Experimental publishing and new archival initiatives
2022-01-27 17:00 - 19:00 (Europe/London)
Experimental publishing and new archival initiatives
This online event is free and open to all. Please register your interest to receive the Zoom link here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/experimental-publishing-and-new-archival-initiatives-tickets-228856103767
This panel is the second in a series of events, which draw on historical as well as contemporary references to examine experimental publishing through a range of perspectives, spanning the fields of art, communication design, digital media and software development. This event looks specifically at the ways in which archival initiatives in experimental, grassroots publishing have extended relationships between social and media environments over the past decade. Looking at three specific practitioner-led case studies, the presentations and the subsequent Q&A will consider the breakdown of strict boundaries between activities of publishing and archiving, enabled through the development of new forms of networked, social interactions, and the hybridization of digital and analog contexts. In particular, these case studies will point to convergences between technical and social phenomena which have challenged the status-quo and offered new imaginaries through the availability of cheap and accessible technologies (both hardware and software) to design, produce, distribute and simultaneously archive publications; significant developments in the open source software movement; and the cross-reference to specific ideas from feminist and queer cultural theory, as well as cyberfeminism. This event will contribute to the overall aims of the Experimental Publishing series by highlighting again the importance of new, cross-disciplinary vocabularies to enter traditional discourses in order to adequately further scholarship around experimental and grassroots practices in the publishing field.
Convened by Ruth Blacksell and Lozana Rossenova with contributions from Simon Browne, Ami Clarke and Mindy Seu. The case study presentations include The Bootleg Library, the Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing, and The Cyberfeminism Index.
Dr Ruth Blacksell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. She leads the Book Design Pathway for the Department’s MA in Communication Design. Her PhD (2013) at the University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture was supported by a concordat scholarship with the British Library and she recently established a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership between the University of Reading and Tate Library. Much of her research to date has been concerned with typographic engagements and acts of publishing in post-1960s art and the emergence of a contemporary inter-disciplinary territory which, following this historical and theoretical lineage, utilises and exploits the vocabularies and contexts of both art and editorial design.
Simon Browne is an artist, researcher and self-proclaimed “contingent librarian”, convenient shorthand for an ever-expanding list of actions he performs in his practice. Simon is the initiator of the “bootleg library”, a digital/physical/social collection of texts and the readers collected around them. His work engages with the social dimension of publishing, free software and infrastructure that supports interpersonal knowledge-sharing networks. He lives and works in Rotterdam, where he is active as a member of Varia, a collective-space for everyday technology.
Ami Clarke is an artist working within the emergent behaviours that come off the complex protocols of platform capitalism in everyday assemblages, with a focus on the inter-dependencies between code and language in hyper-networked culture. She is interested in acknowledging, and thinking through, the complexities of the subject emerging in synthesis with their environment, from a critical intersectional position. She is also founder of Banner Repeater; a reading room with a public Archive of Artists’ Publishing and project space on a working train station platform at Hackney Downs station, London. She is also the initiator and artistic director of the Digital Archive of Artists’ Publishing, an online platform that seeks to connect publications and artists across collections.
Lozana Rossenova is a digital designer and researcher. She holds an MA from the Department for Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading, where she was a Sessional Lecturer in hybrid and digital publication between 2016–2021. In 2021, she completed a PhD at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image (London South Bank University) in collaboration with Rhizome, a leading international born-digital art organisation. Her research focuses on open-source and community-driven approaches to digital infrastructures, which organise, store and make knowledge, and different ways of knowing, accessible.
Mindy Seu is a designer and researcher currently writing the manuscript for the Cyberfeminism Index, to be released by Inventory Press in Fall 2022. She holds an M.Des from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a B.A. in Design Media Arts from University of California, Los Angeles. Seu is currently an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and Critic at Yale School of Art.
Credits: The image background uses a source photo from the Banner Repeater instagram account.

Ed Fella: Exit Level Design, 1985–2012
2022-01-31 - 2022-03-25
Exhibition: Ed Fella: Exit Level Design, 1985–2012 curated by Rick Poynor. Monday 31 January – Friday 25 March 2022, Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, ToB2, Earley Gate.
The American graphic designer Edward Fella’s career divides into two complementary phases. For 30 years, Fella (born 1938) worked as a designer, commercial artist and illustrator in Detroit, Michigan. In his late 40s, hoping to teach, he gained a first degree in graphic design and studied for an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art, then a centre of theoretical thinking and experimental graphic practice. In the second phase of his career – the focus of this exhibition – Fella became, as he put it, an “exit level designer”, leaving clients and commissions behind to teach at California Institute of the Arts and pursue a freewheeling investigation of form unique in contemporary graphic design. After years of professional studio experience, Fella was a master of diverse graphic styles and hand-lettering. Work that might at first glance seem neglectful of design’s cardinal “rules” came from a deep well of knowledge. He created flyers for lectures by himself and other designers that are loaded with allusions. In his sketchbooks, he produced a daily stream of collages and drawings best understood as art about design. In his 50s, Fella became internationally famous for a self-motivated body of work that overflows with invention and surprise.
Credit: Flyer designed by Ed Fella

