Black Theatre Making and Censorship in the Archive The British Library 2022-12-01 | Black theatre making is often written out of the archive, credited to white theatre practitioners, or catalogued in ways that make it hard to find. But because Black theatre makers were frequently at the forefront of movements for change, their work was regularly subject to censorship and surveillance and collected in state archives. This panel discussion and performance explores Black theatre making in the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays Collection, an archive which owes its existence to British theatre censorship laws requiring theatre managers to obtain a license to stage a new play up until 1968. Come and find out how Black theatre practitioners are talking back to archives of censorship to recover the rich heritage of Black theatre making. The event will feature staged readings from theatre manuscripts and censor’s reports on two plays by Black theatre makers held in the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays Collection at the British Library: Una Marson’s At What a Price (1933) and In Dahomey (1903) one of the first musical comedies written almost entirely by Black theatre makers and presented by Black performers in American and Britain. It will be followed by a panel discussion and chance for audience members to consider what they would censor if these plays were performed today. This event is supported by the Independent Social Research Foundation as part of the Archives of Cultural Surveillance and the Making of Black Histories Project at the University of Leeds. The event is a collaboration between the University of Leeds, Leeds Playhouse and the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library. The Eccles Centre exists to support and promote creative research and lifelong learning about the Americas, through the world-class collections of the British Library.
The Further Queer Adventures of Alexander the Great: Boyfriend, Activist and Porn Star The British Library 2023-03-23 | This event took place on the 7th of February 2023. The information below is correct as of the publication date.This talk by Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Chair of Ancient History at Cardiff University is hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller of the Bad Gays podcast and book.Ever since the 20th century discovered ‘that horrid thing Freud called sex’ and began to consider sexual preferences as an integral part of sexual identity, Alexander the Great has been scrutinised for what his love life said (or says) about the man himself.The question of Alexander’s homosexuality, once the preserve of scholars, is now debated in classrooms, on Pride marches, in popular literature, in magazines, in pornography – and the strengthening gay communities of the liberal West has happily embraced the ancient ruler as a gay prototype, and even as a role model for the modern gay man.The talk explores the modern perception of Alexander’s sexuality in literature, film, and other forms of popular culture from the 1960s to now. What emerges are multifarious gay Alexanders and different personas within the ever-morphing world of queer identity.Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller of Bad Gays, the hit podcast and book. Bad Gays explores the histories of queer people whose sexualities and/or un-exemplary deeds have been overlooked. From the Emperor Hadrian to anthropologist Margaret Mead, Lawrence of Arabia, J. Edgar Hoover or notorious gangster Ronny Gray. Together, these life stories expand and challenge assumptions about sexual identity: showing that homosexuality itself was an idea, emerging in the 19th century, that was from the beginning marked by exclusion and violence, and that has also been central to major historical events.Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University. He specialises in Achaemenid Persia and in Greek socio-cultural history, and in the reception of antiquity in popular culture. He is the general editor of Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Persia for Edinburgh University Press and co-general editor of Screening Antiquity, also for EUP. Born in South Wales and educated in Hull and Cardiff, Lloyd travels extensively throughout the Middle East, especially Iran, often leading cultural tours, and has acted as historical consultant for major Hollywood movies and for television documentaries. He is the author of several books, most recently Persians. The Age of the Great Kings.Huw Lemmey is a novelist, artist and critic living in Barcelona. He is the author of four books, including Bad Gays: A Homosexual History with Ben Miller, and Unknown Language. He writes on sex, culture, history and cities for numerous magazines and journals including Frieze and Architectural Review. As an artist and filmmaker, his work has appeared at numerous international institutions.Ben Miller is a writer and historian living in Berlin, and a Doctoral Fellow in Global Intellectual History at the Freie Universität. Since 2018, he has been a member of the board of the Schwules Museum, the world’s largest independent institution dedicated to archiving and preserving queer histories and visual cultures.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Carlo Rovelli presents Anaximander and the Nature of Science The British Library 2023-03-23 | This event took place on the 23rd of February 2023. The information below is correct as of the publication date.The theoretical physicist and bestselling author Carlo Rovelli talks about his entirely original reading of the little known ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander which puts this early thinker on a par with Newton, Galileo and Einstein and asserts his foundational influence on the history of western thought.In the 6th century BCE, Anaximander’s insights paved the way for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology and biology. He not only conceived for the first time that the Earth is a rock, suspended in space, but also that animals evolve, that storms and earthquakes are natural (not supernatural), proposed the cycle of water, and drew the first map of the known world. Above all he understood that progress is made by the endless search for knowledge.Carlo Rovelli’s Anaximander and the Nature of Science, his first and still favourite book, is now available in English. The author will be signing copies on the night.Half Price tickets available for Members, Students, Under 26 and other concession groups. The event will be captioned with automated captioning.Please note that Sarah Perry is no longer able to take part in this event.Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time. He has worked in Italy and the United States and currently directs the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseille, France. His previous books include Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, Reality Is Not What It Seems and There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness are international bestsellers that have been translated into more than 50 languages.'Carlo Rovelli is a genius and an amazing communicator'– Neil Gaiman The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
The Ladies of Llangollen: Mary Gordon’s Chase of the Wild Goose The British Library 2023-03-23 | This event took place on the 28th of February 2023. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Chase of the Wild Goose, out of print since the 1940s, has just been republished by Lurid Editions who are making the book available to contemporary readers for the first time.This event brings together publisher D-M Withers, historian Alison Oram and writer Frances Bingham in discussion of a historical novel described by Sarah Waters as a ‘fascinating piece of queer literary history.’At the heart of Chase of the Wild Goose are the lives of Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1832), two Irish women who eloped from their families and set up home together in Llangollen, North Wales. In their lifetimes they became famous celebrities, known internationally as the Ladies of Llangollen.Our speakers examine the enduring significance of the Ladies as queer icons, whose imagery and energy continues to powerfully reverberate across history. They will also introduce the author of Chase of the Wild Goose, Mary Gordon, a pioneering late 19th and early 20th century feminist, whose intense spiritual connection with the Ladies motivated her to write their story. Chase of the Wild Goose is an important, endearing and eccentric lesbian modernist text that will bring joy to readers.Frances Bingham is the author of Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life (2021), Journey from Winter (2008), The Principle of Camouflage (2011) and London Panopticon (2020). She has also published short stories and poems.Alison Oram is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London and Professor Emerita at Leeds Beckett University. She has published widely on queer British history, most recently Queer Beyond London (Manchester University Press, 2022), co-authored with Matt Cook.D-M Withers is the founder of Lurid Editions Ltd and Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Exeter. D-M was also part of the curatorial team for the British Library exhibition Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women's Rights.Norena Shopland is a Welsh historian and writer who specialises in LGBTQ+ research and history. She has featured on lists of Welsh LGBTQ+ people of note, and gives talks, lectures and workshops on Welsh heritage and LGBTQ+ history.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
BOCAS UK at the British Library 2022: Session 1 - Ways in the World The British Library 2023-03-23 | This event took place on the 29th of October 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Two new memoirs and a collection of autobiographical poems tell stories of displacement and homecoming in the aftermath of complicated history. Hosted by Audrey Brown with Barbara Jenkins, author of the memoir The Stranger Who Was Myself; Ira Mathur, author of Love the Dark Days; Poet Grace Nichols discusses her latest poetry collection Passport to Here and There.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Chinese and British: The Conversation. Part II The British Library 2023-03-23 | This event took place on the 13th of March 2023. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Following on from the very successful conversation held last year, Georgie Ma returns to host an evening of deeply personal reflections exploring life as a member of the British Chinese community. Based on her podcast Chinese Chippy Girl, Georgie’s special guests this evening join her to talk about belonging and identity and to explore areas of conflict and tension.Jamie Lau is a British photographer of Chinese heritage. He is interested in exploring the cultural differences between his Chinese and English identity. In his current exhibition at the British Library he takes inspiration from his rural upbringing, isolated from a wider Chinese community, and the effect this has had on his own sense of cultural belonging. The series 8 Stories offers differing perspectives of each of his subjects forging their own identity within the countryside.Lijia Zhang is a writer and columnist. She was born into a working-class family in Nanjing, on the banks of the Yangtze River. At 16, she was taken out of school and worked for 10 years at a military factory that produced intercontinental missiles, before teaching herself English and moving to London in 1990. Her book of oral history China Remembers (1999) was followed by ”Socialism Is Great!" A Worker's Memoir of the New China (2011), published in eight countries, and Lotus: A Novel (2017). She appears regularly on TV, radio and in the international media, such as The South China Morning Post, The Guardian and The New York Times.Alan Lau is the founder and chair of The Frank Soo Foundation. Frank Soo (1914 – 1991) was the first person of Chinese heritage to play in the English Football League and also the first person of colour to play for England (Wartime International). He was born in Derbyshire, and later raised in Liverpool, to a Chinese father and an English mother. Alan Lau has been involved in grassroots football for over 10 years, organising events in the Chinese and East Asian communities. He has a role at the English FA as a Community Champion as well as running the Chinese Community Centre Football team, having been a volunteer and Trustee at the LCCC.Georgie Ma is a BBC (British born Chinese). Her parents owned a Chinese takeaway in Macclesfield which she worked at since the age of 10 and also lived above the shop with her family. Georgie created the podcast, Chinese Chippy Girl, where she brings guests on the show to bring better representation to the ESEA (East and Southeast Asian) community and to amplify ESEA voices.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
