or sexual identities in Wales
 Performing Welshness in global or transnational contexts
 Mediated performances of Welshness – Wales in the media
 Historical performances of Welshness – performance of history in Wales
 National theatres and shifting conceptions of identity
 Performing place in Wales
 Re-enacting cultural pasts in the context of museums and heritage and beyond
 Comparative approaches to Welsh drama in English
 Postdramatic Theatre in a Welsh context
 The National Drama Movement(s)
 Translating texts – translating identities
 Participation and Relation: Performances of Wales and their audiences
 Community theatres

Please submit a brief abstract (ca. 300 words) and a biography (50 words) to Dr Alyce von Rothkirch, Department of Adult Continuing Education, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, a.v.von.rothkirch@swansea.ac.uk and to Dr Heike Roms, Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3AJ, hhp@aber.ac.uk. [Please send your proposal to both convenors.] The deadline for submissions is 15 November 2011.

Please let us know which category your paper/presentation falls under: academic paper (20 mins), short presentation/performance (20 mins) or long presentation/performance (45 mins). Presentations/performances will be held in seminar rooms, so please keep them as simple as possible. A list of technical requirements is essential.

Darlith Flynyddol Richard Burton Annual Lecture

2011-09-13T17:42:00.002+01:00

This year's Richard Burton Annual Lecture takes place at 6pm on October 4th at Port Talbot's Princess Royal Theatre. It will be delivered this year by John McGrath, Artistic Director of National Theatre Wales. We are e delighted that John has agreed to deliver the lecture this year. He will look back over the first year of National Theatre Wales, which climaxed of course with Michael Sheen's Passion in Port Talbot.

Admission is free. All welcome.

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Bydd Darlith Flynyddol Richard Burton yn cael ei gynnal am 6 o'r gloch ar 4 Hydref yn Theatr y Princess Royal, Port Talbot. John McGrath, Cyfarwyddwr Artistig National Thetare Wales, yw’r darlithydd eleni. Rydym yn falch iawn bod John wedi cytuno i gyflwyno'r ddarlith. Bydd yn edrych yn ôl dros flwyddyn gyntaf y National Theatre, a gyrhaeddodd uchafbwynt gyda Michael Sheen yn cyflwyno’r Pasiant ym Mhort Talbot.

Mynediad am ddim. Croeso i bawb.

Idris Davies in the Rhymney Valley Tour / Idris Davies yng Nghwm Rhymni

2011-06-09T17:39:00.004+01:00

Saturday 11 June 2011, 7.25 am - 6.30 pm (approx)
Departure / Arrival Points: Swansea, Bridgend, Cardiff
£24 (£21 Welsh Academy Members, £17 Students)

Literature Wales’ 2011 Literary Tourism Programme continues with a bus tour examining the life and works of the poet Idris Davies; the self-declared “voice of a generation”

Literature Wales continues its 2011 Literary Tourism Programme with a journey into the Rhymney Valley, exploring the world which inspired Idris Davies’ iconic political verse.

Idris Davies in the Rhymney Valley will take place on Saturday 11 June 2011. The tour will be led by Dr Daniel G. Williams, Senior Lecturer at the Department of English, University of Swansea. Readings and commentary will also be provided by the poet, broadcaster and travel writer Dr Nigel Jenkins, who also lectures at Swansea University.

Idris Davies (1905-1953) wrote poetry which reflected the idealism and protest of people in the Welsh valleys during the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Rhymney, he worked as a miner before losing his job during the strikes. Davies re-qualified as a teacher and found employment in London, returning to teach in the Rhymney Valley in 1947. ‘The Bells of Rhymney’ from his debut collection Gwalia Deserta (Dent, 1938) is well known after being set to music in 1957. T.S. Eliot described Davies’ poetry as “the best poetic document I know about a particular epoch in a particular place”, and it is this interconnectedness between verse and landscape which will be explored.

The day will include visits to places that permeated Davies’ life including the site of his childhood home, private meditation spots, his workplaces, final house and chapel. The introduction, lecture, visits, readings and commentary offer the opportunity to develop an understanding of the context through which Davies’ poetry was created.

All are welcome; the tour will cater for those with little or no knowledge of Davies whilst also appealing to those with considerably more experience.

The bus will depart from and return to Singleton Park, Swansea (7.25 am), with pick-up / drop-off points at Sarn Park Services, M4 (8.05 am), and National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (8.40 am). All walks will be fairly short and on tarmac. The tour will take a full day.

Tickets cost £24, or £21 for Members of The Welsh Academy. Due to the involvement of Swansea University staff and The Welsh Academy’s new Student Membership scheme, Literature Wales is offering reduced rate (£17) tickets to any student currently engaged in Further or Higher Education. Ticket prices do not include food or drink, although the tour will stop near a suitable venue for lunch to be purchased or packed lunches to be eaten.

For more information or to book your place by credit/debit card over the telephone, contact Literature Wales on: 029 2047 2266. Payment can also be made by cheque; contact Literature Wales for details.

To download a full 2011 Literary Tourism brochure click here.

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Taith Idris Davies yng Nghwm Rhymni

Dydd Sadwrn 11 Mehefin 2011, 7.25 am - 6.30 pm (oddeutu)
Man Cychwyn / Gorffen: Abertawe, Pen-y-Bont ar Ogwr, Caerdydd
Tocynnau: £24.00 / £21.00 Aelodau Yr Academi Gymreig / £17.00 Myfyrwyr

Dewch ar daith nesaf rhaglen Twristiaeth Lenyddol Llenyddiaeth Cymru. Y tro hwn byddwn ar daith fws yn edrych ar fywyd a gwaith y bardd Idris Davies.

Mi fydd y daith fws Saesneg ei hiaith: Idris Davies in the Rhymney Valley yn cael ei chynnal ddydd Sadwrn 11 Mehefin 2011. Arweinydd y daith fydd Dr Daniel G. Williams, Uwch Ddarlithydd yn Adran Saesneg Prifysgol Abertawe. Yn ogystal mi fydd Dr Nigel Jenkins, y bardd, yr awdur taith a’r gohebydd, sydd hefyd yn darlithio ym mhrifysgol Abertawe, yn ymuno â ni ar y daith gan gyfrannu gyda darlleniadau a sylwebaeth.

Mi fyddwn yn ymweld â mannau pwysig ym mywyd Davies gan gynnwys ei gartref, ei weithle, mannau preifat ble'r ai i fyfyrio, y tŷ olaf y bu’n byw ynddo a’r capel. Gyda chyflwyniad, darlith, ymweliadau, darlleniadau a sylwebaeth dyma gyfle unigryw i weld a ddeall y cyd-destun barddoniaeth Idris Davies.

Croeso cynnes i bawb; mi fydd y daith yn addas i rai sydd yn gyfarwydd â gwaith Idris Davies ac i’r rhai sydd ddim mor gyfarwydd â’i waith.

Mi fydd y bws yn gadael o Barc Singleton, Abertawe (7.25 am) ac yn codi pobl yng ngwasanaethau Sarn Park, M4 (8.05 am), ac Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru, Caerdydd (8.40 am) gan ollwng pobl yn y mannau yma ar y ffordd adra cyn gorffen y daith ym Mharc Singleton, Abertawe. Mi fydd pob rhan cerdded o’r daith yn eithaf byr ac ar darmac. Mi fydd y daith hon yn para trwy’r dydd.

I ddarllen y stori'n llawn cliciwch yma.

Am ragor o wybodaeth neu i archebu lle ar y daith
ffoniwch Llenyddiaeth Cymru: 029 2047 2266.

The Winifred Coombe Tennant Diaries

2011-05-25T14:12:00.002+01:00

On Friday May 27th at 5.30 in the James Callaghan Lecture Theatre, Peter Lord (Research Fellow at CREW), launches Between Two Worlds: The Diary of Winifred Coombe Tennant 1909 – 1924.

All Welcome.

Estynnir Croeso Cynnes i Bawb i lansiad cyfrol newydd Peter Lord, Between Two Worlds: The Diary of Winifred Coombe Tennant 1909 – 1924.

Trefnwyd ar y cyd gyda Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru.
Organised jointly with the National Library of Wales.

Hay Poetry Jamboree 2011

2011-05-25T14:11:00.000+01:00

HAY POETRY JAMBOREE
JUNE 2nd - 4th 2011

Oriel Gallery of Contemporary Arts
Salem Chapel, Bell Bank, Hay on Wye

Thur June 2nd
6.30 - 7.30 pm Festival Launch Reception
7.30 - 9.15 pm Ralph Hawkins and Allen Fisher

Fri June 3rd
11.00 - noon Film Maker, Colin Still - In Search of Frank O'Hara
2.00 - 4.00 pm Helen Lopez, John Freeman, Angela Gardner,
Rhys Trimble, Paul Green
5.00 - 6.00 pm Robert Sheppard - The Innovative Sonnet Sequence
Lecture
7.30 - 9.15 pm Carol Watts and Sean Bonney

Sat June 4th
11.00 - noon Frances Presley, Glenn Storhaug
2.00 - 4.00 pm Gavin Selerie, Tiffany Atkinson, David Annwn,
Zoe Skoul ding with Poetry Wales
7.30 - 9.15 pm Kelvin Corcoran
Maggie O'Sullivan
9.30 - 10.30 pm Grand Finale - Chicken of the Woods
Plus - All Saturday in the chapel, Elysium Gallery in collaboration with
Poetry Jamboree presents Bus Stop Cinema - a festival of short films
Entrance to 7.30 events £5 ( SCuopnpcoer tsesdi obyn:s £3). All other events FREE
SwansFeoar Umnoivree rinsfioty a Cndo lbleogoek iongf sA crtos n atancdt: Hgouomdabnairtdie@syahoo.co.uk

Peter Wawerzienk

2011-05-25T14:07:00.003+01:00

Peter Wawerzinek
Berlin Poet and Novelist in Swansea, Monday 16 May

Peter Wawerzienk will read (in German) from his latest prize-winning work Rabenliebe (Raven’s Love, 2010), winner of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2010 and shortlisted for the Deutscher Buchpreis. Rabenliebe is an angry autobiographical novel about the fate of an abandoned child in the German Democratic Republic in the 1950s and 1960s. After the narrator’s mother leaves her two young children to seek out a new life for herself in the West, the young Wawerzinek is shunted from orphanage to foster family and back again.

Formerly a cult anarchist poet from East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, Peter Wawerzinek is in Wales researching a book on Dylan Thomas due out later this year. To honour his esteem of Thomas and the connection with Swansea, he has approached the German section with a request to give a reading. His world tour has so far taken in Cairo and Paris and sees him soon in Cleveland, Ohio. He will be accompanied by his photographer, Carmen Budrat, who lives in Bridgend. We are delighted to welcome them as our guests in the Centre for Contemporary German Culture.

Alle Freunde der deutschen Sprache sind herzlich willkommen!

16 May, 6pm, James Callaghan Conference Room, B03/04

Darlith Goffa Thomas Parry-Williams Memorial Lecture

2011-05-25T14:03:00.003+01:00

On May 4th, the Richard Burton Centre’s director Daniel Williams delivered the Annual Thomas Parry-Williams Memorial Lecture at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.

The paper ‘Problems of Identity: Language and Race in the Literatures of Wales’ began with a comparative discussion of T. H. Parry Williams’s ‘Hon’ and the poem ‘Heritage’ by the Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen. The lecture explored the construction of ethnic differences in literature and warned against the widespread tendency to equate language difference with ‘racial’ difference.

Pictured: Daniel Williams with Professor Dafydd Johnston, the Director of the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies.

Ar Fai y 4ydd traddododd Daniel Williams Ddarlith Goffa Syr Thomas Parry- Williams yn y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol, Aberystwyth. Yn y llun: Daniel gyda’r Athro Dafydd Johnston, Cyfarwyddwr y Ganolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd, Aberystwyth.

Hyphenating Englishness Conference

2011-04-22T10:15:00.006+01:00

Hyphenating Englishness:
The Welsh Presence in English Culture: 1860 - 1960

A one day conference organised by CREW
The Richard Burton Centre.

Friday, May 13th, 2011. 9.30 – 5.
Arts and Humanities Conference Room
B03 James Callaghan Building, Swansea University

While it is by now commonplace to speak of Irish-American literature and Welsh-American literature, why do we never speak of Irish-English literature and Welsh-English literature? How should we define the works produced in England but either written in Welsh or claiming to speak for Wales or about Welshness? If there is ‘Welsh writing in English’ (the term we now use for Welsh literature in the English language), is there, given the long history of Welsh settlement in England, also ‘English writing in Welsh’? And if not, why not? With the development of devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, several commentators have noted the lack of discussion of the ‘English question’. Can the study of Celtic literatures contribute to hyphenating Englishness? Can we speak of the Welsh as an immigrant and diasporic group within an English context? In which ways is the Welsh experience similar to, and distinctive from, that of other immigrant and diasporic communities in England? This one day conference engages with various forms of English-Welsh identities and hybridities in literature and asks us to consider the national contexts and canons in which we place artists, writers and literatures.

Programme

9.30 – 11.00
Daniel Williams, Welcome.

Geraint Evans, Cambrian Writing: Towards a Definition

Simon Brooks, E. Tegla Davies and ‘English writing in Welsh’

11.00 – 11.30 Coffee.

11.30 – 1.00.

Guy Cuthbertson, The Welshness of Wilfred Owen

Andrew Webb, The uses of Edward Thomas: England, Wales and Northern Ireland

1.00 – 2.00 Lunch Break.

2.00 – 3.30.
Tomos Owen, The Spectre of Wales in Victorian England: Matthew Arnold and Arthur Machen

Kirsti Bohata, What's the difference between Sarah Waters and Margiad Evans? Margiad Evans and Englishness.

3.30 – 4.00 Coffee

4.00 – 4.35 Peter Lord, Unresolved conflicts: Winifred Coombe Tennant and Welsh Identity.

4.35 – 5.00 Discussion.

Notes on Contributors.

Kirsti Bohata is Director of the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales (CREW) at Swansea University. She has published widely on Anglophone Welsh writing, including articles on the female gothic, nineteenth century women's writing, and postcolonial theory. She is currently co-editing a collection of essays on Margiad Evans to appear in 2012.

Dr Simon Brooks is a Lecturer at the School of Welsh, Cardiff University. Previous books include O dan Lygaid y Gestapo (2004) and Yr Hawl i Oroesi (2009). He is currently writing a book about multiculturalism within Welsh-language culture.

Guy Cuthbertson is a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, and has been a lecturer at Oxford and Swansea, and a teaching fellow at St Andrews. His research focuses on writers of the early twentieth century, especially Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen. With Lucy Newlyn, he is a General Editor of a six-volume edition of Edward Thomas's prose for OUP. With Lucy Newlyn, he also edited Branch-Lines: Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry (2007). And he edits the journal of the Edward Thomas Fellowship. Guy is now writing a biography of Wilfred Owen for Yale UP.

Geraint Evans teaches across traditional boundaries and combines academic study with the development of professional skills in writing and performance for radio and television. His research interests include literary modernism, the post-colonial context of Welsh writing in English and the history of the book in Britain, often with a focus on the languages and cultures of Wales and their interaction with England and international English culture. Current projects include a scholarly edition of the correspondence of David Jones and Saunders Lewis for University of Wales Press and a new edition of Edward Thomas’s only novel The Happy-Go-Lucky Morgans.

Peter Lord is a research fellow at CREW, Swansea University. As an art historian he writes about visual images from a cultural rather than an aesthetic perspective. He is the author of a three volume history of Welsh art, The Visual Culture of Wales (1998, 2000, 2003), and most recently The Meaning of Pictures: Images of Personal, Social and Political Identity (2009). In 2007 he published Winifred Coombe Tennant: A Life through Art, and his edition of the diaries of Winifred Coombe Tennant will be published in May by the National Library of Wales.

Tomos Owen has just completed his PhD on London-Welsh literary culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has published on Amy Dillwyn and The London Kelt.

Andrew Webb completed his PhD on Edward Thomas at the University of Warwick, and has published on Edward Thomas and on the idea of World Literature. He is a lecturer in English at Swansea University.

The Essential Information / Gwybodaeth Hanfodol

Conference Fee:
Free to Swansea University staff and students.

£10 for everyone else.
This does not include lunch. Food will be available in the various outlets around campus. Cheques payable to Swansea University (CREW).

Please let Daniel Williams know if you’re coming by May 5th.

Arranged by:
Daniel Williams, CREW, Swansea University (daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk)

Cynhadledd undydd a drefnwyd gan CREW
Canolfan Richard Burton.

Dydd Gwener, Mai 13, 2011. 9.30-5.
Ystafell Gynhadledd y Celfyddydau a'r Dyniaethau
Prifysgol Abertawe

Er ei fod yn gyffredin i siarad o lenyddiaeth Gwyddelig-Americanaidd neu Affro-Americanaidd, pam yr ydym byth yn siarad am lenyddiaeth Gwyddeleg-Saesneg neu lenyddiaeth Cymraeg-Saesneg? Sut ddylem ni ddiffinio gweithiau llenyddol a gynhyrchwyd yn Lloegr ond a ysgrifennwyd yn Gymraeg? Os oes 'Llên Saesneg Cymru' (term rydym bellach yn ei ddefnyddio ar gyfer llenyddiaeth Gymreig yn yr iaith Saesneg), a oes, o ystyried hanes hir y Cymry yn Lloegr, hefyd 'Llên Gymraeg Lloegr'? Ac os nad oes, pam? Gyda datblygiad datganoli yn yr Alban, Cymru a Gogledd Iwerddon, mae nifer o sylwebyddion wedi nodi diffyg trafodaeth ar y 'cwestiwn Saesnig'. A all yr astudiaeth o lenyddiaethau Celtaidd gyfrannu at ddad-elfennu Seisnigrwydd? Allwn ni siarad am y Cymry fel grŵp o fewnfudwr yn y cyd-destun Saesnig? Ym mha ffyrdd y mae’r profiad Cymreig yn Lloegr yn debyg i, ac yn wahanol i, brofiadau cymunedau o fewnfudwyr eraill yn Lloegr? Mae’r gynhadledd undydd hon yn gofyn i ni ystyried y cyd-destunau cenedlaethol yr ydym yn eu defnyddio wrth drin llenyddiaeth a chelf.

Y wybodaeth Hanfodol

Pris y Gynhadledd:
Am ddim i staff a myfyrwyr Prifysgol Abertawe

£ 10 i bawb arall.
Nid yw hyn yn cynnwys cinio. Bydd bwyd ar gael yn y siopau amrywiol o gwmpas y campws. Sieciau yn daladwy i Brifysgol Abertawe (CREW).

Rhowch wybod i Daniel Williams os ydych yn dod, erbyn Mai 5ed.

Trefnwyd gan:
Daniel Williams, CREW, Prifysgol Abertawe (daniel.g.williams @ swansea.ac.uk)

Welsh Book of the Year 2011

2011-04-22T01:19:00.007+01:00

Literature Wales announced the Long List of Wales Book of the Year 2011 on Wednesday 13 April 2011. The awards, worth £10,000 to the winners, are presented to the authors of the best books of the year in English and Welsh.
The English language judges are: writer and editor Francesca Rhydderch (Chair); fiction writer and Wales Book of the Year 2009 winner Deborah Kay Davies; and author and broadcaster Jon Gower.
Having had some notable successes in the past, 2011 is a bumper year for CREW. M. Wynn Thomas’ book In the Shadow of the Pulpit which explores the culture of Welsh Nonconformity is on the longlist as is In the Frame by Dai Smith which recaptures life and culture in the Valleys between 1910 to 2010.

Director of Creative Writing at Swansea University Stevie Davies is on the list with her recent novel Into Suez. And Jilted City, a poetry collection by CREW Honorary Professor, Patrick McGuinness, makes it four out of ten for CREW.

Cyhoeddodd Llenyddiaeth Cymru restr Hir Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2011 ar ddydd Mercher 13 Ebrill 2011. Mae'r gwobrau, sy'n werth £ 10,000, yn cael eu cyflwyno i awduron y llyfrau gorau o'r flwyddyn yn Gymraeg a Saesneg.

Beirniaid y gystadaleuaeth Saesneg yw: yr awdur a’r golygydd Francesca Rhydderch (Cadeirydd); awdur ffuglen ac enillydd Llyfr y Flwyddyn yn 2009, Deborah Kay Davies; a’r awdur a’r darlledwr Jon Gower.

Ar ôl cael rhai llwyddiannau nodedig yn y gorffennol, mae 2011 yn flwyddyn fawr i CREW. Mae cyfrol M. Wynn Thomas, In the Shadow of the Pulpit, sy'n archwilio Anghydffurfiaeth a’i ddylanwad ar lenyddiaeth ar y rhestr hir. Hefyd ar y rhestr mae cyfrol Dai Smith, In the Frame, sy'n cyfleu ac yn astudio bywyd a diwylliant y Cymoedd rhwng 1910 i 2010.
Mae nofel ddiweddaraf Stevie Davies, Cyfarwyddwr Ysgrifennu Creadigol ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe, Into Suez ar y rhestr yn ogystal a Jilted City, casgliad o gerddi gan Athro Anrhydeddus CREW, Patrick McGuinness.