Read the World: Picture Books and Translation
2022-02-03 17:00 - 18:00
Read the World: Picture Books and Translation
This event is free and open to all. This research seminar will be online. Please register your interest to receive the Zoom link here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/x/read-the-world-picture-books-and-translation-tickets-251121821127
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing in partnership with Outside in World, the organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring world literature and children’s books in translation, are delighted to announce the latest event in their seminar series on translation for children:
Read the World: Picture Books and Translation
A Reading Library Exhibition at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (Amherst, MA)
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book’s current library exhibition “Read the World: Picture Books and Translation” highlights the role of translators, showcases multilingual books, and introduces readers to recent English translations and their publishers.
Join Professor Regina Galasso (UMass Amherst), Caroline Seitz (Amherst College), Education Director Courtney Waring (The Carle) and Literacy Educator David Feinstein (The Carle) as they share themes and highlights from the exhibition, and discuss their process curating and creating interpretive materials for young readers.
Participants:
David Feinstein (The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art)
Regina Galasso (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Caroline Seitz (Amherst College)
Courtney Waring (The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art)
Credits: Sonja Wimmer, Illustration for The Day Saida Arrived written by Susana Gómez Redondo and translated by Lawrence Schimel (Blue Dot Kids Press). © 2020 Sonja Wimmer.

Researching the history of printing in Iran: particularities and challenges
2022-02-24 17:00 - 18:30
Dr Borna Izadpanah , Department of Typography, University of Reading
This event is free and open to all. This research seminar will be a hybrid event, taking place on the University of Reading campus, Typography Department, Room A6, and online. Please register your interest to receive the Zoom link here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/researching-the-history-of-printing-in-iran-particularities-and-challenges-tickets-242664866147
This seminar introduces some of the particularities and challenges that Borna’s recently completed PhD research faced in developing the chapter that deals with the introduction of Arabic-script printing to nineteenth-century Iran. One of the significant aspects of Arabic-script metal types produced in Iran is their extremely minimal use. This is also true of the number of surviving copies of the early Persian publications in Iran which were printed with those types. For example, the first Qurʾān printed with both typography (1827) and lithography (1834) are limited to two identified copies. Additionally, the condition of extant copies of books printed in Iran during this period are often extremely poor and, in many cases, incomplete.
This presentation demonstrates Borna’s experience of investigating the early Persian publications in Iran, which shows that many of these publications have yet to be identified. As will be shown, the discovery of previously unknown publications in libraries or private collections – which is not an infrequent occurrence – often overturns the received history of printing in Iran.
Borna Izadpanah is a typeface designer and researcher based in London. He holds a PhD in Typography & Graphic Communication from the University of Reading, where he also graduated with an MA in Typeface Design. His doctoral research explored the history of the early typographic representation of the Persian language. Borna has received numerous prestigious awards for his research and typeface design including the Grand Prize and the First Prize in Arabic Text Typeface in Granshan Type Design Competition, TDC Certificate of Typographic Excellence, and the Symposia Iranica Prize for the best paper in Art History.
This research seminar will be a hybrid event, taking place online and on the University of Reading campus, Room A6, Typography Department http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/maps/whiteknights-campus-map.pdf (Building number 21 on this map).

Five go to France.... and are translated back again
2022-03-10 17:00 - 18:00
An online panel event with the editor and translator to mark the publication of Hachette’s new Famous Five graphic novel series. Register here

About this event

Speakers:
Alexandra Antscherl (Editorial Director, Enid Blyton Entertainment and Fiction Brands at Hachette Children’s Group)
Emma D. Page (Translator, PhD student at the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, University of Reading)
Chair:
Sophie Heywood (Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, University of Reading)
The panel will explore the new Famous Five series retold as graphic novels for the first time ever. The series translates back into English the French adaptation of Blyton’s novels by Béja and Nataël, a talented father-and-son team of graphic novel experts. Together the speakers will discuss the French and English books, the translation process, and publishing Blyton in the 21st century. This will be followed by a Q&A.