The Josephine Hart Poetry Hour: W B Yeats The British Library 2023-03-23 | This event took place on the 21st of March 2023. The information below is correct as of the publication date.In this special event for World Poetry Day 2023, we celebrate the world-renowned Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats, marking the centenary of his award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923,Join us for an evening of his work, with readers Bob Geldof, Denise Gough and Gavin Drea, with an introduction by broadcaster and journalist Mariella Frostrup.Opening remarks by His Excellency, the Ambassador of Ireland, Martin Fraser.Casting and Direction by Shevaun Wilder.Presented by The Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation.The Poetry Hour was founded by novelist and poetry anthologist Josephine Hart. Launched as The Gallery Poets in Mayfair in the mid-1980s, it later became The Poetry Hour and won fame for bringing classic ‘great poetry read aloud by great actors’ to a wide audience. The British Library has supported Josephine Hart’s mission from 2004 and continues to do so in her memory on a regular basis.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Fluid Crossings: A Transatlantic Celebration of Walt Whitmans Radical Cultural Legacy The British Library 2023-03-23 | This event took place on the 15th of February 2023. The information below is correct as of the publication date.‘Through me forbidden voices,Voices of sexes and lusts…. Voices veiled, and I remove the veil,Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigured.’– From Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass (1855)In the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), published nearly two decades before the word ‘homosexual’ was first used, and more than a century before the Stonewall riots ignited the modern LGBT+ movement, Walt Whitman declared himself its first spokesperson.English readers were prominently among his few early supporters. Many of them belonged to the radical subculture of Victorian Britain and they saw Whitman as the embodiment of all that was progressive, particularly in his enlightened attitude toward sex and sexuality. Vegetarian activist William Horsell, who served as Whitman’s first British literary agent; Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood co-founder William Michael Rossetti, who edited the first British edition of Leaves of Grass; socialist writer Edward Carpenter, who included Whitman in the first survey of gay literature from ancient to modern times, Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship: such transatlantic connections gave the poet hope and his book life, through years of intense criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.‘Those blessed gales from the British Isles probably (certainly) saved me,’ Whitman reminisced in his final year. ‘Perhaps the tenderest and gratefulest breath of my heart has gone, and ever goes, over the sea-gales across the big pond.’This talk by Karen Karbiener breathes life into Leaves of Grass and initiates the British Library’s celebration of this enduring, extraordinary transatlantic cultural exchange during LGBTQ+ History Month. She is joined by acclaimed illustrator Brian Selznick, who in 2019 illustrated a new edition of Walt Whitman's Live Oak, with Moss, a sequence of 12 poems which tells the story of Whitman's unhappy love affair with a man.Both Karen and Brian will take part in a live conversation and audience Q+A at the end of the event.Karen Karbiener is an American scholar, writer, curator, and cultural activist and has been teaching at New York University since 2003. Winner of the Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress and a Fulbright recipient, she has published widely on Whitman, including an edition of Leaves of Grass, two audiobooks on the poet’s life and influence, a book introducing Whitman’s poetry to children, and a collaboration with Caldecott-winning illustrator Brian Selznick on a new edition of Live Oak, with Moss, Whitman’s secret same-sex love poems. She was the co-curator with Susan Tane of Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman (Grolier Club, NY; 2019) and is the author of a book based on the exhibition (University of Chicago Press, 2022). Karbiener is the president and founding member of the Walt Whitman Initiative, a non profit organisation serving as an organising centre for cultural activism and poetry-related events (including New York’s annual Song of Myself marathon, in its 19th year in 2022).Brian Selznick is the author and illustrator of many books for children, including The Invention of Hugo Cabret, winner of the Caldecott medal and the basis for the Oscar-winning movie Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese. Kaleidoscope, a novel in short stories, was called a “lockdown masterpiece” by the New York Times, and his newest book Big Tree, inspired by an idea from Steven Spielberg, will be published April 4th.Presented in partnership with The American Trust for the British Library, and in association with the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
The Novels That Shaped Our World The British Library 2023-03-16 | This event took place on the 8th of November 2019. The information below is correct as of the publication date.To mark the 300th anniversary of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, a panel of writers, journalists and thinkers have selected 100 novels that have shaped their world. Chaired by BBC Radio 2’s Jo Whiley, writers Alexander McCall Smith, Kit de Waal and Juno Dawson along with broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, editor of the TLS Stig Abell and Bradford Literature Festival Director Syima Aslam reveal their choices.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Jonathan Wright: Change and Continuity in Contemporary Arabic Fiction The British Library 2023-03-09 | Jonathan Wright draws on his own experience as a translator of contemporary Arabic fiction to examine and critique the assumptions that underpin a corpus of literature written in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), a language that no living person speaks as their mother tongue.This is the annual Saif Ghobash Banipal Translation Prize Lecture.What are the consequences when the literary establishment tries to maintain a prescriptivist stranglehold over modes of creative expression? Are the guardians of language even right when they claim to be preserving an immutable standard? The reality is that Arabic has changed and continues to change, but MSA remains very different from the language people speak at home and sing in when they are sad or in love. How do creative writers operate in such an environment? And how long can the conservatives hold out against the intrusion of colloquialisms they consider vulgar? When the literary cultures of the source and target languages are so different, the choice of texts and the way they are handled is bound to be contentious, especially given the imbalance of cultural power. In translating these works, how many concessions should translators make to a literary tradition that may owe much to contemporary elitism, not just to the fifteen centuries of diverse literature written in Arabic?Jonathan Wright studied Arabic at Oxford and worked as a journalist for Reuters for many years, mostly in the Arab world. He turned to literary translation in 2008 and has since translated more than 20 novels and other books, as well as dozens of short stories. stories. He translated novels by Hassan Blasim, Ahmed Saadawi, Saud Alsanousi, Sinan Antoon, Mazen Maarouf, Amjad Nasser and others. He has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Have We Got News For You. With 5x15 The British Library 2023-03-09 | This event took place on the 19th of May 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.The British Library is delighted to host 5x15’s long-awaited return to in-person events. The format is simple: 5 speakers with 15 minutes each to tell a story. Together we'll be exploring the news with those who shape it, write it and are the news!Rana Ayyub is ranked among 10 global journalists who face maximum threats to their lives across the world. Her international bestseller Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover-Up investigates state-sponsored genocide. In 2022 for the second time in three years, the UN wrote to India to protect her from state-enabled attacks in response to her journalism.Oliver Bullough is an award-winning author and journalist, specialising in financial skulduggery. His financial exposé Moneyland (2018), was a Sunday Times business bestseller and a Waterstones Book of the Month. His new book (March 2022) is Butler to the World: How Britain became the servant of tycoons, tax dodgers, kleptocrats and criminals.Amelia Gentleman is a reporter and author of The Windrush Betrayal, Exposing the Hostile Environment. She has won the Orwell prize and many other awards for the Windrush investigations. ‘Her reporting proves why an independent free press is so vital for democracy,’ Reni Eddo-Lodge said about her. Previously Amelia reported from Delhi, Paris and Moscow.Ed Miliband is Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero, and former Leader of the Labour Party. Since 2017 Ed has captured the imagination of millions with his podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful, which explores solutions to the challenges facing societies all around the world. His book Go Big addresses the most urgent of these problems, and argues that the key is to think big.Gideon Rachman is the FT’s Chief Foreign Affairs columnist. His new book The Age of the Strongman examines the new nationalism in Russia, Europe, and beyond, asking what forces are in place to keep these strongmen in check? In 2016 Gideon was European Press Prize’s Commentator of the Year.