Previous awards

22 to 29 September 2013
Website
School of Modern Languages
Organiser: Nils Langer

19 and 20 October 2013
Conference Website
Department of Music, 2-day conference
Organiser: Emma Hornby

20 September 2013
Event website
School of Modern Languages, 2-day conference
Organiser: Gloria Visintini

12 September 2013
Event description
Department of French, 1-day conference
Organiser: Martin Hurcombe

23 May 2013
Event website
HiPLA Symposium
Organiser: Rhian Atkin

24 April 2013
Workshop programme
Department of Italian, School of Modern Languages
Organiser: Catherine O'Rawe

22 - 23 February 2013
Centre for Medieval Studies Events
Centre for Medieval Studies Postgraduate Conference
Organiser: Tamzin Simmons

25 February 2013
BIRTHA Debate website
Organisers: The Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft and Carolyn Muessig

8-9 March 2013
Department of Religion Events
Organisers: Emma Callister, George Ferzoco, Arthur Vize, Karen Wendland

11 March 2013
Institute for Advanced Studies Events
Organiser: Laura Dean

20 March 2013
Event website
Organiser: Nick Rees-Roberts

25 March 2013
Conference website
Organisers: Justin Williams and Lee Marshall

26 July 2013
Organiser: Harriett Webster

31 July - 2 August 2013
Call for papers
The Sixth Bristol Myth Conference
Organisers: Greta Hawes and Jessica Priestley

Project website
Organisers: James Thompson, Roger Middleton, Richard Sheldon, Alexander Bird

13 December 2012
BIRTHA event page
Venue: Senate Room, Lower Ground Floor, Senate House
Organisers: Simon Potter, Jonathon Saha

19 November 2012
AHRC website
Venue: Lecture Theatre 3, 17 Woodland Road
Speaker: Professor Jenny Hartley

15th October 2012
Venue: Pugsley Lecture Theatre, Queens Building
Organisers: Sam Barlow and Carolyn Muessig

Bristol Poetry Institute website
10th October 2012
Venue: Great Hall, Wills Memorial Building
Organiser: Daniel Karlin

19-20 September 2012
Organiser: James McFarthing (PO) and Claire Thomas (French and Italian)

19 September 2012
Department of Russian events page
Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival 2012
Venue: Watershed
Organiser: Birgit Beumers

Conference website
5-6th September 2012
Venue: Clifton Hill House
Organiser: Lesel Dawson

21-22 June 2012
Composed by Michael Ellison
Recorded at: MIAM Centre for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul

13 June 2012
Organiser: Marianne Ailes

9 June 2012
Project website
Organiser: Uzma Malik

30 May 2012
Venue: Humanities Common Room, 11 Woodland Road
Organisers: Sam Barlow and Carolyn Muessig

25 May 2012
Enhancing the Learning Experience of Modern Languages through Feedback
Organisers: Helene Duranton, Jonas Langner, Gloria Visintini

10 May 2012
The First 60 Yrs of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables
Venue: LT2, Arts Complex
Speaker: Professor Kathryn Grossman (Pennsylvania State University)
Organisers: Bradley Stephens

30 April 2012
Public Lecture in Memory of Professor Michael Costeloe
HiPLA Events Page
Speaker: Professor Will Fowler (University of St Andrews)
Organisers: Matthew Brown

25 April 2012
Venue: Reception Room, 43 Woodland Road
Speakers inlcuded: Nick Lieven and Ian Wei

16 March 2012
Venue: Wills Memorial Building
Organisers: William Wootten and Daniel Karlin

9-10 March 2012
Seventeenth Joint Postgraduate Conference
Organisers: George Ferzoco, Massimo Rondolino and Emily Rhodes

29 February 2012
Venue: Link Rooms, Woodland Road
Organiser: Adrienne Mason

16 March 2012
Organisers: Hannah Walters (PO), Tamzin Simmons, Jade Bailey, Simone Bovair and Erica O'Brien

20 January 2012
Venue: Reception Room, 43 Woodland Road
Organisers: James Clark, Elizabeth Archibald and Beth Williamson

Project webpage
Organisers: Marianne Ailes, Adrienne Mason, Neville Morley

Congress webpage
25-30 July 2011
Venue: Wills Memorial Building
Organisers: Centre for Medieval Studies

25 June 2011
Organisers: Judy Preston (Institute for Garden and Landscape History)

Conference programme
15 June 2011
Venue: 3-5 Woodland Road and 7 Woodland Road
Organisers: Caroline Lynch, Tamzin Simmons and Claire Thomas