Conference - Inside and Outside Modernism: An Anatomy of 1922 and its Cultures
2022-03-28 | University of Reading, London Road Campus
Monday 28th March 2022
“James Joyce is quite wrong headed. Anyhow, with his wilfulness, he has made novel reading into a fair imitation of penal servitude…” (ARNOLD BENNETT on ULYSSES)
Keynote Speakers: Professor Patrick Collier (Ball State University), Dr Beci Carver (University of Exeter)
This one-day conference intends to examine 1922 looking at the cultures and writers associated with this significant year, in all their forms and geographical spread. It will consider the year holistically, considering cultural and personal interactions and how they relate to the intellectual work of modernism. The conference is designed to bring the year into clearer focus with interdisciplinary contributions from politics, history, science, economics, music, literature, book history and visual culture and areas that have fallen outside the purview of traditional modernism. Some questions the conference would like to approach include: how has modernism impacted on the study of artistic cultures? How far did recent history shape social attitudes? How did the political and economic uncertainties in 1922 permeate different cultures? Was 1922 important for anything more than modernism itself?
Panels:

Ephemeral Modernism
Poetry and Performance
High Modernism
Publishing and Trade

Other highlights include:

University of Reading Special Collection and Archive exhibition of materials
The Handheld Press will showcase a selection of texts for attendees to browse and purchase on the day

The conference will take place in-person at the University of Reading, London Road Campus, with some blended panels. Please note that the schedule is subject to change according to University COVID-19 guidance and advice. We will inform all speakers and attendees of any changes in advance of the conference as soon as possible.
Registration is free but places are limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. Lunch and refreshments will be available to purchase on-site. Register here.
If you have any questions, please contact the organisers, Benjamin Bruce (b.bruce@pgr.reading.ac.uk) and Domonique Davies (domonique.davies@pgr.reading.ac.uk)
Supported by the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing and the Samuel Beckett Research Centre at University of Reading.

Adaptation Student Showcase and Masterclass
2022-04-29 13:00 - 16:30 | Bob Kayley Theatre Space, Minghella Building, Whiteknights Campus
Featuring: A showcase of creative adaptations across stage and screen including live performances, audio experiences, film excerpts, and production files created by student artists from Film, Theatre and Television, curated by Dr Sarah Bartley (University of Reading); Head of Fundraising, Edd Pickering (University of Reading) presents the latest Cine Valley developments; topped off with an Adaptation masterclass with award-winning author Robin Mukherjee (Bath Spa University).
Robin Mukherjee has written extensively for television, radio, theatre and film. He has also written a book on screenwriting and a novel. His first feature film, ‘Dance of the Wind’, won the Audience Prize at the London Film Festival. His most recent feature, ‘Lore’, has won numerous awards world-wide and was Australia’s official entry to the Oscars. His three part television series, ‘Combat Kids’ was nominated for a BAFTA.

Writing Classy Places: Creative writing workshop at Reading Central Library with Lisa Blower
2022-05-19 17:30 - 18:45 | Reading Central Library, Abbey Square, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 3BQ
Part of ‘Class in Publishing and Print’
Writing Classy Places
Join prize winning author Lisa Blower for a creative writing workshop on how to draw class into place and create places because of class. Lisa will discuss her own fiction and offer personal tips on how to generate believable settings and the lives within them.

This is a free event, but places are limited. Please register here to book your place.

Bio:
Lisa Blower is a prize-winning short story writer and novelist. She won the Arnold Bennett Prize in 2020 for It’s Gone Dark over Bill’s Mother’s – a collection of stories that draws from her Potteries childhood and the chattering of matriarchs she grew up with. She is the author of 2 novels – Sitting Ducks (2016) which was shortlisted for The Rubery, the Guardian’s Not the Booker and the People’s Book Prize, and Pondweed (2020), a road trip in the slow lane from Stoke to Snowdon via pints, pitches, and pit stops. She won The Guardian’s National Short Story Competition in 2009, has been shortlisted for the BBC Short Story award, The Sunday Times Short Story Prize, and The Bridport Prize. She holds a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing and is Programme Leader & Senior Lecturer in Creative & Professional Writing at Wolverhampton University.

Class in Publishing and Print: ceilings, inequalities, diversities
2022-05-20 10:00 - 16:30 | University of Reading, London Road Campus
CBCP Annual Conference
This conference at the University of Reading brings together academics, writers, publishers and agents to explore the relationships between publishing genres, printing, national and regional diversity, readers, business decisions and social class.
Registration is free but places are limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. Click here to book your place.
Keynote Speakers:

Professor Katy Shaw, Northumbria University
Lisa Blower, author
Natasha Carthew, writer and founder of Working Class Writers Festival
Emma Shercliff, literary agent
Professor Dave O’Brien, University of Sheffield