[ 雑誌 ] 『レイモンド・ウィリアムズ研究』第2号出来

2011-04-22T01:15:00.003+01:00

In the current issue of the Japanese journal Raymond Williams Studies No. 2, Yasuhiro Kondo has translated Daniel Williams’s ‘The Return of the Native’ which formed the introduction to Who Speaks for Wales: Nation, Culture, Identity (University of Wales Press, 2003. Reprinted 2008). I’m not sure what the title above says, but is taken form Shintaro Kono’s exellent blog. Google translate from Japanese seems to work better into Welsh than English!
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/shintak/

Yn y gyfrol cyfredol o’r cyfnodolyn Siapaneaidd ar Astudiaethau Raymond Williams, mae’r beirniad ifanc Yasuhiro Kondo was cyfieithu cyflwyniad Daniel Williams i’w gyfrol o ysgrifau Williams ar Gymru, Who Speaks for Wales?

Mae’n werth ymweld a blog ardderchog Shintaro Kono, a defnyddio Google translate i’w ddarllen yn Gymraeg. (Fe welwch fod y Gymraeg a gyfieithwyd gan gyfrifiadur o’r Siapaneeg yn fwy ystwyth na Chymraeg nifer helaeth o’r gwleidyddion ar CF99).
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/shintak/

Unveiling Professor M. Wynn Thomas

2011-04-22T01:09:00.003+01:00

On April 7th the CREW rooms witnessed the unveiling of a portrait, by Gordon Stuart, of CREW founder director, Professor M. Wynn Thomas. The picture was brought and donated to CREW by Dr. Barbara Prys Williams as a token of thanks for Wynn’s warm and supportive friendship, and supervision at postgraduate level. Current staff and students gathered for a very happy afternoon. Tales of Sarah Morse’s gargantuan cake are already part of the folklore of the CREWniverse. We are deeply grateful to Barbara for her thoughtful and generous gift.

Ar y 7fed o fis Ebrill dadorchuddiwyd llun gan Gordon Stuart o’r Athro M. Wynn Thomas yn ystafelloedd CREW. Rhodd arbennig a hael a charedig oddi wrth Dr. Barbara Prys-Williams oedd y llun. Cafwyd prynhawn i’w gofio ac bydd y cof am y gacen a goginwyd gan Dr. Sarah Morse yn parhau ar lafar gwlad ar hyd y cenedlaethau.

M. Wynn Thomas Shortlisted for Roland Mathias Prize

2011-04-22T01:04:00.004+01:00

As readers of Sarah Morse’s entry below will know, Professor M. Wynn Thomas’s In the Shadow of the Pulpit was shortlisted for this year’s Roland Mathias Prize. The other authors on the shortlist were poets Ruth Bidgood and Oliver Reynolds and short story writer Oliver Reynolds. The prize was eventually won by Ruth Bidgood. In addition to the New Welsh Review blog listed below, these sites are also about the 2011 Roland Mathias prize

Details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/03_march/04/wales.shtml

http://www.llenyddiaethcymru.org/home/i/138847/desc/ruth-bidgood-wins-roland-mathias-prize-2011/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/walesarts/2011/04/ruth_bidgood_roland_mathias_prize_2011.html

http://www.serenbooks.com/news/ruth-bidgood-wins-the-roland-mathias-prize-2011

http://www.wales.ac.uk/en/NewsandEvents/News/Press/UniversityofWalesPressBookShortlistedForTopLiteraryPrize.aspx

NWR Review of the Roland Mathias Prize

2011-04-11T08:57:00.001+01:00

The editor of New Welsh Review has recently posted a very interesting review of the Roland Mathias Prize ceremony. Well worth a read!

Robeson Seminar Series: Richard Wright

2011-03-29T17:37:00.002+01:00

PAUL ROBESON SEMINAR SERIES IN AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
SEMINARAU PAUL ROBESON

Dr Keith Hughes
Edinburgh University Prifysgol Caeredin

“Richard Wright’s Africa”

4pm Wednesday 30 March, 2011
Room 216, Keir Hardie Building

4pm Dydd Mercher, 30 Mawrth 2011
Ystafell 216, Adeilad Keir Hardie

Am wybodaeth bellach / For further details please contact Rachel Farebrother r.l.farebrother@swansea.ac.uk

Dai-Alogue

2011-03-23T21:46:00.002Z

Liza Penn-Thomas writes:
It isn’t often that the assassination of the Sioux chief Crazy Horse is discussed alongside the relative merits of Rhondda Heritage Park, but that is testimony to the richness of topics tackled when Professor Dai Smith (Raymond Williams Research Chair in Cultural History) and Dr Daniel G. Williams (Director of the Richard Burton Centre for the Study of Wales) were welcomed to the latest session of the CREW Postgraduate Discussion Group. Their lively and informative opening dialogue centred upon their recent publications – Smith’s In the Frame: Memory in Society –Wales 1910 to 2010 and Williams’s National Eisteddfod Lecture 2010, Aneurin Bevan and Paul Robeson: Socialism, Class and Identity. CREW were treated to an interdisciplinary debate that explored the way in which national identity intertwined or stood at odds with an internationalist Socialism, looking in particular at the iconographic significance of Paul Robeson in the South Wales Coalfields during the 1950’s and the political role of Aneurin Bevan. Points of contention were exchanged. This was without doubt an example of what Williams expresses as the “desire to preserve distinctive cultures” not hindering “people’s ability to communicate with each other and with others.”

From the ensuing group discussions we will all have taken away nuggets of new ideas and questions that can be applied to our varied research interests, providing fuel for continued exchanges. Though our studies of literature, politics and history are ostensibly ways of talking about the past, they are all actually participating in exploring possibilities for the future. As Smith says, it is only by “delving into the issues, struggles and expressions of a society decidedly past... can a future of value be derived.” The questions raised are still to be answered. Through what means do we discover collective values when our most prosperous and visible communities have suffered ‘culture death’? Can our nation maintain its cultural distinctiveness and act out a unified ‘Welshness’? Most importantly, how do we shape the next chapter of Welsh history that begins in 2011?

Sarah Meer - Identities on Stage

2011-03-09T11:31:00.006Z

Seminarau Paul Robeson Seminar Series
Dr Sarah Meer

Cambridge University
Prifysgol Caergrawnt

Irish/Native/African American Identities on Stage in New York after the Civil War”

4pm Wednesday 9 March, 2011
Room 216, Keir Hardie Building

4pm Dydd Mercher, 9 Mawrth 2011
Ystafell 216, Adeilad Keir Hardie

Sarah Meer teaches nineteenth- and twentieth-century British and American literature at Selwyn College, Cambridge University. Her research interests include discussions of race and slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, the relationships between literature and popular culture (especially the theatre and spectacular entertainments),and African-American literature. Her book Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery, Minstrelsy and Transatlantic Culture in the 1850s was published in 2005, and she has also co-edited, with Denise Kohn and Emily Todd, Transatlantic Stowe: Harriet Beecher Stowe and European Culture (2006).

Am wybodaeth bellach / For further details please contact Rachel Farebrother r.l.farebrother@swansea.ac.uk

Martha Vandrei on 'Buddug' / 'Boudica'

2011-02-21T01:48:00.005Z

Monday, 21 February 2011 at 4.00 pm
Conference Room (B03), Basement Floor, Callaghan Building

Martha Vandrei (King's College London)
‘“Buddug”: Reimagining Boudica in Victorian Wales'

ABSTRACT
The ancient British heroine Boudica has been forgotten, remembered, praised, and vilified throughout her long posthumous history. Her reputation as a national heroine did not cement until the nineteenth century, when a combination of factors, most importantly Victoria's long reign and the concomitant heyday of hero-worship, worked together to bring Boudica in from the ancient cold. The latter years of the century saw many commemorative activities associated with Boudica, such as the excavation of her supposed burial place on Hampstead Heath in 1894, as well as the erection of Thomas Thornycroft's iconic statue on Westminster Bridge. The expansion of British (or specifically English) power abroad has also been pointed to as the impetus behind Boudica's nineteenth-century resurrection, leading some to say, for example, that Thornycroft's 'Boadicea' was as much a commemoration of the South African wars as it was of the ancient British past.

This paper demonstrates that there was another side to the Boudica story. Imperial associations may have played a part in English reinterpretations of Boudica in the nineteenth century, but her Welsh supporters were inclined to see her very differently. This paper argues that Boudica's place in Welsh history was unique to a Celtic retelling of the ancient past. Elements of Celtic culture that set it apart from the dominant Anglo-Saxon centre freed Boudica from troublesome moral judgment about her pagan or barbarian practices. Instead, her identity as an ancient Briton was morphed into that of a modern Welshwoman by nationalists. Far from an attempt to distance themselves from the English, this rewritten version of Boudica's story was a demonstration of Welsh loyalty to Victoria. It was also a retelling of ancient British history that put Wales, rather than England, at its centre and claimed the origin of British greatness could be found in the heart of ancient Wales.

COLEG Y CELFYDDYDAU A’R DYNIAETHAU
SEMINAR YMCHWIL

Dydd Llun, 21 Chwefror 2011 am 4.00 pm
Ystafell Gynadledda (B03), Llawr Isaf, Adeilad Callaghan

Martha Vandrei (Coleg y Brenin Llundain)
‘“Buddug”: Reimagining Boudica in Victorian Wales'

CRYNODEB
Mae Buddug, arwres hen Brydain wedi cael ei hanghofio, ei chofio, ei chanmol a’i difenwi trwy gydol ei hanes hir ar ôl ei marwolaeth. Ni chadarnhawyd ei hanes fel arwres genedlaethol tan y bedwaredd ganrif ar bymtheg, pan weithiodd cyfuniad o ffactorau, teyrnasiad hir Fictoria ac anterth y cyfnod dilynol o ganmol arwyr yn bennaf, gyda’i gilydd i atgyfodi Buddug o gysgodion yr henfyd. Yn ystod blynyddoedd diwethaf y ganrif, cafwyd nifer o weithgareddau coffaol a oedd yn gysylltiedig â Buddug, megis cloddio’r lle y credir y cafodd Buddug ei chladdu ar Hampstead Heath yn 1894, yn ogystal â chodi cerflun eiconig Thomas Thornycroft ar Bont Westminster. Cyfeiriwyd hefyd at ehangu pŵer Prydain (neu’n fwy penodol Lloegr) dramor fel yr hwb y tu ôl i atgyfodiad Buddug yn y bedwaredd ganrif ar bymtheg, gan achosi rhai i ddweud, er enghraifft, bod 'Boadicea' Thornycroft gymaint yn goffâd o ryfeloedd De Affrica ag yr oedd yn goffâd o orffennol hen Brydain.

Mae’r papur hwn yn dangos bod ochr arall i hanes Buddug. Er i gysylltiadau ymerodraethol chwarae rhan yn y modd y mae Buddug wedi’i hailddehongli yn Lloegr yn y bedwaredd ganrif ar bymtheg, roedd ei chefnogwyr yng Nghymru yn tueddu ei hystyried mewn modd gwahanol iawn. Mae’r papur hwn yn dadlau bod lle Buddug yn hanes Cymru yn ailadroddiad Celtaidd unigryw o’r gorffennol hynafol. Gwnaeth elfennau o ddiwylliant Celtaidd a’i wahanodd o ddiwylliant dominyddol yr Eingl-Sacsoniaid ryddhau Buddug o feirniadaeth foesol drafferthus am ei harferion paganaidd neu farbaraidd. Yn lle hynny, newidiodd ei hunaniaeth fel Prydeinwraig hynafol i fod yn Gymraes fodern gan genedlaetholwyr. Yn bell o fod yn ymgais i bellhau eu hun o’r Saeson, roedd y fersiwn newydd hon o stori Buddug yn arddangosiad o ffyddlondeb y Cymry i Fictoria. Mae hefyd yn ailadroddiad o hanes hynafol Prydain a roddodd Gymru, yn hytrach na Lloegr, yn y canol ac a honnodd fod mawredd Prydain yn tarddu o galon hen Gymru.

Andrew Webb on Edward Thomas and Pascale Casanova

2011-02-21T01:44:00.003Z

Kieron Smith writes: CREW’s postgraduate discussion group series for 2011 kicked off this week. On Wednesday 2nd February, Swansea University lecturer Dr Andrew Webb generated a stimulating discussion with an overview of his work on the poet Edward Thomas within the burgeoning critical field of World Literature.

Using Pascale Casanova’s ambitious study of literary globalisation The World Republic of Letters, Andrew highlighted the way critics of varying national allegiances have moulded Thomas’s work to fit conflicting narratives of English, Welsh and British culture. His talk raised some fascinating and wide-ranging questions concerning national literature, global literary culture and the nature of national-cultural dominance. All of these were fuelled by the tasty baking of CREW’s in-house chef, Dr Sarah Morse, and later the refreshing beverages of some of Swansea’s finest bars.

Many thanks to Andrew for sharing his work with us.
CREW’s postgraduate seminars take place in the CREW ‘green’ room on Wednesday afternoons at 3pm. Watch this space for more information. All welcome.

Two Conferences

2011-02-21T01:41:00.003Z

Two Conferences have recently published their programme of lectures.

The Association for Welsh Writing in English is proud to be collaborating with the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in organizing its annual conference in 2011 on the subject of ‘Wales and Revolution’.
http://www.swan.ac.uk/CREW/AWWE/AnnualConference/

The Celts in the Americas conference will be held 29 June – 2 July, 2011 at Saint Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, hosted by the Celtic Studies Department of St FX and the Centre for Cape Breton Studies at Cape Breton University. The Celts in the Americas conference will offer a unique opportunity to share scholarship about the history, culture, and literature of Celtic-speaking peoples in North and South America: it will be the first academic conference devoted to this theme, with presentations about aspects of the experiences and literatures of the communities speaking Breton, Cornish, Irish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, or Welsh in the Americas. One day of the conference will be devoted to examining the interactions between Celtic peoples and non-Celtic peoples in the Americas, with a special emphasis on indigenous peoples and peoples of African descent. CREW’s director Daniel Williams will be giving a keynote lecture at the conference, made possible by a British Academy Overseas Conference Award.

The programme is here:
http://www.mystfx.ca/academic/celtic-studies/AllAboutConference.pdf

Global Wales / Cymru'r Byd : Richard Burton Centre Series

2011-02-21T01:38:00.002Z

Canolfan Astudiaethau Cymreig Richard Burton Centre for Welsh Studies
Cyfres Ddarlithoedd 2010 – 2011 Lecture Series

GLOBAL WALES / CYMRU’R BYD

Unless otherwise stated the seminars take place at 4pm in the Arts and Humanities Conference Room (B03), James Callaghan Building.

Oni noder yn wahanol bydd y seminarau yn cymryd lle yn Ystafell Gynadledda’r Celfyddydau a’r Dyniaethau (B03), Adeilad James Callaghan

SEMESTER 2

January 31 Ionawr
Elin Royles, International Politics / Gwleidyddiaeth Ryngwladol, Prifysgol Aberystwyth
A Small Nation and the World Stage: Wales and Sub-State Diplomacy

February 14 Chwefror
Paul O’Leary, Department of History / Adran Hanes, Prifysgol Aberystwyth
Wales, the Irish Question and the British State, 1850 - 1914

February 28 Chwefror
Andre Webb, CREW, Swansea University / Prifysgol Aberatwe
Wales and World Literature

March 14 Mawrth
Cynfael Lake, Academi Hywel Teifi , Prifysgol Abertawe / Swansea University
O’r Bala i Bensylfania, ac yn ôl: Rhai agweddau ar y Faled Gymraeg yn y Ddeunawfed Ganrif
[With translation: From Bala to Pennsylvania: Welsh Ballads of the Eighteenth Century]

March 28 Mawrth
7.30. Faraday Lecture Theatre / Darlithfa Faraday
First Minister / Y Prif Weinidog Carwyn Jones
Welsh Assembly Government / Llywodraeth y Cynulliad
Global Wales

May 9 Mai
Jane Aaron, English Department / Adran Saesneg, Prifysgol Morgannwg / University of Glamorgan
Welsh Women Missionaries and Travel Writers in the Empire during the Nineteenth Century

May (dates to be announced) / Mis Mai ( dyddiadau i’w cadarnhau)
Postgraduate Conference on New Directions in Welsh Studies. Details to follow.
Cynhadledd Ôl-raddedig ar Gyfeiriadau Newydd mewn Astudiaethau Cymreig.
Manylion i ddilyn.

Comparative American Studies 8:4

2011-02-21T01:36:00.003Z

Issue 8:4, Winter 2010, of the journal Comparative American Studies contains a series of responses to issue 8:2 on 'The Celtic Nations and the African Americas' edited by Daniel Williams.

Professor Werner Sollors of Harvard University, Professor Charlotte Williams of Keele University and the renowned African American novelist Ishmael Reed engage with and respond to some of the research areas opened up and debated in the special issue.

Articles can be accessed or purchased here:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/cas

In the Frame

2011-02-21T01:29:00.006Z

CREW’s Raymond Williams Research Chair in Cultural History at Swansea University, Professor Dai Smith, marked the launch of his newest work In the Frame, Memory in Society 1910 – 2010 with a reading in Swansea on Thursday, 11 November 2010.
In the Frame is a powerful alternative history of twentieth-century South Wales. The book pieces together, without sympathy or sentimentality, the consciousness of a community that searched for fame and fortune while struggling for rights and recognition.

The story, which is based on intensive research and critical study, is interwoven with personal viewpoints, experiences and memories. It takes the reader into a territory formed by the influence of writers and painters, boxers and historians, friends and relatives, rioters and correspondents, critics and photographers. Professor Dai Smith, Chair in Cultural History at Swansea University and the Series Editor of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Library of Wales, explained: "I felt compelled to write In the Frame to show the deep relevance of our history to the understanding of contemporary issues."

We were delighted that the Welsh Assembly Government’s Minister for Children, Education and Life-Long Learning, Leighton Andrews, joined us to mark teh event and gave a spirited speech. The speech given by Leighton Andrews AM can be read in full here: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/Staff/ProfessorDaiSmith/intheframe/#d.en.54893

R. S. Thomas Conference and In the Shadow of the Pulpit Launch

2011-02-21T01:21:00.004Z

The R. S. Thomas anniversary conference, held at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea on Saturday, November 6th, proved a great success. As the programme indicated, the morning was dedicated to new critical readings of Thomas’s writings, while the afternoon explored Thomas’s influence on the art and culture of Wales more broadly. The day ended with a fascinating discussion between Tony Brown and Gwydion Thomas.

CREW was also delighted to launch the latest volume by Professor M. Wynn Thomas at the conference. A very large number of friends and admirers gathered at 6pm for the launch at which Professor Jane Aaron of Glamorgan University and Daniel Williams spoke. The following is taken from Daniel’s speech.

Like some of Wynn’s other writings In the Shadow of the Pulpit draws on familial and autobiographical resources, but these are brought more to the foreground here and give the study as a whole a kind of intense personal charge which is very difficult to communicate in the language of criticism. That charge has something to do with the book’s subject matter of course, for the close connections between language, identity and religion are so closely meshed for those brought up in a Welsh chapel culture. This book brings that culture vividly to life, while also tracing its demise. It also establishes its remarkable continuing influence even in its absence. It a book about absent presences.

As in many of his books, Wynn offers new beginnings. Not J O Francis as in Internal Difference this time, but a body of English language texts written in the nineteenth century about Nonconformity. He creates a whole new background against which we should now understand the works of Caradoc Evans and J. O. Francis anew. It proves a particularly fruitful context to think about Dylan Thomas too, in one of the more challenging chapters in this study. Wynn also characteristically ends by suggesting further areas of study. Having read a book of this length, erudition and depth on Nonconformism and Literature in Wales you’d think that the subject would have been covered. But Wynn is always laying foundation stones, always looking ahead at where these ideas might take him, his students, us – which is of course what has made him such an inspiring teacher for so many. I can only encourage you all to buy and read this latest, magnificent and moving sermon.

Robeson Seminar

2010-12-06T13:24:00.006Z

The first of this year's Paul Robeosn Seminars in African American Studies takes place this Wednesday.

David Anderson, Swansea University

Unwrapping Nostalgia: Remembering the Plantation Christmas in Post-Civil War Plantation Reminiscences

Wednesday, December 4 pm
Fulton House, Lecture Room 2

Croeso i Bawb / All Welcome

For information on the Paul Robeson Seminar Series see:
http://crewswansea.blogspot.com/2008/10/paul-robeson-seminar-series.html

Ned Thomas Seminar

2010-11-08T15:22:00.004Z

Canolfan Richard Burton Centre
Cyfres Seminarau 2010 – 2011 Seminar Series

GLOBAL WALES / CYMRU’R BYD

Arts and Humanities Conference Room
Ystafell Gynadledda Adeilad James Callaghan

All sessions begin at 4 pm
Pob sessiwn i gychwyn am 4

Semester 1
Monday 11 October / Dydd Llun 11 Hydref
Nigel Jenkins, (English, Swansea University / Saesneg, Prifysgol Abertawe)
Gwalia in Khasia: Welsh Nonconformist Missionaries in North East India

Monday 25 October / Dydd Llun 25 Hydref
Professor / Yr Athro Huw Bowen, (History, Swansea University / Hanes, Prifysgol Abertawe)
Wales and the British Empire: A Missing Link

Monday 8 November / Dydd Llun, Tachwedd 8fed
Professor Heaven Crawley, (Geography, Swansea University / Daearyddiaeth, Prifysgol Abertawe)
Demographics and the Changing Face of Wales

Monday 22 November / Dydd Llun, Tachwedd 22ain
Professor David Blackaby and Dr Stephen Drinkwater
(Economics, Swansea University / Economeg, Prifysgol Abertawe)
Wales and the Global Financial Crisis

Monday 6 December / Dydd Llun, Rhagfyr 6ed
Ned Thomas (Mercator Centre Wales / Canolfan Mercator)
Constructing Wales - Projecting Wales

All Welcome – Croeso i Bawb
Next term’s speakers will include First Minister Carwyn Jones among others.