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Eating to Extinction: Saving our Food Traditions The British Library 2023-03-09 | This event took place on the 14th of April 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.In his recent book Eating to Extinction, Dan Saladino looks at the stories behind foods that are on the brink of extinction around the world. It’s about food systems, farmers, communities and cultures, and why their possible demise matters.Dan talks to Jessica B. Harris, leading expert on African and African American foodways, along with two producers who feature in the book, cheese-maker Joe Schneider and perry and cider maker Tom Oliver.Jessica B. Harris is the author, editor, or translator of 18 books including 12 cookbooks documenting the foodways of the African Diaspora. Her seminal book High on the Hog was the culmination of decades-long research and was serialised by Netflix in 2020 to significant critical acclaim. Dr Harris holds numerous awards and accolades including an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Johnson & Wales University. In 2019, her food-related works were inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame and she is the 2020 James Beard Lifetime Achievement awardee.Tom Oliver is a cider and perry maker and farmer from Ocle Pychard in Herefordshire. He grows a small number of many varieties of cider apple and perry pear and produces a wide range of products from his own fruit and from a select group of farmers and orchardists in the county. The ciders and perries are made from 100% fresh pressed fruit, fermented spontaneously by wild yeasts, emphasising a very traditional approach of seasonality and vintage but utilising modern technology and science wherever possible. He rediscovered the long lost ‘Coppy’ perry pear some 20 years ago.Dan Saladino is a journalist and broadcaster. He makes programmes about food for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service. His work has been recognised by the Guild of Food Writers Awards, the Fortnum and Mason Food and Drink Awards, and in America by the James Beard Foundation. Eating to Extinction was awarded the 2019 Jane Grigson Trust Award. He lives in Cheltenham but his roots are Sicilian.Joe Schneider was born in New York State, USA and attended Cornell University for a degree in Agricultural Engineering. He lived in Holland from 1995–1998 where he first learned to make cheese. In 1998 he moved to England and joined a small team on a Biodynamic farm producing dairy products. Joe set up the Daylesford Creamery and five years later, in partnership with Neal’s Yard Dairy, Joe embarked on producing a traditional Stilton from raw milk, the critically-acclaimed Stichleton, reviving an extinct tradition.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Creating the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland The British Library 2023-02-23 | This event took place on the 14 of July 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.On 30 June 1922 a massive explosion and fire destroyed the Public Record Office of Ireland in the opening engagement of the Irish Civil War. The Four Courts complex, where the Record Office was located, had been occupied by opponents of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. The battle to retake the complex left Record Office in ruins. Seven centuries of Irish records dating back to the time of the Normans were lost – seemingly forever. While incomparable with the loss of human life, the destruction of seven centuries of records was among the worst cultural tragedies of 20th-century Irish history.‘The fire left little but tangled iron work, blocks of masonry, mason rubbish and the charred fragments and ashes of what had once been Public Records.’Now, these records are being reconstructed through a remarkable research project, which is working to virtually restore as much as possible of what was lost. Millions of words from destroyed documents have been reassembled from copies, transcripts and records scattered among other collections and archives. It is bringing together this rich array of replacement items as an open-access resource, and a virtual recreation of the Public Record Office building, freely available to all those interested in Irish history.Beyond 2022 is an all-Ireland and international collaboration, which – on the centenary of the Four Courts blaze – launched the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland online.Hear from some of the team behind this remarkable restoration, to discover how a moment of destruction has been reversed through painstaking research and partnership.With Dr Peter Crooks and Dr Ciarán Wallace, (Director and Deputy Director, Beyond 2022) Dr Sarah Hendriks and Dr Elizabeth Biggs (Beyond 2022 Research Fellows at the National Archives UK). This event included a screening of a new artwork by artist and filmmaker, Mairéad McClean, Decade of Centenaries Artist in Residence with Beyond 2022.This event celebrated the international partnership behind the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, and explored how the collections of the British Library, The National Archives UK and other memory institutions across Britain and the world can help to revitalise access to Ireland’s deep history.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
The PEN Pinter Prize 2022: Malorie Blackman The British Library 2023-02-16 | This event took place on the 10 of October 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.The annual award for freedom of expression in literature.Former Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman is awarded the prestigious PEN Pinter Prize for 2022, the first children’s and YA writer to receive it. At this event she delivers her keynote address at a ceremony hosted by British Library and English PEN.Malorie Blackman was chosen by this year’s judges: Chair of English PEN, Ruth Borthwick; publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster Margaret Busby; and writer, editor and translator Daniel Hahn.The PEN Pinter Prize was established in 2009 by the charity English PEN, which defends freedom of expression and celebrates literature, in memory of Nobel-Laureate playwright Harold Pinter. The prize is awarded annually to a writer of outstanding literary merit resident in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland or the Commonwealth who, in the words of Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize in Literature speech, casts an ‘unflinching, unswerving’ gaze upon the world and shows a ‘fierce intellectual determination ... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies’.The prize is shared with an International Writer of Courage: a writer who is active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty. The co-winner, selected by Malorie Blackman from a shortlist of international cases supported by English PEN, is announced at the event.Malorie Blackman has written over 70 books for children and young adults, including the Noughts and Crosses series of novels (which won the Red House FCBG Children’s Book Award as well as being included in the top 100 of the BBC Big Read), Cloud Busting (winner of the Smarties Silver Award), Thief (winner of the Young Telegraph/Fully Booked Award) and Hacker (winner of the WH Smiths Children's Book Award and the Young Telegraph/Gimme 5 Award for best children's book of the year). Her latest book is Endgame, the final novel of the Noughts and Crosses series.Malorie is a scriptwriting graduate of the National Film and Television School. Her work has appeared on TV, with Pig-Heart Boy, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, being adapted into a BAFTA winning 6-part TV serial. As well as writing original and adapted drama scripts for TV, Malorie also regularly wrote for CBBC's Byker Grove. She also co-wrote the Doctor Who episode – Rosa. In 2005, Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children’s books. In 2008, she was then honoured with an OBE for her services to Children’s Literature. Malorie was appointed Children’s Laureate 2013–2015.English PEN is one of the world's oldest human rights organisations, championing the freedom to write and read. With the support of members – a community of writers, readers and activists – they protect freedom of expression whenever it is under attack, support writers facing persecution around the world, and celebrate contemporary international writing with literary prizes, grants and events.The PEN Pinter Prize is supported by the generosity of the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Ruth Maxted.Image of Malorie Blackman by Dominic TaylorThe British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Indoor Jungles: The Story of the Houseplant The British Library 2023-02-16 | This event took place on the 2 of December 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Tony Le-Britton, Mike Maunder, Jane Perrone and Carlos Magdalena revel in plant love!Discover the intimate and ancient history of houseplants with our self-confessed panel of #plantaddicts and get ready to show off your own indoor jungles by sending us your pictures.In our increasingly urban lives, these green houseguests give us a vital connection to nature, improve our well-being and stir aesthetic obsessions. Houseplants are a social, cultural and economic sensation, both hyper-local and global; from clippings exchanged between friends to the billion-dollar flower industry. Expert guides on care and maintenance fill our shelves and ‘green content’ bursts from our social media feeds.This event celebrates the humble houseplant with its long and fascinating history, from medieval gillyflower cultivation through Victorian fern-fever to the return of macramé.With Mike Maunder whose new book House Plants tells how they were transformed from wild plants into members of our households. Also featuring Carlos Magdalena Scientific & Botanical Research Horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew London and Jane Perrone host of the houseplant obsessed podcast On The Ledge. Chaired by avid houseplant collector Tony Le-Britton who shares his home with some of the world's rarest plants. Part of our strand of events on nature writing, The Natural Word. View previous events in this season for free at the British Library Player. Tony Le-Britton is a self-taught houseplant grower and prolific collector of some of the world’s rarest plants. His debut book Not Another Jungle is a comprehensive guide to houseplant care and delves into the fascinating plant processes happening right under our noses. Since 2020 his Instagram account @notanotherjungle has built up over 170,000 followers with its stunning plant photography. Tony has spent years cultivating, exploring wild habitats and learning from large scale growers in The Netherlands and South America.Mike Maunder is a conservationist and has worked on plant and ecosystem conservation in the UK, USA, Middle East and Africa. He trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and University of Reading. He is Executive Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, University of Cambridge. He is the author of House Plants (Reaktion, 2022).Jane Perrone is host of houseplant podcast On The Ledge and author of forthcoming book Legends of the Leaf, which profiles 25 iconic houseplants. She is the founder and host of #HouseplantHour on Twitter every Tuesday evening. Jane works as a freelance journalist, writing for a range of publications including