Conference webpage
24 May 2011
Venue: 3-5 Woodland Road and Powell Lecture Theatre, Physics
Organiser: Daniel Karlin

Conference webpage
11 May 2011
Venue: 3-5 Woodland Road
Organiser: John Lee

Project webpage
Organisers: Elizabeth Archibald, James Clark and Beth Williamson

Postgraduate conference webpage
20 November 2010
Venue: Lecture Theatre 2, 11 Woodland Road (entrance at 3-5)
Organisers: Pascale Engelmajer, Massimo Rondolino, Jinho Fashi (Minting Chiu), Karen Wendland

6 March 2010
Organisers: Anke Holdenried and Carolyn Muessig

14 January 2009
Organisers: Marianne Ailes, Steffan Davies and Lisa Hau

4 February 2009
BIRTHA Research Programmes Scheme: Traces of Conflict

Programme (PDF, 26.7kB)
20 - 21 February 2009
Organisers: Kirsteen Harvey, David Harry and Edwina Thorn

7 March 2009
Organiser: Carolyn Muessig

11 March 2009
Organiser: IAS

11 March 2009
Organisers: Derek Duncan and Nick Rees-Roberts

Conference webpage
14 March 2009
Organiser: Tim Mowl

18 March 2009
Organiser: Ad Putter

19 - 20 March 2009
Organisers: Stephen D'Evelyn, Silke Knippschild and Marta García

Conference webpage
20 - 22 March 2009
Organiser: Finn Spicer

21 - 22 March 2009
Organiser: Kurt Lampe

24 March 2009
BIRTHA Research Programmes Scheme: Traces of Conflict

Conference webpage
2 - 4 April 2009
Organisers: Nils Langer, Mair Parry, Steffan Davies and Derek Offord, Modern Languages

Conference webpage
6 - 9 April 2009
Organiser: David Shankland, Archaeology and Anthropology

16 - 17 April 2009
Organisers: Charles Martindale and Ralph Pite

Conference webpage
22 April 2009
Organisers: Stacey McDowell and Alex Evans

Programme (PDF, 94.1kB)
13 - 14 May 2009
Organiser: Dr. Winnie King

29 April 2009
OIRTHA Research Programmes Scheme: Traces of Conflict

Followed by a screening: Cood bay Forst Zinna, after which the director and artist Angus Boulton will give a talk about his film.

21 - 22 May 2009
Organiser: Connections Eight team (connections.eight@googlemail.com)

3 June 2009
Organiser: David Hook

Conference webpage
13 - 14 June 2009
Organisers: Mike Huggins, University of Cumbria and Mike O’Mahony, University of Bristol

Conference webpage
20 - 21 June 2009
Organiser: Dept History of Art

23 - 24 June 2009
Organisers: Louise Hughes and Eve Kalyva

27 - 28 June 2009
Organisers: David Hopkins, English, and Charles Martindale, Classics)

30 June 2009
Organiser: Centre for Public Engagement

Conference information
2 July 2009
Organiser: Dr John Lyon, English

7-9 July 2009
Organiser: Ruth Coates, Russian

9 July 2009
Organisers: Grace Brockington and Sarah Victoria Turner

10-12 July 2009
Organisers: Sarah Street and Liz Watkins, Drama

Conference webpage
14-15 July 2009
Organiser: Centre for East Asian Studies conference team

Conference webpage
23-26 July 2009
Organiser: Dr Guido Heldt, Music

25-26 July 2009
Organisers: Liz Prettejohn, History of Art

2 September 2009
Organiser: Liz Prettejohn, History of Art

3-6 September 2009
Organisers: Vanda Zajko and Ellen O'Gorman - Classics and Ancient History

9 September 2009
Organisers: Loriel Anderson, Heather Crawley, Greta Hawes and Shushma Malik - Classics and Ancient History

Workshop webpage
11-12 September 2009
Organiser: Department of Philosophy

18-20 September 2009
Organiser: Department of Philosophy

21-22 September 2009
Organiser: Sam Barlow

Workshop webpage
22 September 2009
Organiser: Leon Horsten

Conference webpage
23 September 2009
Organisers: IHR and the British Academy

Conference webpage
9 December 2009
Organisers:

11 December 2009
Organisers:

Conference webpage
12 January 2008
Organisers: ABIL

19 January 2008
Organiser: Bella Sandwell

23 January 2008
Organiser: Dept Drama

22 February 2008
Organiser: IGRCT

23 - 24 February 2008
Organisers: Brad Stephens and Susan Harrow

28 February 2008
Organisers: Liz Watkins and Mike O'Mahony

8 March 2008
Organisers: Ika Willis and Henry Powers

10 March 2008
Organiser: D R Brookshaw

15 March 2008
Organiser: Dept Theology

Symposium webpage
17 March 2008
Organiser: Dept Drama

26 April 2008
Organiser: Medieval Music Society

9 May 2008
Organiser: Dept Philosophy

17 May 2008
Organiser: Nico Momigliano

In June 2008, Peter Warren, one of the foremost scholars of the Aegean Bronze Age, celebrated his 70^th birthday.  On 17 May 2008 a group of his former MA and PhD students at the University of Bristol provided an early start to the celebrations, as a token of their gratitude and in recognition of his long and distinguished career both as a scholar and teacher.

19 May 2008
Organiser: IGRCT

5 June 2008
Organiser: Screen Research at Bristol

6 June 2008
Organiser: Dept Italian and Screen Research at Bristol

Conference webpage
6 - 7 June 2008
Organiser: Angela Piccini and Jo Carruthers

8 June 2008
Organiser: Dept Drama

Workshop webpage
17 June 2008
Organiser: Zoe Drayson

Workshop webpage
18 - 19 June 2008
Organiser: Ulrich Stegmann

20 - 23 June 2008
Organisers: David Shankland, Archaeology and Anthropology and Professor Salmeri, University of Pisa

This conference aims to examine the phenomenon of national schools and institutes abroad engaged in the study of the ancient world, archaeology and related topics, such as the British School at Athens, the French School in Rome, the German overseas Archaeological Institutes, and so on. These institutions, which fully emerged in the nineteenth century (even if in some cases they had illustrious ancestors) continue and flourish until today, and almost all colleagues engaged in arts research overseas have had some contact with them. Nevertheless, they have received negligible scholarly comparative attention. There are erudite works concerning individual schools, often written for official purposes, but the wider social context has been taken into consideration very rarely.

This neglect is in spite of the enormous variety of highly relevant issues that come to mind the moment this phenomenon is considered: amongst these are the relationship between heritage, culture and nationalism; the relevance of the schools and institutes for our understanding of European cultural history; the relationship between international scholarship and local intellectual currents; the role of respective schools as representatives of their particular country; the function of archaeological excavation in the creation of the prestige of a country, and so on. Our proposal, therefore, is to invite and to commission approximately fifteen contributions that will in themselves result in a coherent international gathering over three days, and also result in a useful collection of original published essays.

Over the three days of the conference, we will begin by examining the origins of this phenomenon in early modern France, then move on to the schools’ growth and extent today in comparative terms, with further sessions on their organisation (each nation is slightly different in the way that they run their respective schools); on their interaction with their host communities; on their links with one another; and on the way that the knowledge gleaned through the schools is used is reflected in the wider scholarly community. Through these sessions, to provide an original, comparative scholarly analysis of this phenomenon that will be useful in the future, hopefully establishing a high bench mark by which later work will be valued.

Workshop webpage
23 - 25 June 2008
Organisers: Alexander Bird and Emma Tobin

26 - 28 June 2008
Organiser: Katja Krebs

Seminar webpage
22 - 25 July 2008
Organiser: Mhairi Gibson, Archaeology and Anthropology

2 - 13 August 2008
Organiser: SML

5 - 7 September 2008
Organiser: Susan Harrow, French

In The Mottled Screen (1997) Mieke Bal complemented her rhetorical reading of painting (Reading ‘Rembrandt’, 1991) with a visual reading of verbal matter (Proust’s A la recherche).  Bal’s adventurous study of the visual properties and processes of the literary text urges us to move beyond the traditional ut pictura poesis approach in order to develop a properly generative reading of the visuality of writing. 

The aim of this conference is to take forward new approaches in visual reading.  Among the questions to be addressed are: how does writing receive or resist the textures and figures of visual media?  How do writers write colour and light?  How are visual analogies translated, transfigured or anticipated by the writer and by readers?  Which new directions in critical thought (in literature studies, art history, film studies, and theory) can enhance our understanding of the interrelations between visual art and writing?  How does the art essay resist its aesthetic object, and become a subject in and for itself?  How do literary texts enrich – or obstruct – our reading of art, and vice versa?  

In broader terms, this conference will reflect on reciprocities, actual and speculative, between visual culture and French, Francophone and related literatures of the broad modern period.  Our interpretation of ‘visual culture’ is capacious, and will include art and art theory, film, sculpture, photography, photojournalism, installation and performance art, documentary, the art book, and the specific engagement of writers with art and aesthetics.