CREW website Review: Slanderous Tongues

2010-10-27T12:42:00.004+01:00

Poet and critic David Lloyd of Le Moyne College, Syracuse reviews Slanderous Tongues: Essays on Welsh Poetry in English 1970-2005, ed. Daniel G. Williams Bridgend: Seren, 2010. Hardback: 220pp, £24.99; Paperbacck: 274pp, £14.99

Contributors to Slanderous Tongues “address what seemed to them the most interesting themes, debates and modes of expression in contemporary Welsh poetry …,” as editor Daniel Williams puts it in his introduction. While the time is right for criticism that considers postmodern Wales and challenges simplistic formulations of identity, nation, and belonging – my reaction to the collection was mixed.

Slanderous Tongues starts off well with Matthew Jarvis’s survey of “Poetry after the Second Flowering,” tracing the development of identity politics and national feeling in Anglophone Welsh poetry since the 1960s. Later essays by Jo Furber (“Gender and Nationhood”) and Hywel Dix (“Class and Poetry in Wales”) address their specific issues thoughtfully....

Read the Full Review on the CREW website

Learned Society / Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru

2010-10-22T16:50:00.006+01:00

"The Role of Societies in the Development of National Identity" Taliesin Theatre

Swansea University 26 October 2010, 2.45pm

The Learned Society of Wales' inaugural event in the area of Arts, Humanities and Social

Sciences will be held in the Taliesin Centre of Swansea University on Tuesday, October 26th, 2010, and will address the theme of "The Role of Societies in the Development of National Identity". The schedule for the event will be as follows:

2.45pm: Welcome by the Professor Richard B. Davies, Vice Chancellor of Swansea University and Sir John Cadogan, the President of the Learned Society of Wales

3.00pm Professor Robert Evans FLSW FBA, Regius Professor of History, Oxford University:'Learned Societies and the Making of National Identity: A European Perspective'

4.00pm Tea

5.00pm Professor Prys Morgan, FRHistS FSA FLSW, Emeritus Professor of History, Swansea University:'Getting Our Act Together: Welsh Society and Welsh Societies , 1700-2000'

We would be grateful if you could circulate this notice of invitation to the event, which is free and open to all, to members of your organization and to any others who might be interested in attending. It would also be greatly appreciated if those proposing to attend could reply to lsw@wales.ac.uk by Thursday, October 21 at the latest, to allow arrangements to be finalised. We look forward to welcoming you to this notable event. Yours sincerely,
Professor M. Wynn Thomas FBA FLSW Vice President for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

***************************************************************************************
"Swyddogaeth Cymdeithasau yn Natblygiad Hunaniaeth Genedlaethol"

Theatr Taliesin, Prifysgol Abertawe26 Hydref 2010, 2.45pm

Cynhelir digwyddiad cyntaf Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru ym maes y Celfyddydau, y Dyniaethau a’r Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol yng Nghanolfan Taliesin, Prifysgol Abertawe ddydd Mawrth 26 Hydref 2010, a bydd yn ymdrin â thema “Swyddogaeth Cymdeithasau yn Natblygiad Hunaniaeth Genedlaethol”. Bydd amserlen y digwyddiad fel a ganlyn:

2.45pm: Croeso gan yr Athro Richard B. Davies, Is-Ganghellor Prifysgol Abertawe a Syr John Cadogan, Llywydd Cymdeithas Ddysgedig Cymru

3.00pm Yr Athro Robert Evans FLSW FBA, Athro Regiws Hanes, Prifysgol Rhydychen:'Learned Societies and the Making of National Identity: A European Perspective'

4.00pm Te

5.00pm Yr Athro Prys Morgan, FRHistS FSA FLSW, Athro Emeritws Hanes, Prifysgol Abertawe:'Getting Our Act Together: Welsh Society and Welsh Societies , 1700-2000'

Byddem yn ddiolchgar pe baech yn cylchredeg y gwahoddiad hwn i’r digwyddiad, sydd am ddim ac yn agored i bawb, i aelodau o’ch sefydliad ac i unrhyw unigolion eraill a allai fod â diddordeb ynddo.

Byddem yn falch iawn pe bai’r rheini sy’n bwriadu dod yn ateb i mailto:lsw@wales.ac.uk erbyn dydd Iau, 21 Hydref fan bellaf, er mwyn gallu cwblhau'r trefniadau.

Edrychwn ymlaen at gael eich croesawu i’r digwyddiad nodedig hwn.Yn gywir,Yr Athro M. Wynn Thomas FBA FLSW Is Lywydd y Celfyddydau, y Dyniaethau a’r Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol

R. S. Thomas: 10th Anniversary Conference / Cyhadledd coffau 10 mlynedd

2010-10-13T19:40:00.006+01:00

A one-day conference arranged by CREW (Centre for the Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales), Swansea University with the R.S. Thomas Centre, Bangor University.

The conference is part of this year's Dylan Thomas Festival [Full Details Here].

Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea
Saturday, November 6th

9.15 Daniel Williams. Opening remarks.

Morning: New Directions in R. S. Thomas Criticism

9.30 – 10.30
Tony Brown, Bangor UniversityThe Unpublished R.S. Thomas: The Bangor Archive

Rhian Bubear, Swansea University
The Echoes Return Slow: R.S. Thomas 'song of himself’

10. 30 – 11.00. Coffee

11.00 – 1.00.
Damian Walford Davies, Aberystwyth University
R. S. Thomas and W. B. Yeats

M. Wynn Thomas, Swansea Univeristy
‘The Fantastic Side of God’: R. S. Thomas and Jorge Luis Borges.

1.00 – 2.00 Lunch.

Afternoon: R. S. Thomas Beyond Literature

2.00 – 3.00
Christine Kinsey.
R.S.Thomas: Traversing the Gap between the Word and the Image

3.00 – 4.00
Kieron Smith introduces John Ormond’s film ‘R S Thomas, priest and poet’.
Followed by a showing of the film.

4.00 – 4.30. Coffee

4.30 – 5.30.
Pwyll ap Sion and Menna Elfyn.
Writing with R.S. Thomas – poetry and music in Emyn i Gymro / Hymn to a Welshman

6.00. M Wynn Thomas.
Launch of the volume In the Shadow of the Pulpit on Nonconformity and Welsh Writing in English. A new monograph in the CREW series Writing Wales in English. Sponsored by UWP.

Evening event. This is included within the conference fee.

7.30.
Tony Brown in Conversation with Gwydion Thomas.

The Essential Information / Gwybodaeth Hanfodol
Conference Fee: £20. This includes tea and coffee but no lunch. Food will be available at the Dylan Thomas Centre.

The Book Launch at 6pm is free and open to the public.

Evening event only: Full. £6. Concessions: £4.20. Passport for Leisure: 2.40.
Those who have paid for the conference do not need to pay for the evening event.

Tickets to be booked at the Dylan Thomas Centre.
0792 463980
http://www.dylanthomas.com/

Arranged by Daniel Williams, CREW, Swansea University (daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk)

Raymond Williams: Wales - Japan 2

2010-10-13T18:56:00.007+01:00

Dai Smith and Daniel Williams were in Tokyo at the end of September attending a conference on Raymond Williams. ‘Fiction as Criticism / Criticism as a Whole Way of Life’ took place on Saturday, September 25th. In his opening remarks Shintaro Kono noted that the event was a development of the CREW conference ‘Raymond Williams In Transit: Wales – Japan’ that took place in October 2009. Yasuhiro Kondo delivered a paper on Williams’s neglected novel Loyalties, offering a close analysis of the concept of history informing Williams’s intricate novel. Yuzo Yamada drew on Williams’s criticism to offer a fascinating comparative account of Gwyn Thomas and the mother turned poet, writer, and activist, Ishimure Michiko. During the ensuing conversation Dai Smith drew attention to a further connection between what Yamada referred to as the ‘far West’ of Europe and Japan, in the figure of American photographer William Eugene Smith. Eugene Smith’s famous photos of south Wales in the 1950s were a prelude to his more famous photos of the effects of Minamata disease in the 1970s which was the major subject of Michiko’s work. There are certainly grounds for further comparative work here….

In the afternoon Tony Pinkey of Lancaster University delivered a lecture on the role of Utopia in Williams’s thinking, with particular reference to the third volume of the Welsh trilogy, The Fight for Manod and in relation to William Morris’s notions of Utopia. Daniel Williams discussed Williams’s defense of realism against the poststructuralists in the 1970s, and used that debate to explore Williams’s claim that Border Country was an attempt at writing ‘against the grain of the form’. Dai Smith concluded the day with a spirited account of the exceptionalism of the south Walian industrial experience and of Williams’s own understanding and analysis of it.

On the previous Thursday, September 23rd, Hideaki Suzuki, Fuhito Endo, Takashi Onuki and Shintaro Kono all delivered terrific papers on Raymond Williams’s thought and invited responses from Tony Pinkney, Dai Smith and Daniel Williams. This again was a stimulating and intellectually lively session.

Both events were primarily arranged by Professor Yasuo Kawabata and took place at Japan Women University, Mejiro Campus. It is hoped that further events and projects will develop from in the future.

The symposium was hosted by Raymond Williams Kenkyukai (the society for Raymond Williams Studies in Japan) with the support of the Faculty / Graduate School of Humanities, JWU, and the JSPS/MEXT Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research.

The information for the event can be found here.
http://www.jwu.ac.jp/grp/lecture_news/2010/20100925.html

Bu Dai Smith a Daniel Williams yn Tokyo ar ddiwedd mis Medi yn mynychu cynhadledd ar Raymond Williams. Cynhaliwyd y gynhadledd ‘Fiction as Criticism / Criticism as a Whole Way of Life’ ar Ddydd Sadwrn 25 Medi. Yn ei sylwadau agoriadol nododd Shintaro Kono fod y digwyddiad yn ddatblygiad ar y gynhadledd ‘Raymond Williams In Transit: Wales – Japan’ a gynhaliwyd ym mis Hydref 2009. Cyflwynodd Yasuhiro Kondo bapur ar y nofel Loyalties gan ddadansoddi’r cysyniad o hanes yn nofel gymhleth Williams. Tynnodd Yuzo Yamada ar feirniadaeth Raymodn Williams i gynnig dadansoddiad cymharol, hynod ddiddorol, o Gwyn Thomas a'r fam a ddaeth yn fardd, llenor, ac ymgyrchydd, Ishimure Michiko. Yn ystod y sgwrs a ddilynodd tynnodd Dai Smith sylw at gysylltiad pellach rhwng yr hyn y cyfeiriodd Yamada ato fel yr 'Gorllewin pell' yn Ewrop a Siapan, yn ffigwr y ffotograffydd Americanaidd Eugene William Smith. Tynnodd Eugene Smith luniau enwog o dde Cymru yn y 1950aumac yn 1960au a 1970au fe dynnodd luniau enwog o effeithiau clefyd Minamata a oedd yn destun pwysig yng ngwaith Michiko. Mae testun gwaith cymharol diddorol yma....Yn y prynhawn traddododd Tony Pinkey o Brifysgol Lancaster ddarlith ar rôl Iwtopia yng ngwaith Williams meddwl, gan gyfeirio'n benodol at drydedd gyfrol y ‘drioleg Cymreig’, The Fight for Manod, ac at syniadau Iwtopaidd William Morris. Trafod ‘realaeth’ Raymond Williams wnaeth Daniel Williams, gan archwilio honiad Williams fod Border Country yn ymgais i ysgrifennu 'yn erbyn graen y ffurf'. Daeth y gynhadledd i ben wrth i Dai Smith drafod neilltuolrwydd profiad diwydiannol de Cymru a dealltwriaeth Williams, mewn theori a ffuglen, o’r profiad hwnnw.

Ar y dydd Iau blaenorol, Medi 23ain, cyflwynodd Hideaki Suzuki, Fuhito Endo, Takashi Onuki a Shintaro Kono bapurau hynod ddiddorol ar Raymond Williams, gan wahodd ymatebion gan Tony Pinkney, Dai Smith a Daniel Williams. Roedd hon eto yn sesiwn ddeallusol fywiog. Trefnwyd y cyfan gan yr athro Yasuo Kawabata a cynhaliwyd y ddau ddigwyddiad ym Mhrifysgol Merched Japan, Campws Mejiro. Y gobaith yw y bydd rhagor o ddigwyddiadau a phrosiectau yn datblygu o hyn yn y dyfodol.Trefnwyd y digwyddiadau gan y Raymond Williams Kenkyukai (y gymdeithas ar gyfer Astudio Raymond Williams yn Siapan) gyda chefnogaeth y Gyfadran / Graddedigion Ysgol y Dyniaethau, JWU, a ‘JSPS/MEXT Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research’.
Ceir y wybodaeth am y digwyddiad yma:
http://www.jwu.ac.jp/grp/lecture_news/2010/20100925.html

Comparative American Studies Special Issue: The Celtic Nations and the African Americas

2010-10-13T15:20:00.005+01:00

Volume 8: Issue 2 of the journal Comparative American Studies appeared during the Summer and is a special issue entitled 'The Celtic Nations and the African Americas'. It is guest edited by Daniel Williams whose introduction to the issue is free to view online for all. The journal contents are as follows:

TI: Introduction: Celticism and the Black Atlantic
AU: Williams, Daniel G.
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/cas/2010/00000008/00000002/art00002

TI: 'Did you hear about the Gaelic-speaking African?': Scottish Gaelic Folklore about Identity in North America
AU: Newton, Michael
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/cas/2010/00000008/00000002/art00003

TI: 'Assimilation through Self-Assertion': Aspects of African American and Welsh Thought in the Nineteenth Century
AU: Williams, Daniel G.
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/cas/2010/00000008/00000002/art00004

TI: 'Me zo bet sklav': African Americans and Breton Literature
AU: Williams, Heather
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/cas/2010/00000008/00000002/art00005

TI: Dissimilation and Federation: Irish and Caribbean Modernisms in Derek Walcott's The Sea at Dauphin
AU: Malouf, Michael
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/cas/2010/00000008/00000002/art00006

TI: 'Imaginary hinterlands': Travel and Displacement in the Writings of Denis Williams and Charlotte Williams
AU: Edwards, Justin D.
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/cas/2010/00000008/00000002/art00007

Review of Rhys Davies

2010-10-13T14:03:00.003+01:00

Kirsti Bohata reviews Rhys Davies: Writers of Wales, by Huw Edwin Osborne
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009, 144pp, £16.99

"Within the constraints of the Writers of Wales series, Huw Osborne has done an admirable job of presenting Rhys Davies in a new and refreshing light. Positioning Davies as a man and writer existing on multiple borders, Osborne provides an outstanding introductory chapter which makes a liminal identity seem a fresh concept rather than the critical cliché it is in danger of becoming, for all its legitimacy. Citing physical, geographical and internal boundaries, Osborne references the ‘internal difference’ of M. Wynn Thomas, the liminal interstices of Bhabha, and makes excellent use of Bakhtin, who argues that the‘realm of culture has no internal territory: it is entirely distributed along the boundaries, boundaries pass everywhere, though its every aspect… Every cultural act lives essentially on the boundaries: … abstracted from boundaries it loses its soil, it becomes empty, arrogant, it degenerates and dies.’ This book makes light work of its theoretical paradigms, yet remains productively informed by them throughout"

Read the full review on the CREW website.

Bazm-E-Adab yn yr Eisteddfod / Welsh and Urdu Poetry at the Eisteddfod

2010-10-13T13:46:00.003+01:00

On the morning of Friday, August 6th, the Swansea University stand at the National Eisteddfod was host to a dialogue between Welsh and Urdu poetry. Swansea University’s Tudur Hallam (who went on to win the Eisteddfod Chair later that day) was joined by Grahame Davies and by members of the Cardiff based Urdu poetry group Bazm-E-Adab, including the groups’ Chair, Mian Abdul Majeed, Mohammad Husain, and Dr Nafis Ahmad. The cultural dialogue developed as the poets read poems in secession in Welsh and in Urdu, allowing the sounds a words to reverberate around the stand.

The event was arranged by Daniel Williams and Tom Cheeseman and supported by Academi as part of a collaborative exploration of the NEW (Not English or Welsh) literatures of Wales.

Cynhaliwyd deialog unigryw rhwng barddoniaeth Gymraeg a Urdu ar fore Dydd Gwener 6 Awst, yn stondin Prifysgol Abertawe yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol. Ymysg y cyfranwyr roedd Tudur Hallam (a aeth ymlaen i ennill y Cadair yr Eisteddfod yn ddiweddarach y diwrnod hwnnw), Grahame Davies, ac aelodau o’r grŵp barddoniaeth Urdu yng Ngaherdydd, Bazm-e-Adab, gan gynnwys Cadeirydd y grŵp, Mian Abdul Majeed a Dr Nafis Ahmad. Datblygodd y ddeialog diwylliannol wrth i’r beirdd ddarllen eu cerddi yn eu tro yn y Gymraeg ac yn Urdu, gan ganiatáu i synau’r geiriau adleisio o amgylch y stondin.Trefnwyd y digwyddiad gan Daniel Williams a Tom Cheeseman a'i gefnogi gan Academi.

Celebrating and Discussing the Library of Wales

2010-10-13T13:37:00.006+01:00

On Wednesday, August the 4th, CREW, the Welsh Books Council and Parthian Press arranged an event at the Swansea University stand at the National Eisteddfod to celebrate and discuss the Welsh Assembly Government funded series of classic Welsh Anglophone Literature, The Library of Wales. Proceedings were opened by Swansea University’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Richard Davies who celebrated the institution’s connections with the series and discussed the establishment of Welsh Writing in English as a significant field of research in Swansea by Professor M. Wynn Thomas. The Welsh Government’s Heritage Minister, Alun Ffred Jones, expressed his admiration for the series and the role of some the key texts of the tradition in his own views of Wales and the world. Daniel Williams, Director of CREW and the Richard Burton Centre, made the case for the significance of the series and the need now to make these texts part of the inheritance of all the people of Wales through the English literature curriculum in our secondary schools. This might be the next stage in the long revolution. This message was reinforced by Dai Smith who discussed, in Welsh, the formation of the series and the importance of literature and culture in the fostering of a civic Welsh identity. The WAG Minister for Education, Leighton Andrews, brought the session to a close with a powerful description of the inclusive cultural vision that informed the series and the need to disseminate these works as widely as possible. Ebbw Vale, due to its history and location, seemed a particularly appropriate place to in which to hold the event, which attracted a good audience and was widely reported in the press and in the blogosphere.

Ar ddydd Mercher, Awst y 4ydd, dathlwyd a thrafodwyd y gyfres The Library of Wales, mewn digwyddiad yn stondin Prifysgol Abertawe a drefnwyd ar y cyd gan CREW, Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru a gwasg Parthian. Agorwyd y drafodaeth gan Is-Ganghellor Prifysgol Abertawe, yr Athro Richard Davies a dathlodd gysylltiadau y Brifysgol gyda'r gyfres a maes Llen Saesneg Cymru. Mynegodd Gweinidog dros Dreftadaeth y Cynulliad, Alun Ffred Jones, ei edmygedd o’r gyfres a’r rôl y chwaraeodd rhai o destunau allweddol y traddodiad yn ei ddealltwriaeth o Gymru a'r byd. Dadleuodd Daniel Williams, Cyfarwyddwr CREW a Chanolfan Richard Burton, yr achos dros arwyddocâd y gyfres a'r angen yn awr i wneud y testunau yn rhan o etifeddiaeth holl bobl Cymru drwy'r cwricwlwm llenyddiaeth Saesneg yn ein hysgolion uwchradd. Atgyfnerthwyd y neges hon gan Dai Smith a drafododd, yn y Gymraeg yn bennaf, y rhesymau dros greu’r gyfres a phwysigrwydd llenyddiaeth a diwylliant wrth feithrin hunaniaeth Gymreig ddinesig. Leighton Andrews, y Gweinidog dros Addysg yn y Cynulliad, a ddaeth a’r sesiwn i ben mewn modd grymus wrth ddisgrifio’r weledigaeth gynhwysol sy’n symbylu’r Library of Wales, a’r angen i ledaenu’r gwaith mor eang â phosibl. Roedd Glyn Ebwy, oherwydd ei hanes a'i leoliad, yn lle arbennig o briodol i gynnal y digwyddiad. Denwyd cynulleidfa dda a cafwyd sawl adroddiad yn y wasg ac ar draws byd y blogiau.

Susan Robeson yn yr Eisteddfod / Susan Robeson at the National Eisteddfod

2010-10-13T13:13:00.012+01:00

Thanks to the sterling work of the University’s Welsh Language Officers, Swansea University had much higher profile at this year’s National Eisteddfod at Ebbw Vale than ever before. A successful, packed, Alumni event with Jason Mohammed and the launch of Academi Hywel Teifi with Huw Edwards were among the highlights, and the week came to a magnificent climax with Dr Tudur Hallam of the Welsh department winning the Chair for his long poem in tribute to Professor Hywel Teifi Edwards.