Social class has long been a barrier for writers from working-class backgrounds to getting into print. From D. H. Lawrence to James Kelman, Buchi Emecheta to Pat Barker, working-class writers have been told to edit and revise dialect, style and characters to get their work published in the literary mainstream.
Thanks to austerity policies and the erosion of the welfare state, barriers to entry in the creative industries are higher than ever (see Panic! Social Class, Taste and Inequalities in the Creative Industries by Brook, O’Brien and Taylor, 2018). Prompted by today’s inequalities and the systemic barriers to entry in the cultural and creative industries, interest in contemporary working-class writing is at a high and publishers are trying to address the “class ceilings” and regional biases in their own workforces.
The conference will take place in-person with one online panel. Please note that the schedule is subject to change according to University COVID-19 guidance and advice. We will inform all speakers and attendees of any changes in advance of the conference as soon as possible.
For the full programme and further details see here: Class in Publishing and Print Conference Document_NW BEST (1)

Leverhulme Lecture: The Arcade in Arcadia - Thomas Bewick, Children’s Books, and Rural Readers in Enlightenment England
2022-05-26 13:00 - 14:00 | Museum of English Rural Life, 6 Redlands Road, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 5EX, United Kingdom
Join Professor Kristin Bluemel, Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Newcastle University, as she explores the work of eighteenth-century artist, writer, and naturalist Thomas Bewick. This talk will explore the ways in which Bewick’s illustrations and the appeal of his work to children were fundamental in establishing nineteenth-century ideas of the rural. Famous for wood engraved books of natural history—especially the two volume A History of British Birds—Bewick won the hearts of children with his tail-pieces (“tale-pieces”) of rural life, which appeared in the white spaces at the ends of his book chapters. The talk will be accompanied by a short tour led by Curator of MERL Collections, Dr Ollie Douglas.
Professor Bluemel’s Leverhulme project puts the rural back at the heart of our thinking about culture, and develops the emerging, interdisciplinary field of ‘rural humanities’.
Bewick’s work invites us to consider how people in the past cared for their natural and human heritage. It highlights the importance of creativity in shaping how we respond to a changing world.
This event is a collaboration between CBCP and the Museum of English Rural Life. It will take place at the MERL. Registration is free and open to all, but spaces are limited. Please register here.

Image: Thomas Bewick vignette at the end of the introduction to “The Predatory Gulls” section in A History of British Birds, Vol. II, Water Birds, first published 1804. Child readers would have noticed the lost hat, whose replacement will take more out of the damp traveller’s pocket than any toll. This image is from the 1826 edition, p. 228.

Poetry Workshop at Reading Central Library: Embodied Imagery with Golnoosh Nourpanah
2022-05-28 11:00 - 12:30 | Reading Central Library, Abbey Square, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 3BQ
Part of ‘Class in Publishing and Print’
‘Her hair was like golden sunlight.’ ‘The child was quiet as a mouse.’ ‘He was caught red-handed.’
How many times have you been put off by a clichéd image, simile, or metaphor like these examples? Good poems make readers feel something rather than just impart information. This is not always easy as unlike other artforms, in poetry, language is the primary medium. How can we make the familiar seem fresh, embodied, and authentic? How can we use language in a way to have the maximum effect on the reader, to make the reader feel something and think for themselves, rather than just telling them what to think? Learn to make the readers visualise your poems. Let them feel your words, not just hear them.
In this workshop we learn to create images that are authentic and unique to us, with just our use of language. In this workshop, we learn how to avoid reproducing clichés and create images that are strong, memorable, and authentic.
This is a free event, but places are limited. Click here to book your ticket.
Bio:

Golnoosh Nourpanah is a published poet, prose writer, and lecturer. In 2019, she earned a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Golnoosh has authored two poetry collections and a short story collection, which was shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021. She has taught creative writing at Birkbeck, UEL, the Poetry School, the University of Bedfordshire, the University of Reading and Westminster, and she’s performed her poetry in literature festivals and events across the UK and internationally.

CBCP Postgraduate Study Day Friday 1st July: Programme
2022-07-01
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing (CBCP) is pleased to share the programme for next Friday’s first PhD Study Day.
This has been organised and convened by doctoral researchers working on areas relevant to the CBCP. It is a free event, with lunch provided: all are welcome to attend!
9:45 – 10:00 Meetup – Edith Morley 125
10:00 – 10:10 Introduction
Panel 1 10:10 – 11:25
Matthew Chambers (CBCP Visiting Research Fellow), ‘Locating the Modernist Bookshop in the Archive’;
Benjamin Bruce (DEL) ‘A tale of two tales: Ideology aesthetics and publishing at Chatto & Windus in 1922’;
Jenny Harper (DEL) ‘Censorship in the writing of the working classes: Ethel Carnie Holdsworth and John Clare’
11:25 – 11:40 Coffee break
Panel 2 11:40 – 12:30
Stephanie Alder (CBCP Early Careers Fellow) ‘New Boxes Come Across the Sea’: Exploring the Transnational Victorian Library;
Andrea De Falco (DLC) ‘New books for a new public: charting the paperback revolution in the Italian cultural industry (1945-1965)’
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch break
Panel 3 1:30 – 2:15
Lisa Barnard (Art) ‘A Body of Citational Writing’;
Antonio Gambacorta (DEL) ‘Samuel Beckett and the making of Still: con tre acqueforti’
2:15 – 2:25 Short break
Panel 4 2:25 – 3:15
Claudia R. Amenos (Typography) ‘Letterpress political posters of the Spanish Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War (1931–39)’;
Ring Yong (Typography) ‘Typographical variation in Chinese print: Missionaries, metal type and printing press in late imperial China (1813-1860)’;
Isabel Stoole (Typography) ‘Connotations of gender in 20th-century print production advertisements, with focus on images depicting the employment of women (1945–1985)’
We look forward to seeing you!