10 September 2008
Organiser: Martin Hurcombe

Conference webpage
19 - 21 September 2008
Organisers: Jon Cannon, Pamela King and Beth Williamson, History of Art and English

24 September 2008
Organisers: Ralph Pite and John Halliwell

13 October 2008
Organiser: Friends of the Theatre Collection

24 October 2008
Organiser: David Hook

Bristol cathedral, formerly the abbey of St Augustine, is a remarkable building. To medievalists it is an enigmatic and compelling place, filled with important work of various periods – work that raises a range of important questions about style, patronage and the intentions behind medieval architecture. These questions become most urgent with regard to the extraordinary east end, the date and significance of which is hotly debated: for some, a building of international significance; for others, more of a ‘regional eccentric’, albeit one with remarkable iconographic qualities.

To the wider public, by turn, the cathedral is simply not well-known enough: this spectacular building tends to hide its light under a bushel in comparison to the more celebrated glories of St Mary Redcliffe or the great Bristol structures of the industrial age.

This major conference systematically addresses the main outstanding questions concerning St Augustine’s, drawing together a group of speakers international stature. Architecture, decorations, fittings and the wider historical context of the building’s medieval and sixteenth century history will all be addressed. Attendance will be essential for all with a serious interest in medieval history, art and architecture.

The lecture by Joseph Bettey on the conversion of St Augustine's to a cathedral will be open to the public free of charge. Evensong just beforehand will be sung in plainchant, reflecting the kind of music that would have been sung in the medieval abbey.

6 November 2008
Speaker: Professor Joanna Bourke

12 November 2008
BIRTHA Research Programmes Scheme: Traces of Conflict

18 November 2008
Organiser: Carolyn Muessig

19 November 2008
Organiser: David Hook

Conference webpage
28 November 2008
Organiser: CHOMBEC

3 December 2008
Organisers: David Hopkins and Charles Martindale

The practice and discussion of translation have sometimes been limited by the dormant metaphor (‘carrying across’) that the word ‘translation’ contains. Meaning, sense, character, or spirit – it is sometimes thought – can be taken out of one text and put into another. But this way of seeing the matter is both limited and misleading. Throughout literary history, translators have reached for other metaphors to describe what they are up to: archaeology, travel, conquest, interpretation, friendship, desire, loss, re-birth, trans-gendering, or metamorphosis. These metaphors might possibly offer a more nuanced description of the work that translation does and may open the way to a better understanding of the faithful creativity that is the translator’s paradoxical talent. This symposium will explore what it means to translate – and to read translations – in that light.

5 December 2008
Organisers: J. Mainguard and N. Rees Roberts

5 - 7 December 2008
Organiser: Colston Research Society

26 - 27 January 2007
Organiser: Dr. Matthew Brown, Lecturer in Latin American Studies

Two day international conference planned for 26-27th January 2007 with speakers from the U.K, Europe and the Americas.

This major conference will explore nineteenth-century empire and imperialism from a comparative and interdisciplinary angle. The centre of attention will be Latin America, the region which received most attention from scholars interested in 'informal empire' when it was fashionable during the 1970s and 1980s. This body of work showed how, from at least 1870 onwards, Britain's investment in railways, banks and other infrastructure was hugely important in determining policy in several independent Latin American republics. This investment occurred under the threat of gunboat diplomacy - with British warships often stationed strategically outside ports to remind local elites to act in accordance with British interests. This combination of commerce and military might led some to consider Latin America as part of Britain's 'informal empire' until at least 1914. The subject is given contemporary relevance by comparisons often made with the hegemony of the United States of America over its southern neighbours, particularly post-1945.

Even since the 'cultural turn' in Latin American history, and the relative decline of explicitly Marxism-inspired economic or social studies, scholars have continued to study relations between Britain and Latin America in the nineteenth century. The emphasis on 'informal empire', however, has been rather lost in recent years, with cultural historians preferring to discuss less contentious issues of 'mutual constitution', 'entanglement' and 'fuzzy boundaries'. But does this mean that 'informal empire' is no longer a useful concept for areas outside of Britain's formal colonial control?

This conference will analyse the continued relevance of the concept of British 'informal empire' in the light of advances in the historiography of imperialism and studies of the nineteenth-century modern world. The conference is interdisciplinary in nature, with the participation of scholars of imperialism and colonial societies with backgrounds in history, geography, cultural and literary criticism. The comparative element will be twofold, on the one hand from studies of continuing Spanish, Portuguese and French colonialism/imperialism in the region, and on the other hand from experts on British imperialism - informal or otherwise - elsewhere in the world.