CREW also played a prominent part in proceedings. The Eisteddfod had last visited Ebbw Vale in 1958, and the Gymanfa Ganu (singing festival) of that year is particularly remembered due to the presence of the African American singer and activist Paul Robeson, who was introduced to the audience by Aneurin Bevan. Swansea University had the honour of the presence of Paul Robeson’s granddaughter, Susan, at our tent throughout the week. In the proceeding week Susan has been involved in a range of outreach activities arranged by Sian Williams of the Miners Library at Swansea University, including workshops at the National Maritime Museum in Swansea, at Brynaman and at Big Pit in Blaenavon. Susan was a guest at several events throughout the Eisteddfod week, including the launch of Daniel Williams’s edited collection of essays on the connection between African Americans and the Welsh, and his Institute of Welsh affairs annual lecture on ‘Aneurin Bevan and Paul Robeson: Socialism Class and Identity’. John Osmond previewed the lecture on his blog, and it’s available as handsomely produced bilingual booklet from the Institute of Welsh Affairs. Details of the volume Canu Caeth can be found on the website of Gwasg Gomer, and it’s just been reviewed on the BBCs welsh language site.

Diolch i waith diflino Swyddogion Iaith Gymraeg y Brifysgol roedd proffil Prifysgol Abertawe lawer yn uwch ar faes Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Glyn Ebwy nag y bu yn y gorffennol. Cafwyd sawl digwyddiad llwyddiannus iawn, gan gynnwys digwyddiad ar gyfer cyn-fyfyrwyr gyda Jason Mohammed a lansiad Academi Hywel Teifi gyda Huw Edwards. Daeth yr wythnos i ben gyda uchafbwynt addas wrth i Tudur Hallam o’r adran Gymraeg ennill y Gadair am ei deyrnged i'r Athro Hywel Teifi Edwards.

Chwaraeodd CREW rhan flaenllaw yn yr Eisteddfod hefyd. Mae Eisteddfod 1958, y tro diwethaf i’r wyl ymweld a Glyn Ebwy, yn cael ei gofio yn arbennig oherwydd presenoldeb y canwr Affro-Americanaidd Paul Robeson, a gafodd ei gyflwyno i gynulleidfa’r Gymanfa Ganu gan Aneurin Bevan. Cafodd Prifysgol Abertawe y fraint o bresenoldeb wyres Paul Robeson, Susan, yn ein pabell trwy gydol yr wythnos.

Yn yr wythnos flaenorol bu Susan Robeson yn cymryd rhan mewn amrywiaeth o weithgareddau cymdeithasol a drefnwyd gan Sian Williams o Lyfrgell y Glowyr ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe, gan gynnwys gweithdai yn yr Amgueddfa Forwrol Genedlaethol yn Abertawe, ym Mrynaman ac yn y Pwll Mawr ym Mlaenafon. Roedd Susan yn westai mewn nifer o ddigwyddiadau drwy gydol yr wythnos, gan gynnwys lawnsio Canu Caeth, casgliad o ysgrifau ar y cysylltiad rhwng yr Affro-Americaniaid a’r Cymry a olygwyd gan Daniel Williams, a darlith flynyddol y Sefydliad Materion Cymreig ar 'Aneurin Bevan a Paul Robeson: Sosialaeth, Dosbarth a Hunaniaeth '. Cafwyd rhagolwg o’r ddarlith ar flog John Osmond, ac mae ar gael fel llyfryn dwyieithog gan y Sefydliad Materion Cymreig. Gellir cael manylion am y gyfrol Canu Caeth ar wefan Gwasg Gomer, ac mae adolygiad cynnar wedi ymddangos ar safle Gymraeg y BBC.

[Isod: Alun Ffred Jones, Gweinidog Treftadaeth y Cynulliad, Susan Robeson, Daniel Williams, Richard Davies, Is-Ganghellor Prifysgol Abertawe, Iwan Davies, Dirprwy Is-Ganghellor Prifysgol Abertawe, Dylan Williams, Gwasg Gomer]

[Helen Mary Jones, AC a chyfrannwr i Canu Caeth, Daniel Williams, Susan Robeson]

Theorising Wales / Damcaniaethu Cymru

2010-10-11T15:10:00.005+01:00

From the 12 – 14 July 2010 the CREW conference ‘Theorising Wales / Damcaniaethu Cymru’ took place at Gregynog Hall near Newtown. The conference was enlivened by a range of papers exploring a diversity of theoretical approaches which addressed issues of gender, language, race, sexuality, (post)colonialism and (post)nationalism.

The keynote papers were delivered by:

Simon Brooks (Cardiff University ) 'Liberal political theory and the failure of Welsh culture in the 19th century'
Glenn Jordan (University of Glamorgan ) 'Mothers and Daughters: Pictures of a Multi-Ethnic Wales'
Gerardine Meaney (University College Dublin ) 'Gender, Ireland and Cultural Change'
Chris Weedon ( Cardiff University ) 'The Cultural Politics of Gender and Difference in Contemporary Wales'
Daniel Williams ( Swansea University) 'Creu’r Diwylliant Mewnol: Iaith a Hil yn Llên Saesneg Cymru’ [‘Constructing the Inner Culture: Language and Race in Welsh Writing in English']

The complete programme can be viewed here: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/Conferences/TheorisingWales/#d.en.37688

Delegates attended from across the UK, Europe and as far afield as the United States and Canada. Kirsti Bohata, the conference organiser, couldn’t be present as she had just given birth to CREW’s newest member, Brychan Jacob, a week or so before the conference began. Geraldine Lublin from the department of Spanish, Swansea University, stepped in to run the show, and was assisted by CREW students Kieron Smith and Liza Penn-Thomas.

The conference was organized by CREW (Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales) with the assistance of C-SCAP (Centre for the Study of Culture and Politics) and GENCAS (Centre for Research into Gender, Culture and Society. It was made possible generous financial support from the Richard Burton Centre, School of Arts and Humanities, Swansea University.

Cynhaliwyd y gynhadledd 'Theorising Wales / Damcaniaethu Cymru’ ar Orffennaf 12 – 14 yn Neuadd Gregynog ger y Drenewydd. Cyflwynwyd nifer o bapurau yn archwilio dulliau damcaniaethol o fynd i'r afael â rhywedd, iaith, hil, rhywioldeb, (ol) wladychiaeth ac (ol) genedlaetholdeb yn y Gymru gyfoes.

Y prif ddarlithwyr oedd:
Simon Brooks (Prifysgol Caerdydd) 'Rhyddfrydol theori gwleidyddol a methiant diwylliant Cymru yn y 19eg ganrif'
Glenn Jordan (Prifysgol Morgannwg) 'Mamau a Merched: Lluniau o Gymru Aml-Ethnig'
Gerardine Meaney (Coleg Prifysgol Dulyn) 'Gender, Iwerddon a Newid Diwylliannol'
Chris Weedon (Prifysgol Caerdydd) 'The Gwleidyddiaeth Diwylliannol o Rhywedd a Gwahaniaeth yng Nghymru Gyfoes'
Daniel Williams (Prifysgol Abertawe) 'Creu'r Ysbeidiol Diwylliant: Iaith a Llên in Hil Cymru only' ['Adeiladu'r Diwylliant Mewnol: Iaith a Hil mewn Ysgrifennu Saesneg o Gymru']

Gellir gweld y rhaglen gyflawn yma:http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/Conferences/TheorisingWales/#d.en.37688

Daeth cynadleddwyr o bob rhan o'r DU, Ewrop ac mor bell a’r Unol Daleithiau a Chanada.
Ni allai Kirsti Bohata, trefnydd y gynhadledd, fod yn bresennol gan ei bod wedi rhoi genedigaeth i aelod mwyaf newydd CREW, Brychan Jacob, wythnos neu ddwy cyn i'r gynhadledd ddechrau. Geraldine Lublin o adran y Sbaeneg, Prifysgol Abertawe, a gamodd i’r bwlch, a chafodd ei chynorthwyo gan fyfyrwyr CREW, Kieron Smith a Liza Penn-Thomas.

Trefnwyd y gynhadledd gan CREW (Canolfan Ymchwil i Lên ac Iaith Saesneg Cymru) gyda chymorth C-SCAP (Canolfan ar gyfer Astudio Diwylliant a Gwleidyddiaeth) a GENCAS (Canolfan Ymchwil i Rhyw, Diwylliant a Chymdeithas). Gwnaethpwyd y gynhadledd yn bosibl drwy gefnogaeth ariannol hael oddi wrth Canolfan Richard Burton, Ysgol y Celfyddydau a'r Dyniaethau, Prifysgol Abertawe.

Author-Translator Conference: CREW session now online

2010-10-11T14:39:00.003+01:00

On the 29th of June CREW arranged a Plenary Session in the major Author-Translator Conference arranged by Hilary Brown and Duncan Large of the Department of Modern Languages at Swansea University.

The CREW session on ‘Author-Translators in Multilingual Wales’ featured the novelist, poet and essayist Grahame Davies, the novelist Fflur Dafydd and poet Childe Roland.

Grahame and Fflur work in English and Welsh and discussed the process of translating their own works within the charged linguistic context of contemporary Wales. Childe Roland is a Quebecois concrete poet who has lived in Wales since the 1970s and writes in French, English and Welsh, often translating the sound and shape of words as much as their meaning in his work.

Their lectures can now be viewed online at:
http://www.author-translator.net/videos.html

The event was co-sponsored by Academi and is one of several events on which CREW and Academi have been collaborating recently on multilingual literatures in Wales.

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Ar y 29ain o Fehefin fe drefnodd CREW sessiwn mewn cynhadledd fawr ar Gyfieithu a drefnwyd gan Hilary Brown a Duncan Large, o’r Adran Ieithoedd Modern ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe.Roedd sessiwn CREW ar 'Awdur-Gyfieithwyr yn y Gymru Amlieithog' yn cynnwys y bardd a’r nofelydd Grahame Davies, y nofelydd Fflur Dafydd a'r bardd Childe Roland.Mae Grahame a Fflur yn gweithio yn Gymraeg a’r Saesneg a chafwyd trafodaethau difyr gan y ddau ar y broses o gyfieithu o fewn cyd-destun ieithyddol y Gymru gyfoes. Bardd o Quebec yn wreiddiol yw Childe Roland sydd wedi ymgartrefi yng Nghymru ers y 70au ac yn ysgrifennu yn Ffrangeg, Cymraeg a Saesneg. Bydd yn aml yn cyfieithu sain a ffurf geiriau llawn cymaint â'u hystyr.Gellir gwylio’r darlithoedd yma:http://www.author-translator.net/videos.html
Cyd-noddwyd y digwyddiad gan Academi. Bu CREW ac Academi yn cydweithio’n ddiweddar ar lenyddiaeth amlieithog yng Nghymru.

Successful Writers’ Day at the Dylan Thomas Centre

2010-09-16T15:34:00.003+01:00

On Thursday 17 JUNE 2010 the creative writing departments of Swansea University and Trinity University College, Carmarthen, in conjunction with the Dragon Innovation Partnership, held a successful day of discussions and readings to a packed out audience at the Dylan Thomas Centre. This was the first time such an event had been held outside the university, and it provided a wonderful opportunity for students and the wider community of Swansea and Carmarthen to enjoy a day of discussion about writing and publishing, to learn more about the creative writing departments of both universities, and to meet with key figures in the industry. The event featured prominent names from the publishing industry in Wales, such as Dominic Williams from Parthian Books and Gwen Davies from Alcemi Press, as well as featuring top London agent Euan Thorneycroft from AM Heath, who talked eloquently about his role as an agent. The established poet and singer-songwriter Paul Henry also finished the day with a flourish, with a special music and poetry performance, followed by a book signing.

The organiser of the event, Dr. Fflur Dafydd of Swansea University said: “It really was wonderful to see the academic community and wider communities of Swansea and Carmarthen brought together by this event, and the audience was a wonderful combination of aspiring and published writers, book lovers and critics, as well as those interested in the more commercial side of publishing. Hopefully people will have made useful contacts during the day, which will help them make a start in the publishing business, and we hope to be able to run this as an annual event in future.”

The event was sponsored by the Dragon Innovation Partnership, and also featured key contributions from the staff of the creative writing departments of both universities – Professor Stevie Davies, Dr. Jeni Williams, Dr. Fflur Dafydd, and Nigel Jenkins –who talked about their own experiences of publishing in Wales and beyond.

Hay Poetry Jamboree 2: John Goodby's Report

2010-09-16T15:25:00.005+01:00

A big thanks from me and Lyndon Davies to all those who performed and turned up to the 2nd Hay-on-Wye Poetry Jamboree, 3-5th June.

Like last year, the good weather had a lot to do with the laid-back spirit and high turnout, but we like to think the varied programme played its part too. Those of you lucky enough to have caught it will have witnessed good sets from Rob Minhinnick and the legendary Peter Meilleur (Childe Roland) to kick things off, the latter ably supported by Sophie McKeand in his rendition of Ham & Jam and A Pearl (brilliantly manic rewritings of Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2 recently published by Hafan Press). Thereafter, things seemed to roll forward in a pretty glitch-free way, with the Friday afternoon session packed with good things from readings from Anthony Mellors (whose set included the immortal ‘Farley’s Rusks’ note from The Gordon Brown Sonnets), Keri Finlayson, and Scott Thurston (reading from Rooms and Internal Rhyme respectively – there were Shearsman-free zones in the Jam, but this wasn’t one of them). After the obligatory improving lecture (me, with ‘Undispellable lost dream’: Welsh modernist and avant-garde poetry’), we moved into top gear with a rousing evening double act of Messrs Halsey and Monk, Alan memorably reprising his time in Hay with the ‘Letters of Change & Exchange’ among others, and Geraldine planting her head firmly in the clouds with a wonderful rendition of the recently reissued Sky Scrapers.

As usual, the post-Jam session wind-downs took place in the garden of Church House in Talgarth, with food brought in – thanks to Chris and Debbie for premises and for the cooking – and plenty of yattering and drinking in the shade of David Greenslade’s yurt (and Georgetta’s devastating Romanian poitin), warming ourselves around a fire fed by slim Faber and Picador volumes, ho ho, as last year’s owl returned to whoo-whoo through the dusk from the trees bordering the stream at the bottom of the garden.

Saturday lived up to most of its promise, with a late morning set from Phil Maillard, Ric Hool and Richard Glyn, reading from his new book Sad Giraffe Café. Despite the news that Randolph Healy had crocked his back and was unable to make it, the rest of the international contingent, in the shape of Claudia Azzola, poet and editor of Traduzionetradizione, and the Italo-Franco-Belgian-Luxembourgeois Jean Portante, were present. Claudia had read on Friday afternoon, translated by Lyndon Davies, and Jean, translated by Zoe Skoulding, read in one of the Jam’s daytime highlights, the Saturday Poetry Wales session, which included contributions from Tilla Brading, Cris Paul, and Carol Watts. Ian Davidson, the Bangor poet, read some of his cool and thoughtful meditations on language, landscape and politics in a set that tempered the heat outside. The afternoon also featured the launch of the latest issue of Angel Exhaust, the long-awaited # 21 Each Aeon Free After the First One – The Welsh Underground special issue, with Andrew Duncan detailing the labours that have gone into the making of this epochal volume, such as the unearthing forgotten masters like Paul Evans and Philip Jenkins, and the commissioning of new material by the legendary-incendiary Aberystwyth trio of However Introduced to the Soles, Niall Quinn, Nick Macias and Nic Laight. By popular request (OK, organisers perogative) Samantha Wynn-Rhydderch was also back after her impressive reading the year before for a longer slot.

2010 was the year the Jam went multi-media. On Friday there had been a screening in the chapel next door of a slew of shorts organized by John, of Swansea’s Elysium Gallery; on Saturday it hosted the Quantum Brother’s nouvelle-vague-meets-Burroughs-meets-disco-and-dub Beginner’s Guide to Radial City. The Brothers’ thrillingly dystopian vision was followed by the materialization in the vestry of the performance artist Kath Ashill, clad in a silver dress, perched beside a table of cakes which, one by one, as we parted the curtains and entered, we were invited to feed her, by hand. (This gloriously sticky ill-by-mouth scenario would later require an antidote of vinegar-drenched chips as Kath lay outside recovering, but no matter; we’d all taken to heart the point she was making about intimacy and consumerism. Maybe.) All of which was a prelude to the culmination of the Jam in two mighty readings, by Elisabeth Bletsoe and Caroline Bergvall. After nuggets from Pharmocopoeia, Elisabeth blasted us with three of the Hardy heroines ventriloquised and earthed in her Landscape from a Dream, in a set so electrifying that at one point a nearby kettle started switching itself on and off. And, after the blue fire and thunder, Caroline’s rendition in cod Middle English of her modern versionings of The Canterbury Tales – The Wife of Bath lewd, thonged and hot to trot was just one of her personae – had us gasping at verbal dexterity that would have left Danny Kaye tongue-twisted. A suitably wry, witty, sensual, comic-cosmic performance to close the poetic proceedings.

After which it was time for the band – Chris Twigg and Chicken of the Woods (think a Bromsgrove bluegrass Tristan Tzara accompanied mandolin and double bass) – and Geraldine kicking away the furniture and getting everyone (OK, the girls anyway) for a Bacchantic fling, before departing to a final meal and drink back at Church House, Lyndon and me swearing we would never do it again / just had to do it again.

Photos are on the Jam website, and mine and Lyndon’s Facebook pages. Anyone who was there who wants to give us feedback, comments, curses, blessings, please do. Any photos, too, please share them with us.

A last thank-you to our sponsors – Academi, Susie W. for organising the 24-hour poetry marathon fundraiser, CREW (the Centre for Research into English Literature and Language in Wales, Swansea University), Chris Ozzard and his tremenjous Blast House support gig. And to all those who helped, too many names missed out here, but Geoff whose Oriel Gallery we used, Steve the Soundman, Penny Hallas for the magnificent art work adorning the walls, and the rest of you - you know who you are.

Peter Lord at Hay on Wye / Peter Lord yng Ngwyl y Gelli

2010-09-16T15:12:00.006+01:00

If the CREW blog has witnessed something of a summer hiatus, members of the centre have been very busy throughout the summer months. We’ll try and catch up with all that’s been going on in the next few entries, starting with our Research Fellow Peter Lord at the Hay Literary Festival. Peter introduced his award winning book The Meaning of Pictures to a packed audience.

The book was long listed for the prestigious Berger Prize for British Art History 2010.
The William Berger Prize for British Art History is awarded annually to a scholarly publication that demonstrates outstanding achievement in the field of British Art History. Awarded jointly by The British Art Journal and the Berger Collection Educational Trust, the Berger prize is recognized as the most prestigious award in its field. The Meaning of Pictures was also Longlisted for this year’s Academi Welsh Book of the Year.

Celebration of Writing

2010-06-11T16:08:00.003+01:00

A CELEBRATION OF WRITING AT THE DYLAN THOMAS CENTRE

THURSDAY 17 JUNE 2010

The creative writing departments of Swansea University and Trinity University College, Carmarthen, in conjunction with the Dragon Innovation Partnership, are hosting a one day event at the Dylan Thomas Centre to celebrate writing. The free event will include discussions, readings and an opportunity to meet key industry figures. There will be representation from Parthian Books (DominicWilliams) Alcemi Press (Gwen Davies) and a chance to hear top London agent Euan Thorneycroft from AM Heath talk about his role as an agent in the publishing business.

The poet and songwriter Paul Henry will perform his poetry and music and talk about his successful publishing history, and the staff of the creative writing departments of both universities – Professor StevieDavies, Dr JeniWilliams, Dr Fflur Dafydd, and Nigel Jenkins ‐ will talk about their own experiences as teachers and published authors. There will also be an opportunity to buy books and a chance to chat informally to contributors after each session. The programme for the day is available to view at http://www.academi.org/home/i/136772/

Sessions start from 10.15 am

This is a FREE event, and all are welcome, but in order to secure a place, please ring the Dylan Thomas Centreon 01792 463980

DIWRNOD AWDURON YNG NGHANOLFAN DYLAN THOMAS, ABERTAWE DYDD IAU, MEHEFIN 17AIN 2010 – MYNEDIAD AM DDIM

Ar ddydd Iau, Mehefin 17ain, fe fydd adrannau ysgrifennu creadigol Prifysgolion Abertawe a’r Drindod, mewn cydweithrediad gyda Partneriaeth Arloesi’r Ddraig, yn cynnal diwrnod o sgyrsiau llenyddol a darlleniadau. Fe fydd hyn yn gyfle i’r cyhoedd gael blas o’r hyn sy’n digwydd ar gyrsiau ysgrifennu y ddwy brifysgol, yn ogystal â bod yn gyfle gwerthfawr i glywed cyhoeddwyr ac awduron yn sgwrsio am eu profiadau yn y byd cyhoeddi. Fe fydd ‘na hefyd gyfle prin i glywed yr asiant Euan Thorneycroft o asiantaeth AM Heath yn Llundain, un o brif asiantaethau llenyddol Prydain, yn son am rôl yr asiant o fewn y byd cyhoeddi.