Exhibition - invitation to private viewing: 'Looking at women looking at themselves being looked at: Female representation in Charles Mozley’s work'
2022-07-22 18:00 - 19:30
You are cordially invited to attend a private viewing of the exhibition
Looking at women looking at themselves being looked at Female representation in Charles Mozley’s work
Curated by Cătălina Zlotea
Friday, 22 July 20226 pm to 7.30 pm Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of ReadingTOB2Whiteknights RoadEarley GateReading, RG6 6BZ(Sat nav RG6 7BE)
This new exhibition explores the concept of the male gaze in twentieth-century illustration. Cătălina Zlotea, a PhD researcher, analyses the work of the prolific mid-century British illustrator Charles Mozley (1914–1991) through a contemporary lens. At a moment when gender dynamics still define a perpetual cycle of inequality, this show explores how feminine stereotypes have been constructed and perpetuated in British visual culture.
The exhibition is open until 9 September, on weekdays from 10 am to 5 pm. Closed bank holidays.
Please RSVP before 17 July: c.c.zlotea@pgr.reading.ac.uk

A Room of One's Own on the High Street: Women and Personal Bookshops, 1916-1939
2022-10-13 17:00 - 18:00
Dr Matt Chambers, CBCP Research Fellow

This research seminar is free and open to all. Join us in person in the Edith Morley Building, Room G74. To join via Zoom, register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/423971097967

From 1916 onwards, a new form of bookselling became progressively more visible. Variously labelled “personal bookshops” or “bookshop salons,” small bookselling businesses, opened and operated often by women, offered a different kind of retail experience. Stock was tailored to fit a certain theme or vision; the shop was imagined as a social space and could hold events; the owners would publish books, periodicals, and pamphlets which became synonymous with the shop; and in general, the bookshop became the centre of a literary or political community. In reviewing The Sunwise Turn and the Harlem People’s Book Shop (New York City), as well as Bermondsey Books and Collet’s (London), and Shakespeare and Company and Les Maison des Amis des Livres (Paris), I will discuss how more than just a notable demographic shift, these women-led bookshops represented a change in what was possible in book retail, and permanently altered the bookselling landscape in the early twentieth century.

Book Launch: The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children’s Literature
2022-11-17 17:00 - 18:30 | Edith Morley G44
Join us for a hybrid in-person/online event to mark the publication of The Women Who Invented Twentieth-Century Children’s Literature: Only the Best (Routledge: Children’s Literature and Culture Series), by Elizabeth West, CBCP Early Career Research Fellow.
This event is free and open to all. Join us in the Edith Morley Building, Room G44, to be followed by drinks at Park House. To register for the Zoom link, click here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/424176642757
Publishing for children between 1930 and 1960 has been denigrated as a relatively fallow period for creativity and quality, certainly in comparison with the ‘golden ages’ of children’s literature that preceded and succeeded it. This book questions this perception by using archival evidence to argue that the work of what was predominantly a female group of editors, illustrators, authors and librarians (collectively referred to as bookwomen) resulted in many titles which are still considered as ‘classics’ today. The bookwomen reframed ideas about how children’s publishing should be approached and valued and, in doing so, laid the foundations for a subsequent generation of children’s authors and publishers who were to achieve far greater prominence. The key to the success of the bookwomen was their willingness to experiment, the strength of their relationships, and their comprehensive understanding of the book production process. By focusing on a selection of women working across all aspects of the book production process, this book demonstrates that, both individually and collectively, women capitalised on their position as ‘other’ to the existing male institutions.