The Guardian, the Financial Times, Gardens Illustrated and RHS magazine The Garden.Carlos Magdalena is an expert in aquatic plants and has been instrumental in efforts to save the planet's tiniest waterlily - the Nymphaea thermarum - from the brink of extinction. He led work to confirm a new species of giant waterlily the Victoria Boliviana, thought to be the largest of its kind. Carlos is author of the The Plant Messiah and has searched the mountains of Peru, remote Indian Ocean islands and the deepest Australian outback for rare exotic species. In the Tropical Nursery at Kew Gardens he uses pioneering, left-field techniques to help them grow.In partnership with Royal Botanic Gardens, KewThe British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Just Sayin: Malorie Blackman in conversation with Jackie Kay The British Library 2023-02-16 | This event took place on the 23 of November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.The long-awaited autobiography of one of the world's greatest children's writers.Malorie Blackman is one of Britain’s best and most beloved children’s authors, the landmark Noughts & Crosses series included among her many books.Her journey to becoming a writer was a long one. Before her BAFTA award wins, her OBE and appointment as Children’s Laureate in 2013, Malorie was a young girl from South London who fell in love with books and found a home in her local library. From this early embracing of the wonder of the world and long dream of becoming a writer, her life’s journey has been an eventful one marked by trauma, setbacks and triumph.Malorie’s new autobiography Just Sayin' is funny, frank, and full of life lessons and deeply held convictions about society, healthcare and the arts. It is the deeply personal and vividly compelling account of a natural storyteller who defied expectations and inspired a generation.At this special event Malorie talks to another great name in British literature, Jackie Kay, poet, fiction writer and memoirist who has also written for younger people.Malorie Blackman has written over 70 books for children and young adults, including the Noughts & Crosses series, Thief and a science-fiction thriller, Chasing the Stars. Many of her books have also been adapted for stage and television, including a BAFTA-award-winning BBC production of Pig-Heart Boy and a Pilot Theatre stage adaptation by Sabrina Mahfouz of Noughts & Crosses. There is also a major BBC production of Noughts & Crosses, with Roc Nation (Jay-Z’s entertainment company) curating the soundtrack as executive music producer. In 2005 Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children’s books. In 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature, and between 2013 and 2015 she was the Children’s Laureate. Most recently Malorie wrote for the Doctor Who series on BBC One, and the fifth novel in her Noughts & Crosses series, Crossfire.Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh. A poet, novelist and writer of short stories, she has enjoyed great acclaim for her work for both adults and children and was the third modern Makar, the Scottish Poet Laureate from 2016 to 2021. Her first novel Trumpet won the Authors' Club First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. She is also the author of three collections of stories with Picador, Why Don't You Stop Talking, Wish I Was Here, and Reality, Reality; two poetry collections, Fiere and Bantam; and her memoir, Red Dust Road. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and divides her time between Glasgow and Manchester, where she is currently Chancellor of the University of Salford.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Ukraine Lab Launch The British Library 2023-02-16 | This event took place on the 9 of November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Exploring global challenges through the prism of Ukraine and the art of storytelling.Ukraine's ongoing resistance to Russia’s war of aggression has shown the value of Ukrainian knowledge and experience. Learning from Ukraine about responses to existential threats is now vital for the rest of the world.The online writing residency Ukraine Lab has presented such an opportunity to six emerging writers from Ukraine and the UK. They have worked together to explore global challenges related to environment, disinformation and war, through the prism of Ukraine and the art of storytelling.They will present their creative non-fiction pieces, alongside photographer Mstyslav Chernov’s astonishing original artwork, and share cultural resistance strategies at the Ukraine Lab launch at the British Library.Ukraine Lab is run by the Ukrainian Institute London in partnership with PEN Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute under the UK/UA Season funded by the British Council.The conversation is chaired by Dr Sasha Dovzhyk a Special Projects Curator at the Ukrainian Institute London and Associate Lecturer in Ukrainian, School of Slavonic and East-European Studies, UCL.Jonathon Turnbull is a cultural and environmental geographer researching the return of nature to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.Olena Kozar is a journalist, editor and copywriter.Kris Michalowicz is an international volunteer and writer focusing on Eastern Europe.Kateryna Iakovlenko is a Luhansk-born visual culture researcher and writer and Research Fellow at the School of Slavonic and East-European Studies, UCL.Phoebe Page is preparing for a Masters degree in Political Sociology, and is communications officer at the Ukrainian Institute London.Sofia Cheliak is a translator, TV presenter and programme director at the Lviv International BookForum.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Worldwide Reading of Ukrainian Literature The British Library 2023-02-16 | This event took place on the 7 of September 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.An evening celebrating Ukrainian literature featuring exclusively recorded interviews from Andrey Kurkov and Iryna Shuvalova, alongside in-person appearances and contributions from Uilleam Blacker, Nina Murray, Kateryna Babkina and more.Bringing together organisations across the UK, this event featured enchanting readings and a chance to connect with the culture of Ukraine. Whether you are a curious newbie or an avid reader, delve into the beauty of the literature of Ukraine.The Berlin International Literature Festival, in cooperation with the Frankfurt Book Fair and the German PEN Centre, has established a worldwide reading of Ukrainian literature on 7 September 2022. For one day organisations across the world and displaced Ukrainian refugees will be united through a love of reading.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Literature Matters: RSL 200 – Love from the Pink Palace The British Library 2023-02-09 | This event took place on the 5th of December 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Russell T. Davies FRSL is joined by his dear friend and author of Love from the Pink Palace, Jill Nalder to discuss their importance in one another’s lives, the importance of literature in their lives, and It’s a Sin with Sabina Dosani and chair Matthew Sweet.Just a few days after World AIDS Day on Thursday 1 December, our speakers discuss depictions of the AIDS crisis in literature, on stage and on screen. They will consider how best to tell your own story and how to celebrate and commemorate those who no longer can. This exclusive event will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.‘My friends were amazing, but so were the many people who faced this illness. To write about them, I believe, is a way to pay tribute (…) I hope in some way I have managed to do that. We are all part of the same fight.’- Jill NalderPresented in partnership with BBC Radio 3 and the Royal Society of Literature.Russell T. Davies FRSL is a multi-award-winning screenwriter and television producer. He has created several acclaimed, ground-breaking series and revived the classic science fiction series Doctor Who. He adapted A Very English Scandal on BBC 1 for which he won the Rose d’Or Award for Best Limited Series and TV Movie and Broadcast News Award for Drama of the Year 2018. He wrote the six-part drama Years and Years for BBC One/HBO and more recently, he wrote the acclaimed five-part series It’s a Sin for Channel 4/HBO MAX which depicts the lives of a group of gay men and their friends who lived during the HIV/AIDS crisis in the UK, which has received numerous awards. In 2021, Russell accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Royal Television Society at the RTS Programme Awards.Jill Nalder is originally from Neath, South Wales. She is a successful West End actress and was the inspiration behind Jill Baxter’s character in Russell T. Davies’ Channel 4 programme It’s a Sin. She was also one of the founders and first chairperson of West End Cares, now called Theatre MAD: Make A Difference. To date the charity has raised over £10 million for HIV/AIDS.Sabina Dosani is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, writer and Early Career Researcher in Medical Humanities at the University of East Anglia. Sabina is on the New Generation Thinker scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to showcase new academic research.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Jonathan Pie at the British Library The British Library 2023-02-09 | This event took place on the 8th of December 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Famously exasperated satirical reporter Jonathan Pie’s creator Tom Walker is joined in discussion by comedy writer and performer Nick Revell about Pie’s most recent live show FAKE NEWS.A look behind the scenes at one of the UK's most successful online comedians who dissects clips of the show, discusses the writing process and debates its politics. Rounded off with questions from the audience.Nick Revell is an award-winning writer and performer whose career in comedy, satirical and topical writing goes back to Weekending, The News Huddlines and Not the Nine O’Clock News. His TV and radio work on sitcoms, sketch shows and stand-up includes The Nick Revell Show, Drop the Dead Donkey, The Million Pound Radio Show and most recently BrokenDreamCatcher, which will return for a third series on BBC R4 in 2023. Nick has also written material for many other performers including Dave Allen, Rory Bremner, Michael Moore, Tracy Ullman and Jonathan Pie himself, has published two novels, and has written and performed many solo shows. He also co-created and produced the topical podcast No Pressure to be Funny, hosted by James O’Brien.Tom Walker is an actor, writer and comedian best known for his satirical creation Jonathan Pie. Now with over 1.6 million Facebook followers, his ‘frustrated news reporter’ videos regularly achieve millions of views, going internationally viral. One of Pie’s earliest videos – his response to the election of Donald Trump – was viewed more than 150 million times worldwide. Pie’s four live shows have sold out venues such as the Hammersmith Apollo and the London Palladium and have been performed across the US and Australia. His latest live tour has been nominated for a coveted Chortle award. He has recently started a collaboration with The New York Times.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