Fe fydd y rhaglen yn cynnwys sgwrs rhwng yr awdur Fflur Dafydd a’r golygydd Gwen Davies o wasg Alcemi, darlleniadau a pherfformiadau gan y bardd a’r cyfansoddwr Paul Henry, sgwrs gan Dominic Williams o wasg Parthian, ac ymddangosiadau gan yr awdur Stevie Davies a’r bardd Nigel Jenkins. Fe fydd ‘na gyfle hefyd i brynu llyfrau ac i sgwrsio’n anffurfiol gyda’r cyfranwyr rhwng sesiynau.

Mae’r digwyddiad yn rhad ac am ddim, ac ar agor i unrhyw un sydd â diddordeb mewn llenyddiaeth. Er mwyn sicrhau eich lle, rhowch ganiad i Ganolfan Dylan Thomas ar 01792 463980. Fe fydd y sesiwn gyntaf yn dechrau am 10.15y bore, ac mae’r amserlen lawn i’w gweld ar:
http://www.swan.ac.uk/news_centre/WhatsHappening/Headline,46759,en.php

Timetable / Amserlen
10.15 – 11.30 Fflur Dafydd and Gwen Davies
11.30 – 12.00 Coffee
12.00 – 1.15 Euan Thorneycroft from AM Heath with Stevie Davies
1.15 – 2.15 Lunch
2.15 – 3.30 Dominic Williams, Parthian
3.30 – 4.00 Coffee break
4.00 – 5.15 Paul Henry

The Second Hay Poetry Jamboree

2010-05-27T00:15:00.001+01:00

HAY POETRY JAMBOREE

JUNE 3rd - 5th, 2010

Oriel Contemporary Arts Gallery
Salem Chapel, Hay-on-Wye (near Kilvert’s Hotel)

June 3rd
6.30 - 7.30 p.m. Festival Launch Reception
7.30 – 9.15 p.m. CHILDE ROLAND (PETER NOËL MEILLEUR) and ROBERT MINHINNICK
Art Events: Ongoing Exhibition of Prints and Paintings by Penny Hallas and Stewart Macindoe

June 4th
11.00 – noon Word Cloud, with Susie Wild
2.00 - 4.00 p.m. Keri Finlayson, John Goodby, Anthony Mellors,
Claudia Azzola, Samantha Wynne Rhydderch, Scott Thurston
5.00 - 6.00 p.m. John Goodby, lecture: ‘Undispellable lost dream’:
reading Welsh alternative poetry.
7.30 - 9.15 p.m. GERALDINE MONK and ALAN HALSEY
Art Events: Noon onwards - Elysium Gallery Film Festival

June 5th
11.00 – noon Phil Maillard, Ric Hool, Richard Gwyn
2.00 - 6.00 p.m. Randolph Healy, Ian Davidson, Zoe Skoulding with
Poetry Wales, Jean Portante, Carol Watts.
7.30 - 9.15 p.m. ELISABETH BLETSOE and CAROLINE BERGVALL
9.30 - 10.30 p.m. Grande Finale - Chicken of the Woods
Art Events: Noon onwards - Films by The Quantum Brothers;
4.00 - 7.30 Performance by Kathryn Ashill

Entrance to 7.30 events £5 (Concessions £3).
All other events FREE

Three New Reviews

2010-05-25T10:54:00.006+01:00

Three new reviews have recently appeared on the 'Reviews' section of the CREW website:
http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/CREWReviews/

Eminent historian Prys Morgan reviews
Gower, by Nigel Jenkins

It isn’t easy to capture the essence of a region between the covers of a book, even one as compact as Gower, a kind of micro-Cornwall stretching west of Swansea, a peninsula about fifteen miles long and about five miles across. There have been several ‘Gower books’ over the years and the annual volumes of the journal Gower have been, for over fifty years, combining essays with photographs. This handsomely-produced volume consists of ten essays (one of them introductory) and ten poems by Nigel Jenkins, and about eighty seven colour photographs by David Pearl. This is not a topographical or antiquarian travelogue, and the pictures entirely avoid picture-postcard or calendar views. This is simply (or not so simply) two artistic reactions to Gower....
http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/CREWReviews/Gower/#d.en.46003

Sarah Coles, PhD studnet in Creative Writing at Swansea University reviews
Self-Portrait as Ruth, by Jasmine Donahaye

Jasmine Donahaye’s second poetry collection is a confrontation that leaves the reader bruised, exhausted and yet subtly seduced by the strong, female voice that sings here of the poet’s relationship with the Israel-Palestine conflict. It has been described as ‘erotic’ and yet the Eros that haunts each meticulously constructed poem is not one of pleasure, but of the cold mechanics of the genital... http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/CREWReviews/SelfPortraitasRuth/#d.en.45983

CREW's M. Wynn Thomas reviews
Dannie Abse: A Sourcebook, ed. Cary Archard

Not all writers, it seems to me, lend themselves to the ‘Sourcebook,’ or ‘Reader’ format. Dannie Abse, on the other hand, is a natural candidate for this kind of treatment. Over his long and distinguished career he has excelled in a variety of different forms (including plays), in most of which his writing has tended to be episodic in nature. Indeed it might even be argued that he is particularly well served by the ‘Sourcebook’ approach, because otherwise he would be liable to pay a high price for his fluent, subtle, quietly insinuating diversity: few would otherwise be sufficiently inward with his work as a whole to be able to appreciate the distinctively inflected yet faithfully integrated character of his multifaceted and variegated vision...
http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/CREWReviews/AbseSourcebook/#d.en.46453

Nicholas Royle Seminar

2010-05-11T13:22:00.003+01:00

While not directly related to Welsh Writing in English, this seminar may be of ineterest top many of our readers:

English Literature and Language Seminar Series Arts and Humanities Conference Room
Wednesday May 12
4pm

Professor Nicholas Royle, University of Sussex

‘Veerer: Reading Melville's "Bartleby"’

This paper forms part of Professor Royle’s forthcoming book Veering: A Theory of Literature (Edinburgh U.P.), and is focused in some detail on Herman Melville's extraordinary short story ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’. Nicholas Royle is Professor of English at the University of Sussex. He was formerly Reader in English Studies at the University of Stirling, Scotland (1992-9), and Associate Professor of English and American Literature at the University of Tampere, Finland (1989-92). He has published many essays and is author of numerous books, including: How to Read Shakespeare. London: Granta, 2005, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. Third edition. London and New York: Pearson, 2004. Co-author (with Andrew Bennett), Jacques Derrida. London and New York: Routledge, 2003, The Uncanny. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press/Routledge, 2003.

Cyfres Seminar yr Adran Saesneg

4:00

Ystafell Gynhadledd y Celfyddydau a'r Dyniaethau
Dydd Mercher 12 Mai

Yr Athro Nicholas Royle, Prifysgol Sussex

'Veerer: Melville Reading "Bartleby"'

Mae'r papur hwn yn deillio o lyfr arfaethedig yr Athro Royle, Veering: A Theory of Literature (Edinburgh UP), ac yn canolbwyntio yn fanwl ar stori fer ryfeddol Herman Melville 'Bartleby the Scrivener'. Mae Nicholas Royle yn Athro Saesneg ym Mhrifysgol Sussex. Yr oedd gynt Ddarllennydd mewn Astudiaethau Saesneg ym Mhrifysgol Stirling, yr Alban (1992-9), ac yn yr Adran Llenyddiaeth Saesneg ac Americanaidd ym Mhrifysgol Tampere, y Ffindir (1989-1992).

CREW at the AWWE Conference: Report

2010-04-29T17:43:00.006+01:00

The intrepid foursome set out from Swansea University on the awfully big adventure of their first taste of the annual Association of Welsh Writing in English conference at Gregynog. MA students Kieron Smith and Ed Spence, together with first year PhD researchers Charlotte Jackson and Liza Penn-Thomas, were heavily reliant upon satnav and a copious supply of Haribo to keep them on course. Braving the winding lanes and suicidal pheasants was well worth it as we drove up the lane to the impressive facade that our venue provided. Yet all of us took very little time to settle in to what could have been an intimidating experience. As Kieron says of the whole atmosphere at the conference, it was “friendly, welcoming and not too forbidding.”
Commencing the official itinerary with the long awaited launch of Slanderous Tongues in many ways set the tone for the days that would follow. Editor Daniel Williams explained that part of the projects initial objectives had been to include the work of the fresh young academics that were coming through into the field of Welsh Writing in English, at the time that the collection of essays was commissioned. As Daniel did point out, most of the contributors (and the editor himself) were by now slowly creeping into middle-age! The encouragement that established academics have so freely given to the newer and younger academics over the years could be seen in the thriving research community present in that room. And all of us CREW first timers were struck by how easy it was to find ourselves in conversation with the leaders in the field.

One such leading figure addressed us on Friday night as Dai Smith delivered the first keynote of the conference. His assertion, as series editor, that the Library of Wales was not a canon formation exercise was not a view with which we necessarily agreed. Though his explanation of the method used in choosing the texts for publication was enlightening and interesting. The following day’s speaker Jane Aaron directly equated the anthologising of writers and their works with a process of canon formation. This was a fascinating and entertaining paper tracking the erratic presence of female writers in the anthologies and compendiums of the last 10 decades. The downturn recorded in the ratio of women represented in the collections, since the 1970’s, was a surprising trend. Jane’s paper proved perhaps that the need for a female only press, as Honno is, still very much exists and, furthermore, that critical studies recognizing the valuable contributions of women to the field of Welsh Writing in English continue to be an essential area for research. This felt very much to me as if the speaker was passing on a baton to the younger generation of academics.

One of the most stimulating speakers came on Saturday. For Kieron the “Aftermath of Bertolt Schoene's paper on cosmopolitanism” was definitely the highlight of the conference. Schoene’s controversial ideas on the globalised future of cultural identity proved a unifying force in itself, as Ed explains “he seemed to unify the room into a canon of not agreeing with him”. Being the last speaker on Saturday evening ensured that the debate continued over dinner and beyond. Although Shoene’s ideas were hotly debated for their extremity, other speakers too challenged the definitions of what should constitute a canon of Welsh Writing in English and the way in which we relate to other canons. I was particularly struck by Kirsti Bohata’s paper which highlighted how texts vigorously engage with other writing genres, her example looking at representations of lesbian desire in Anglo-Welsh literature. On Sunday morning Geraint Evans proposed a whole new field of critical enquiry, under the working title of Cambrian writing, which could take under its wing writing about Wales by non-Welsh writers and in other languages apart from English and Welsh.
Both Charlotte and I found that one of the most useful aspects of the weekend were the discussions that followed our first papers at an AWWE conference. Both in terms of the skills we were given opportunity to exercise and the exchange of ideas and suggestions that help to inform our further research, our session was an uplifting end to an inspiring weekend. We look forward to continuing in Welsh Writing in English with excitement, as there are still so many excellent texts to study and new ways of looking at them to be explored. Most of all, there is a sense of community and co-operation within this field that was fully evident to us at this year’s annual conference. It is not a community in which we all necessarily agree with one another but rather where ideas can be expressed, debated and developed.

By Liza Penn-Thomas
Ably supported by Ed Spence, Kieron Smith and Charlotte Jackson.

Wales Book of the Year 2010 / Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2010

2010-04-22T11:03:00.007+01:00

Academi has announced its Longlist for this year’s Welsh Book of the Year and CREW (The Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales) is delighted to see its members and associates represented.

Peter Lord’s The Meaning of Pictures (University of Wales Press). Peter Lord is Research Fellow at CREW, and his The Meaning of Pictures has also been long listed for the prestigious Berger Prize for British Art History 2010.

Jamine Donahaye’s collection of poetry Self-Portrait as Ruth (Salt). Jasmine Donahaye completed her PhD with us, and is a CREW Research Associate.

Emyr Humphreys’s collection of short stories The Woman at the Window (Seren) is the third CREW presence on the list. Emyr Humphreys is one of three honorary patrons of CREW. This volume was assembled by Professor M. Wynn Thomas, Emyr Humphreys Research Chair at CREW.

The CREW presence on this year’s longlist builds on past successes. Profesor Dai Smith’s Raymond Williams: A Warrior’s Tale (Parthian) was Longlisted in 2009, and Daniel Williams’s Ethnicity and Cultural Authority (Edinburgh University Press) was Longlisted in 2007.

Mae sawl cyfrol gan aelodau CREW (Y Ganolfan Ymchwil i Lên ac Iaith Saesneg Cymru) wedi eu cynnwys ar restr hir llyfr y flwyddyn (iaith Saesneg) eleni. Mae cyfrol Peter Lord, The Meaning of Pictures (Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru) ar y rhestr, yn ogystol a chyfrol a farddoniaeth Jasmine Donahaye, Self-Portrait as Ruth (Salt). Mae Peter yn Gymrawd Ymchwil yn CREW, ac fe gwblhaodd Jasmine ei doethuraieth ar berthynas y Cymry a’r Iddewon gyda ni. Hefyd ar y rhestr mae cyfrol o storiau byrion gan Emyr Humphreys, The Woman at the Window (Seren). Casglwyd y straeon yma at ei gilydd ar gais Emyr Humphreys gan yr Athro M. Wynn Thomas, deiliad Cadair Emyr Humphreys yn CREW.

http://www.academi.org/the-long-list/

Gay Pride and Prejudice Since Devolution

2010-04-21T01:52:00.004+01:00

The next seminar in the Richard Burton Centre’s series on ‘The State of the Nation: Ten Years Since Devolution’ will be delivered by author and gay rights activist John Sam Jones.

‘A Welcome in the Hillside? Gay Pride and Prejudice Since Devolution’.

Monday 26 April 4pm
Arts and Humanities Conference Room, James Callaghan Building.

John Sam Jones writes about the lives of gay men in Wales - how they interact with their families, their culture and religious institutions, and how they explore sexuality in situations where prejudice is often all pervasive. He has been politically active with Stonewall for more than a decade and is currently a board member of Stonewall Cymru. He has worked as a hospital and prison chaplain, a public health specialist in sexual health and is currently the Schools Adviser for Personal and Social Education in Denbighshire. He lives with his Civil Partner, two dogs and a cat in a magnificent Victorian villa overlooking the Mawddach estuary.

Parthian Books have published two collections of John’s short stories: Welsh Boys Too (2000), which won an Honour Book Award from the American Library Association in 2002, and Fishboys of Vernazza (2003), which was long listed for Welsh book of the year. The Gay Men’s Press published John’s first novel, With Angels and Furies, in 2005. His semi-autobiographical Crawling Through Thorns was published by Parthian in 2008.

Yr awdur ac ymgyrchydd dros hawliau hoyw, John Sam Jones, fydd yn cyflwyno’r semiar nesaf yng nghyfres ‘Cyflwr y Genedl’. Traddodir y ddarlith yn Saesneg.
Dydd Llun, 26 Ebrill, 4pm
Ystafell Gynadledda, Adeilad James Callagahan
Croeso i bawb!

Slanderous Tongues

2010-03-24T18:45:00.003Z

“It’s been a long time coming / But Slanderous Tongues is gonna come” this Friday at the Association of Welsh Writing in English Conference in Gregynog. Aretha Franklin could have had this volume in mind when she sang:

“Sometimes I had to cry all night long /
Sometimes I had to give up right / For what I knew was wrong /
Yes it’s been an uphill journey/ It’s sure been a long way comin’”

But the volume, edited by CREW's Daniel Williams, is here now. Published by Seren, Slanderous Tongues is made up of engaging, thematic chapters, exploring the field of Welsh poetry in English since 1970 through the prisms of tradition, nationhood, gender, class, comparative studies (American and Irish), translation, formal experimentation, and ethnicity. It includes essays by Hywel Dix, Jasmine Donahaye, Jo Furber, Tudur Hallam, Matthew Jarvis, Nicholas Jones, Daniel Williams and Nerys Willams.

Professor Helen Vendler of Harvard University had this to say about the volume in her report for Seren press:

“The explosive nature of Welsh literature is present everywhere in Slanderous Tongues, as the authors reflect on the tensions between languages, between cultures, between an ardent nationalism and its isolationist twin, between an inherited tradition and the modern world, between a male canon and female expression, between a local point of view and a global one, between the individual’s right of self-expression and the culture’s critique of that selfhood, and between the avant-garde and poetic convention. The eight essays, each one different in orientation, not only provide recent ways to map the development of modern Welsh poetry in English but also raise - and raise intensely - questions about literary culture in general, applicable to poetries beyond that of Wales. Conscious of scholars in Welsh culture who have preceded them, from Raymond Williams to M. Wynn Thomas, they exemplify a welcome sobriety in their approach to such critical matters as nationalism, bilingual translation, American influence, and the place of immigrants in a literature hitherto composed principally by the Welsh-born. This enlivening collection will alert readers to the ferment of imagination and language generating an array of new voices in Welsh poetry in English.”

http://www.seren-books.com/books/p/2156/

Research Seminar: Alan Rice

2010-03-02T12:01:00.004Z

PAUL ROBESON SEMINAR SERIES IN AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES / SEMINARAU PAUL ROBESON

Dr Alan Rice

Reader in American Cultural Studies, University of Central Lancashire

“Ghostly Presences and the Histories they Unfold: Utopia and Dystopia in the African Atlantic Vistas of Ellen Gallagher’s Bird in Hand”

4pm Wednesday 3rd March, 2010
KH 216

Abstract: The African Atlantic visual artist Ellen Gallagher has created in her signature canvas Bird in Hand (2006) perhaps the most stunning visual depiction of the black Atlantic to be created since Paul Gilroy’s seminal text. This paper will discuss the way the painting interprets multiple chronologies and geographies as it exhibits historical wounded memory whilst seeking redemption in a futuristic Aquatopia made possible by the imaginative leap of Drexciya. This idea, developed musically in Detroit techno, that the dead babies of pregnant women thrown overboard during the middle passage lived to form new mutant sea creatures that survived to build a new civilization enables Gallagher the imaginative scope to create her visual new world order. The paper explicates the way that whilst talking of this futuristic Utopia, she does not lose sight of the middle passage realities that created it or of the commodification of black bodies that has accompanied diasporan Africans since the ending of the slave trade. Using the works (amongst others) of Edouard Glissant, Marcus Rediker, Ian Baucom, Kobena Mercer and Avery Gordon, this paper explores and explicates the wonders of Gallagher’s Utopian vision created in response to the Dystopian realities of slavery and racism.

Mae’r arlunydd Ellen Gallagher wedi creu yn ei chynfas Bird in Hand (2006) y darluniad gweledol mwyaf syfrdanol, o bosib, o’r 'Atlantig Du' ers cyfrol arloesol Paul Gilroy. Gan ddefnyddio gweithiau Edouard Glissant, Marcus Rediker, Ian Baucom, Kobena Mercer ac Avery Gordon (ymhlith eraill), mae’r papur hwn yn archwilio ac yn egluro rhyfeddodau Iwtopia Gallagher a grëwyd mewn ymateb i wirioneddau Dystopaidd caethwasiaeth a hiliaeth.

White Ravens, Owen Sheers

2010-03-01T16:08:00.002Z

The first of the New Stories from the Mabinogion series is reviewed on the CREW Reviews website.

"In the first line of the introduction to Seren’s 'New Stories from the Mabinogion', Penny Thomas legitimately suggests that “some stories, it seems, just keep on going.” Although the series editor then goes on to painfully romanticise such stories as being “a whistle in the reeds, a bird’s song in your ear”, the opening eight words of this introduction are enough to suggest why Seren have commissioned this series. There is evidently a market for the modern retelling of ancient myths, as Canongate’s recent sequence has shown, .... " Read more

Dathlu / Celebrating Fflur Dafydd

2010-02-23T14:25:00.004Z

Cafodd llwyddiant Dr. Fflur Dafydd yn Eisteddfod Genedlaethol y Bala ei ddathlu mewn noson arbennig ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe.

Mae Fflur yn ddarlithydd yn Adran Saesneg y Brifysgol a hi oedd enillydd Gwobr Daniel Owen 2009, am ei nofel Y Llyfrgell. Yn ogystal â bod yn nofelydd ac academydd, mae Fflur Dafydd hefyd yn adnabyddus yng Nghymru fel cantores a chyfansoddwraig.

Yn arwain y teyrngedau roedd yr Is-ganghellor, yr Athro Richard B. Davies, y Dirprwy Is-ganghellor yr Athro Iwan Davies a’r Athro Stevie Davies, Cyfarwyddwr ysgrifennu creadigol yn yr Adran Saesneg. Yn y digwyddiad fe fu Fflur Dafydd hefyd yn darllen rhan o’i nofel fuddugol ac fe fu ’r Athro John Rowlands, un o feirniaid Gwobr Daniel Owen 2009, yn trafod y nofel a’i chyfraniad i lenyddiaeth Gymraeg.

Soniodd yr Athro Rowlands mai dyma oedd un o’r nofelau gorau erioed i ennill Gwobr Daniel Owen a bod Fflur gyda’r awduron mwyaf cyffrous a dawnus yng Nghymru heddiw.
Wrth dalu teyrnged i lwyddiant Fflur fe bwysleisiodd yr Is-ganghellor, yr Athro Richard B. Davies bwysigrwydd rôl y Gymraeg ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe, gan ddweud ei bod yn nodwedd neilltuol o’i delwedd ryngwladol.