Spaces of Translation: European Magazine Cultures, c. 1945-1965
2022-12-08 17:00 - 18:30
Speakers: Andrew Thacker (Nottingham Trent) and Alison E. Martin (Mainz/Germersheim)
This research seminar is free and open to all. Join us in person in the Edith Morley Building, Room G74. To join via Zoom, register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/428120508967
In this project we study a small constellation of literary and cultural magazines from three countries and language areas – Britain, France and Germany – in order to consider how, through translation, they explore and construct notions of European identity in the period following from the end of World War Two to the mid-1960s. Rapid shifts towards decolonisation, the Americanisation of European culture, the rise of anti-militarism and the strategic and ideological conflicts instigated by the Cold War all stimulated an ongoing reassessment of what the European idea stood for and whether or how it might be achieved. Using the notion of periodicals as ‘European spaces’, the project addresses how periodical culture in Britain, France, and Germany used translation to reconfigure a vision for Europe after the catastrophe of World War Two. As The Gate/Das Tor declared in 1947, art, music and literature were ‘not the property of one nation alone’ and that ‘a deeper understanding of our cultural ties with Europe is a surer way to international friendship than political treaties’. But what exactly was the significance of the translation of works of poetry, fiction, criticism, and non-fiction in this period? How did translated texts operate as vehicles for the forging of new European identities? And how did the crossing of linguistic boundaries produce alliances across national borders?

Catherine Butler, 'Studio Ghibli and British Children’s Literature in Japan'
2022-12-13 17:00 - 18:00
This talk is part of the CBCP and Outside in World Webinar series on Children’s Literature and Translation.
Join us online to hear Catherine Butler (Cardiff) talking about ‘Studio Ghibli and British Children’s Literature in Japan’.
This event is free and open to all. To register for the Zoom link, click here.
Hayao Miyazaki has had a lifelong interest in British children’s literature, and an influential role in popularising it in Japan, notably through the animations he created at Studio Ghibli. In this talk I will discuss some aspects of that contribution, and that of directors whom Miyazaki directly influenced, especially his protogé, Hiromasa Yonebayashi. But I will also ask two questions: why does Hayao Miyazaki, who loves British children’s books and has adapted several, never used Britain as a setting? And what are the consequence of taking a story from one setting and medium and putting it into another?
Catherine Butler is Reader in English Literature at Cardiff University. Her academic books include Four British Fantasists (2006), Reading History in Children’s Books (with Hallie O’Donovan, 2012) and Literary Studies Deconstructed (2018), and several edited collections. Her latest book, British Children’s Literature in Japanese Culture: Wonderlands and Looking-Glasses, is due to be published by Bloomsbury in 2023. She has also published six novels for children and teenagers. Catherine is Editor-in-Chief of Children’s Literature in Education.

Anthony Glinoer, 'Between Archives and Databases. The Archives éditoriales platform.'
2023-01-12 17:00 - 18:00
Join us online to hear Anthony Glinoer (University of Sherbrooke, Quebec) talking about The Archives éditoriales platform http://archiveseditoriales.net.
This event is free and open to all. Join us in person in T4, Department of Typography and Graphic Communication. To register for the Zoom link, click here.
A presentation of the internet platform Archives éditoriales (http://archiveseditoriales.net) and of the research partnership project of francophone publishers’ archives, which made the platform possible. Amongst the tools made available on the platform (a database of more than a thousand interviews with francophone publishers about their publishing activity, digital exhibitions, a blog, etc.), Anthony will focus on the database of publishers’ archives, addressing the questions of why, how and when publishing houses tend to donate their archives to public institutions.
Anthony Glinoer is a professor at the University of Sherbrooke (Quebec). His work focusses primarily on the history of publishing (Naissance de l’Éditeur with Pascal Durand in 2005), on the study of representations of the literary life (La bohème. Une figure de l’imaginaire social in 2018) and on groups of authors and artists (L’âge des cénacles with Vincent Laisney in 2013). Anthony Glinoer has also led the Socius project, which has produced re-editions of the classics in literary social theory, re-edited or original bibliographies, and a lexicon of concepts (see the open-access site: ressources-socius.info).
(The illustration is a badge from the Prise de Parole publishing house, Sudbury, Archives of the CRCCF, Fonds Paul-François-Sylvestre (P179), M81-14, Ottawa.)

Valeria Illuminati, Roberta Pederzoli, and Beatrice Spallaccia, 'The G-Book Project. Literature for children and YAs from a gender perspective: literary and translation issues'
2023-01-25 17:00 - 18:00
This talk is part of the CBCP and Outside in World Webinar series on Children’s Literature and Translation and is open to all. To register to join us via Zoom click here.
Speakers: Valeria Illuminati, Roberta Pederzoli, and Beatrice Spallaccia (University of Bologna, MeTRa Centre – Research Centre on Mediation and Translation by and for Children and Young Adults)
The CBCP x OIW webinar series is delighted to welcome a team of speakers from the European G-Book projects. The projects G-BOOK 1 and 2 (Gender Identity: Child Readers and Library Collections and European teens as readers and creators in gender-positive narratives) aim to promote gender positive children’s and young adult literature in terms of roles and models, a literature that is open-minded, plural, varied, free from stereotypes, and that encourages respect and diversity. The first part of the webinar will develop a critical-theoretical reflection on literature for children and young adults from a gender perspective and on its translation. In particular, we will discuss:

gender representations and stereotypes
families
male and female characters
LGBTQ+ issues
and the G-BOOK European projects.

