Event Round-Up

Teaching Confessions of a Justified Sinner
(University of Stirling, 7–9 August 2007)

This English Subject Centre sponsored workshop session took place at the From Ettrick to Empire: New Perspectives in James Hogg Studies Conference. The session considered a range of approaches to Hogg’s best-known and most widely taught work. The workshop format allowed participants to share classroom strategies and experiences, including the difficulty of framing the text historically, culturally and formally. Papers contributed by Scott Hames (University of Stirling), Adrian Hunter (University of Stirling), Graham Tulloch (University of Flinders, Australia), Silvia Meganthal (University of Konstanz, Germany) and Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming) addressed topics such as how the text risks alienating students, the challenges presented by choosing whether to stress political and cultural contexts, the text’s linguistic diversity and how students engage with its characters. A lively and wide-ranging general discussion followed, in which further strategies – including making topical connections between the text and current political events, eg comparing Wringhim’s ethics to those of a suicide bomber – were explored. Several contributors urged that the novel be presented in the context of Hogg’s overall achievement, rather than as the near-miraculous fluke of a rustic savant. The session was reminded that the latter impression tended to reinscribe (unfounded) contemporaneous suspicion concerning Hogg’s authorship of the novel.

Teaching Contemporary Women’s Writing in the 21st Century
(University of Brighton, 15 September 2007)

This event was conceived by Gina Wisker (University of Brighton) and organised with the assistance of the English Subject Centre. The aim of the conference was to explore the variety of contemporary women’s writing and the ways lecturers are currently making it accessible through teaching and learning in higher education institutions. Papers explored a great variety of topics, such as children’s literature (Dave Simpson, University of Brighton), using film, video and YouTube when teaching students how to be critical readers (Amy Palko, University of Stirling), using Postcolonial and African American gothic fiction to discuss ideology and interpretation with students (Gina Wisker), the enduring interest in Daphne de Maurier’s life and work among both scholars and students (Ella Westland, formerly University of Exeter) and the challenges associated with introducing feminism – ‘the F word’ – into a university’s writing curriculum (Siall Waterbright, Queensland University of Technology). Alice Rideout and Susan Watkins (Leeds Metropolitan University) addressed the topic of ‘Mothers and Daughters reading and writing across the generations’, with stimulating examples of curriculum initiatives and Marion Treby (The Open University) discussed the challenges of carrying out postgraduate research on Toni Morrison. An afternoon keynote address and reading was delivered by creative writer and lecturer Mimi Thebo (Bath Spa University). The day brought together a great mix of senior and junior colleagues, and there were even one or two students in the audience, all of which fed into a lively panel discussion at the end of the day. In conversation with the audience, the panel, which included Clare Hanson (University of Southampton), Lucie Armitt (University of Salford), Alice Rideout, Susan Watkins and Gina Wisker, reprised and debated some of the day’s stand-out issues, such as the important differences between women’s writing, feminism and the study of gender; the relatively low status that some departments continue to accord the teaching of women’s literature, and most contentiously of all, the perceived lack of interest by 20-something year olds with regard to feminism and its various histories. All were agreed that more such conferences and opportunities to share practice with regard to teaching women’s writing would be very welcome.

The events archive contains more details about this event

Borderlands: Themes in Teaching Literatures of the Americas
(University of Birmingham, 18 October 2007) 

This one-day conference, co-organised by John Canning of the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies and the English Subject Centre, was hosted by Dick Ellis (University of Birmingham). The event brought together scholars from a range of disciplines including History, English, American Studies, Spanish and Latin American Studies, and the Visual Arts. The conference aimed to identify and discuss burgeoning themes in teaching literatures of the Americas, an area characterised by complicated boundaries and borders and a multilingual landscape. Presentations included film screenings (Marcus Wood, University of Sussex); a discussion of French Creole borderlands in Louisiana and Kate Chopin’s short fiction (Robert Lewis, University of Birmingham); the myth of Latin American ‘boom’ literature and what tutors can do to counteract it (Phillip Swanson, University of Sheffield); Cuban literature’s ability to teach students to question singular linear histories (Luis Perez, Princeton University); how American literature captures the imagination of Birmingham students doing research module work (Sara Wood, University of Birmingham) and the struggle behind convincing students and staff of ‘the point’ of teaching Chicano Studies in the UK (Thea Pitman, Leeds University). In her closing remarks, Claire Lindsay (University College, London) stressed the centrality of language to any discussion of borderlands, and that working on these themes usually entails working at the margins of disciplines. She reminded the audience that bilingual aesthetics and linguistic hybridity are key characteristics of borderlands culture.

Here be Dragons? Humanities, Enterprise and Higher Education
(University of Leeds, 10 October 2007) 

The aim of this Subject Centre event, as the title suggests, was to weave together the hard-edged, entrepreneurial world typified by the BBC2 television series Dragons’ Den, (where hopeful entrepreneurs pitch new business propositions to a group of wealthy, but sceptical, ‘dragons’ on the hunt for investment opportunities), with the world of humanities scholarship as symbolised by quaint and un-evidenced designations on ancient maps.

This ‘weaving together’ succeeded, not least because participants came from a mix of university roles and various academic disciplines. Val Butcher, formerly a Senior Adviser on employability for the Higher Education Academy and a veteran of the ‘Enterprise in Higher Education’ initiative of the late 1980s, pointed out that complaints about graduates’ lack of business awareness had been around a long time, in fact since the late-Victorian period. The authors of the recently published Here be Dragons? report, which drew on interviews with enterprising humanities graduates, showed that far from shunning entrepreneurial careers, humanities graduates were often found in self-employment, freelancing or starting businesses.  Although rarely motivated by money or status, they had been attracted to entrepreneurial careers by the flexibility, variety and inherent interest they offered. Several of the graduates interviewed referred back to their degree studies as times when they developed the subject-related skills and intellectual and personal qualities that sustained their careers. Yet such recollections were often mixed with regrets about how their lecturers could have ‘done more’ to create opportunities to learn about the practicalities of the business world and finding sources of funding. The report contains various suggestions for how the humanities in higher education can do more to support and encourage students wishing to take this career path.

