From Sao Paolo to Swansea: Ugo Rivetti's CREW experience

Last month, the CREWniverse were very sad to say 'Adeus' to Ugo Rivetti, a visiting scholar from Sao Paulo. Since October, Ugo had been a cheerful presence in the CREW office and quickly became accustomed to the ways of CREW (Raymond Williams worship, drinking and the annual AWWE shenanigans). Ugo's debut at this year's AWWE conference was a great success, and we are sure his work on Raymond Williams will continue to inspire, both in his native Brazil and beyond.

Ugo writes:

"I started my M.A. on Raymond Williams at University of São Paulo, Brazil in March 2013 and from the beginning I had thoughts of doing part of my research abroad. After some search on the Internet, I discovered that the Raymond Williams papers were held in the Richard Burton Archives, at Swansea University. In February, 2014 I got in touch with Professor Daniel Williams who answered immediately, not only accepting to supervise me but also offering me all the resources and facilities of CREW. 

I arrived in Swansea in October 2014 and stayed there until April 2015. Today, I can say that those six months were definitive for my research (putting aside the unbelievably rich personal experience). Researching Williams’s papers the archives gave me the opportunity to be in touch with a material that is barely known in Brazil. And the constant talks with Professor Williams and my CREW colleagues Kieron Smith and Clare Davies were decisive for the planning of my text and for the development of my own ideas.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Daniel Williams, Kieron, Clare, the Archives team and all the lecturers and students linked to CREW with whom I had contact during those months. I can definitely say that if my period in Swansea was so pleasant it was due mainly to having been associated with such a research group as CREW."

We wish Ugo every success, and hope he will stay in touch- he will always be welcome back in the CREW office!

Launch of John Ormond's Collected Poems

The long-awaited launch of John Ormond's Collected Poems is finally here. This Tuesday (5th May) will see Rian Evans, Ormond's daughter and editor of the book, in conversation with Jeff Towns. Hopefully this collection, alongside the pioneering work done on Ormond's documentary films here at CREW, will begin to see Ormond gain the credit he deserves. The launch starts at 7.00 at Galerie Simpson, Swansea. Free Entry. All welcome. Email simonhicks@serenbooks.com for more information.

Inaugural Lecture and Launch of Wales Unchained

Last Thursday saw the launch of Wales Unchained, the latest book by Professor Daniel Williams. This work, a collection of essays reflecting Daniel’s multiple research interests (Raymond Williams rubs shoulders with Dylan Thomas, Charlie Parker and D H Lawrence, among others), draws together lines of comparison and connection that only a critic of Daniel’s calibre could achieve so brilliantly. Elegantly written, intellectually vigorous and yet accessible, Daniel’s book is a must-read (and a must-buy- please support UWP!!) for anyone interested in the concept of Welshness, Britishness and  the relationship between culture and politics. The book launch was accompanied by a lecture, 'Un Genedl! Pa Genedl?: Cymathu Cymru o Shakespeare i Miliband' (One Nation! Which Nation? Assimilating Wales from Shakespeare to Miliband),  which explored the fraught relationship between Welshness and Britishness, moving seamlessly from Henry V to  Matthew Arnold and onto Slavoj Zizek. Daniel’s work has always explored  he idea of Welshness, but not in any insular way; his work is committed to situating Wales within broader national and international contexts, especially through a comparative approach between Wales and African America. Both the book and the lecture are timely, given that the forthcoming UK general election has had the idea of Britain and the union at the heart of many debates. We could see the beginnings of a re-structuring of the union and how we perceive 'Welshness'; the book closes with a call to pluralize our definitions of Welshness through both Welsh and English.  

Daniel’s lecture was followed by some closing remarks from M Wynn Thomas, who highlighted Daniel’s role as a public intellectual in his deep commitment to his both his work and to Wales. I’m sure I wasn't the only person in the lecture theatre that night who felt privileged to be able to work with such an inspirational figure; the audience included staff, students, friends and family. In his introduction to Slanderous Tongues a few years back, Daniel celebrated the work of the late Ian Bell and Victor Golightly. In his tribute to these two men, Daniel praised both their commitment to their scholarship and their dedication to their families. At the lecture last Thursday, where many members of Daniel’s family were present, it was clear Daniel has the same commitment to both his work and his family. The pride they felt for Daniel’s considerable achievement was evident, as I hope was the pride his students at CREW felt for a lecturer who is tirelessly committed to the future generation of scholarship.