The second part will explore case studies of LGBTQ+ themed illustrated books in English and French translated into Italian. We will analyze both the paratext and the text itself, showing how in the transfer from one language and culture to another there are some shifts and changes, which are not necessarily questionable, but however present the source text in a new light and produce a different effect on the target reader.

Objects made of letters: Concrete poetry in Britain, 1963–75
2023-02-02 - 2023-03-28 | University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, Edith Morley, G44
Exhibition curated by Rick Poynor at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
Open by appointment until 28 March 2023. Please contact Emma Minns for an appointment.
Based on material from the collection of the late Andrew Belsey, philosophy lecturer, concrete poet and MA graduate from Typography & Graphic Communication, “Objects made of letters” explores and illustrates concrete poetry in its heyday. The experience of a concrete poem is always visual, the meaning – in the absence of conventional poetic imagery and syntax – often elusive. The exhibition provides a survey of key publications and illuminating examples, and focuses on the output of three significant figures: Dom Sylvester Houédard, Bob Cobbing and John Furnival.
Curated by Rick Poynor, with assistance from Eric Kindel, Emma Minns and Geoff Wyeth.

Eric Kindel, 'Stencil work: scenes and themes'
2023-03-09 17:30 - 18:30
This event is free for all. Join us in Room T4 in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. To join via Zoom register here.
This talk will survey scenes and themes of stencil work spanning six centuries, discussing and illustrating the surprising variety of uses to which stencils have been put in the production of graphic and textual documents, marks, and messages. Drawing on more than twenty years of research, the talk will explore aesthetic, technical, social, entrepreneurial, regulatory, and linguistic dimensions of stencil work, presenting scenes that are hybrid and in-between and themes that are perennial and therefore historically durable. Among the scenes will be so-called stencil “incunabula”, stencil work typical of France, Britain, and the USA, the multilingual complexities of stencil terminology, and the conundrum of stencil type and typefaces. On show will be early “cut work”, magnificent books made in monastic and secular ateliers, stencils cut by known makers and anonymous ones, depictions of stencil work across the centuries, large-scale stencil advertisements, ingenious stencil devices, and much more. The ensemble will be delivered as a sequence of visual and verbal evidence to build a synoptic presentation of this attractive domain of graphic communication.
Prof Eric Kindel is the Professor of Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. His staff profile, includes links to publications and talks.
Example publications:
Stencil: a descriptive bibliography
Delight of men and gods: Christiaan Huygens’s new method of printing
Patents progress: the Adjustable Stencil
Example talks:
Objet-type, the French stencil letter
Stencilled posters in Paris in the nineteenth century (with Pierre Pané-Farré)
Upper right image courtesy of St Bride Library, London.

Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam, 'Cold Books in Hot Lands: Public and Academic Discourse on Franklin Book Programs (1952-1978)'
2023-03-23 17:00 - 18:30
This online seminar will be presented by Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam, recently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions research fellow at the Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands.
This event is free and open to all. To register for the zoom link, click here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/424960617647
The various activities of the Franklin Book Programs, an American Cold War cultural diplomacy initiative for the development of indigenous publishing in the developing world and winning hearts and minds have been subject to public and academic query since its foundation in 1952. Reports and surveys of its activities, aims and objectives, and achievements have been featured in both American and non-American press, from The New York Times, Publishers Weekly to The Pakistan Observer and Al-Bilad. To exemplify the discourse, I present the story of how Franklin/New York convinced a young professor to put aside his paper but encouraged and supported the publication of another piece by a graduate student. Almost half a century later, I am asking the-now-retired-but-distinguished professor why did he oblige. This should shed some light on how Franklin/New York acted as a gatekeeper and promotor of a certain take on its operation.
Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam is an independent researcher. He was until recently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions research fellow at Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands. His recent research has focused on the cultural Cold War with a focus on the activities of Franklin Book Programs in the Middle East (Coldbihot). He is the author of Literary Translation in Modern Iran: A Sociological Study (2014). He is also a managing editor of the Journal of World Literature.