An Evening with Jon Ronson The British Library 2023-02-09 | This event took place on the 1st of December 2022. The information below is correct as of the date published.Jon Ronson made a rare return visit to the UK for an exclusive end-of-year conversation with Miranda Sawyer. Jon is the US-based documentary maker, author and journalist whose much lauded 2021 audio series Things Fell Apart got to the heart and origin of some of the most divisive, bitter and puzzling discussions of our time.It reported from the fringes of society, on how and why views once extreme have made it into the mainstream, given voice by social media and online platforms. Far more than simple reportage, the series was a compelling set of stories, typical of all Jon's work.In this event, Jon reflects on the state of things at the end of 2022.Supported by the U.S. Embassy, London, and the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library.Jon Ronson is the author of the bestselling non-fiction books including So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Lost at Sea and The Men Who Stare At Goats. The Psychopath Test spent more than a year on the UK bestseller list. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is frequently cited as having kickstarted the conversation about the perils of social media shaming. Most recently, Jon brought out the BBC podcast Things Fell Apart, named by the Observer as the number one audio show of 2021. Before that came two Audible Original audio series, The Butterfly Effect (2017) and The Last Days of August (2019). Both went straight to number one in the US and UK audiobook charts, and were named by multiple critics as two of the best podcasts of recent years. Jon’s original screenplays include Okja, which he co-wrote with Bong-Joon Ho, and Frank, which he co-wrote with Peter Straughan. His many UK documentaries include Stanley Kubrick's Boxes and The Secret Rulers of the World. He lives in New York.Miranda Sawyer is a journalist and broadcaster. Besides her features and radio criticism for the Observer, her writing has appeared in GQ, Vogue and the Guardian. She is a regular arts critic in print, on television and on radio. Her recent book, Out of Time, was published by Fourth Estate/HarperCollins. She is currently writing her third book, entitled Long Term about long term relationships. She broadcasts on Radio 4 and for The Culture Show (BBC TV). She is on the board of Tate Members, the South London Gallery and Sound Women.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Double or Nothing: James Bond and Beyond The British Library 2023-02-09 | This event took place on the 1st of September 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.James Bond is missing… 007 has been captured – perhaps even killed, by a sinister private military company and the future of humanity hangs in the balance. The fate of the world rests in the hands of a trio of MI6's finest Double O agents but time is running out.So begins the pulsating new spy thriller Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood, the first in an officially commissioned trilogy that promises to 'blow the world of Ian Fleming's James Bond wide open.'At this special launch event, Kim is joined by fellow Bond author Charlie Higson to celebrate the ever-thrilling and evolving world of 007.Charlie Higson created and starred in the hugely successful comedy series The Fast Show. He is also author of the bestselling Young Bond books (Blood Fever, Double or Die, Hurricane Gold, Silverfin and By Royal Command) and horror series The Enemy. His latest book Whatever Gets You Through The Night is his first adult crime novel in 25 years; a colourful thriller exposing dark truths lurking beneath the surface of a sunny Mediterranean idyll.Kim Sherwood won the Bath Novel Award for her debut novel Testament, published in 2018. It was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Award, shortlisted for the Author's Club Best First Novel, and won the Harpers’ Bazaar Big Book Award. She was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2019. Sherwood has a Bond connection: she is the granddaughter of the actor George Baker who made a number of appearances in the James Bond films - most famously playing Sir Hilary Bray in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Kim is a lifelong fan of Ian Fleming and James Bond. Double or Nothing (released September 1st 2022)is the first in Kim's trilogy of Double O novels expanding the James Bond universe.In association with Ian Fleming Publications and Harper Collins.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
None of the Above: Travis Alabanza in Conversation with Reni Eddo-Lodge The British Library 2023-02-09 | This event took place on the 28th of July 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Travis Alabanza is an award-winning trans writer and performer: the creator of the stage shows Burgerz and Overflow. They have now written an electric memoir, None of the Above, about what it means to live outside the gender boundaries imposed on us by society.Travis talks to Reni Eddo-Lodge about their transformative experiences as a Black, mixed race, non-binary person and the phrases people have directed at them: from the deceptively innocuous to the deliberately loaded or offensive to the celebratory. Travis Alabanza turns a mirror back on society, to question the very framework in which we live and the ways we treat each other.Travis Alabanza is an award-winning writer, performer and theatre maker. After being the youngest recipient of the Artist-in-Residency programme at Tate Galleries, Alabanza’s debut show Burgerz toured internationally to sold-out performances in the Southbank Centre, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and HAU, Berlin, and won the Edinburgh Fringe Total Theatre Award. In 2020 their theatre show Overflow debuted at the Bush Theatre to widespread acclaim, and later streamed online in over 20 countries. Their writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vice, gal-dem, BBC Online and Metro and have been published in numerous anthologies, including Black and Gay In the UK. They have given talks on gender, trans identity and race at universities including Oxford, Harvard, Bristol and more. In 2019 the Evening Standard listed them as one of the 25 Most Influential People under 25. More recently they were picked as one of Bernardine Evaristo’s ‘Ones to Watch’ in Sunday Times Style, and they were featured as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 2021.Reni Eddo-Lodge is an award winning journalist, author, and podcaster who published the acclaimed Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race in June 2017. The book went on to be a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, and in 2020 became the first book by a Black British author to top the UK book charts. Among numerous other awards and nominations, Why I’m… won the 2018 Jhalak Prize, the 2018 Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing, and a 2018 British Book Award for Narrative Non Fiction, and a 2018 public poll by Academic Book Week named it the most influential book written by a woman. The podcast, About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge, premiered in March 2018. It was chosen as one of the best podcasts of 2018 by Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Harper’s Bazaar UK, The Guardian, British GQ and Wired UK. It’s since won three Lovie Awards. In 2019, Reni’s work earned her a place on Forbes’ European 30 Under 30 list.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Ill Be There: An Evening with Duke Fakir of The Four Tops The British Library 2023-02-09 | This event took place on the 3rd of October 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Motown Records vocal quartet The Four Tops were one of the most celebrated groups of all time. Teaming up at school in Deroit in the early 1950s, Obie Benson Lawrence Payton, Duke Fakir and Levi Stubbs went on to record a string of era-defining hit singles including ‘Reach Out, I'll Be There’, ‘I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’, ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love’ and ‘Baby I Need Your Loving’.They ranked with The Temptations and The Supremes as Motown’s most consistent hitmakers, but stardom also came with a more enduring reward: the love of four men who spent over four decades together without a personnel change.Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir, the last surviving member of The Four Tops, makes a special appearance at the British Library ahead of a new tour, to talk with his trademark honesty, humour and humility about his long life and career, as he publishes his memoir I’ll Be There. The book covers Duke’s Detroit childhood, The Four Tops’ early days as backing singers and their years of success, but doesn’t shy away from struggles with sobriety and relationships, soured investment deals and the sudden loss of his brothers.‘In the middle of the 20th century worlds were colliding, times were changing, and people were ready for a message of love and togetherness – and they could get that from music. The Four Tops were a part of that and maybe because of who we were – a band of brothers who stuck together, known for our melodious harmonies - we were ones to sing it.’ – Duke FakirDuke Fakir is joined in conversation by Jacqueline Springer, Curator, Africa and Diaspora: Performance, Victoria & Albert Museum.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Classic Album Sundays present an Evening with Róisín Murphy The British Library 2023-02-02 | This event took place on 2 November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Róisín Murphy sits down with Classic Album Sundays founder and radio host/DJ Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy for an in-depth discussion of her musical inspirations.Róisín first made her name as one half of the electronic music duo Moloko and since then has released a string of admired solo albums including her latest, Róisín Machine. Her trademark electronic disco and house sound, and her fabulous performance style have taken Róisín to ever acclaim and popularity.Amidst the chat the two Murphys play records of some of Róisín’s favourite artists along with some of her own work. The event concludes with a Q&A with the audience.Classic Album Sundays, founded by Colleen Murphy, is a long-running series of events (not always on Sundays!) and a rich website that tells the stories behind the albums that have shaped our culture and our lives.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Chinese and British: the Conversation The British Library 2023-02-02 | This event took place on 24 November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Award winning podcaster, Georgie Ma, hosts an evening of deeply personal conversations exploring life as a British born Chinese (BBC)/ British Asian. Based on her podcast Chinese Chippy Girl, Georgie’s special guests this evening join her to talk about belonging and identity and to explore areas of conflict and tension.Angela Hui is an award-winning journalist, editor and author of Takeaway: Stories from a Childhood Behind the Counter. Her work has been published in gal-dem, Guardian, Financial Times, HuffPost, Independent, Lonely Planet, Refinery29, Vice, among others. She was the former food and drink writer at Time Out. Currently, she's the editor at REKKI, a free app transforming the way chefs order ingredients.Georgie Ma is a BBC (British born Chinese). Her parents owned a Chinese takeaway in Macclesfield which she worked at since the age of 10 and also lived above the shop with her family. Georgie created the podcast, Chinese Chippy Girl, where she brings guests on the show to bring better representation to the ESEA (East and Southeast Asian) community and to amplify ESEA voices.Amy Phung is a British-Chinese Londoner and co-founder of besea.n, Britain’s East and South East Asian Network. She has written for a number of publications including gal-dem magazine and has contributed to panel conversations at SOAS, UCL, Imperial and King's College London focussing on media misrepresentation of East and South East Asian communities. Jason Kwan (he/they) is a Hong Kong born non-binary singer-songwriter, diversity-inclusion consultant, and model. Through his dark pop music, Jason platforms queer Asian experiences. He performed at Glastonbury Festival for the first time this summer. As trustee at Male Survivors Partnership, he advocates for LGBTQIA+, non-binary and trans survivors and victims. His new single Ritual is currently featured on BBC Introducing.