CREW Updates and Forthcoming Events

If the CREW blog has been a little quiet of late, the CREW have been anything but. Our postgraduates have been teaching, marking, researching and even WRITING their way through this current academic year like students who know only too well the threat of post-PhD unemployment. Speaking of, congratulations must go to three of our students- Kieron Smith, Georgia Burdett and Charlotte Jackson- who have all been awarded their PhDs within the last year. Academic triumphs are the order of the day for CREW in general, as we can see by Rhian Barfoot's new publication on Dylan Thomas and Professor Daniel Williams's latest book (both published by UWP). CREW associate Dr Jasmine Donahaye has been very busy, with three books out this year alone: one, a Honno re-issue of Lily Tobias's My Mother's House, edited and introduced by Donahaye; the second, a biography of Lily Tobias (again published by Honno) and lastly, a memoir, Losing Israel (Seren). Jasmine will also be in discussion with both Daniel Williams in Cardiff's Cameo Club (next week) and Francesca Rhydderch at the Hay festival.

The annual highlight for any Welsh Writing in English scholar is undoubtedly the AWWE conference at Gregynog. I'm not even going to attempt to offer an account of it here- I'll never reach the masterful blogging levels of Plashing Vole, so read his brilliant report here instead. All I will say is that CREW made a real day of the journey up, stopping off at the Penderyn Distillery to learn about distilling whiskey (honest) and then at Abbeycwmhir to commemorate Llewelyn the Last. When we did finally make it to Gregynog, the CREW were an unstoppable force: Alexandra Jones, Georgia Burdett, Sarah Morse and visiting scholar Ugo Rivetti all gave fantastic papers. The rest of us were there in a supporting role (although not all of us managed that. Naming no names, of course). One of the main things we took away from the conference was an uncomfortable awareness of the dangers facing the University of Wales Press at this time: the basic message I can impart to you all is to support the press as much as possible (buying the aforementioned books would be a good place to start) and to subscribe to the journal here.

In other conference news, CREW associate Dr Kieron Smith is currently organising the Alun Lewis centenary conference 'On Embarkation' on the 27th June. This timely conference will offer an opportunity for all those interested in this neglected Welsh writer to hear some great lectures and papers on him in his hometown of Cwmaman. Further information can be found here http://www.swansea.ac.uk/riah/news/onembarkationthealunlewiscentenarysymposium.php

And finally, the annual Richard Burton Conference is fast approaching. This lively conference, open to Swansea postgraduates working on any aspect of Welsh Studies (literature, politics, history) is currently seeking abstracts. For more information, check out our sister blog http://richardburtoncentre.blogspot.co.uk/.




Fragments of Union Blog

A new undergraduate module here at Swansea, Fragments of Union: The Cultural Making and Breaking of Britain (taught by CREW's dynamic duo, Professor Daniel Williams and Dr Kieron Smith), has its very own blog. I'd encourage you all to have a read- it's likely to be a great resource not just for students of this course, but for anyone interested in a four-nations approach to literature and history. Happy reading! https://fragmentsofunion.wordpress.com/

AWWE 2015: The Country and the City Conference Details

Registration is now open for what looks like an absolute corker of a conference- register by the 10th March! Contact the organisers, Dr Aidan Byrne and Prof Diana Wallace at awwe15@awwe.org for more information. Full programme below:

 

 

AWWE 2015 ‘The Country and the City: Rural and Urban Wales’

Conference Programme

 

 

Friday 27 March

2.00-5.00 Registration

 

2.30pm            AWWE Annual Business Meeting (Library) All Welcome.

