Category Archives: Literature

Database Trial – Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape

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Portrait of William Wordsworth by Richard Carruthers, 1818. Taken from the website.

English Literature students and poetry aficionados will find our latest trial of great interest. 

Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape offers unique access to rare and priceless literary sources that are indispensible for scholars and students studying William Wordsworth and the Romantic period. The collection offers an insight into the working methods of the poet and the wider social, political and natural environment that shaped much of his work and that of his contemporaries. In addition, this collection makes available the writings of Dorothy Wordsworth through her much celebrated Grasmere Journals, Alfoxden diary and travel journals. Verse manuscripts and correspondence from leading literary lights of the Romantic period such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey are also made available in this powerful digital resource.

This exciting collection offers access to the full manuscripts of such notable works as ‘The Prelude’ and ‘Michael’; Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Dejection: An Ode’ and Thomas De Quincey’s ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’, as well as masses of personal correspondence between key literary and political figures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Women within the close literary circle such as Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Wordsworth, Dora Wordsworth and Sara Hutchinson are also well represented through diaries, both domestic and personal; correspondence and travel journals.

To begin searching go to http://www.romanticism.amdigital.co.uk/ – access is via IP address and the trial runs to 23rd June 2017.

*Please note that PDF download options are not available during this  trial.

We welcome feedback – good or bad – on this trial, please contact Steve Corn s.c.corn@lboro.ac.uk with your comments.

An Evening of Creative Writing at the School of the Arts, English and Drama

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On Monday May 15th the School of the Arts, English and Drama is hosting an evening dedicated to celebrating the creative writing produced by their talented postgraduate students.

Their graduating MA Creative Writing cohort will read a selection of work from the portfolios they have developed over the last year. You can expect to hear poetry, young adult fiction, thriller, sci-fi and lots more, with each student reading for approximately 10 minutes.

The event is taking place in the Stanley Evernden Studio in Martin Hall, between 7-9pm. Refreshments will be provided. To book your place, visit the link below:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/aed/news-events/events/2017/ma-creative-writing-evening.html

Put a Spring in Your Step with the Student Book Club

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Book lovers may like to put Tuesday 2nd May in their diaries, as that will be the date the Student Book Club meets for the first time during the Summer Term, with a particularly seasonal book up for discussion this time.

Spring Tales is an anthology of striking short stories on the theme of Spring, and is one of a quartet of collections inspired by the seasons.

So if you’re looking for a little something different to tide you over the Easter holidays, why not sign up for a copy at the Level 3 desk?

The Book Club will be meeting at the usual time, 730pm, in the usual place, the Library Staff Room, but on a slightly different day – Tuesday – as the Monday is, of course, a Bank Holiday.

For more information about the Club, please contact Sharon Reid at the Library: S.D.Reid@lboro.ac.uk, ext. 222403, or why not join the discussion on our Facebook page?

Overton Poetry Prize 2017

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The School of Arts, English & Drama have just opened this year’s Overton Poetry Prize, which is held annually in memory of Professor Bill Overton (1946-2012). The School offers this prize for a sequence of poems on any subject, up to 300 lines. The first-placed entry will be published in chapbook form by the University’s Lamplight Press. There will be two further prizes of £50 each.

Much of Professor Overton’s teaching and writing was on poetry, and the proceeds from this competition fund an early-career poet in residence for Loughborough University. Students from the School can study Creative Writing modules at BA level, and undertake an MA and PhD in Creative Writing. The School hopes that this poetry prize, set up in the Professor’s memory, will contribute to the creative life of the School of the Arts, English and Drama and the experience of our students.

The Overton Poetry Prize 2017 will close on 1st September 2017, and the winner will be announced at the end of September 2017. Details of how to enter can be found via the School’s website below:

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/aed/about/creative-opportunities/competitions-prizes/overton-poetry-prize/

World Poetry Day

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March 21st is UNESCO’s World Poetry Day, not only a celebration of the poetic forms of literature in all its infinite variations, but also to encourage learning and teaching of poetry across the globe.

Thanks to our own English & Drama School, we’ve built up quite an extensive range of poetry, ancient and modern, ranging from the Greek epic poetry of Homer to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, to the 19th century classics of Coleridge and William Wordsworth, to the contemporary poetry of Philip Larkin and Andrew Motion. Not forgetting our comprehensive range of literature databases available on Library Catalogue Plus, most notably Literature Online (LION), from which you can glean everything you ever wanted to know about your favourite poem or poem. Why not have a browse?