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Under Milk Wood with Cerys Matthews The British Library 2023-02-02 | This event took place on 3 December 2022. The information below is accurate as of the publication date.Join Cerys Matthews for an afternoon of conversation and storytelling for all those who are young at heart as we celebrate the publication of a her new illustrated retelling of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, illustrated by Kate Evans.Cerys’s adaptation revisits Llaregubb, the fictional seaside village of Under Milk Wood and spends 24 hours with Dylan Thomas’s beloved characters - including Captain Cat, Rosie Probert, Organ Morgan, Myfanwy and Nogood Boyo.Cerys is in-conversation with her co-host BBC Radio 4’s Add to Playlist, Jeffrey Boakye, and her readings from Under Milk Wood are accompanied by live music by multi-instrumentalist, composer and clarinettist Arun Ghosh.Cerys Matthews is a musician, author and broadcaster who hosts and programmes award-winning radio shows across BBC 6, 2 and 4. Her previous releases include children books: Tales from the Deep and Gelert, and folk cook book Where the Wild Cooks Go plus the singalong and Sunday Times best seller; Hook, Line and Singer. Cerys has composed music for Dylan Thomas' A Child’s Christmas and poetry including Fern Hill and Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, which were made into a ballet, and her musical take on A Child’s Christmas in Wales is currently being made into a musical in America. Her uncle, Colin Edwards amassed the most substantive collection of interviews in the 1960s for the Dylan Thomas archive. Cerys Matthews is patron of the Dylan Thomas Society and Ballet Cymru.Jeffrey Boakye is an author, broadcaster and educator with a particular interest in issues surrounding race, masculinity, education and popular culture. He taught English to 11- to 18-year-olds for 15 years and now provides training for schools, universities and businesses on race, identity, masculinity and education. He is also Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Institute for Education. Jeffrey’s published books are: Hold Tight: Black Masculinity, Millennials and the Meaning of Grime, Black Listed: Black British Culture Explored, What is Masculinity? Why Does it Matter? And Other Big Questions (co-authored), Musical Truth: A Musical Journey Through Modern Black Britain and I Heard What You Said.Arun Ghosh is a British-Asian clarinettist, composer and music educator whose most recent album is Seclused in Light (2022). Twice awarded Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, his musical style takes a multi-era/multi-genre approach; where numerous strands of jazz join forces with a myriad of musical influences: from jungle to punk, blues to Bollywood…and beyond.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Jane Austen at the Blavatnik Honresfield Library The British Library 2023-02-02 | Last year, one of the most significant literary collections in the UK’s history was purchased for the nation by the Friends of the National Libraries.The Blavatnik Honresfield Library contains important manuscripts and rare editions of works by Jane Austen, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and the Brontë siblings. For the first time in 80 years, these works are now accessible to the public, having been distributed to cultural institutions across the UK.Watch this video to find out more about Jane Austen's letters in the collection, and how Jane Austen's House are caring for it. Find out more about the Blavatnik Honresfield Library: bl.uk/collection-guides/Blavatnik-Honresfield-Library
City within a City: A Celebration of Chinatown The British Library 2023-02-02 | This event took place on 28 November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Cities across the world have thriving hubs known as Chinatown, often in their centre. Join us for an evening celebrating Chinatowns as unique urban spaces across the UK and exploring the history of these famous enclaves. We explore what it means to live and work in these different Chinatowns today while considering the social and economic challenges facing urban Chinese communities across the country. Xiao Ma is the Cultural Projects Manager and Researcher of China Exchange, a London Chinatown based charity. Xiao has co-produced several heritage-making projects to provide diverse and nuanced ways for people to explore the contested history of Chinatown. Xiao is also a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Westminster. Taking an anti-essentialist approach, her research explores the cultural complexities of London Chinatown and challenges the homogenising portrait of London Chinatown as a bounded urban space essentially containing an “ethnically other” Chinese community.Lisa Yam is the Chairman of the Federation of Chinese Associations of Manchester (FCAM) - one of the largest Chinese community associations in the North West of England. Over the last 30 years the association has organised the City of Manchester’s Chinese New Celebrations which are held in China Town each year. In recent years the event has become of the largest Chinese New Year celebration in Europe, regularly attended by over 60,000 people. Lisa is also a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester and a Member of the Independent Advisory Group to Greater Manchester Police. David Yip is a Liverpool born actor and writer with an extensive career in theatre, film, television and radio. He is still best known for creating the role of Detective Sergeant John Ho in The Chinese Detective for BBC Television. He also wrote and acted in Gold Mountain a multi-media theatre piece which looked back at this relationship with his father, a Chinese seaman from the Canton area of southern China, who arrived in Liverpool aged sixteen years old in 1942. David has also presented a documentary on the history of Liverpool’s Chinatown.James Wong is the managing director of Chung Ying, a Cantonese restaurant established in 1981 in Birmingham. The restaurant was a catalyst for the development of Birmingham’s Chinatown. Born in Birmingham, James travelled to his family's native Hong Kong aged four, but returned just three years later when Chung Ying was established by his mother and father. James is now dedicated to working within the Chinese community and is chair of the Chinese festival committee which organises Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival and is patron of the Chinese Community Centre.Dr Lucienne Loh (chair) is Reader in English Literature at the University of Liverpool. She is co-curator, with Dr Alex Tickell, of the British Library exhibition, Chinese & British. With Alex, she is co-founder and co-director of the British Chinese Studies Network. She works closely with the Liverpool Chinese community and is particularly interested in oral history projects by Chinese community groups from across the country.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
An Evening with Miss Marple The British Library 2023-02-02 | This event took place on 21 November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.‘Miss Marple reflected on the fact that evil hadn’t been out there in the street amidst the pagan throng last night but right here, inside in the cosy, well-appointed sitting room of this elegant home…’Miss Jane Marple requests the pleasure of your company ‘at home’ with some of her favourite writers. Join us to celebrate the launch of Marple, an ingenious collection of 12 new tales crafted by some of the world’s most acclaimed writers including Naomi Alderman, Jean Kwok and Val McDermid. Each story takes inspiration from Agatha Christie’s classic originals to feature a new mystery for Miss Marple to solve. As ever, she knows more than she appears to.Damian Barr hosts a joyful celebration of all things Marple with best-selling contributing authors Lucy Foley and Kate Mosse as well as Agatha Christie’s great grandson James Prichard. Expect new stories, timeless mysteries and, as ever, more than a touch of the unexpected with the spirit of Miss Marple being very much present...Miss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Agatha Christie (1890–1976) wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel The Murder at the Vicarage in the 1930s. It has been 45 years since Christie’s last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of new stories by 12 Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the leading fictional female detective of all time.Lucy Foley is the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party (2018) and The Guest List (2020), with two and a half million copies sold worldwide. They were followed by The Paris Apartment, published in March 2022 that instantly took the number one spot on The New York Times bestseller list. Lucy’s thrillers have also been shortlisted for the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards, selected as one of The Times and Sunday Times Crime Books of the Year, and The Guest List was a Reese’s Book Club choice. Lucy’s novels have been translated into multiple languages and her journalism has appeared in publications such as Sunday Times Style, Grazia, ES Magazine, Vogue US, Elle, Tatler, Marie Claire and more.Kate Mosse is an international bestselling novelist, memoirist and playwright as well as Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her novels and short story collections, include the The Burning Chambers Series – The Burning Chambers and The City of Tears – as well as the multi-million selling Languedoc Trilogy – Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel – and No 1 bestselling Gothic fiction including The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist's Daughter, which she has adapted for the stage. Her books have been translated into 38 languages and published in more than 40 countries. She has also written four works of non-fiction – including An Extra Pair of Hands (Wellcome Collection, 2021) – four plays, and contributed essays and introductions to classic novels and collections.James Prichard is the great grandson of Agatha Christie and the CEO of Agatha Christie Limited. He is a film and TV producer, notably for Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022) and The Pale Horse (2020).Damian Barr’s Literary Salon is where the world’s best writers share their new books and reveal their own personal stories. The Salon's events, online and in-person, are where readers and writers meet. It’s must-listen podcast features weekly world premiere readings and revealing interviews from a heady mix of literary icons and emerging talents. Armistead Maupin, Miriam Margolyes, Bolu Babalola, Dolly Alderton, David Nicholls and Russell T Davies are just some of the writers to have shared their stories with The Salon since its launch at Shoreditch House in 2008. Stories are for everybody, and everybody has a story. www.theliterarysalon.co.ukThe British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
