NAASWCH Extended Deadline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.