 

4-5pm                         Tea/coffee (Blayney Room)

 

5-7pm              Welcome Drinks (Senior Common Room)

                        Award of M. Wynn Thomas Essay prize

Honno Books Showcase: chair Jane Aaron.

My Mother’s House, by Lily Tobias, with an introduction by Jasmine Donahaye (Honno) and The Greatest Need: The creative life and troubled times of Lily Tobias, a Welsh Jew in Palestine by Jasmine Donahaye (Honno)

Poetry reading and conversation: Sally Roberts Jones

                       

7-8                  Dinner

 

8.15pm            Keynote Lecture 1 (Seminar Room 1)

Chair: M. Wynn Thomas

Professor Helen Fulton (Bristol University),

                   ‘Arthur in Caerleon: Remembering a Roman City in the Literature of Wales’

 

Saturday 28 March

8.00-9.15         Breakfast

 

9.30-11am       Parallel Sessions

                        Panel Session 1:  Raymond Williams I

Chair: Daniel Williams

Yasuo Kawabata (Japan Women’s University), ‘Orwell, Raymond Williams and “Double Vision”: A Reading of Loyalties’

Shintaro Kono (Hitotsubashi University, Japan), ‘Beyond ‘“Developmental Narratives”: Virginia Woolf, Emyr Humphreys and Haruki Murakami’

                        Ugo Rivetti (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), ‘Literature and Capitalism in

                        Raymond Williams’ The Country and The City’

 

Panel Session 2: The Urban and the Industrial

Daniel Hughes (Bangor University), ‘“At the hand of the mangle”: Urban Modernism and Meaninglessness in Gwyn Thomas’s Oscar’

Alexandra Jones (Swansea University), ‘Deformed Landscape, Disabled Industry: Disability in South Wales Coalfields Literature’

Daryl Leeworthy (Cardiff University), ‘Making Room for Jesters: Male Sexuality, Class, and the Urban in the Writing of Ron Berry and Stead Jones’

 

11-11.30am     Coffee (Blayney Room/ Dining Room)

 

11.30-1pm       Parallel sessions

Panel Session 3: Raymond Williams II

Malcolm Ballin, ‘”A Kind of Fall”: Some Welsh Perspectives from The Country and The City’

David JG Barnes (University of South Wales), ‘Raymond Williams and contemporary realist art practice’

Steve Hendon (Cardiff University), ‘An emotional ‘border crossed’: industrialised masculinities in Gwyn Thomas’s All Things Betray Thee (1949) and Raymond Williams’s Border Country (1960)’ 

 

Panel Session 4: Landscapes of Ceredigion/ Cardiganshire

Jayne Bowden (University of South Wales), ‘“The Devil’s Grandmother’s Jointure”: Elisabeth Inglis-Jones’ Gothic Wales’

Alan Vaughan Jones (Independent Scholar) ‘Representations of Ceredigion in Alun Lewis’s ‘Dwellers in the Valley’ and Idris Davies’s ‘Teify Side’

Kate Woodward (Aberystwyth University) ‘Noiring the Picturesque: the discovery and abandonment of landscape in Hinterland / Y Gwyll’

 

1-2                   Lunch

 

2-3                   Centenary Panel: Caradoc Evans, My People (1915) (Seminar Room 1)

Chair: Kirsti Bohata

Dinah Jones, an award-winning programme maker, will talk about her documentary film Caradoc Evans A’i Bobl (S4C) with M. Wynn Thomas and Mary-Ann Constantine

 

3-4                   Parallel sessions

Panel Session 5: Short fictions                    

Jane Aaron (University of South Wales), ‘Hiraeth and the Pastoral in the Welsh Short Story in English’

Michelle Deininger (Cardiff Metropolitan University), ‘“Ugly cracks against the sky”: rural landscapes and the politics of disease in the short fiction of Elizabeth Baines’

 

Panel Session 6: Rural fictions                                 

Georgia Burdett (CREW/ Swansea University), 'Bobbing along a sea of urbanism: the rural fiction of Cynan Jones'

Lisa Sheppard (Cardiff University), ‘“Escape to the Country”’ or into the Heart of Darkness?: “Going Native” in Joe Dunthorne’s Wild Abandon (2011)’

