University of St Andrews, Schools of English and Modern Languages
19 November 2024, 1-2pm, Arts Seminar Room 9 Dr Robin MacKenzie, School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews Scenes from the Shoormal: Drift Objects in Some Contemporary Scottish Poems Icelandic archaeologist Þóra Pétursdóttir claims in her 2018 essay ‘Drift’ that ‘the Anthropocene – the “Age of Man” – is in essence an age of … Read more
4 November 2024, 1-2pm, Arts Seminar Room 5 Professor Mary Orr (University of St Andrews) Where is The Gambia? Why does it matter? How has it been accounted for in histories of geography and science? And how through the double pen of Sarah Bowdich in 1824 can it inform current research in environmental and ‘blue’ … Read more
Thursday 26 September, 5.15-7.30pm, Hebdomadar’s room Research seminar with Philippe Beck Inspired by an article published in December 2019 relating how polar bears were dangerously approaching the village of Ryrkaïpii, on the edge of the Arctic banks of the Choucotka River at the north-eastern tip of Russia, the one hundred poems that form Ryrkaïpii (Flammarion, 2023) invite … Read more
Wednesday 25 September, 2-4pm, Buchanan 216 a Masterclass with Philippe Beck (open to UGs, PGs and researchers) ‘Poetry is here or there. Not everywhere./ It depends on a sortie.’ (Opéradiques, Flammarion, 2014) In this masterclass we addressed the relationship between poetry and the other arts. The following questions were discussed: How does poetry approach the … Read more
1-2pm, 2 April 2024, Buchanan 216 Dr Elodie Laügt The ‘chantier’ has multiple literal and figurative senses: as a site of activity and production in relation to which modern and contemporary French poets have positioned themselves and their practices; as a place whose material, processes and stories are transformed and elevated into poetry; as a … Read more
1-2pm, 25 March 2024, Arts Seminar Room 5 Dr Fabio Caiani In his major work, Plague Lands (1995), the late Iraqi poet Fawzi Karim (Baghdad, 1945 -London, 2019) revisits the Baghdad of his childhood and youth. In an attempt to transcend the troubled time of Iraqi modern history, he merges his own autobiographical time with the time … Read more
5-6:30pm, 14 March 2024, Buchanan Room 216 Professor Peter Constantine, University of Connecticut When a language becomes extinct, it takes with it more than just its words to a silent grave. With it disappear millennia of culture, knowledge, and tradition. Its unique interpretation of our world unravels and dies. UNESCO warns us that 90 to … Read more
1-2pm, 11 March 2024, Arts Seminar Room 5 Dr David Evans In this session we will look at some metaphors which are widely used in ecocritical textual analysis, and consider how effective they are as tools for both textual analysis and thinking through cultural responses to the climate crisis. Looking at a selection of texts … Read more
10.00am – 11.30am, 10 March 2024 Witness the world premiere of a new braided text co-written by poet Rebecca Sharp and environmental humanities researcher and author Monika Szuba, weaving together observations and encounters with landscape, seasons and other beings between Scotland and Germany/Poland. Structured as a series of emails containing strands of text, images, and field recordings, this … Read more
1-2 pm, 5 February 2024, Arts Seminar room 5 Leena Nammari, Artist Printmaker, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee ‘I have as an artist been drawn to the ordinary spaces, in the extraordinary land of Palestine. The everyday stories of what Mahmoud Darwish called: ordinary grief. Artists have always … Read more