A History of African and Caribbean People in Britain: Hakim Adi with David Olusoga The British Library 2023-01-26 | This event took place on the 4th of November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Despite the best efforts of researchers and campaigners, there remains a tendency to reduce the history of African and Caribbean people in Britain to a simple story: one that begins in 1948 with the arrival of a single ship, the Empire Windrush, and one that continues mostly apart from a distinct British history, overlapping only occasionally amid grotesque injustice or pioneering protest.Yet, as acclaimed historian Hakim Adi demonstrates in his new book, from the very beginning there have been African and Caribbean men and women set at Britain's heart. Libyan legionaries patrolled Hadrian's Wall while Rome's first 'African Emperor' died in York. In Elizabethan England, 'Black Tudors' served in the land's most eminent households while African explorers helped Sir Francis Drake circumnavigate the globe. And, as Britain became a major colonial and commercial power, it was African and Caribbean people who led the radical struggle for freedom – a struggle which raged throughout the 20th century and continues today in Black Lives Matter campaigns.In conversation with fellow historian David Olusoga, Adi reveals some of this past and its impact on the present moment, shining a light on how much our greatest collective achievements – universal suffrage, our victory over fascism, the forging of the NHS – owe to these men and women.Hakim Adi is Professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester. Hakim was the first historian of African heritage to become a professor of history in Britain. In January 2018, he launched the world’s first online Masters by Research (MRes) programme on the History of Africa and the African Diaspora. Hakim is the founder and consultant historian of the Young Historians Project. He has appeared in many documentaries and has written widely on the history of Africa and the African Diaspora, including history books for children. His latest publication is Africa and Caribbean People in Britain: A History – the focus of this event. Other books by Hakim include: Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919-1939, Pan-Africanism: A History and, as editor Black British History: New Perspectives and Black Voices on Britain.David Olusoga is a historian, author, presenter and BAFTA-winning film-maker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester, the author of books including Black and British: A Forgotten History, which was longlisted for the Orwell Prize, shortlisted for the inaugural Jhalak Prize and won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. A children's edition, Black and British: A Short, Essential History was published in 2020. His television credits include Civilisations, Black and British, Our NHS: A Hidden History, A House Through Time and the BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. In 2019 he was awarded an OBE for services to history and community integration.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend The British Library 2023-01-26 | This event took place on the 25th of October 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.Lindsay Allen, Tom Holland and Richard Stoneman explore the man, leader and mythic icon.Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) precipitated immense historical change in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. But the resonance his legend achieved over the next two millennia stretched even farther – across foreign cultures, religious traditions, and distant nations, with hundreds of colourful Alexander legends being told and retold around the globe.Alexander came to embody the concerns of Hellenistic man; he fuelled Roman ideas on tyranny and kingship; he was a talisman for fourth-century pagans and a hero of chivalry in the early Middle Ages. He appears in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic writings, frequently as a prophet of God. Whether battling winged foxes or meeting with the Amazons, descending to the underworld or inventing the world’s first diving bell, Alexander inspired as a hero, even a god.Leading experts on Alexander and his myths, Lindsay Allen and Richard Stoneman explore the origins and development of these amazing stories. Hosted by author and historian Tom Holland.Dr Lindsay Allen is a Lecturer in Greek and Near Eastern History at King’s College London. She is the author of The Persian Empire (2005), and teaches courses on pre-Islamic Iran, Persepolis, Alexander and the Near East in the first millennium BC at KCL. She is currently completing a catalogue of the dispersed fragments of Persepolis worldwide.Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster. He is the author of books including Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Persian Fire, his history of the Graeco-Persian wars, won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006.Professor Richard Stoneman is a scholar, an author, an editor, and an honorary visiting professor at the University of Exeter. An expert in the field of Greek history, his works include The Greek Alexander Romance, Xerxes: A Persian Life, The Ancient Oracles: Making the Gods Speak, and A Traveller’s History of Athens.This event was presented in memory of Naseeb Shaheen, author and scholar.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
An Evening for Salman Rushdie The British Library 2023-01-26 | This event took place on the 13th of October 2022. The following information is correct as of the publication date.Two months after the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie, his friends and colleagues gathered to celebrate his strength and dedication as a writer, activist, and a champion of free expression.The event featured readings and reflections by speakers including Monica Ali, Mona Arshi, Julian Barnes, Melvyn Bragg, Mariella Frostrup, Meena Kandasamy, Hanif Kureishi, Nigella Lawson, Kathy Lette, Pauline Melville, Margie Orford, Philippe Sands, Burhan Sönmez and Alan Yentob.It was organised by English PEN, PEN International, Index on Censorship, ARTICLE 19, Humanists UK, and Penguin UK, in partnership with the British Library and those close to Salman Rushdie.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Josephine Hart Poetry Hour: the Poetry of Philip Larkin The British Library 2023-01-26 | This event took place on the 5 of October 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.A celebration of one of the 20th century’s finest poets in English, Philip Larkin, on the centenary of his birth and marking National Poetry Day 2022.With a special guest introduction by Professor Mary Beard, and readings by a cast of leading stage and screen actors including Tara Fitzgerald.Of her first presentation of this Poetry Hour, Josephine Hart wrote:‘In 1984 I approached Philip Larkin to request permission to present an evening of his poetry read by Alan Bates. Though warned by his old friend Kingsley Amis, “Oh dear, no, Josephine, Philip won’t like this at all,” I persevered. Mr. Larkin said yes.’ – From: ‘What will survive of us is love’, Philip Larkin (from An Arundel Tomb, 1956)Presented by The Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation in association with The Philip Larkin Society.The Poetry Hour was founded by novelist and poetry anthologist Josephine Hart. Launched as The Gallery Poets in Mayfair in the mid 1980s, it later became The Poetry Hour and won fame for bringing classic ‘great poetry read aloud by great actors’ to a wide audience. The British Library has supported Josephine Hart’s mission from 2004 and continues to do so in her memory on a regular basis.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
The Age of Impunity: Hidden Frontlines in the War in Ukraine The British Library 2023-01-26 | Journalism and the war against realityThis event took place on the 19th of July 2022. The information below is correct as of the date posted.There used to be ‘grand narratives’ underpinning our understanding of everything from the behaviour of states to literature. But Putin’s war in Ukraine shows how storylines that once connected us have now collapsed. This event brings together frontline journalists in a call for urgent new thinking on what binds us, from London to Moscow.Natalia Antelava is a former BBC foreign correspondent turned co-founder and editor-in-chief of Coda Story. Originally from Tbilisi, Georgia, Natalia started her career in West Africa, then reported for the BBC from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East, Washington DC and India. She covered the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. Her reporting on disinformation and human rights abuses won an Emmy nomination. Natalia has written for the Guardian, Forbes and the New Yorker.Peter Pomerantsev is a Research Fellow at the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He has testified on the challenges of information war to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the UK Parliament Defence Select Committee. His book Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, won the 2016 RSL Ondaatje Prize. His latest book is This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality.Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist and author specializing in conflict reporting. She is the founder and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab, and now a founding member and lead journalist at The Reckoning Project: Ukraine testifies which is documenting war crimes and digital storytelling to achieve justice and safeguard rights.Shaun Walker is Central and Eastern Europe Correspondent for The Guardian. He spent much of 2022 in Ukraine, covering the Russian invasion. Previously, he spent more than a decade in Moscow and is the author of The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past, published in 2018.Coda Story is an award-winning media start-up that reports on major currents shaping our world from disinformation to authoritarian technologies to the war on science. Coda stays on these stories to reveal why they matter, how they are connected and where they are heading next.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Alexander the Great: The Making of an Exhibition – A Curators View The British Library 2023-01-26 | Collecting 2,300 years of stories.This event took place on Tuesday 24 January 2023. Join the curatorial team behind the British Library’s acclaimed exhibition Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth, as they share the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of putting together a rich show of treasures from many different eras and cultures. With British Library curators Adrian Edwards, Ursula Sims-Williams, Yrja Thorsdottir and Peter Toth. The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today.