By combining a comparative perspective with the juxtaposition of economic and cultural approaches, and by proposing and debating alternative explanatory models, this conference may well breathe new life into the flagging concept of 'informal empire'. It will certainly illuminate the study of British imperialism, from which Latin America is usually conspicuous only by its absence, and provide a broad and sound basis for interpreting the complex processes of nation-building and state-formation in Latin America. The outcome of the conference will be a published collection of the best conference papers and, if there is interest, the creation of a research network.

3 - 4 March 2007
Organiser:

Conference webpage
28 - 31 March 2007
Organisers: Alexander Kosenina (German), Lesel Dawson (English), Alexander Bird (Philosophy), Michael Bresalier (Philosophy and HPS, Cambridge)

Conference webpage
30 June 2007
Organiser:

1- 3 July 2007
Organiser:

Conference webpage
9 - 11 July 2007
Organiser: Department of Music

12 -14 July 2007
Organisers: Kent Fedorowich (UWE) and Robert Bickers (Historical Studies)

17 - 19 July 2007
Organisers: Shelley Hales and Joanna Paul

In the two hundred and fifty years since excavations began, Pompeii has became a major source of inspiration to western imaginations. The site, and the widely accessible creations it inspired throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (novels, films, paintings, exhibitions, domestic interiors, souvenirs and guide books) brought antiquity into the public sphere of knowledge, to be shared between gentleman enthusiasts, middle-class readers and music hall audiences alike. More recently, whilst the physical state of the site itself has reached a critical state of decay, a surge of popular interest in Pompeii, a prototype ground zero, has seen the city, as imaginative tool, model of disaster and tourist hotspot, reach a wider audience than ever before.

This conference, sponsored by the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts, will explore the popular receptions and representations of Pompeii. Our aim is to provide a stimulating environment in which academics studying the city and its reception can be brought together with practitioners who have tried to bring Pompeii to life in media such as novels, painting, photography, documentary and journalism. Confirmed keynote speakers include Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Mary Beard, Stephen Harrison, Stefano de Caro, Lindsey Davis and Victor Burgin.

26 - 29 July 2007
Organiser:

18 - 21 September 2006
Organiser:

28 - 29 September 2006
Organiser:

29 September - 1 October 2006
Organiser: Pauline Fairclough, Music

September 2006 marks the centenary of the birth of Dmitri Shostakovich. During his lifetime (1906-1975), Shostakovich was a paradoxical figure: he was the Soviet Union's most successful composer, yet his public censure during Stalin's regime was reported around the world. Despite the restrictions placed on musicians, scholars and journalists throughout the Soviet period, Shostakovich's popularity in the West flourished, and his reputation as one of the 20th Century's greatest composers has never been stronger.

After the sensation of his alleged memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich has been widely perceived in the West as a Soviet dissident. While this view has served to distance Shostakovich from the corruption of the Soviet regime under which he worked, it has also distracted us from seeking out a more complete picture of his career and music. In the last ten years, archival research has transformed our understanding of who Shostakovich was. Though there is still much to learn, the patient work of scholars, musicians and archivists is continually throwing up new discoveries. Unfinished or neglected works continue to be found in the Shostakovich Family Archive in Moscow, and two of Russia's most distinguished Shostakovich specialists, Olga Digonskaya and Olga Dombrovskaya, will be giving presentations in Bristol on their recent work. Laurel Fay, the foremost expert on Shostakovich in the West, will be giving the keynote address, together with some of the most distinguished names in American, Russian and British Russian music scholarship.

The Keynote speaker is Laurel Fay. Other speakers include: Inna Barsova (Moscow State University), Leonid Maximenkov, Olga Dombrovskaya (Shostakovich Family archive, Moscow), Olga Digonskaya (Glinka State archive of Literature and Art), Natalia Braginskaya (St Petersburg Conservatoire), Patrick McCreless (Yale University), David Fanning (University of Manchester) and Levon Akopian.

The major conference themes are: Manuscript and archival sources, analysis and aesthetics. There will also be sessions on reception, Shostakovich's contemporaries, song and opera, performance issues, film, theatre and incidental music.

The conference will begin on Friday, 29 September. On Friday evening, the Brodsky Quartet will be concluding their cycle of Shostakovich quartets at St George's, Bristol, with a performance of the Fifteenth Quartet. On Saturday evening, Olga Dombrovskaya will present her illustrated film talk on the newly-discovered Shostakovich film 'Warmongers', never before seen in the West. (Open to conference delegates only.) On Sunday there will be further archival and analysis sessions, together with papers on Shostakovich's contemporaries.

