Registration Open: Politics, Performance and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain (4/19-20/2012)

Registration is open for the April symposium on "Politics, Performance and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain" which is part of the AHRC-funded research project, "The cultural politics of English pantomime, 1837-1901" We're meeting in the Arts Building, University of Birmingham, from 2pm Thursday 19 April, to 6pm, Friday 20th April.

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/edacs/departments/drama/research/pantomime/index.aspx

You can find the schedule and information about speakers at:
https://sites.google.com/site/victorianpantomime/2011-symposium_politics-and-performance

Speakers include:

• Mike Sanders (Manchester): on Platforms, Correspondences and Theatrical Metaphor.
• Jim Davis (Warwick): Victorian pantomime and the Politics of Gender Variance
• Jane Pritchard (Victoria and Albert Museum): on Ballet, class and identity
• Jill Sullivan (Independent): on The Irish question in regional pantomime
• Marcus Morris (Lancaster): on Labour leaders, political rhetoric and performativity
• Richard Gaunt (Nottingham): on Peel as actor-dramatist (parliament itself as theatrical institution)
• Caroline Radcliffe (Birmingham): on Theatrical hierarchy and Cultural capital: East and West London
• Anselm Heinrich (Glasgow): on Gladstone, national theatre and contested didactics of theatre.
• Janice Norwood (Hertfordshire): on East End Socialism, performance techniques in protest/marches
• Peter Yeandle (Lancaster): on Christian Socialism and performing arts: politics, theology and theatricality

Registration details and online registration can be found here:
http://online-payments.lancaster-university.co.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=307

Directions to Birmingham (Edgbaston Campus): http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/contact/directions/index.aspx

Recommended Local Accommodation: http://www.nmr.bham.ac.uk/documents/HotelsRestaurants.pdf

CFP: Edited Collection: Victorian Medicine and Popular Culture (5/15/2012; 6/30/2012)

How was the rise of scientific medicine in the Victorian era appropriated and adapted by popular culture? This essay collection explores the relationship between the increasingly specialized medical disciplines and a variety of texts and contexts, including popular (non-canonical) literature, journalism, advertisements, home medical and nursing manuals, and lectures and exhibitions at and mechanics institutes. The collection also offers perspectives on literature's reciprocal influence on diverse health care fields including nursing, pharmacy, medical philanthropy, health care missionary work, advertising, and quackery.

The proposed collection seeks to add to the growing body of scholarship on Victorian scientific and medical writing by considering representations of health care within specifically popular fields.  How can we understand the relationships that existed between consumerism, health care, and popular literature in the Victorian period? When and how was lay practice or its representation complimentary, and when was it a form of resistance to increasingly professionalized and scientific medicine?     How do popular texts and artifacts of the period represent medical and popular health care trends of the era, such as the scientific revolution in Victorian healthcare? How did visual iconography including advertisements reflect changing views of health care practitioners and consumers? We invite interdisciplinary scholarship and work drawn from a range of disciplines: art history, literature, history, anthropology, public health, sociology, and communications to broaden our understanding of the non-elite bodies of professionals, texts, and cultures that influenced Victorian health care policy and practice.

Please send abstracts to Louise Penner (Louise.Penner@umb.edu) or Tabitha Sparks (tabitha.sparks@mcgill.ca) by May 15, 2012, or complete essays (3,000-7,000 words) by June 30, 2012.

Reminder: Politics, Performance and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century England (3/16/2012; 4/19-20/2012)

Politics, Performance and Popular Culture in 
Nineteenth-Century England: A Research Symposium
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston Campus, 19-20 April 2012

As part of Birmingham/Lancaster's AHRC project on the Cultural History of Pantomime, we are hosting a research symposium on the theme of Politics, Performance and Popular Culture.

Panels of speakers have been arranged, but we welcome contributions to a roundtable panel in which speakers will talk briefly about how their research addresses key questions on the interrelationships between 'performance' (howsoever defined), politics, and popular culture. We would be especially interested in short position-papers which reflects on: performance 'space' (church, hustings, streets, courtroom, etc); use of theatrical metaphor; the performative language of politics; reference to politics in performances, the politics of performance (censorship, adaptation, etc); and politics as performance (protest, campaigning, etc). There will be plenty of opportunities to discuss research in question sessions and over extended refreshment breaks.

If you would like to share your research as a speaker, please get in touch by no later than Friday 16th March. Alternatively, please get in touch if you'd like to attend. Further information, including list of confirmed speakers, topics, and details of local accommodation can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/victorianpantomime/2011-symposium_politics-and-performance

Costs: £35 (£20 p/g)

For further information, please contact Peter Yeandle (p.yeandle@lancaster.ac.uk).

Conference: Politics, Performance and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain (4/19-20/2012)

Politics, Performance and Popular Culture

in Nineteenth-Century Britain
University of Birmingham, 19-20 April 2012

You are invited to join us for a two-day symposium in Birmingham, at which we will explore the relationship between politics, performance and popular culture in nineteenth-century Britain. Our speakers have been confirmed, but we welcome participants for roundtable discussions and other contributions.

In what ways might popular culture have defined politics?  How might 'performance' be addressed as a concept by which better to understand crowd behaviour, whether for example at hustings or in protest?  How did politicians and others conceptualise their audience?  If, as Patrick Joyce argues, the late-Victorian audience in a context of political reform were 'rightful heirs to the democracy of pleasure' (Visions of the People, 1994, p. 309), how can we define the relationship between audience, politics and pleasure? Can we identify a discursive relationship between political and performance culture?

Speakers:

• Mike Sanders (Manchester): on Platforms, Correspondences and Theatrical Metaphor.
• Jim Davis (Warwick): Victorian pantomime and the Politics of Gender Variance
• Jane Pritchard (Victoria and Albert Museum): on Ballet, class and identity
• Jill Sullivan (Independent): on The Irish question in regional pantomime
• Marcus Morris (Lancaster): on Labour leaders, political rhetoric and performativity
• Richard Gaunt (Nottingham): on Peel as actor-dramatist (parliament itself as theatrical institution)
• Caroline Radcliffe (Birmingham): on Theatrical hierarchy and Cultural capital: East and West London
• Anselm Heinrich (Glasgow): on Gladstone, national theatre and contested didactics of theatre.
• Janice Norwood (Hertfordshire): on East End Socialism, performance techniques in protest/marches
• Peter Yeandle (Lancaster): on Christian Socialism and performing arts: politics, theology and theatricality

Costs: £35 (£20 postgraduate). Further information about local accommodation upon request. For further information, please contact Peter Yeandle at p.yeandle(at)lancaster.ac.uk