 

4-4.30              Tea (Blayney Room/ Dining Room)

 

4.30-5.30         Keynote Lecture 2 (Seminar Room 1)

Chair: Aidan Byrne

Ed Thomas, film maker, title tbc

 

5.30-6.30         Parallel sessions                       

Panel Session 7:  R.S. Thomas and the rural

Ceri Subbe (Bangor University) ‘From Iago to Ianto: How the Welsh peasant lost the voice it never had’

Andrew Webb (Bangor University), ‘Post-rural, post-urban space in R.S. Thomas’

 

Panel Session 8: Village life and country ‘folk’

Catriona Coutts (Bangor University), ‘The Influence of the Gwerin Writers on the Work of Rhys Davies’

Liz Jones (Aberystwyth University), ‘Performing the Language of the Grotesque: The “malignant beauty” of Caradoc Evans’ Taffy’                  

 

7-8                   Dinner

 

8.15-9.15         Creative Keynote (Seminar Room 1)

Chair: Diana Wallace

Professor Christopher Meredith (University of South Wales)

                        'I'r Bur Hoff Bau'

 

 

Sunday 29 March

8.00-9.30         Breakfast

 

9.30-11            Parallel sessions

Panel Session 9 : Curious travellers: travel writing and tourism

Mary-Ann Constantine (University of Wales, CAWCS),  ‘“Mountain-plants brought into a stove”:  Country and City in Catherine Hutton’s The Welsh Mountaineer (1817)’

Elizabeth Edwards (University of Wales, CAWCS) ‘”[S]eventeen different processes”: Mary Brunton’s border crossings’

Rita Singer (Prifysgol Bangor University), ‘German Travel Writing in Search of the Poet as a Bohemian Dropout’

 

Panel Session 10: Post-devolution gender and place

Emma Schofield (Cardiff University), ‘Returning to Ground Level: Rediscovering Rural, Urban and Coastal Spaces in Stevie Davies’ Kith and Kin and Erica Woof’s Mud Puppy’

Robert Walton (Cardiff University), ‘The ruralisation of gender relationships in the novels of Trezza Azzopardi’

Rhiannon Heledd Williams (University of South Wales), ‘Local or National? Gender, place and identity in post-devolution Wales’ literature’           

 

11.11.30          Coffee (Blayney Room)

 

11.30 -1pm      Parallel sessions

Panel Session 11: Re/inhabiting the rural

Siriol McAvoy, (Cardiff University), ‘“My mother gave me a pure white book with thick leaves and in it I pressed wild flowers”: Lynette Roberts, neo-Romanticism, and gendered re-visions of national identity’

Rosie Milnes (Bangor University), ‘A geocritical re-examination of Brenda Chamberlain’s Tide Race’

Sarah Morse, (CREW), ‘Reinhabiting the Rhondda: Reading Ron Berry as an Eco-Centric Writer’

 

Panel Session 12: City and Country

Jessica George (Cardiff University), ‘“The unknown region that lies beyond the Gray’s Inn Road”: Evolutionary anxiety in the country and the city in Arthur Machen’s The Green Round

Sally Roberts Jones, ‘THE LITERATURE OF WALES: City and Country’

Shan Morgain (University of Swansea), ‘Mabinogi Man: a structural analysis of town and country portraits’

 

1-2pm                         Lunch and departure

Rediscovering Dylan / Ail-Ddarganfod Dylan

Swansea University’s Research Institute for Arts and Humanities (RIAH) will host ‘Rediscovering Dylan’, a programme of events curated specifically for Being Human, the UK’s first national festival of the humanities.

Held between 17 – 20 November 2014, Rediscovering Dylan celebrates the life and works of Swansea’s most famous son, Dylan Thomas.

Made possible by a grant from the festival organisers, the School of Advanced Study, University of London, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy, Rediscovering Dylan will showcase the very best of Swansea University’s research excellence, using the work of the iconic Dylan Thomas as a focal point to fuse literature, theatre, music and art.