The Victoria Rooms were built in 1840 as a place of assembly and hosted Jenny Lind, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde among many others in the 19th century. They are situated in the heart of Clifton, Bristol's fashionable Georgian suburb rivalling nearby Bath in historic interest. Accommodation for the conference will be available in a number of hotels within walking distance; a wide variety of restaurants for main meals is equally close at hand, as are Bristol's mediaeval city centre and renovated waterfront.

Conference webpage
8 - 11 March 2006
Organiser: Dr Stephen Banfield, Department of Music

11 March 2006
Organisers: The Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition and Department of Music

6 - 7 April 2006
Organiser: Joanne Parker, Department of Historical Studies

What has been the history of prehistory?  How have Europe's earthworks and megaliths been interpreted, delineated, used and abused in the four centuries since James I dispatched Inigo Jones to interpret Stonehenge? This two-day interdisciplinary conference will examine the different ways in which prehistoric archaeology has influenced the artistic, scholarly and literary imagination of Europe - and, conversely, the ways in which changing beliefs, aesthetics and lifestyles have impacted upon prehistoric remains. Topics covered might include: the meaning and importance of prehistoric remains in works of art or literature; the development of prehistoric tourism and heritage; the prehistoric researches of individual antiquaries/archaeologists; the use and interpretation of prehistoric remains by specialist groups or organisations; prehistory and national/religious/local identities.

Confirmed speakers include: Timothy Darvill, Julian Cope, Ronald Hutton, Sam Smiles, Stephen Daniels, Richard Hayman, David Matless, Andrew Causey, Nick Groom, Mary Ann Constantine, Josh Pollard.

20 - 21 April 2006
Organiser: Claire O'Mahony

6 - 9 May 2006
Organiser: Dr David Shankland, The European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)

7 - 9 July 2006
Organisers:  Dr E Archibald, Dr J Clark, Department of English and Historical Studies

The legends of Troy lived long after the end of Antiquity. Not only did they prove to be a source of continuing inspiration to European artists and writers but through their many retellings they also contributed to the shaping of communal and national identities. This international conference presents a programme of speakers drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines to discuss Troy in its many different incarnations during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and beyond.

7 July - 9 July 2006
Organisers:  I. Haywood, Centre for Research in Romanticism, Roehampton Univeristy, in association with The Romantic Centre, University of Bristol

Conference webpage
7 - 8 July 2006
Organiser: Dr Stephen Milner, The Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol, in conjunction with the World University Network (WUN) 'Multilinguism' project

Conference webpage
13 - 15 July 2006
Organiser: The Centre for Colonial and Post-Colonial Societies

17 - 19 July 2006
Organiser: M. J. Hurcombe, Group for War and Culture Studies

Profoundly Spanish in origin, yet almost immediately internationalised, the Spanish Civil war had a marked impact on the politics and culture of many nations. Considered by many of its generation as the first ideological war, it has become for many since a precursor of the Second World War sometimes subsumed into, or obscured by, this latter in our memory of the period. Yet, its significance continues to be reflected in a variety of cultural representations of the conflict emanating from many different nations and cultures and in its continual pertinence and interest as a subject of historical research.

The aim of this three-day, international conference is to explore the international social, political, military and cultural history of this conflict from 1936 to the present. The organisers have welcomed proposals for papers on any aspect of the conflict from established scholars or postgraduates working in a range of disciplines including, for example, social, political and cultural history, military history and war studies, intellectual history, cultural memory, literary studies, art history, photography, media studies, film studies.

17 - 19 July 2006
Organiser: Dr Anne Simon

Medea, the notorious infanticidal non-Greek wife of Jason, is a figure from Classical mythology who challenges the boundaries of behaviour and understanding and has proved both a creative and an intellectual challenge for writers, artists, composers and performing artists since Euripides and before. The focus will be on the following areas:

• The reception of the myth from Antiquity to the twenty-first century in the fields of Classical studies; literature; fine and performing arts; film and media studies; music; popular culture; advertising; history; politics; alterity and gender studies; psychology; and medicine
• A critical re-assessment of theories of myth and myth-making on the basis of the mutations and permutations of the Medea myth
• The interpretation of the Medea myth to suit cultural, political, gender and scientific agendas

27 - 29 July 2006
Organiser: Dr Ellen O'Gorman

7 - 9 January 2005
Organiser: Departments of Archaeology, and Classics and Ancient History

15 -16 January 2005
Organiser: Department of Historical Studies

When arguing for the unbroken continuity of Britain's 'original constitution', Lord Bolingbroke disposed of the problem of the Norman conquest by stating that the Normans 'were originally of Celtic, or Gothic, extraction, call it which you please, as well as the people they subdued. They all came out of the same northern hive'. Bolingbroke had partially derived his eighteenth-century notion of the 'northern hive' from the earlier work of Sir William Temple. Matthew Arnold, however, plainly divided the nineteenth-century 'Saxon hive' from the 'Celtic race', despite his desire for improved relations between them.

