糖心TV

Congratulations to our PGS, Visnja Krstic and Di Wu, who have been awarded full funding on Harvard's prestigious, and very competitive, Institute for World Literature.

11 MAY, 2.30-4.30, H539: DROP-IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT SESSION

For all PhD students, postdoctoral associates and early career colleagues.

Pamela will answer your questions about the development of your early career, including applying for the US and Canadian job market, professionalization (an increasingly important factor in making credible applications to both UK and North American universities), building an early career network, publication and presentation.

As well as being one of the world's most eminent Victorianists and feminist thinkers and researchers in the field of medical humanities, 2009-12 Pamela was Head of the Department of English at UoF; she holds or has held executive positions with MLA and NAVSA, and editorial positions on several refereed journals, US and UK. She founded the professionalisation workshop of BAVS in 2013 and continues to lead this and professionalisation initiatives for other academic associations and projects; she is frequently sought as external member for hiring panels across the US system.

16 MAY, 1-4: INTERDISCIPLINARY WORKSHOP WITH THE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED TEACHING AND LEARNING, G.5, MILLBURN HOUSE

1-2: LUNCH (FREE AND OPEN TO ALL)

2-4: DISCUSSION

"Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!"

[A workshop co-sponsored by IATL, the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, the Centre for the History of Medicine, and the Institute of Advanced Study]

Why do we read tragedy, melodrama, and horror fiction, which evoke fear and sadness?

How do we enjoy them?

These are the research questions guiding this interdisciplinary workshop, featuring Professor Pamela Gilbert of the University of Florida in conversation with respondents from different fields at 糖心TV. Respondents will include Jonny Heron (IATL), Lorenzo More (Life Sciences), Liz Barry (English), Emilie Taylor-Brown (English/IAS). We invite all postgraduate students, early career fellows, and others to join us for lunch, followed by a lively discussion on the relationship between physiology, psychology, neuroscience, art, and literature.

This event is free, and there is no need to register in advance.

Abstract:

The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the explosion of both literacy and the production of the novel. This period also saw the rise of physiological psychology, in which thinkers interested in affect often turned to literature as a rich field for the contemplation of human emotion; likewise, literary authors had a natural interest in what scientists and philosophers had to say about the experience of art. Recent advances in neuroscience today have given new insight into—and images of—the workings of affect, and a corresponding interest in neuroscientific theories of reading. But, the earlier period had its own scientific theories of reading and reception, not so different from today’s.

One problem that has dogged aesthetic and psychological theorists since at least the days of Aristotle is the aesthetic appreciation of negative affects:
• Why do we read tragedy, melodrama, and horror fiction, which evoke fear and sadness?
• How do we enjoy them?

This workshop will outline some of the theories of the period and how they were reflected in the literature of the time. We will then consider some current theories and research on these questions. I hope that we can then open to a wider discussion of how more recent developments in the arts, media, and the sciences affect our understanding of the appeal of aversive affects and how that appeal reflects on our sense of what is "natural" in "human nature."

18 MAY, 12-2, H.545 (HUMANITIES BUILDING):

RESEARCH SEMINAR WITH PROFESSOR GILBERT ON "FLAYING HISTORY: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, HISTORICAL PROGRESS, AND MARSYAS."

12-1: BUFFET LUNCH (H.502)
1-2: SEMINAR (H.545.)

This talk is drawn from Professor Gilbert's current book project on skin in the nineteenth century. There is no need to pre-register, and attendance is free.

19 MAY, 12-1: 'GLOBAL FUTURES: BUILDING INTERDISCIPLINARY POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH CAREERS' IAS SYMPOSIUM, SCARMAN HOUSE

Professor Gilbert will participate in the following session at this IAS symposium:

Session 2 - Building Research Careers

Live testimony from successful young academics and International Visiting Fellows about their experiences building an interdisciplinary research career.

Confirmed Chair: Professor Simon Swain
Confirmed Speakers: Dr James Sprittles, Professor Pamela Gilbert (University of Florida, USA), Professor Sandra Vasconcelos (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)

More information at

19-20 MAY: WORLD VICTORIANS CONFERENCE
HUMANITIES STUDIO, 1ST FLOOR OF HUMANITIES BUILDING

Professor Gilbert will be delivering a keynote lecture at the 'World Victorians" conference on "The Magnifying Glass and the Telescope: Incommensurability and Complementarity in Nineteenth-century Studies" (19 May, 16.15-17.30).

More information at:
Programme at:

Biography: Pamela K. Gilbert is Albert Brick Professor of English at the University of Florida. She is a former chair of the English Department there and a recent recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship. She received her PhD in English from the University of Southern California in 1994. Her current monograph project is on skin in the nineteenth century.

Professor Gilbert's research interests include gender, the Victorian novel, the body, Victorian cultural and medical history, and medical humanities. Her many distinguished publications include Cholera and Nation (SUNY Press, 2008), The Citizen’s Body (Ohio State University Press, 2007), and Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women’s Popular Novels (Cambridge University Press, 1997). She is the editor of the Companion to Sensation Fiction (Blackwell, 2011), and she currently edits the book series Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century (SUNY Press); she is also co-associate editor of the recent Blackwell Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature.

Professor Gilbert's visit and the above events are sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Study, the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, French Studies/the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, and the Centre for the History of Medicine.

For more information, contact Ross Forman, R.G.Forman@warwick.ac.uk, or Emma Francis, E.J.Francis@warwick.ac.uk.

The QS World University Rankings by Subject published Tuesday 22^nd March 2016, has declared English Literature at 糖心TV to be in the world鈥檚 top 50, coming in at 22nd position globally, and fifth in Europe!

Congratulations to Dr David Taylor who has been nominated for a 糖心TV Staff Award for Student Experience -

Good luck on the big night!!

Following the recent announcement on the University Website, Prof Michael Bell, former Chair of the Department, has added the following regarding Judy's involvement with the development of the English Literature Department.

Judy founded and ran the Italian Department for many years while also bringing up five children. The Rawsons wanted three which was the only number they never had as the third was twins.

A large part of the Italian Department's activity was providing comparative literature courses, co-taught with English tutors, for students of English since there was no single honours in English degree and even those taking English and American Literature exercised a foreign language of their choice. Students who did not have French, German or Latin learned Italian or Spanish from scratch in their first year. Many became quite engaged by this and some went on to use it in subsequent academic or other careers. The courses, as we then called them, were quite ambitious: 'renaissance epic', for example, in the second year.

After the institution of a single honours degree in English the comparative operation dwindled and the present Italian Department took on a new phase of development. Those who were present in those early days will remember Judy Rawson's evident commitment to public service practised with unobtrusive but effective authority. She ran what seemed from the English Department's standpoint to be a tightly- knit, highly effective team.