Two Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) (The White Rose CETL for Enterprise based in Leeds and the Centre for Employability in the Humanities at the University of Central Lancashire) demonstrated just how they are doing this by creating both intellectual and physical environments where students can generate and pursue creative ideas. Pauline Kneale of the White Rose CETL cited the example of two Leeds University students who had set-up a mobile made-to-measure suiting service for women, visiting customers in their offices.  Professor Kneale’s point was that enterprising behaviour doesn’t have to be rooted in subject knowledge: these were Business Studies students not Textile Studies students, as she had first assumed. (We were given to understand that the textile studies department was somewhat peeved that their students hadn’t thought up the idea!)

Taken overall, the day presented evidence that many Humanities Students have all the right attitudes, energy and creativity to become ‘dragons’ if they so wish, and higher education can contribute in intellectual and practical ways to fostering these qualities and  helping students to build a future upon them.

Presentations from the event can be found on the website at A PDF of the Here be Dragons? report is at or printed copies can be requested from esc@rhul.ac.uk

Texts in Translation
(Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, 31 January 2008) 

Texts in Translation was another event jointly organised by the English Subject Centre and Shoshannah Holdum of Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS). It was hosted by the Humanities Research Institute (HRI). The event provided a welcome opportunity for lecturers working in both English literature and Modern Languages to come together and discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching literature using translated texts. The issues are different in the two subject areas. Literature teaching in Modern Languages departments has to increasingly use translations (a practice previously frowned on) as a result of shifts in the nature of its student intake. Many courses in English departments, meanwhile, have used texts in translation as a matter of course over many years. Throughout the day, participants highlighted the analysis of translation(s) in the light of knowledge of the source text. Less discussed – though arguably crucial for English departments – was the question of how (or whether) lecturers should teach translated texts without themselves having expertise in the language of the original.

A succession of stimulating papers was followed by a roundtable discussion-cum-question and answer session led by Leon Burnett (University of Essex). In his keynote address ‘Discovery, annexation, foreignisation: world literature in translation’, Peter France (University of Edinburgh) gave a masterly overview of both the history of translation in the post-Renaissance period and key issues in translation studies. Focusing on (and, in part, deconstructing) the critique of ‘invisibility’ in translation practice undertaken by theorists such as Lawrence Venuti, Professor France highlighted the need for analysts of translation – both staff and students – to think beyond simplistic binaries. In an equally thoughtful and subtle analysis, Mark Robson (University of Nottingham) used Derrida’s and De Man’s engagement with Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’ as the basis for reflections on the impossibility and the necessity of translation and the relation of the practice of translation to the teaching of ‘impractical criticism’.

Two papers unpicked distortions, biases and peculiarities in translations of particular texts as examples of material that might be discussed with students. Karen Seago (London Metropolitan University) looked at translations for children of a wide range of texts, including Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels and the Harry Potter books. While Valerie Henitiuk (University of East Anglia) described an innovative compilation of 47 translations in 13 different languages (spanning 130 years) of one section from the Pillow Book by Sei Shôna-gon Dr Henitiuk’s anthology will provide staff and students with a rich vein of material on orientalism, gender and subjectivity as well as on the dynamics of translation.

Detailed case studies of teaching practice were given in three papers. Margaret Tejerizo (University of Glasgow) explained how she is currently applying ideas from Alison Phipps’s book Learning the Arts of Linguistic Survival to the teaching of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. One element involves bringing together Translation students and students working on the Holocaust in a joint session focusing on Raphael’s ‘Sistine Madonna’, an image of particular importance to Grossman. Penny Simons (University of Sheffield) showed how the shock value of modern four-letter words can be used as a pedagogical tool to explore obscene French fabliaux, such as the ‘Lai du lecheor’. Inquiry-based learning methods – including an investigation into the theme of obscenity in online publication – and Creative Writing (the composition of obscene pastiches of later literary genres) are used by Dr Simons to deepen students’ understanding of the functioning of scatalogical medieval material. Rhian Davies (University of Sheffield) spoke about an attempt to wean students off translation and to persuade them instead to use an online edition. The electronic text used in Dr Davies’s teaching, Galdós’s Torquemada en la hoguera, was developed as a scholarly resource.
In teaching sessions in the ‘collaboratory’ at CILASS (the Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences www.shef.ac.uk/cilass/index.html), Dr Davies’s students, working in pairs, explored the electronic edition, following exercises mounted on the local WebCT VLE. Pedagogical leveraging of this sort – within a VLE – of online scholarly materials is a model that could be very productive for lecturers across both Modern Languages and English to follow.

The last paper to be delivered, by Robin Kirkpatrick (University of Cambridge) was read in absentia as Professor Kirkpatrick was unable to attend the colloquium. The paper described the experience of working with English Literature students, lacking a training in Italian, on Dante in the original. With wit and verve, Kirkpatrick highlighted some of the ways in which this approach to teaching had fed into his new verse translation of the Commedia for Penguin. He showed that it is possible for committed students of English literature to work at an advanced literary critical level on a text in a foreign language at the same time as developing basic expertise in that language. There are important lessons here for English departments: teaching of the sort described by Kirkpatrick could perhaps involve closer collaboration between English literature and Modern Languages departments – something that would surely be welcomed by all attendees at this successful event.