This 'northern hive' serves as an organising principle for the many surprising ways that ancient 'Celtic' and 'Gothic' identities have been employed to authenticate modern cultures and nations. The historical sources of identity, whether a lost manuscript or a recovered artefact, are often entangled in questions of problematic provenance. The rhetorical elasticity of these Celtic and Gothic identities reveals multiple historical layers of posthumous inventions and critical revisions. Recent research in diverse fields such as archaeology, historiography and literary history has posed formidable challenges to the periodization of Celtic, Gothic and even Romantic discourses.

Addressing scholarly revisions from c. 1600 to the present, Celtic Romanticism and Gothic Revisionism emphasises the inherently politicised relationships between authenticity, antiquity and reconstructed identities. Contributions are welcomed from a variety of academic fields and theoretical perspectives. This exciting international forum will bring these Celtic and Gothic pasts into clearer focus.

17 - 27 February 2005
Organiser: Department of German

Biographical details of authors and synopses of plays

Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931)
Born into a Jewish family, Schnitzler studied medicine and developed an early interest in psychology.  His uncompromising  social criticism and approach to matters of sexuality meant that not only his plays but he himself became the object of repeated attack.  His depiction of an Austro-Hungarian officer, with its innovative use of interior monologue, in the short story Leutnant Gustl (1900), resulted in him losing his officer status.  Similarly his Reigen/La Ronde provoked a scandal after its first performance in 1920.  Schnitzler then forbade further performances of the Reigen, a series of ten scenes depicting a chain of sexual encounters across class barriers. 

A similar study of social mores is to be found in Die Verwandlungen des Pierrot/ The Metamorphoses of Pierrot and Marionetten/Marionettes set in the famous Viennese funfair, the Prater, where people from all social backgrounds mingled around the turn of the century.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921 – 1990)
Dürrenmatt remains one of Switzerland’s most famous and prolific playwrights and novelists.  A central concern in his work is the tension between justice and power.  Whilst influenced by Brecht’s alienation technique, Dürrenmatt blends it with elements of satire, farce and black humour.  He gained international success in 1956 with his tragicomedy Der Besuch der alten Dame/The Visit of the Old Lady, which best exemplifies these traits of his work.  A wealthy former inhabitant of the village returns determined to wreak vengeance on the man who broke her heart all those years ago.  However, events take a comically bizarre turn when the old lady of the title promises a reward to whomever kills her faithless former lover. 

Georg Büchner (1813 – 1837)
Büchner studied Medicine, Science, History and Philosophy.  In Gießen he became a member of a radical independence movement and founded the `Society of Human Rights`, intended to change conditions for the poor in Hessen.  In 1845 he was forced to flee because of his political views.  His fame came to him only posthumously and is based mainly on four short plays including the comedy Leonce und Lena/Leonce and Lena.  This tale of arranged marriage and mistaken identity remains a penetrating study of social restrictions despite its happy-ever-after ending.

Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)
One of Brecht’s early plays, Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit/The Petit-Bourgeois Wedding draws on elements of folk theatre in its depiction of a wedding celebration gone horribly wrong.  Elements of slapstick blend with early manifestations of Brecht’s famous alienation technique to provide a lively comedy which at the same time reveals the dreariness and isolation of petit-bourgeois life.

Carl Laufs (1858 – 1901) and Wilhelm Jacoby(1855 – 1925)
The two authors are virtually unknown to modern audiences, however their slapstick comedy Pension Schöller/Guest House Schöller has been one of the most consistently performed farces of recent years.  Set in a guest house in Berlin, it is a twist on the topos of mistaken identity in that the ageing bachelor Philipp Klapproth labours under the misapprehension that he is in a madhouse and that the other guests are its insane patients.  The barrier between normality and insanity is blurred and “normal” society comically revealed as grotesquely absurd.