‌‌Selected from over 100 applications, the grant awarded to Swansea University will help bring together researchers and the local public to engage with their own interpretation of the humanities. Rediscovering Dylan will be part of a national programme of activities which aim to inform, extend and ignite contemporary thinking and imagination around the humanities.

The programme of events will begin with a public seminar by the distinguished T James Jones on ‘Another Version of Under Milk Wood’, followed by a public lecture by Professor Tudur Hallam on Dylan Thomas and Welsh poet and nationalist, Saunders Lewis.  Swansea University’s world authority on Dylan Thomas, Professor John Goodby, will launch his centenary edition of the Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2014). This new edition contains recently discovered material, looks at Dylan’s work in a fresh light and takes us to the beating heart of Thomas’ poetry.

Number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, a play written by PhD graduate Liz Wride, and directed by award-winning playwright D.J. Britton, is a hilarious play set in the here and now telling the story of the unfortunately named Thomas Dylan whose 18th birthday falls on the same day as the Dylan Thomas centenary, and who is living with his Dylan-obsessed parents at Dylan’s birthplace.

In partnership with Literature Wales’ Developing Dylan 100 project, Dylan-inspired cross art-form workshops will be held at various local schools, before the week culminates with Dylan Live - a bilingual performance tracing Dylan Thomas’ trips to New York through jazz, beat poetry, hip-hop, spoken word and film and featuring Professor Daniel Williams.

Dr Elaine Canning, Deputy Director of the Research Institute for Arts and Humanities at Swansea University, said: “We are delighted to be part of the UK’s inaugural Festival of the Humanities and look forward to bringing together researchers and the community to explore the cultural offerings and heritage of our region through close engagement with one of its greatest cultural icons. We would like to express our sincerest thanks to the festival funders for their support”.

Rediscovering Dylan events are all free and open to the public.

17 November 2014 at 4pm

Fersiwn arall o Under Milk Wood (Another version of Under Milk Wood)

Public seminar by Welsh poet and dramatist, T. James Jones (simultaneous translation provided)

Venue:  Council Chamber, The Abbey, Swansea University.

17 November 2014 at 6.30pm

'Curse, bless, me now':  Dylan Thomas and Saunders Lewis

A public lecture by Professor Tudur Hallam (Swansea University)

Venue:  Wallace Lecture Theatre, Wallace Building, Swansea University. Reception from 6pm.

18 November 2014 at 4.30pm

Number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive - a play by Liz Wride

Number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive is a comic take on this year's Dylan Thomas celebrations. Set in the here and now, it tells the story of the unfortunately named Thomas Dylan, whose 18th birthday falls on the same day as the Dylan Thomas centenary.

Director: D.J. Britton. Featuring the original cast from the Welsh Fargo Theatre Company.

Venue:  Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea University.
This event is free, but tickets should be booked via the Taliesin Arts Centre: 01792 60 20 60.  http://www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk/performances.php?id=952

(The play will also be performed at Dylan Thomas’ birthplace, 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, on 19 November – **by invitation only**)

18 November 2014 at 6.30pm

‘Clap its great blood down’:  editing The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas:  A New Centenary Edition

A public lecture and book launch by Professor John Goodby (Swansea University)

Venue:  Wallace Lecture Theatre, Wallace Building, Swansea University. Reception from 6pm.

20 November 2014 at 7.30pm

Developing Dylan 100: Dylan Live

A bilingual performance tracing Dylan Thomas’ trips to New York through jazz, beat poetry, hip-hop, spoken word and film. Performers include Daniel Williams, Martin Daws, Zaru Jonson, Aneirin Karadog, Ed Holden, Huw V. Williams and film by Ewan Jones Morris.

Venue:  Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea University.
This event is free, but tickets should be booked via the Taliesin Arts Centre: 01792 602060.  http://www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk/performances.php?id=953

For further information, visit:

1. http://beinghumanfestival.org/time-rediscover-dylan/
2. http://www.swansea.ac.uk/riah/riah-public-lecture-and-event-series-2014-15/rediscovering-dylan/
3. http://beinghumanfestival.org/