On the Radar – Syncopolitics

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Join Dr Fred Dalmasso of the School of Arts, English & Drama next week for a lively discussion on the notion of ‘syncopolitics’

Dr Dalmasso has coined the term syncopolitics in response to Catherine Clément’s seminal book, Syncope – the Philosophy of Rapture, where she stresses that “syncope is spectacle, it shows off, exposes itself, smashes, breaks, interrupts the daily course of other people’s lives, people at whom the raptus is aimed.” Dr Dalmasso will look in particular at how the image of syncope and the syncope of the image might radically displace or dissolve the self and thus offer strategies of resistance against norms through renouncement or disappearance; a recess of the image that he considers as a sine qua non condition for thinking politics as what can only happen within a horlieu (an out-place or non-place) of representation: a syncopolitics that resonates with what Badiou calls inexist[a]nce.

The discussion will be taking place in the Radar ArtSpace in the Edward Barnsley Building on Wednesday 15th February between 2-3pm. Entrance is free but booking is required – please email aed.research@lboro.ac.uk if you would like to attend.

Never Let Go of the Book Club!

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51NcMaqTCsL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_The Student Book Club meets up for the last time this term (and 2016) next Monday 5th December when the novel up for discussion will be Patrick Ness’s award winning science fiction thriller The Knife of Never Letting Go.

A coming of age story with a spine-chilling twist, the novel picked up the 2008 Guardian Award and is the first part of a trilogy entitled Chaos Walking.

All of our copies have been borrowed ahead of the next meeting, but you can still find it in all good book shops. The Club will be meeting at the usual time, 7pm, in the Library Staff Room.

For more information about the Club, please contact Sharon Reid at the Library: S.D.Reid@lboro.ac.uk, ext. 222403, or why not join the discussion on our Facebook page?

Weekend of Weird at the Martin Hall

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LU Arts is remaining in the Halloween spirit this November with a weekend long exploration of everything Weird, hosted in the Martin Hall Theatre on Saturday 26th & Sunday 27th November.

A Weekend of Weird brings together writers, performers, filmmakers, artists, publishers, academics, enthusiasts and celebrants to ask: what is the Weird? Where did it come from? Where is it going?

The Weird is an emerging field that encompasses literature, film, music, art and performance. Its world is subtly strange, uncanny, irrational, inexplicable, questioning our everyday environments and perceptions and implying that our world is far more bizarre and disturbing than we would like to believe.

The weekend will comprise panel discussions, live performances, film screenings and a specialist book fair. It is organised by Radar in collaboration with Nick Freeman and Dan Watt from Loughborough University’s School of the Arts, English and Drama.

A Weekend of Weird centres around a series of main panel discussions with contributions from John Hirschhorn-Smith, Andrew Michael Hurley, Timothy Jarvis, James Machin and Mark Valentine. These sessions will be interspersed with live performances and a series of specially curated film programmes.

For this programme Radar has commissioned new works by Joey Holder, Ben Judd, Tai Shani and artist collective Reactor. There will also be screenings of work by Sidsel Christensen and Pauline Curnier Jardin.

Full programme information can be found on the LU Arts website here:

http://www.arts.lboro.ac.uk/radar/events/event/a_weekend_of_weird

Database Trial – Publishers Weekly Digital Archive

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BG19511020_1_1-200wWe’re running a trial of another venerable and long-running popular publication now in digital format, Publishers Weekly, the American Book Trade Journal.

Continuously published since 1872, Publishers Weekly has consistently been the authoritative voice for US publishing industry news and book reviews, with ongoing coverage of the British book trade. The complete archive includes up to 400,000 book reviews, 5,000 author profiles/interviews, and bestseller lists from 1895 forward.

This primary source archive contains every page of Publishers Weekly published over its first 141 years, all in its original context, in full color, and fully searchable to support lines of inquiry into print media and digital culture, American studies, popular culture, history of the book, literature, history, humanities, and their many sub-disciplines. This collection contains 1,889 issues comprising 135,165 pages.

To access the archive go to: http://pubweekly.napubcoonline.com. Access is direct from on-campus.

The trial will run until December 7th 2016.

We welcome feedback – good or bad – on this trial, please contact Steve Corn ( s.c.corn@lboro.ac.uk ) with your comments.