Ödön von Horváth (1901 – 1938)
Horváth was the son of an Austro-Hungarian diplomat who, profoundly disturbed by the National Socialist regime in Vienna, emigrated to Paris in 1938. Horváth is mainly responsible for reinventing Viennese folk theatre, which he reshaped as a vehicle for stern social criticism of the contemporary petit-bourgeoisie.  Key in this is his unmasking of the pretentiousness of the language used by this class.  His Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald/Tales from the Vienna Woods (1931) portrays the social decline of Marianne, daughter of the owner of a magic trick shop, who wishes to marry her off to a butcher.  Initially her affair with the Lothario Alfred appears to promise the longed-for fairytale ending, but when Alfred leaves Marianne and their child in the lurch her path takes her back to the arms of the butcher she was so desperate to escape from.

18 -19 February 2005
Organiser: Cathy Hume and Alex West, Centre for Medieval Studies

25 - 27 February 2005
Organiser: The Centre for the Study of Visual and Literary Cultures in France

2 March 2005
Organiser: Beth Williamson, Centre for Medieval Studies

12 March 2005
Organisers: The Centre for Christianity and Culture in conjunction with the Centre for Buddhist Studies

The Centre for Christianity and Culture, University of Bristol in conjunction with the Centre for Buddhist Studies, University of Bristol holds an annual research conference for all postgraduate students. Postgraduate research students Marcus Pound and Eliana Corbari are co-ordinating this conference with the support of postgraduate students from the participating universities.

This conference allows students to meet other researchers from five participating institutions: Trinity College, Bristol; Exeter University; Bath Spa University; Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education. Further institutions may join the consortium in the future.

The aim of the conference is to provide a day whereby postgraduates can meet and exchange information about their research, their difficulties, and experiences. It also aims to develop a wider network and support group for the students which may be both pastorally and intellectually helpful.

16 March 2005
Organiser: Centre for Romantic Studies

6 - 9 April 2005
Organiser: German Department

22 April 2005
The Inaugural Romantic Science Day-School on Edward Jenner
Organiser: Centre for Romantic Studies

23 April 2005
Organiser: Department of Archaeology and Anthropology

30 April 2005
Organiser:

27 May 2005
Organisers: Annabelle Davies and Sophie Cummings

3 - 4 June 2005
Organisers: Departments of Philosophy and Maths

8 June 2005
Organiser: Robert Skinner

British Empire gave rise to variant forms of British identity in the colonial world outside the dominions.  In cities and colonies, and in sovereign states subject to more informal pressures, communities of Britons developed and developed identities inflected by local ambitions and pressures.  This workshop examines a representative selection of communities within the formal and informal British empire, underpinning the preparation of a comparative survey of the varieties of new British identity which developed, and their political significance in the twentieth century, in particular after 1919.

15 July 2005
Organiser: Centre for Romantic Studies

15 -17 July 2005
Organiser: Judith Jefferson, Centre for Medieval Studies

21 September 2005
Organiser:

23 - 24 September 2005
Supported by the Colston Research Society and BIRTHA
Organiser: Mark Horton and  Caroline Williams

Organised by the Departments of Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies, and Archaeology and Anthropology, the conference brings together historians and archaeologists of the circum-Atlantic region to explore the ways in which the activities of European pioneers and adventurers, and their interactions with the peoples and environments of territories extending across and around the Atlantic basin, contributed to the emergence of an ‘Atlantic World’. The concept of the ‘Atlantic World’ – of a world created and bound together by the movement within the Atlantic basin, over several centuries, of peoples, products, practices, and ideas – has gained great currency in recent years, especially since Professor Bernard Bailyn established the annual International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University in 1995. Building on the new outlook and perspectives that have arisen as a result of the work of numerous scholars in the field, this truly international conference seeks to further broaden the study of the Atlantic by considering the contribution made by Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, and Scottish pioneers and adventurers, as well the English, to the emergence and development of the Atlantic World over the period c.1492-1810.

2 November 2005
Organisers: Departments of Drama and German

The "German Shakespeare", Friedrich Schiller, died in 1805, just 45 years old.  To mark the occasion of this 200th anniversary the Departments of German and Drama are organising a half-day celebration on the 2nd of November.  We plan to present a many-sided portrait of the dramatist and theoretician, the poet and orator, and to consider his reception in the 19th and 20th centuries.  A choice of short seminars in the afternoon will cover the following topics:  Schiller's method of constructing a scene and Schiller's rhetoric (Michael Levene); Schiller's Contribution to the 18^th-century Art of Acting and Love and Friendship in Schiller's Philosophy (Alexander Ko'enina); Nietzsche's Battle with Schiller and Schiller at War (Nicholas Martin, Birmingham). The evening lecture on Citoyen Schiller's Aesthetic Revolution will be given by a leading specialist, Professor Klaus L. Berghahn (University of Madison, Wisconsin, USA).

Autumn 2005
Organiser: Centre for Romantic Studies