Robert Burns in the Blavatnik Honresfield Library The British Library 2023-01-26 | Last year, one of the most significant literary collections in the UK’s history was purchased for the nation by the Friends of the National Libraries.The Blavatnik Honresfield Library contains important manuscripts and rare editions of works by Jane Austen, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and the Brontë siblings. For the first time in 80 years, these works are now accessible to the public, having been distributed to cultural institutions across the UK.Watch this video to find out more about Robert Burns’ presence in the collection, and how the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum and the National Library of Scotland are caring for it.Find out more about the Blavatnik Honresfield Library: bl.uk/collection-guides/blavatnik-honresfield-library
The Brontë Sisters in the Blavatnik Honresfield Library The British Library 2023-01-19 | Last year, one of the most significant literary collections in the UK’s history was purchased for the nation by the Friends of the National Libraries.The Blavatnik Honresfield Library contains important manuscripts and rare editions of works by Jane Austen, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and the Brontë siblings. For the first time in almost a century, these works are now accessible to the public, having been distributed to cultural institutions across the UK.We’ve been entrusted with an astonishing set of manuscripts and printed books by the Brontë sisters. Watch this video to learn more, including items also being cared for by the Brontë Parsonage Museum and the Brotherton Library.Find out more about the Blavatnik Honresfield Library 👉 bl.uk/collection-guides/Blavatnik-Honresfield-Library
Sir Walter Scott in the Blavatnik Honresfield Library The British Library 2023-01-19 | Last year, one of the most significant literary collections in the UK’s history was purchased for the nation by the Friends of the National Libraries.The Blavatnik Honresfield Library contains important manuscripts and rare editions of works by Jane Austen, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and the Brontë siblings. For the first time in almost a century, these works are now accessible to the public, having been distributed to cultural institutions across the UK.Watch this video to find out more about Sir Walter Scott’s presence in the collection, and how Abbotsford and the National Library of Scotland are caring for it.Find out more about the Blavatnik Honresfield Library: bl.uk/collection-guides/Blavatnik-Honresfield-Library
Una Marson: Race and Censorship in 1930s Theatre | Collection in Focus | British Library The British Library 2022-12-08 | Between 1737 and 1968, the Lord Chamberlain’s Office censored all plays destined for the stage. With that censorship abolished, its massive collection of play scripts is an invaluable resource for British theatrical history.Our Lord Chamberlain’s Plays collection holds scripts of all new plays performed in Britain from 1824 to 1968. One of these is At What a Price, a 1933 play by Black poet, broadcaster and activist Una Marson, exploring interracial relationships and work power dynamics. It managed to slip through the Lord Chamberlain’s Office without heavy censorship.Alex Lock, curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts, and Kate Dossett, Professor of American History at the University of Leeds, bring this collection item into focus.Explore the digitised version of At What a Price here: bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_66878_d_f001rRead the digitised reader’s report here: bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=lcp_corr_1933!12620_f001rAnd watch Leeds Playhouse perform At What a Price: youtube.com/watch?v=Y9SnHrd-Cr4
Panizzi Lecture – Poetry Play Persuasion: The Diagrammatic Imagination in Medieval Art and Thought The British Library 2022-12-06 | This event took place on the 1 of November 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.The final of the three lectures by Jeffrey F. Hamburger on diagrams in medieval art and thought.Poetry and play are probably the last words that come to mind when most of us think about diagrams.Throughout the Middle Ages, however, and beyond, diagrammatic techniques provided the underpinning for practices informing complex aesthetic procedures in poetry and the visual arts. Although associated with the rigours of reasoning, diagrams also possessed a playful dimension central to artistic as well as intellectual invention.Just as diagrams play a critical role in modern game theory, so too in medieval culture, diagrams incorporated a playful element that sought to unify text with image, clarity with complexity, and simplicity with difficulty.Medieval games themselves were often conceptualised in terms of diagrams. Whereas in modern understandings, medieval art is often associated with the monstrous, viewing it against the backdrop of the diagram permits one to see this aspect as but one side of a coin – the other side of which represents a profound pursuit of order.The Panizzi Lecture series 2022 is given by Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, Harvard University.Thanks to the kind support of Jonathan A. Hill booksellers we are now able offer an online stream of the Panizzi lectures for free.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Panizzi Lecture – The Codex in the Classroom: Practical Dimensions of Medieval Diagrams The British Library 2022-12-06 | This event took place on the 27 of October 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.The second of the three lectures by Jeffrey F. Hamburger on diagrams in medieval art and thought.Of all of the ideas and institutions the modern world has inherited from the Middle Ages, the university remains among the most durable. As demonstrated by a wide range of medieval schoolbooks, diagrams had a secure place throughout the curriculum, in which they served not simply as didactic aids but also a means of inculcating enduring patterns of thought.Diagrams had a pragmatic as well as a Platonic aspect. The very appearance of diagrams – their elementary abstraction and etiolated forms – stamped them as exemplifications of thought that stood at the boundary between what is visible and what is not.In the double character of the diagram – its liminal status at the boundary between the physical and the metaphysical, the rational and the irrational, the visible and the invisible – lay a large part of its appeal to medieval exegetes and artists.The Panizzi Lecture series 2022 is given by Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, Harvard University.Thanks to the kind support of Jonathan A. Hill booksellers we are now able offer an online stream of the Panizzi lectures for free.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Panizzi Lecture – Maps of the Mind: Diagrams Medieval and Modern The British Library 2022-12-06 | This event took place on the 24 of October 2022. The information below is correct as of the publication date.The first of the three lectures by Jeffrey F. Hamburger on diagrams in medieval art and thought.By definition, diagrams transcend boundaries. They represent an unusual class of images in so far as their delineations extend to include lettering, even full-blown text. They also simultaneously serve theoretical, demonstrative, and instrumental functions.Diagrams both reproduce and generate maps of the mind. To what extent can modern understandings of diagrammatic procedures inform inquiry into historical diagrammatic practices, and vice versa? This lecture addresses this and related questions through a series of examples ranging from the Middle Ages to the present.The Panizzi Lecture series 2022 is given by Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, Harvard University.2022 Series Introduction – Drawing Conclusions: Diagrams in Medieval Art and ThoughtDiagrams constitute an omnipresent feature of medieval art and thought. From Antiquity onwards, the forms and procedures of geometric reasoning held a privileged place in the pursuit of truth, the understanding of which remained closely linked to ideals of beauty and perfection.Drawing on the collections of the British Library, whose holdings provide virtually comprehensive coverage of all ramifications of the diagrammatic tradition, this series of lectures examines the practical, theoretical and aesthetic dimensions of medieval diagrams as matrices of meaning and patterns of thought informing diverse areas of medieval culture.Jeffrey F. Hamburger's research focuses on the art of the High and later Middle Ages. He is the Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture at Harvard University. Beginning with his dissertation on the Rothschild Canticles (Yale, 1987), his scholarship has focused on the art of female monasticism, culminating in an international exhibition Krone und Schleier (Crown and Veil), 2005. Professor Hamburger holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from Yale University. He previously held teaching positions at Oberlin College, University of Toronto and has been a guest professor in Zurich, Paris, Oxford and Fribourg.Thanks to the kind support of Jonathan A. Hill booksellers we are now able offer an online stream of the Panizzi lectures for free.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today.
Medusas Story The British Library 2022-11-26 | This event took place on the 26th of September 2022. The information below is correct as of the date published.Join Natalie Haynes as she launches her latest epic retelling of classic myth: Stone Blind, Medusa’s Story, with readings from Lisa Dwan. Natalie is in conversation with Monique Roffey.Medusa is the only mortal in a family of gods. When she is raped by a god, Medusa is changed forever: turned into a Gorgon with sharp teeth, snakes for hair, and a gaze that turns any living creature to stone. She endures a life of solitude, until Perseus embarks upon his fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon...From the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of A Thousand Ships, this is the story of how a young woman became a monster. And how she was never really a monster at all.Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster and – according to the Washington Post – a ‘rock star mythologist’. Her previous books are The Amber Fury, The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, The Children of Jocasta, A Thousand Ships (shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction) and Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myth. Six series of her show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics have been broadcast on Radio 4: all are available on BBC Sounds.Monique Roffey FRSL is an award winning Trinidadian born British writer of novels, essays, literary journalism and a memoir. Her most recent novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch, (Peepal Tree Press) won the Costa Book of the Year Award, 2020, and was nominated for eight major awards. Her other Caribbean novels are The White Woman on the Green Bicycle and House of Ashes. Archipelago won the OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature in 2013. She is a co-founder of Writers Rebel within Extinction Rebellion, and Professor of Contemporary Fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.Lisa Dwan is an Irish performer and writer. She stars in the Top Boy and Bloodlands series, and her theatre work includes a one-woman production of her adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s No’s Knife. Dwan writes and teaches on theatre, culture, gender, and Beckett. She is a visiting professor at Princeton University, and was artist in residence at Columbia University, where she developed a new theatre piece with Margaret Atwood based on Medea.The British Library is a charity. Your support helps us open up a world of knowledge and inspiration for everyone. Donate today: support.bl.uk
Cartonera: Culture in a Time of Crisis | Collection in Focus | British Library The British Library 2022-11-25 | Have you ever read a book bound in cardboard?Born of economic crisis in Argentina in the early-mid 2000s, cartonera is a grassroots movement to democratise literature. Being a fraction of the cost of a typical book to produce and sell, the cartonera phenomenon ensured that prose and poetry would remain accessible to Latin Americans living in poverty.Annalisa Ricciardi, Cataloguer for the Americas and Oceania Collections, brings this collection item into focus.Explore our Latin American Collections here: bl.uk/collection-guides/latin-american-collections
International Library Leaders Programme - July 2023 The British Library 2022-11-18 | Applications are now open for the International Library Leaders Programme, a week-long intensive professional development programme for library and archive professionals.To find out more information and apply, please visit bl.uk/illp
Jodie Collins: Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships The British Library 2022-11-16 | ‘It’s like the voyage of discovery.’Jodie Collins’ research focuses on American political pamphlets published between the years 1917 and 1945.Find out about Jodie’s research as a CDP student funded by the AHRC and co-supervised by the British Library and the University of Sussex.
Dominic Bridge: Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships The British Library 2022-11-16 | ‘One of the great things about the Library is that you have these huge collections and there’s always something new to find.’Dominic Bridge is researching music publishing in the 18th and 19th centuries.Hear about Dominic’s AHRC PHD, co-supervised by the British Library and the University of Liverpool.
The Lindisfarne Gospels: Medieval Multiculturalism | Collection in Focus | British Library The British Library 2022-11-11 | Around the year 700, the bishop Eadfrith wrote and painted the Lindisfarne Gospels completely by hand. Combining influences drawn from Irish, Germanic and Mediterranean cultures, it’s a stunning example of medieval art and book design. 1300 years later, the Lindisfarne Gospels stands as one of the world’s most celebrated manuscripts. Eleanor Jackson, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts, brings this collection item into focus.You can explore our digitised version of the Lindisfarne Gospels here: bl.uk/lindisfarne-gospels-manuscriptAnd delve further with Eleanor's new book, 'The Lindisfarne Gospels: Art, History & Inspiration': http://bit.ly/3Us2mrj2:40 - The Staffordshire Hoard is owned by Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent City Councils on behalf of the nation and cared for by Birmingham Museums Trust and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust.
