Events
Recent Events
Lost in keigo? The language of diplomacy in Japanese-Iberian encounters around 1600
Thursday 19 May 2022, 5.30pm
This talk will explore Iberian-Japanese encounters between 1590 and 1610, a period of intense contact with and expanding foreign communication involving different languages, scripts, beliefs, and thought systems. Drawing from linguistic studies, politeness research and global intellectual history, Birgit Tremml-Werner will introduce three different scenarios: (1) studies and language aids about polite language and politeness, (2) politeness in formal encounters, for instance in audiences with Japanese officials, and (3) politeness in written communication. With this multi-layered approach Tremml-Werner hopes to nuance implicit narratives of cultural misunderstanding as part of European trade in Japan, while discussing crucial aspects of diplomatic history, missionary linguistics and aspects of expansion in Asia more generally.
Mental Health and the Memoir Research Seminar: The problem of biography: 4.48 Psychosis and the ‘suicidal mind’
Wednesday 18 May 2022, 5.00pm
What is the relationship between the experience of an author and the work they create? This question is essential to considering any writing about mental suffering, and especially in the work of Sarah Kane. Building on Leo Bersani's position in The Culture of Redemption, Dr Leah Sidi (UCL) suggests that there is a careful middle ground to be tread here, which understands Kane’s works as deeply and deliberately informed by her knowledge and experience of the mental health system. The boundary between art and life is deliberately blurred in Crave and 4.48 Psychosis, as external referents to Kane’s experiences are transformed into powerful dramaturgical markers. Kane’s representations of mental suffering clearly transcend the boundaries and diagnostic categories suggested by the mental health system. In these works, theatre itself becomes a tool for sharing experiences of mental suffering without their being reduced to specific pathologies or biographical narratives.
Political Forms reading group meeting: Arendt's "The Human Condition"
Thursday 12 May 2022, 5.00pm
During this meeting, we will discuss Hannah Arendt’s delineation of human action, appearance, and the rise of the social realm in The Human Condition. We will consider Arendt’s understanding of visibility, speech, and labour set out in Chapter II, ‘The Public and the Private Realm,’ as well as how these qualities relate to power and political organisation. We will also consider the classical formulation of the human presented in this book as it moves between public and private space, and the intersectional implications of such a formulation in contemporary contexts.
Removal, Re-interpretation or Re-contextualisation? A Conversation on Contested Statues, Resistance and the Reimagination of Public Spaces
Wednesday 4 May 2022, 5.30pm to 7.00pm
Speakers:Cleo Lake, Frances Swaine, Max Farrar, and Trevor Sterling.
In June 2020, the statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston was toppled by anti-racism protestors in one of the defining events during the UK’s first Covid-19 lockdown, and was later viewed as an example of ‘contested heritage’. Negative reactions have frequently equated statue removal with “erasing history”, constructing a fictional binary wherein the only choices available are to either leave them untouched or remove them. This event aims to move away from such binary choices and will include speakers who will consider how contested statues portray the past, how they have been resisted over time and whether they should be removed, reinterpreted or recontextualised. Alongside this, we also hope to facilitate discussions on what other actions can be taken to create more inclusive public environments and consider which voices and perspectives should be at the forefront of such conversations.
Countervoices Summer Research Seminar
Wednesday 27 April 2022, 4.00pm
Join our PG forum’s third research seminar of 2022, part of a series of events that offer postgraduate students in the Centre for Modern Studies and beyond the opportunity to present a short piece of work to an interdisciplinary audience. The event consists of a presentation by Rebecca Bevington followed by a Q&A. If you have any questions or queries, please email: cmods-pgforum@york.ac.uk