Cadeiriwyd y noson gan gyfarwyddwr CREW, Daniel Williams, a cafodd y noson ei chloi gan Dr Tudur Hallam o Adran y Gymraeg a gyfansoddodd gywydd i gyfarch Fflur.

Dr.Fflur Dafydd’s recent success at the National Eisteddfod has been marked in an official celebration at Swansea University.

Fflur Dafydd is a lecturer in the English department and won the Daniel Owen prize 2009, for her novel Y Llyfrgell (The Library). As well as being a writer and academic, Fflur Dafydd is also a well-known in Wales as a singer and song-writer.

The tributes were led by Vice-chancellor, Professor Richard B. Davies, Deputy Vice-chancellor, Professor Iwan Davies and Professor Stevie Davies, director of the creative writing programme in the department of English. At the event Fflur Dafydd read extracts from the winning novel and Prof. John Rowlands, one of the judges of the Daniel Owen prize 2009, discussed the novel and Fflur’s contribution to Welsh literature.

Prof. Rowlands said that the novel has been hailed as one of the best ever to win the Daniel Owen Prize and that Fflur is one of Wales’ most interesting and talented writers.
Paying tribute to Fflur’s success the Vice-chancellor, Professor Richard B. Davies, emphasized the importance of the Welsh language’s role at Swansea University, stressing that the language is a vital and remarkable feature of the University’s international image.

The evening was chaired by Daniel Williams of CREW, and Dr Tudur Hallam from the Welsh department brought proceedings to a fitting end by performing a a “cywydd”(Welsh strict metre poem) especially composed for Fflur.

CREW Seminar: Ian Gregson

2010-02-16T16:30:00.003Z

Professor Ian Gregson (Prifysgol Bangor University):

‘Writing the Poetic Sequence

Ystafell / Room 216, Adeilad Keir Hardie Building

Dydd Mercher / Wednesday 17th February, 4.00 pm

Ian will be speaking as a practitioner as well as an academic. Ian is a poet and a lecturer in English at the University of Wales, Bangor. He lectures on 19th and 20th Century Poetry, American Literature, Contemporary Literature, The Short Story and Creative Writing. In 1981 he received a Gregory Award for his poetry, which has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, and the London Review of Books amongst others. He has also reviewed poetry for a wide range of journals.

Croeso i bawb! / All welcome!

AWWE Annual Conference 2010

2010-02-03T16:49:00.006Z

CREW's Dai Smith is among the keynote speakers at this year's annual AWWE conference.

Canons and Canon-Building: Framing the Literatures of Wales

26th-28th March 2010, Gregynog Hall

Do we need a canon of Welsh writing in English? What might be at stake in the choices made during the establishment of such a canon? The business, meanings and politics of post-devolution canon-formation will be the focus of the 22nd annual conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English at Gregynog Hall in Powys, Wales, UK from March 26–28, 2010.

This conference will examine the question of canonicity and its complex connections with issues of nationality, gender, class, race and sexuality in a Welsh context. The establishment of Welsh writing in English as an area of serious literary critical study, itself barely a generation old, has coincided with the recovery of other bodies of neglected writing by marginalised writers. Such recovery work, however, has involved the radical questioning of literary value judgements and the recognition of the social, economic, political and cultural influences which make any canon a fabricated construct.

Now just over a decade after Welsh devolution, the republication of out-of-print texts can still be seen as a political necessity in making available a literary heritage which has been neglected and forgotten and which contributes to a sense of national identity. Such republication offers exciting possibilities to literary criticism. But who should be included and on what grounds? What are the risks and tensions involved in the enterprise of canon-building and how might we negotiate them?

Click here for further details.

Research Seminar with CREW PhD students

2010-01-27T14:01:00.004Z

The first of this term’s CREW research seminars takes place on Wednesday, January 27th at 4pm in Kier Hardie Room 216.

Gareth Evans
'Always observant and slightly obscure': Lynette Roberts and ethnographic practise

Sarah Morse
"But Aberfan Was Different": Reading Ron Berry's Flame and Slag as a a reaction to the Aberfan disaster'.

Appointment of Professor Patrick McGuinness as Honorary Professor.

2010-01-27T13:54:00.001Z

CREW is delighted to be able to report that the University of Swansea has confirmed the attachment of Patrick McGuinness to the Centre as Honorary Professor.

Patrick is Professor of French at Oxford (St Ann’s College), and is an internationally renowned specialist in French modernist culture and literature, as well as in the poetry of the French Symbolists. However, he also has a deep and longstanding personal interest in the English-language literature of Wales, and has recently established a reputation as one of the leading scholars of the poetry of the remarkable Welsh Argentinean late modernist writer Lynette Roberts. Patrick has edited both her poetry and her journals, and recently co-organized (with CREW) a highly successful conference at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea, to celebrate the centenary of her birth.

Patrick is also an award-winning poet, whose first collection was nominated in Wales for the Roland Mathias Prize.

He has enjoyed a very fruitful informal working relationship with CREW over the past few years. The new formal relationship enabled by his appointment as Honorary Professor should allow Patrick’s valuable collaboration with CREW to develop in very interesting and rewarding ways.

CREW Christmas Do

2010-01-22T09:53:00.006Z

To celebrate the end of term - and Christmas - the CREW postgraduates decided to have a refined office party. The catering skills of the students were exploited to provide enough food to keep us happy for a few days (dipslacement activity is a wonderful thing) and the wine, quotation board, Spotify, Gareth and Daniel kept us entertained.

The board offered a pin-the-tale-on -the-donkey style game as people tried to identify the origins of the quotations, and some of the guests uncannily managed to guess their own, obtuse, utterances.

We also managed to set up a live-satellite link to Cimla,to talk to Rhian who was confined with Swine Flu, who enlightened us with her usual brilliant observations.

Needless to say, it was the 4 occupants of the CREW postgrad office who were the last to leave that evening.

[More pictures to follow]

CREW in Polish

2009-12-18T00:36:00.003Z

Polish literary magazine, Literatura na Swiecie, has just put out a special Welsh edition. Included are works by CREW's M. Wynn Thomas and John Goodby. Gwyneth Lewis, Peter Finch, Gillian Clarke, Robert Minhinnick and Niall Griffiths are among the many other writers featured.

Review 3. Amy Dillwyn, A Burglary

2009-11-27T11:58:00.002Z

A Burglary or, 'Unconscious Influence' by Amy Dillwyn
Edited with a new introduction by Alison Favre (Honno, 2009), pp. vii-xix, 350, £10.99.

Reviewed by David Painting.

Twenty years ago the Swansea author Amy Dillwyn was known, if at all, as a rather eccentric Grand Old Lady still remembered for her mannish clothes and for smoking cigars. When her biography appeared in 1987 a fuller portrait emerged of a splendidly clever woman who openly defied Victorian convention, ran a major industry virtually single handed and, incidentally, published several forgotten but very readable novels.

Until quite recently few readers have had any opportunity of finding out just how readable her fiction might be, but now thanks to the pioneering Honno Classics series we have seen attractive reprints of two of Dillwyn’s early novels with the possibility of more to follow. The first The Rebecca Rioter (1880) has already been well received and we now have A Burglary or, ‘Unconscious Influence’ first published in three volumes in 1883 and newly introduced with a perceptive and stimulating essay by Alison Favre.

To read the complete review CLICK HERE

Review 2. Jack Jones, Black Parade

2009-11-27T11:50:00.005Z

Black Parade, by Jack Jones
Parthian, 2009. Library of Wales series. Pp xiv, 414. £8.99

Reviewed by Daryl Leeworthy, Swansea Univeristy.

Few periods in Welsh history can compete with the interwar years in either historical intensity or their proletarian writings. The trauma of unemployment and economic depression prompted several of the most famous examples of Welsh writing in English. Lewis Jones’s twin novels Cwmardy (1937) and We Live (1939), Jack Jones’s Rhondda Roundabout (1934), and Gwyn Jones’s Times Like These (1936) all resonate with the temperament of the period. They are all overshadowed by Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley (1939) in popularity of course but a case can be made for Black Parade (1935) as being the far more accurate and representative novel of the Valleys and their tumultuous history.

The novel is set in Jones’s native Merthyr; as the talisman of industrial South Wales the setting emphasises the blurring of fiction and fact that so marks Welsh novels of the thirties. Indeed, the novel, throughout, introduces us to historical characters – A. J. Cook, the miner’s leader; Wal Hannington, the Communist activist and writer; Lloyd George, Keir Hardie, and D. A. Thomas all get a mention – all of which underscores the realism that shoots through the story.

To read the full review CLICK HERE

CREW Reviews 1. Diane Green, Emyr Humphreys: A Postcolonial Novelist?

2009-11-25T21:45:00.008Z

CREW's new initiative, an online review of books, aims to publish high-quality reviews of English language fiction and non-fiction commissioned from postgraduates, academics and the wider literary/artistic community. We hope these will serve to promote the vibrancy and currency of the academic and literary culture of Wales. For further information see: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/CREWReviews/

Emyr Humphreys: A Postcolonial Novelist, by Diane Green
University of Wales Press, 2009. pp. 290 £19.99. CREW series of Critical and Scholarly Studies, 'Writing Wales in English'. General Editor: M. Wynn Thomas.

Reviewed by Steve Hendon, Cardiff University

Twenty years ago, Bill Ashcroft, a cultural theorist in the vanguard of postcolonial studies, observed that ‘above all, the post-colonial is a discourse of place.’ Diane Green’s book provides material evidence that Emyr Humphreys was aware of this idea many years earlier. She sustains a convincing argument for one of the ‘defining figures’ of Welsh Writing in English in the last fifty years to be examined in postcolonial terms, both in respect of Wales in a period that is post-colonization, and through postcolonial methods that read across literary and cultural boundaries.

To read the full review on the CREW website CLICK HERE

Kathryn Gray@CREW

2009-11-20T15:49:00.003Z

Kathryn Gray, poet and editor of New Welsh Review, will be guest at our Postgraduate Discussion Group on Monday, November 23rd. This will take place in Kier Hardie Room 241 at 3pm.

At 4pm on the same day Simon Brooks of the Welsh Department, Cardiff University, delivers the Richard Burton Centre's 'State of the Nation' lecture on the Welsh Language and Multiculturalism in the Arts and Humanities Conference Room.

Lynette Roberts Conference Report

2009-11-05T14:14:00.004Z

Professor M. Wynn Thomas writes:
A conference to mark the centenary of the birth of the remarkable late-Modernist poet Lynette Roberts was held on Saturday, October 31. A refreshing feature of attendance was its mixed nature – professional and lay, Welsh and English, postgraduates and published scholars, young and not-so-young. Particularly notable was the presence of one or two who remembered Roberts, in her later years, cutting an exotic figure in Llanybri and Carmarthen, dressed in colours as vivid as her extraordinary poetry.

The group of invited speakers, organized by Professor Patrick McGuinness of St Ann’s College, Oxford (who co-hosted the conference along with CREW), addressed many different aspects of Roberts’ work. Both her debts to Welsh culture (including her interest in the Welsh school of anthropologists during the thirties) and her place as a significant cosmopolitan figure in the late resurgence of Modernist styles were fully explored. A highlight was Patrick’s concluding interview with Roberts’s daughter, Angharad Rhys, who amused the audience by recalling that the family regularly received gifts from both Robert Graves and T. S. Eliot. ‘Eliot’s presents,’ she recalled to general incredulity, ‘were better. Graves made his own presents – toffee, fudge, that kind of thing. But Eliot gave useful, sensible presents, like money or something like a bike.’ Events were rounded off by a memorable evening of readings by contemporary poets – Menna Elfyn, John Goodby and Nigel Jenkins – and from Roberts’ own work by Margot Morgan.

The event was deemed a notable success, and such was the quality of the papers read that Patrick McGuinness hopes to ensure that they assume permanent form in print. Warm thanks are due to Dave and Jo, at the Dylan Thomas Centre, and for Fliss Wagstaff, who provided excellent support on the day. Without them, there would have been no celebration event and thus no opportunity for celebrating the success of a landmark conference.

Afterword: As we go to press, a copy of this week's Times Literary Supplement lands on my desk.

Seminarau Paul Robeson Seminars: Year 2

2009-11-05T14:02:00.005Z

This year's series of Robeson Seminars in African American Studies have already begun.

Further information from
Rachel Farebrother, r.l.farebrother@swansea.ac.uk
or
Daniel Williams, daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk

School of Arts and Humanities
Paul Robeson Seminar Series in African American Studies

Seminars are held in the Arts and Humanities Conference Room, Basement Floor, James Callaghan Building, unless otherwise stated.
All welcome.

Monday 19 October at 4.00 pm
Dr Rachel Farebrother (Swansea University)
‘India in The Crisis’

Wednesday 11 November at 1.00 pm
Dr Andrew Warnes (University of Leeds)
‘Jitterbugging and Barbecue: Some Notes on the Impact of African-American Culture in Australia, 1943-5’
(Note change of venue: Keir Hardie 230)

Monday 30 November at 4.00 pm
‘Race to the Bottom’
(reading group on Obama a year on)

Lynette Roberts Conference

2009-10-27T14:09:00.004Z

2009 is the centenary of the birth of Lynette Roberts (1909-1995), the modernist war poet who produced her most important work in West Wales.

Organized jointly by CREW and Patrick McGuinness of St Anne’s College, Oxford, the conference opens on Friday 30th with a showing of the recent BBC4 film about her, in the company of writer and presenter Owen Sheers, and ends on Saturday 31st with a poetry reading by poets from Wales and beyond.

Conference speakers will include Deryn Rees-Jones, Patrick McGuinness, Stella Halkyard, John Goodby, Charles Mundye, Zoe Skoulding and the poets will be Deryn Rees-Jones, Menna Elfyn and Nigel Jenkins. Angharad Rhys, Lynette's daughter, will talk about her mother's life, and there will be an exhibition of photographs, books and papers from the Lynette Roberts family archive.

The price is £15. £10 for students.

Full details here: http://www.swan.ac.uk/CREW/Conferences/LynetteRoberts/

More information is available from Professor Patrick McGuinness, St Anne's College, University of Oxford, OX26HS (patrick.mcguinness@st-annes.ox.ac.uk).
Registration is with the Dylan Thomas Centre on 01792 463980

Symposium Report: Raymond Williams, Wales and Japan

2009-10-20T14:19:00.007+01:00

The symposium on Raymond Williams in Transit: Wales – Japan took place on Friday 16th October, and proved to be a very stimulating event. Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at Swansea University, Noel Thompson, opened proceedings by evoking the cultural tradition within Marxist thought, with its roots in Marx's 1844 manuscripts and its most influential formulations appearing in the works of Ruskin and Morris, and later, Raymond Williams himself. Chris Williams offered a fascinating comparative account of Welsh and Japanese coalfield societies, with the main areas of difference being the relative absence of independent trade unionism in Japan, and the nature of post-industrial depopulation in the two nations. M. Wynn Thomas, who chaired the morning’s proceedings, suggested during the lively ensuing discussion that cultural factors seemed to be the determining elements in the form taken by industrialisation in different contexts. Shintaro Kono’s paper centred on an illuminating comparison between Raymond Williams and the Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume. Drawing on Williams’s theorisation of the relationship between the country and the city, Shintaro explored the impact of modernity on Japan, and the forms of cultural inferiority and resistance that the ‘Westernising’ process of modernity had on Japanese society. Williams’s notion of the ‘double vision’ that resulted from the movement from the country to the city offered a highly productive model for comparative literary study.

Takashi Onuki’s paper on the process of translating Raymond Williams, concentred refreshingly on Williams’s writings on drama, particularly his early Drama in Performance, and minor masterpiece, Modern Tragedy. Takashi explored the multiple meanings of the word ‘action’ in Japanese, and used that exploration as a basis for discussing the many uses of ‘action’ in Williams’s own criticism, while drawing for comparison on the works of Brecht and Hannah Arendt. Gwenno Ffrancon explored the role of Wales in the imaging of industrial society in contemporary Japanese animator Miayzaki’s film ‘Laputa: Castle in the Sky’. Miayzaki’s visit to Wales during the 1984-5 miner’s strike influenced his own political orientation, and was used by Gwenno as a basis for comparing the animation industries in Wales and Japan.

It was a delight and privilege to have welcomed Shintaro Kono and Takashi Onuki to Swansea, and it is confidently hoped that further collaborations will develop from this event.

Shintaro Kono's account of the visit in Japanese (with pictures) can be accessed here:

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/shintak/

The State of Welsh Writing in English

2009-10-20T14:04:00.006+01:00

YouTube viewers of the discussion between Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou and Cornel West, would have enjoyed the session on ‘The State of Anglophone Literature’ which took place on Monday October 12th and featured M. Wynn Thomas, John Goodby and Daniel Williams. Wynn discussed the publishing scene in Wales in the years after devolution and focused on the role of the Welsh Books Council. While there is much to celebrate in relation to the publishing scene in Wales today, the economic crisis will have an effect in coming years and the absence of Welsh writing in English in our schools continues to be a major area of concern. Wynn lamented our apparent inability to develop a discourse sufficient to argue the case for liberal arts in an age dominated by the language of business and economics. Daniel Williams looked at some contemporary trends in literary criticism, and while welcoming comparative, transnational approaches, suggested that the danger is that we overlook cultural distinctiveness. He suggested that the challenge for critics of Welsh writing in English is to resist the tendency to apply theories from above, but to develop theories that allow us to explore the burden, the privilege, and specificities of biculturalism.
John Goodby argued that the process of canonising Welsh Writing in English in recent years had functioned to exclude the most valuable poetic tradition of all – that of experimental poetry with its roots in the modernism of David Jones, Lynette Roberts and Dylan Thomas, and which continues today in the works of writers such as Peter Finch, John James, Wendy Mulford and Childe Roland. Several of John’s most recent initiatives are aimed to bring this tradition from the margin to the centre of our field of study.

The session, chaired by Kirsti Bohata, was the first of ‘The State of the Nation’ series, arranged by Jonathan Bradbury for the Richard Burton Centre. The next session will be on October 26th when Professor Kevin Morgan of Cardiff University will explore ‘Devolution’s Dividends’.

CREW goes Digital

2009-10-19T09:22:00.018+01:00

CREW recently co-organised the annual Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA) conference along with Queen's University, Belfast and the Digital Humanities Observatory (DHO), Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. CREW was also working in partnership with the National Library of Wales (NLW) which provided generous financial support.

DRHA 2009 took place in September, in an unusually sunny Belfast. Because of the organisers' Welsh-Irish background there was a particularly strong 'Celtic' flavour to the conference. One of the keynote speakers was Andrew Green, the Librarian of the NLW. NLW was an early practitioner and advocate of digitisation and remains at the cutting edge of digital technology and policy. Appropriately enough, Andrew Green talked about the future of digitisation in a world post-google and speculating on the perhaps more sinister side of 'big digitisation' by commercial companies. The full text of his talk is available here.

Queen's Keith Lilley presented on Mapping Medieval Chester (a project led by Swansea's Catherine Clarke). Dafydd Johnston and Alexander Roberts gave a talk on the Dafydd ap Gwilym digital edition which was created at Swansea.

Not only did Lyn Lewis Dafydd (NLW) give a cutting-edge paper on metadata, he also treated a packed lecture hall to a performance of the 18th century ballad, 'Mochyn Du' - an unexpected and memorable way of presenting the Welsh Ballads project . Culturenet Cymru, Lampeter and Cardiff also contributed (a full programme is still up on the conference website).

The DHO emerged from the conference as the true, if financially endangered, heroes of the digital humanities scene under the formidable and inspiring leadership of Susan Schreibman. As Jane Ohlmeyer, our final keynote, passionately and persuasively argued: what we need in the Digital Humanities is a sustainable infrastructure supported by a national policy, delivering a trusted digital repository and ensuring digital content can be accessed and shared beyond individual digital silos.

Wales, with it's particular educational, cultural and political institutions, seems extremely well placed to develop such an infrastructure. Watch this space.

Some rather dark conference pictures: James Cummings and Hugh Denard; Susan Schreibman introducing Jane Ohlmeyer and Marie Wallace; Kirsti Bohata indulging in a well-earned drink; poster and drinks reception in the Great Hall, Queen's.

Raymond Williams, Wales and Japan / RW, Cymru a Siapan

2009-09-26T01:14:00.010+01:00

On Friday October 16th, 2009, CREW with the support of the Richard Burton Centre for Welsh Studies and JSPS/MEXT Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research will host a one day symposium on Raymond Williams, Wales and Japan.

Following on from the success of the biography by Professor Dai Smith (Raymond Williams Research Chair at CREW), and last year’s conference celebrating 50 years of of ‘Culture and Society', this one day symposium draws on Williams’s work for comparative analyses of Wales and Japan from two eminent Welsh academics, and hears of Williams’s influence on contemporary Japanese cultural thought from two Japanese cultural critics associated with the leading journal Eigo Seinen (The Rising Generation).

The speakers are:

Shintaro Kono, Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Commerce and Management, Hitotsubashi University. Co-translator of Eqbal Ahmad's Confronting Empire, Fredric Jameson's Cultural Turn, Edward W. Said's Power, Politics, Culture and Culture and Resistance into Japanese.

