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.

Robeson Seminar

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

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

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