Chris Williams, Director, Richard Burton Centre. Professor Williams is currently completing Portrait of a British Town: Newport Society in 1851, to be published by the University of Wales Press. He is also working on The Victorians and the Alps and a pocket-guide to the mountains of Wales, and is co-editor of two volumes of the Gwent County History.

Takashi Onuki, Associate Professor of Kushiro Public University of Economics. Has published articles on David Hare, David Edgar, Arnold Wesker, as well as Raymond Williams, and is co-translator of Eqbal Ahmad’s Confronting Empire and Edward W. Said’s Reflections on Exile and Other Essays.

Gwenno Ffrancon, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, Swansea University Main research interests are imaging Wales, Scotland and Ireland on screen; film and television in Wales; the history of film in Britain and America during its Golden Age and the careers of some of Wales’ foremost actors including Emlyn Williams, Hugh Griffith, Rachel Thomas, Richard Burton, Rachel Roberts and Siân Phillips. Cyfaredd y Cysgodion, was nominated for the long short list of the Academi Book of the Year Competition for 2004–5. She is currently researching a biography of Swansea-born actress Rachel Thomas.

A programme can be downloaded from the CREW website:
http://www.swan.ac.uk/CREW/Conferences/

For further information contact the organiser, Dr. Daniel Williams: daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk

Ar ddydd Gwener, Hydref 16eg, 2009, bydd CREW, gyda chefnogaeth Canolfan Richard Burton a ‘JSPS/MEXT Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research’, yn cynnal cynhadledd undydd ar Raymond Williams, Cymru a Siapan. Yn dilyn llwyddiant bywgraffiad yr Athro Dai Smith, a’r gynhadledd y llynedd fu’n dathlu hanner canmlwyddiant y gyfrol Culture and Society, bydd y gynhadledd undydd hon yn cynnwys cyfraniadau gan ddau o academyddion blaenllaw Cymru, yn ogystal â chlywed am ddylanwad Williams ar feirniadaeth ddiwylliannol gyfoes Siapan gan ddau academydd o'r wlad, sy’n gysylltiedig â’r cyfnodolyn Eigo Seinen (Y Genhedlaeth sy’n Codi).

Y siaradwyr fydd:
Shintaro Kono, Athro Cynorthwyol yn Ysgol Ol-Raddedig Masnach a Rheolaeth, Prifysgol Hitotsubashi. Cyd-gyfieithydd Eqbal Ahmad, Confronting Empire, Fredric Jameson, Cultural Turn a Edward W. Said Power, Politics, Culture a Culture and Resistance.

Chris Williams, Cyfarwyddwr Canolfan Richard Burton. Mae’r Athro Williams wrthi’n cwblhau Portrait of a British Town: Newport Society in 1851, a fydd yn cael ei gyhoeddi gan Wasg Prifysgol Cymru. Mae e hefyd yn gweithio ar The Victorians and the Alps a chyfrol boced ar fynyddoedd Cymru, ac mae’n gyd-olygydd dwy gyfrol o Hanes Gwent.

Takashi Onuki, Athro Cysylltiol â Phrifysgol Gyhoeddus Economeg Kushiro. Mae e wedi cyhoeddi erthyglau ar David Hare, David Edgar, Arnold Wesker, yn ogystal â Raymond Williams, ac mae’n gyd-gyfeithydd Eqbal Ahmad, Confronting Empire a Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays.

Gwenno Ffrancon, Uwch ddarlithydd yn yr adran cyfathrebu a chyfyngau, Prifysgol Abertawe. Ei phrif feysydd ymchwil yw delweddu Cymru, yr Alban ac Iwerddon ar sgrin, ffilm a theledu yng Nghymru; hanes ffilm ym Mhrydain ac America yn ystod ei Hoes Aur a gyrfaoedd rhai o actorion mwyaf blaenllaw Cymru gan gynnwys Emlyn Williams, Hugh Griffith, Rachel Thomas, Richard Burton, Rachel Roberts a Siân Phillips. Cafodd Cyfaredd y Cysgodion, ei enwebu ar gyfer rhestr hir Cystadleuaeth Llyfr y Flwyddyn yr Academi 2004-5. Ar hyn o bryd mae hi’n ymchwilio bywgraffiad o’r actors o Abertawe Rachel Thomas.

Gellir lawrlwytho rhaglen o wefan CREW: http://www.swan.ac.uk/CREW/Conferences/
Am wybodaeth bellach cysylltwch â’r trefnydd, Dr. Daniel Williams: daniel.g.williams@abertawe.ac.uk

The Meaning of Pictures

2009-09-03T10:21:00.002+01:00

The latest publication to emerge from CREW is Peter Lord’s handsome volume The Meaning of Pictures (University of Wales Press).

Over the last twenty years, Peter Lord has revolutionised understanding of the visual art of Wales by drawing attention to the rich tradition of ‘artisanal art’ (usually mistakenly termed ‘folk art’). This is the remarkable body of nineteenth-century work produced by the usually itinerant artists, lacking formal academic training, who produced images of the rural minor gentry and bourgeoisie, in the process creating a composite image of ‘Nonconformist Wales.’ As Peter Lord emphasises in this new study, American paintings in this genre came to be very highly valued in the United States during the twentieth century. A museum of folk art containing images and artefacts in this artisanal tradition now stands next to MOMA at the very heart of New York, and any new paintings that appear in the salesrooms are likely to command astonishing prices. However, Wales had almost completely ignored this heritage under Peter Lord began to unearth it, and his resultant claims for its cultural importance generated a huge controversy in establishment fine art circles that continues to resonate to the present day.

Peter Lord includes in this new volume a gripping account of his epic struggles to ensure a fair ‘viewing’ for Welsh artisanal art in Wales, and in the process reflects ironically on the recent example of a Welsh artisanal painting sold in New York for an astonishing sum. But the book also includes many important additions to Peter’s imposing corpus of studies of individual artisanal images and figures, thus deepening our appreciation of Wales’ visual heritage.

Polish Translation of M. Wynn Thomas's Work

2009-09-01T11:24:00.003+01:00

A forthcoming issue of the prestigious Polish journal, Literatura na Swiecie, will be dedicated to contemporary Welsh writing. The first major presentation of contemporary English-language Welsh literature in Poland will include excerpts from Gwyneth Lewis, Gillian Clarke, R.S.Thomas, Robert Minhinnick, John Sam Jones, Niall Griffths, and others.

It will also feature two essays of literary criticism by M. Wynn Thomas: "Hidden Attachments" (from his book Corresponding Cultures) and, co-authored with Jane Aaron, "Pulling You Through Changes. Welsh Writing in English Before Between and After Two Referenda" from Welsh Writing in English which Thomas also edited.

http://www.literaturanaswiecie.art.pl/english.htm

Dr Karen Karbeiner's Visit

2009-08-21T13:27:00.004+01:00

M. Wynn Thomas writes:

On one of the rare gorgeously sunny day we've enjoyed this dismal summer, I had the the pleasure of the company of Dr Karen Karbiener, a Whitman specialist from New York University, on a trip to Dylan Thomas country. At Cwmdonkin Drive she was enchanted when we were unexpectedly approached by an immensely friendly gentleman whose family turned out to have occupied the birthplace immediately following the departure of the Thomas clan. As for the Boathouse visit, it brought to her mind the photograph of Whitman that Thomas had pinned to the wall of his writing shed.

Dr. Karbeiner's Blog: http://karbiener.lookingforwhitman.org/

Hay Poetry Jamboree: John Goodby Reports...

2009-06-25T14:05:00.005+01:00

The first Hay Poetry Jamboree (28 MAY – 30 MAY 2009) organised by John Goodby and Lyndon Davies, and supported by Swansea University School of Art /CREW, the Dylan Thomas Centre, Library of Wales and Academi, took place at the Oriel Gallery in Hay-on-Wye on 28th—30th May. It was made possible by the generosity of Geoff Evans, Oriel’s owner, who allowed free use of the gallery (a listed seventeenth-century building with Victorian chapel attached), and of the artist-poet Christopher Twigg, who bravely allowed his home at Church House, Talgarth, to serve as a dormitory-cum-junketing centre and yurt-pitching zone for many of the poets and performers.

Buoyed by such gifts and sponsorship, plus much goodwill, the Jamboree ran as an unsolemn antidote to the ‘High Street poetry’, as Ric Caddell once called it, on offer at the official Hay Festival of Literature. Rather than blandly glittering prizes and commercialist razzmatazz, the event showcased five leading Welsh poets in the experimental tradition of David Jones, Dylan Thomas and Lynette Roberts—that tradition which, while it tends to be neglected, is Wales’s most important contribution to twentieth century literature.

Electrifying performances by Peter Finch and Boiled String on Thursday evening, got proceedings under way in appropriate style. They were followed, at Friday’s main event, by a memorable reading from her latest collection, The Land Between, by Wendy Mulford, and by John James, whose set included striking new ‘sonnet’ pieces and powerful elegies for Barry MacSweeney and Andrew Crozier. Chris Torrance and David Greenslade brought the poetic proceedings to a close in a packed and lively final session on Saturday evening, after which discussions went on far into the night in Church House’s owl-haunted, river-run garden, over much Romanian potín and seventeen meals from the local Chinese takeaway.
Between the three keynote readings came two rapid-fire mini poetry-fests, on Friday and Saturday, featuring a further dozen poets, among them Samantha Rhydderch, Graham Hartill and Chris Ozzard. There were also two academic lectures, by Alice Entwistle (University of Glamorgan) on Welsh women’s experimental poetry, and Matthew Jarvis (the Antony Dyson Fellow at Lampeter University) on Wales’s alternative poetries. There were many other memorable highlights and portents: among them the blackbird which entered the gallery and took part in proceedings on Friday afternoon, Messrs Harthill and Ozzard’s shamanic / shambolic attempts to conjure up a Cabaret 246 member last sighted in 1993, and John James’s prediction that the Hay Jam would become the new CCCP (the Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry). These aside, glorious weather played its part in the high attendance throughout the three days, as did the postgrad CREW horde, which hit on Hay on Saturday to push attendance up to the fifty mark. But the turnout, and the general buzz around the events, was a reflection above all of the current revival of innovative poetry going on in Wales.

Over the last few years, this revival has shown itself in many and varied ways—in the poetry lists of Parthian, Salt and Shearsman, the Glasfryn seminar series, and the hospitality to experiment of Poetry Wales under Zoe Skoulding, for example. In this sense, the Hay Jam belonged to a broader movement, although its success could not have been predicted. And, while almost no-one from poetry officialdom attended it, its grassroots success makes a repeat highly likely. If that does happen, the organisers have gone on record as saying that they will relish the challenging proximity to Britain’s largest literary festival, and attempt once again to champion their belief that versified anecdote is one thing, but a real poetry of the present invariably involves risk, discussions under the stars, yurts, strong spirits, and the dislocation of language into fresh meaning.

Past Students 1: Mary Tickel

2009-06-25T13:55:00.005+01:00

We're delighetd to hear from past students who tell us that the CREW blog helps them keep in touch with our activities. Anyone who'd like to tell us a bit about what they're up to now are welcome to send us a post. We'll kick off with this very welcome picture and message from Mary Tickel in Tennessee.

"I studied at Swansea in 2003-2004 as an undergraduate exchange student from the University of Tennessee. In Swansea I studied Welsh Writing in English and also Beginner's Welsh. After returning to the United States, I continued studying for a degree in Literature. I graduated in 2006.

I have since earned a Masters of Science in Information Sciences. This is an academic way of saying that (among other things) I have librarian training. My first love is literature and I am an "information junkie". I've combined the two interests with Information Sciences courses. For example, I took classes in Childrens' and Young Adults' Literature and Resources. Through my training, I not only help people find the information they want and need. Now I can also claim that being a Harry Potter enthusiast is an important part of my job.

For the past academic year, I have been working in a theological library as part of my student work hours. This second Masters is for Theological Studies. The theological school has a small campus. However, we have many students from various ethnic and national backgrounds. In addition, living in New York State (the American North) is a bit of a culture shock for someone who has lived in Tennessee (the American South) for most of her life. I credit my year in Swansea (including the Border Studies covered in the Welsh Writing in English course) with helping me prepare for this new experience. My current courses include Church History, Patristics, the New Testament or the Old Testament (depending on the academic term) and Liturgics. Part of the degree requirement is for candidates to write a 40-60 page thesis. So how do I bring my interests, academic background, and training into the project? By writing about Harry Potter, of course.

Hay Poetry Jamboree:

2009-05-26T09:40:00.002+01:00

HAY POETRY JAMBOREE:

Celebrating the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellows

2009-05-19T23:03:00.011+01:00

Ten years ago, the Department of English was approached by the Royal Literary Fund with the proposal that a partnership be formed that would allow the RLF to place a Writing Fellow in the department whose responsibility would be to help develop the basic language and writing skills of students right across the University campus. This proposal was warmly embraced by the Department, so that Swansea became one of the half-dozen universities to pilot a scheme that has, by now, been extended to almost 100 HE institutions across the UK.

The first Fellow to be appointed under this new scheme was Sally Roberts Jones, who ensured it got off to an excellent start. Her groundbreaking efforts enabled Stevie Davies, the next Fellow, to consolidate and develop the scheme quite dramatically, so that it became acknowledged by the RLF as a model for all other partner HE to emulate. With the arrival of Lucy English and Roger Garfitt the scheme took on other dimensions and further increased its impact, so that when Sally Roberts Jones returned, in partnership with Menna Elfyn, the scheme seemed at times in danger of becoming overwhelmed by campus-wide demands. In autumn, 2009, Jo Mazelis will succeed the retiring Sally to ensure, in partnership with Menna, that this invaluable service continues to flourish.

To celebrate the RLF-Swansea University partnership, a special event, hosted by the Vice-Chancellor, was held in the university’s Council Room on April 23, and attended by some 30 invited guests. In welcoming everyone to the gathering, Professor Richard Davies paid very warm tribute to the work the RLF had done at Swansea over ten years, and emphasised how vitally important the service it had providing had become. In thanking everyone who had been involved in the management of the scheme, he paid particular tribute to Sally Roberts Jones, who was presented, by way of acknowledgement, with two handsome presents to mark her retirement after the best part of a decade’s association with the RLF in the Swansea area. The first was an early edition of a Winnie-the-Pooh book – the RLF scheme is underpinned money from the A. A. Milne estate . The second was a beautiful limited edition of The Book of Ruth, published by the internationally renowned small press, Gwasg Gregynog. Both gifts were presented to Sally by Steve Cook, the initiator of the RLF scheme who had managed it with such notable deftness throughout the first decade of its life

Emyr Humphreys@90

2009-05-19T22:56:00.007+01:00

He published his first novel in 1948 and is still going strong more than sixty years later…. Emyr Humphreys, author of more than twenty novels (including the outstanding Outside the House of Baal), poet, cultural analyst and distinguished man of letters, celebrated his ninetieth birthday in late April. To mark the occasion, on Monday April 20th, over fifty of Wales’s leading writers and intellectuals gathered at an event at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, to celebrate his remarkable contribution to Welsh culture. Tributes were paid by a number of figures, and particularly memorable were the clips of film shown of Emyr Humphreys’s work for television. These included a scene from a fifties production of Saunders Lewis’s great Welsh-language play, Siwan. Emyr Humphreys had both translated it into English and directed the actual production, that featured the handsome young Peter O’Toole (looking like a Fifties Rocker) and Sian Phillips in all her striking youthful beauty. (Contributors to the celebratory event also recalled that early in the sixties, Emyr Humphreys had been instrumental in providing the young Anthony Hopkins with his first big break on the stage – a service Humphreys had earlier performed for another Port Talbot product, Richard Jenkins/ Burton.) Another clip of film had been taken from Emyr Humphreys’s notable fifties film version of R. S. Thomas’s great poem, The Airy Tomb.

The climax of this ninetieth birthday event was the launch of two books. The first, published by Seren, was The Woman at the Window, a brand new collection of stories by Emyr Humphreys. The second, published by Gwasg Gregynog, was a handsome special edition of anthologies from Emyr Humphreys’ writings, entitled Welsh Time.

Having been edited by M. Wynn Thomas, this last volume represented another link between the Abertystwyth celebrations and CREW. Other strong links already existed, since Emyr Humphreys is an Honorary Patron of CREW and a longtime Honorary Fellow of Swansea University.

After the Conference 3: the photos

2009-04-09T13:57:00.005+01:00

Keynote 2: Prof. Susan Manning

Panel 1: Ireland and Wales; Claire Connolly, Laura Wainwright and Katie Gramich (Chair: Kirsti Bohata)

Panel 3a Comparative Identities: Jasmine Donahaye, Steve Hendon, Gareth Evans, (Chair: Daniel Williams)

Curry night

Childe Roland's Shearwater Oratario (feat. Daniel Williams, Elin Ifan and Mike Elfed Williams)

Panel 4a: New Approaches to Margiad Evans. Claire Flay, Diana Wallace and Michelle Deininger Smith

(Chair: Kirsti Bohata)

After the Conference 2: Three Poets

2009-04-06T11:15:00.006+01:00

Dr. Matthew Jarvis, Anthony Dyson Fellow in Poetry at the University of Wales, Lampeter, kindly agreed to write a report on the poetry reading that took place on the evening of March 28th.

Three Poets at Gregynog

The recent Association for Welsh Writing in English conference at Gregynog – organized by CREW’s Daniel Williams and Sarah Morse – brought together three poets for Saturday night’s after-dinner slot. First up was Jasmine Donahaye who seems due to follow in the footsteps of Pascale Petit as one of Wales’s most distinctive contemporary poetic voices. Donahaye’s first volume, Misappropriations (2006), was short-listed for the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Award, and the controlled emotional impact of her plain language work – so significantly indebted to American traditions – made the reasons for that nomination abundantly clear. What’s so good about Donahaye is that, alongside a significant aesthetic, her work also has a compelling central core of subject matter and imagery, emerging from the troubled politics of the Israel-Palestine situation. Her accentuated, pulsing reading manner created an almost-hypnotic aura in the room, and the crowd listened in an unsurprisingly hushed fashion. I await her second collection, Self-Portrait as Ruth (due imminently from Salt), with considerable interest.

Donahaye was followed by Childe Roland – pen-name of Peter Noël Meilleur, the French-Canadian concrete poet who moved to Wales in 1979 and who has been, as Nigel Jenkins indicated to me, pretty much ignored by the poetry establishment here ever since. A bad mistake, in my opinion. Roland has a near-perfect ear for poetic sound, as the second piece he performed (‘Jones, the Poem’) made obvious. It should give some sense of his impact that this poem was greeted by a spontaneous burst of applause. And the crowd’s laughter peppered the performance as a whole, because it’s clearly the case that poetry is considerably to do with ready wit and sheer linguistic fun for this particular writer. But perhaps the highlight of Roland’s set was his ‘Shearwater Oratorio’, which tracks the journey of the Manx Shearwater from Argentina to Bardsey Island and which draws on a Morse-code ‘translation’ of the bird’s cry. Performed by Roland and three audience members – including a rather surprised Daniel Williams, who was told he was taking part just before the performance started – this is a rich and intriguing work, which weaves together English and Cymraeg phrasing. In fact, linguistic pluralism seems to be a feature of Roland’s work; his first poem of the evening, ‘Bardsey Island’, reappeared a little later in French and then in Cymraeg. If you’ve never read any of Roland’s work, you can find both ‘Jones, the Poem’ and ‘Shearwater Oratorio’ here, and if you haven’t heard him perform, there’s a recording attached to this useful essay about him. On the basis of what we heard in this session at least, Roland is an abundant and joyous poetic talent who I’d be delighted to have as a future National Poet of Wales. Petition, anyone?

The final reader was CREW’s Nigel Jenkins, a significant presence on the Welsh scene since the late 1970s and thus the best known of the three – and (like Donahaye) also a speaker from earlier in the day, when he’d revisited his work on Welsh missionaries in the Khasi hills of north-east India. For me, the highlights of Jenkins’s reading were his rumbustious piece ‘The Creation’ (from 1998’s Ambush) and a selection of the punctuation poems from his 2006 volume Hotel Gwales. In a brief moment of conversation with me afterwards, Jenkins modestly dismissed ‘The Creation’ as little more than a joke in poetic form. (For anyone who doesn’t know it, the premise of the poem is that God creates a Wales so abundantly full of natural beauty and wealth that the Archangel Gabriel asks the Almighty if he hasn’t rather overdone it – to which the divine reply of the cutting final line is ‘Not if you look at the neighbours I’ve made ’em’.) Well, a joke it may be, but ‘The Creation’ is a great performance piece – just like the small dramas of those punctuation poems – as the crowd’s enthusiastic response made clear. And of course, the whole set was also a showcase for Jenkins’s richly resonant bass, which must be one of the best reading voices around. As a rather eminent member of the audience said to me afterwards, somewhat wistfully, ‘I want a voice like that when I grow up’. Me too.

You may just get the sense from my comments here that I enjoyed this particular event. And you’d be right. This was as good a poetry reading as you could hope for, and the three poets in question – each quite different – worked together extremely well. To be frank, I hope they team up again, because it was an unusually good combination: passionate seriousness, sonic vivacity, and sharp wit. Anyone out there thinking about setting up a reading really should get on the phone and try to book them all, post-haste.

After the Conference 1

2009-04-06T11:05:00.003+01:00

The Spaces of Comparison Conference (see posts below for details) proved to be a resoundig success. A report will follow, but we'll begin the post-conference posts with an 'instant poem' written during the conference by poet Sally Roberts Jones. Sally Roberts Jones's collections include Turning Away (1969), Sons and Brothers (1977), and Relative Values (1985). She has for many been been a Royal Literary Fellow at Swansea University, and a postgraduate at CREW.

Conference

The rustle of paper denotes our serious attention.
Words are bisected, symbols uncovered – the wind
Whistles outside, but here the air is unchanging,
Our minds tightly focused…

You might think we are here for a murder
Killing that we may dissect…
But no, we are miners,
Searching the hidden levels, the tell-tale fault
lines
Till they open in sudden wonder
To a seam of pure gold.

Gregynog 28/3/2009

John Goodby Wins!

2009-03-25T10:12:00.004Z

CREW's John Goodby has won first prize in the inaugural New Welsh Review/ Aberystwyth University Poetry Prize competition 2009. Author and judge, Philip Gross presented John Goodby with the £200 prize for his poem '21st October 1966' at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre Bookshop on 12th March. John Goodby's poem focuses on 21st October 1966, the day of the Aberfan disaster, when 144 people, 116 of them children were killed when a tip of coal waste slid onto the village of Aberfan in South Wales.

John said: ""The poem began as a look at the search for links between Birmingham, where I was born and grew up, and Wales, where I've lived for the past fifteen years. I wanted to challenge the obsession many poets have with parading roots and belonging: asserting an identity intensely is too often seen as guaranteeing a good poem, when usually it means the opposite. I began with 'Birmingham Welsh' (along the lines of 'London Welsh') as a mild subversion of that obsession, and of the notion that often accompanies it, namely that if you derive from a place like Birmingham, with an unglamorous accent rather than its own language, and a history of moderate prosperity rather than of deprivation and oppression, your identity isn't worth as much (and so, according to the logic of essentialism, you can't write poetry either). For me, all places of origin are equally valid, though not validating, as subjects for poetry. But although the links the speaker offers are a kind of clutching at straws, constructed and inauthentic, he finds that they begin to coalesce around the black hole of memories of the Aberfan disaster. The poem's syntax starts to become unstable and fluid, like the frightful tip itself. The earlier attempt to force links now becomes its opposite, a teary fusion in which the excess is a kind of elegiac tribute. Nor can the speaker tell if this is a true memory or not: is he remembering the events because he wants to will the link; is his memory real, but a response learned from his teachers; is it genuine? I don't know if it's possible to decide, but I hope the ambiguities enlarge the reader's sense of the subject by suggesting that the acts of mourning and commemoration are often made both for selfish and generous reasons, at one and the same time, and by exploring what happens to language when we attempt to imagine the unimaginable or represent the unrepresentable."

21st October 1966

They followed their stolen water for miles, the Birmingham
Welsh. Why not? It swelled Rough Road’s green, square hill
to which it flowed 86 miles without being pumped,
through tunnels and pipes from the mountains of mid-Wales
the plaque said, and so should flow from their taps too, from Huw’s
and Glyn’s in Endhill, whose Dad carved lovespoons for hiraeth,
as from our own. And it is a little Wales I increasingly
gaze down on through the years’ glassed depths, the pain-
ful, jewelled beauty of a carboy garden, chalk-dust on desks,
endlessly repeated ms, beans in moist jam-jars, their horrid
roots preternaturally distinct, as if engraved. I over-
look it all, now, the crown of Bandywood Crescent—beeches,
wheeling rooks, a vertigo of clouds—and Kingsland Road
School, clear as some immaculately submerged valley, as their
escape by the book from mine and furnace to the fervour
impressed on our soft inland minds is clear now, cast into relief
by exile. Mrs Scott, thick-lipped, throaty, fierce, invokes
her father’s hen-coops above Merthyr; Mr Thomas grins
slowly, childless, his limp glib falling yet again, his plimsol
for what we called a pump half-heartedly falling, unlike
dark-jowled, beastly Mr Williams’s expert welting
action; his beer-and-Woodbines breath a bardic tenor
hoarse over stud-stamped wastes. Is that his string vest, or
an elaborate, blurring retrospect? And how, so far away, to see
the hymn-book bound in green anyway, a green hill
so far away it is black, under which three boys sat on the play-
ground wall, it was recalled, before the tremor minutes
after morning prayers; as we were opening desks and books
as well, monitors still at tasks then, milk from the gate trembling
in steel crates to classes ignorant of the pulsing well-
spring of the tip, our big clock, too, twitching to nine-
seventeen, hands telling of the gravity of time, of a hill water
moves as water moves to a hill, unbearable as love, as reservoirs
filled like our heads with hurt bent in dark rows next day, salt
tears we shed learnt from them also, or do I imagine all of this?

Portraits and Stories from Multi-Ethnic Wales

2009-03-12T12:04:00.005Z

On Wednesday 18th March, at 4.15 pm in Keir Hardie 152, Glenn Jordan will present a CREW Research Seminar on “Mothers and Daughters: Portraits and Stories from Multi-Ethnic Wales”.

Glenn Jordan is Reader in the Cultural Studies in the Cardiff Centre for Creative and Cultural Industries; and Founding Director of Butetown History & Arts Centre (BHAC), a community archive, gallery and educational centre in Cardiff docklands. He teaches cultural theory, cultural policy and photography. Born in Sacramento, California, he was educated at Stanford University and the University of Illinois. Prior to coming to Cardiff in 1987, he was Assistant Director of the Afro-American Studies and Research Program at the University of Illinois. He is currently working on Race (Routledge), Birth of the Black Subject (Blackwell) and a textbook entitled Our World War Two: A Multi-ethnic Community Remembers (BHAC). In 2007 he delivered a memorable keynote address on the African American sociologist and anthropologist St. Clair Drake at the CREW conference 'Transatlantic Exchange'

Emyr Humphreys Chair of Welsh Writing in English

2009-02-18T16:04:00.005Z

Swansea University has announced that it has created the Emyr Humphreys Chair of Welsh Writing in English. It is named in honour of Wales’s greatest novelist and leading man of letters who will celebrate his ninetieth birthday in April. Emyr Humphreys is an Honorary Fellow of the University and (along with Seamus Heaney and Gillian Clarke) an Honorary Research Fellow of CREW, the Centre for Research into the English language literature of Wales.

The holder of the chair will be Professor M. Wynn Thomas, who currently holds a Personal Chair in the Department of English. It recognizes that, additional to his international reputation as a scholar of American poetry, Professor Thomas has been a longtime pioneer in the study of Wales’ English-language literary culture.

Professor Thomas said: ‘This is a landmark development, and wonderful recognition of CREW’s work. It is the realization of a longstanding dream of mine, and I am deeply grateful not only to the University for conferring this honour but to Emyr Humphreys for allowing us to grace the Chair with his name.’

Y mae Prifysgol Abertawe wedi cyhoeddi ei bod yn sefydlu Cadair Emyr Humphreys yn Llên Saesneg Cymru. Y mae’r teitl yn cydnabod cyfraniad enfawr Emyr Humphreys, prif nofelydd Cymru, i ddiwylliant ei genedl ac y mae’n cyd-daro â dathliad ei benblwydd yn naw deg ym mis Ebrill. Mae Emyr Humphreys eisoes yn Gymrawd er Anrhydedd ym Mhrifysgol Abertawe a hefyd, ar y cyd â Gillianc Clarke a Seamus Heaney, yn CREW (Canolfan Ymchwil i Lên ac Iaith Saesneg Cymru) yn y brifysgol honno.

Deiliad y gadair fydd yr Athro M. Wynn Thomas, sy’n arbenigwr yn llên Saesneg Cymru yn ogystal ag ym marddoniaeth y Taleithiau.

Dywedodd yr Athro Thomas: ‘Y mae hwn yn gam arloesol, ac yn dyst o bwysigrwydd y gwaith y mae CREW yn ei wneud. O’m rhan i, y mae’n benllanw ymdrech oes i sicrhau’r gydnabyddiaeth sefydliadol honno. Rwyf yn hynod ddiolchgar i’r Brifysgol am y fath anrhydedd, ac i Emyr Humphreys am ganiatau i’w enw gael ei ddefnyddio yn y cyswllt arbennig hwn.

Wednesday: Patrick McGuinness on Lynette Roberts

2009-02-16T14:51:00.005Z

This Wednesday, 18th Februaury, at 4.15 in Kier Hardie 216, Professor Patrick McGuiness will present a paper on 'Lynette Roberts's Poetic Transpositions'

“Lynette Roberts (1909-1995) was one of the most original and exciting poets of her time. Her two collections Poems and Gods with Stainless Ears were published by T S Eliot along with Robert Graves an early supporter of her work. Roberts writes an extraordinary English, full of unusual words and images drawn from myth and technology. Yet for all its verbal and imagisitic energy, its mythical and futuristic conception and its epic dimension, Roberts’s poetry is unique in describing, also, the domestic life of women in wartime.”

Patrick McGuinness is Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Sir Win and Lady Bischoff Fellow in French at St Anne’s College, Oxford. He has published widely on subjects from French decadence to contemporary American poetry. He is himself a published poet (with two volumes from Carcanet) and is the editor of Lynette Roberts, Collected Poems (Carcanet 2005). Currently a Leverhulme Research fellow, he is writing a book French poetry and politics from 1871-1914, one on Thom Gunn and another on Lynette Roberts’ modernist poetry.

'Spaces of Comparison' Programme

2009-02-13T11:03:00.004Z

The programme for the CREW organised Association for Welsh Writing in English Annual Conference 'Spaces of Comparison: Welsh Writing in English in Comparative Contexts' is now downloadable online. Things will inevitavbly change slightly by the time the conference happens, but it promises to be a great event with keynote papers by international leaders in the field of Comparative Literature and Art, poetry readings, the launch of a groundbreaking journal issue, and a whole range of papers delivered by leading figures in the field of Welsh literature and by a new generation of scholars presenting their innovative work for the first time. If you're interested in literature, in Wales, in criticism, and in lively debate, make sure you register! Both the programme and registration form are downloadable here:

http://www.swansea.ac.uk/english/awwe/AnnualConference/

Paul Robeson Seminars: Semester 2

2009-02-11T23:54:00.003Z

After a very successful first semester of Paul Robeson Seminars in African American Studies, Semester 2 is already underway. It seems a long time ago that we kicked off at a packed Callaghan Lecture Theatre with Professor Jon Roper prophesying an Obama victory. Rachel Farebrother (American Studies) and Daniel Williams (CREW) invite you to attend the following sessions, 1pm - 2pm in the James Callaghan Conference Room.

Wednesday 4 February
Reading Group: Excerpts from George Hutchinson, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White, and Houston A. Baker, Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes poems.
Organiser: Rachel Farebrother

Wednesday 18 February
Dr Mark Whalan, Department of English, Exeter University
The Great War and the Culture of the New Negro

Wednesday 4 March
Jen Wilson, Women in Jazz, Swansea
African American Music in Nineteenth Century Wales

Wednesday 18 March
Ieuan Williams, American Studies, Swansea University
Jazz and 1950s America

Margiad Evans Centenary Conference

2009-02-05T14:30:00.010Z

"Florence Morgan was close on sixty, had never done anything much amiss in her life that people knew of, and yet she was like Satan inside."

Margiad Evans, 'The Wicked Woman', The Old and the Young (1948)

Margiad Evans is best known for her border writing and Country Dance (1932) in particular, but she was also an extraordinary short-story writer, novelist, autobiographer and poet.

CREW is organising a one-day conference to celebrate and explore the achievements of this extraordinary writer. The day will feature lectures by Dr Katie Gramich (Cardiff University), Dr Clare Morgan (Oxford University), Dr Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan (Biographer of Margiad Evans) and CREW's Director, Dr Daniel Williams.

The event is for all readers of Margiad Evans's work, as well as students and researchers.

Tickets can be booked through the National Library of Wales box office, and further information is available from k.bohata@swansea.ac.uk

www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/MargiadEvans

Spaces of Comparison Conference

2009-01-05T13:59:00.003Z

The focus of the twenty-first annual conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English at Gregynog Hall in Powys, Wales, UK from March 27 – 29th, 2009 will be ‘Spaces of Comparison: Welsh Writing in English in Comparative Contexts’. In recent years ‘postnationalism’, ‘transnationalism’ and the ‘transatlantic’ have become influential paradigms in a variety of academic fields. This conference aims to explore the applicability of these concepts to Welsh writing in English. Is it time that we moved beyond the ideological and political requirements of the nation state? Or does ‘Wales’ remain a politically fragile entity that needs to be continually reimagined and reinforced by literary texts? What other peoples, nations and literatures may shed light on the histories and literatures of the Welsh people? Panel papers of a broadly theoretical nature are welcome, as well as papers that compare the literatures of Wales, that place Welsh writing within European and Transatlantic contexts, and that relate comparative approaches to colonial, postcolonial and global contexts.

Keynote Speakers:
Our three keynote speakers are pre-eminent figures in the field of comparative cultural studies. Peter Lord's work will address Wales directly, while Professors Susan Manning (Edinburgh) and Marc Shell (Harvard) are leading figures in the fields of transatlantic and comparative literatures respectively.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Papers are invited on any aspect of the theme ‘Spaces of Comparison: Welsh Writing in English in Comparative Contexts.’ Both short papers (c. 20 minutes) or longer ones (c. 50 minutes) will be considered; a brief abstract should be submitted to the organizer for consideration by the deadline of January 14th, 2009. Organizer: Dr. Daniel Williams, CREW, Department of English, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP. daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk
Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

- Celtic comparisons: Ireland, Scotland, Brittany.
- Welsh Writing in English in relation to English literature in England
- Welsh writing in English and Breton writing in French and other cases of a ‘minority’ literature in a ‘majority’ language.
- Wales and India – from William Jones through Alun Lewis to Desmond Barry
- Wales and the United States.
- Ethnic Modernisms in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Harlem, Scandinavia etc.
- Comparative approaches to Gender, Ethnicity or Nationalism
- The making of Black Welsh, or Afro-Welsh, identities.
- The concept of diaspora.
- Marxisms / Nationalisms / Feminisms / Religious Traditions.
- Translation.
- Comparisons across genres: literature in relation to music, art, architecture.
- Theoretical papers exploring the validity of comparative and transatlantic models in relation to minority literary studies.

Organizers:
CREW (Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales) , Swansea University
Dr. Daniel Williams, CREW, Department of English, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP. daniel.g.williams@swansea.ac.uk
Sarah Morse, c/o Dr. Daniel Williams, CREW, Department of English, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP. sarahmorse@gmail.com

An Afternoon CREW Tea

2008-12-29T16:12:00.006Z

To mark the end of a busy term, CREW hosted an afternoon of cakes and wine for its current cohort of students; a CREW tea rather than cream tea if you will (though we did overlook Welsh cakes and Bara Brith in favour of carrot cake, chocolate mascarpone muffins and chocolate, banana and peanut butter cupcake, and of course, mince pies).

The afternoon gave old hands and new a chance to meet one another, talk about their interests in Welsh Writing in English, and how perhaps we should try to persuade Only Men Aloud to stage a benefit concert for CREW PhD students as surely our cake-baking skills (second only to our writing and research skills of course) could surely fulfill any rider requests.

Winifred Coombe Tennant - A Life Through Art

2008-12-08T09:21:00.004Z

An exhibition of works from the collection of Winifred Coombe Tennant, one of Wales' most significant art patrons of the twentieth century comes to Swansea.

The exhibition is curated by Peter Lord, renowned art historian and Research Fellow at CREW. It includes works by Evan Walters, Kyffin Williams, Gwen John and John Elwyn from both private and public collections.

This touring exhibition by the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth is at the Glyn Vivian Art Gallery 13 December 2008 - 15 February 2009.

There is an interesting article with some pictures on the BBC website written to mark the arrival of the exhibition at the National Gallery of Wales in the summer.

The picture here is by Evan Walters, Mother and Babe, 1919, oil on canvass, private collection.

The Art of Conversation

2008-12-03T15:43:00.003Z

On the December 1^stedition of Radio 3’s flagship arts programme ‘Night Waves’, Daniel Williams discussed Dylan Thomas's radio play The Art of Conversation, with radio drama and documentary maker Piers Plowright and presenter Matthew Sweet. Found by Thomas's biographer Andrew Lycett among a sheaf of papers, the play is a short piece of wartime propaganda, taking as its theme the decline of conversation. It also features 'contributions' from the likes of Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and Dr Johnson, frequently reminding listeners that 'careless talk costs lives'. You can listen again this week at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fr8h0

The play itself will be broadcast on Radio 4 at 11.30 am, December 3rd.

Raymond Williams study is Archbishop of Canterbury's "biography of the year"

2008-12-01T13:41:00.005Z

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has selected a Swansea researcher's study of Raymond Williams as his biography of the year.

Professor Dai Smith holds the Raymond Williams Chair in Cultural History at Swansea University's Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales (CREW), which is based in the School of Arts. He published Raymond Williams: A Warrior's Tale in May 2008.

Following excellent reviews, he now joins authors Barack Obama, Martin Amis and Stefan Zweig on the 2008 Times Literary Supplement (TLS) Books of the Year list.

Writing in the TLS on Wednesday 26 November, The Archbishop of Canterbury describes Professor Smith's biography as "a completely engaged, imaginatively dense study of someone who was with good reason a sort of moral touchstone for one important strand in the British Left".

Raymond Williams is widely held to be one of the one of the most influential socialist writers and thinkers in post-war Britain. He introduced radical new approaches to the theory and practice of culture as a social dynamic and is regarded as one of the last, great male intellectual figures of the 20th Century.

He is also seen as Wales' major intellectual figure of the 20th Century. By the end of the 1950s he had broken down the academic barriers between different forms of study, such as literary criticism and sociology.

For more see http://www.swansea.ac.uk/news_centre/LatestNews/Headline,29509,en.php

Raymond Williams Conference Report

2008-11-20T16:40:00.007Z

The CREW conference on Raymond Williams's Culture and Society@50 took place on November 7th at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea, and was a resounding success.

The day opened with Professor Stefan Collini’s probing and questioning analysis of the assumptions informing Raymond Williams’s view that the term culture emerged as a result of industrialisation. While recognising the widespread influence of the tradition of thinkers mapped out by Williams in Culture and Society, Collini suggested that the historical argument informing the book was inaccurate and has left a misleading legacy. Professor Catherine Belsey, followed by exploring the uses made in contemporary criticism of Williams’s redefinition of ‘culture’ as a process of creating meanings, and as the site of contested meanings. Developing some of the ideas explored in his celebrated biography of Williams, A Warrior’s Tale, and drawing on Williams’s literary analyses of Welsh novels, Professor Dai Smith argued for the particular exceptionalism of the south Wales context of Williams’s upbringing. Anthony Barnett described the 1970s context of his celebrated defence of Williams against Terry Eagleton’s attack on Raymond's ‘gradualism’ and ‘humanism’ in the pages of the New Left Review. The remarkable volume of interviews Politics and Letters resulted from this debate, and Barnett discussed the making of that book and the legacy of Williams’s commitment to pluralism for contemporary politics in Britain. The day ended with the film director Colin Thomas discussing his award winning documentary on Raymond Williams, Border Crossing , followed by a showing of the film. The conference as a whole resulted in an illuminating, multi dimensional, appreciative but at times critical, engagement with Williams’s seminal volume and its legacy. Among those present were representatives of the Raymond Williams Society, The Raymond Williams Foundation, Director of the Institute for Welsh Affairs, John Osmond, theatre and opera director Ceri Sherlock, Ross Leadbeater of Only Men Aloud, poet Letitia Rees, and most importantly many recent and current CREW postgraduate students. Several delegates drew appreciative attention to the ample time given for discussion (a change from the rushed nature of many conferences) and while culture may be ordinary, the food at the Dylan Thomas Centre was exceptional.

Tony Conran@ Swansea

2008-10-29T11:48:00.003Z

Tony Conran reads from his new autobiographical long poem What Brings You Here So Late at 4.00pm Wednesday 29th October in Room 216, Keir Hardie Building, Swansea Univeristy. Nigel Jenkins of the English Department's Centre for Creative Writing writes:

"It is difficult to image how English-language poetry in Wales would have developed from the 1960s onwards, without the hugely influential presence of Tony Conran – as poet, translator, critic, dramatist and general one-man cultural turbine! In 1967 he gave Wales and the world The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse. A book whose extended introduction represents both a concise cultural history of Wales and a challenging bardic manifesto. Conscious of the Welsh poet’s traditional socio-political stance, whilst at the same time invoking the powerful engines of modernism, Conran is one of only two or three Anglophone poets with the authority to deliver a major national statement, as in the controlled fury of his ‘Elegy of the Welsh dead in the Falkland Islands, 1982’. A nationalist with an internationalist’s deep interest in poetries way beyond his own country, he is capable also of ‘the ‘loneliness, tenderness and slenderness’ that he identifies as the defining qualities of the haiku, of which – as of so much else – he has been a pioneer in Wales".

5 Cwmdonkin Drive

2008-10-27T14:01:00.003Z

On what would have been Dylan Thomas's ninety-fourth birthday, 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, his family home and birthplace has been restored to it's October 1914 condition.

For more details, follow the links for a virtual 'tour' of the house, and listen to Colette Hume interviewing Dr John Goodby on Radio 4’s Today Programme.