Author event: Kit de Waal in conversation - in person/hybrid event
2023-05-03 18:00 - 19:30 | Van Emden Lecture Theatre, Edith Morley Building, Whiteknights Campus, University of Reading, United Kingdom
In conversation with Shelley Harris, Creative Writing programme director, Kit will be discussing her writings – both fiction and memoir – and the impact she’s had in making publishing a better place for working-class writers. This is an in person/hybrid event.
Kit de Waal is a multi-award-winning author of short stories, novels, and an autobiography. My Name is Leon (2016), her first novel, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award. It was recently televised by the BBC, with a cast including Christopher Eccleston and Sir Lenny Henry, who also voiced the audiobook.
Kit has a passion for getting diverse voices heard. She used some of her author advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Scholarship at Birkbeck to help improve working-class representation in the arts. It is dedicated to supporting a budding writer from a low-income household or other marginalized backgrounds. In its first year it attracted 138 applicants: this in turn, attracted other donations which has enabled the funding of additional scholarships.
She is the editor of Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers (2019), the result of a project with Unbound and regional writing development organisations to feature working-class writers: this also involved mentoring and supporting new writers.
Her autobiography Without Warning & Only Sometimes – Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood published in 2022 and was a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. The Guardian described it as ‘A richly observed portrait of a working-class childhood and adolescence that finds magic in the mundane’.
This is a free in person/hybrid event but everyone attending (whether in person or online) will require a ticket from Eventbrite: click here for in person; click here for online.
Questions for Kit are welcome but we request they are submitted in advance by email to cbcp@reading.ac.uk by Monday 24th April, please. This will allow Kit sufficient time to consider her answers.

2nd CBCP Postgraduate Symposium
2023-05-25 08:00 - 17:00 | University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, Edith Morley, G44
The 2nd CBCP Postgraduate Symposium will be held at the University of Reading. It will mainly be an in-person event with an option for remote presentation and attendance.
PGR Symposium Programme
Thursday May 25th, Edith Morley, G44
If you would like to attend the conference either in person or online, please sign up here
9.00 – 9:15 am Arrival and refreshments (provided)
9:15 – 9: 20 am Welcome note and Introduction
9:20 – 10:20 am Bibliophiles and readers
Victoria Stevens (Canterbury Christchurch University, UK), “Peeping through the Library Windows: bibliographical insights into the character of a Kent gentry”
Mary Grover (Former Senior Lecturer, Sheffield Hallam University, UK), “‘Something gets hold of you’: Reading for pleasure in an industrial city”
Akshat Seth (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India): “Attitudes to Popular Print and Contemporary Reading Practices Among Hindi Literary Academics in India”
10:25 – 11:25 am Print and literary cultures
Isabel Stoole (University of Reading, UK), “Worker and homemaker: the characterisations of women in print production technology advertisements, 1945–65”
Jenny Harper (Universities of Reading and Exeter, Mid Pennine Arts, UK), “How to ‘cut out all the culture ’when ‘culture is ordinary’?”
Benjamin Bruce (University of Reading, UK), “Publishing Poetry in 1922: The Nature of Popular Verse and its Post-War Demise”
11: 25 – 11: 35 pm Coffee Break
11:35 am – 12:15 pm Publisher’s Series
Lucia Vigutto (University of Bologna, Italy), “Dragons also for children: The Italian translation of Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien”
Fatih Aşan (Boğaziçi University, Turkey), “Observations About Ottoman-Turkish Publisher’s Series (1870-1900)”
12:20 – 1:00 pm Guest Talk
Alex Kither (Curator, Printed Heritage Collections, British Library) and
Dr Naomi Billingsley (Research Development Manager at the British Library), “Collections-based research in the British Library”
1:00 – 2:00 pm Lunch (provided)
2:05 – 2:45 pm Innovating the book form
Berta Ferrer (University of Reading, UK) “Designwriting in House of Leaves: the role of design in unconventional novels of the 21st
century”
Louisa Hunter-Bradley (King’s College London, UK), “Plantin on the page: The format and visual presence of Plantin’s music publications”
2:50 – 3:30 pm Book technologies
Swara Shukla (University of Muenster, Germany) “Bringing the Victorian Serial into the Digital Age”
Angelica Cremascoli (University of Milan, Italy), “Optical-multimedia publishing in Italy: the decade of the ‘round’ book and the new spaces of knowledge (1988-1998)”
3:30 – 3:40 pm Afternoon refreshments (provided)
3:45 – 4: 25 pm Print Technologies
Ring Yong (University of Reading, UK), “Looking at Chinese woodblocks: A revised account of the technology, its imprints, and production costs”
Claudia Rifaterra Amenós (University of Reading, UK), “Letterpress Political Posters from the Spanish Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War (1931-1939) from the CRAI
Collection, University of Barcelona”
4:30 pm – 5:10 pm Illustrated books
Katharine Smales (University College London, UK) “Perry Starlight, Space Explorer: Creating a picturebook to explain research to young
children”
Stephanie Montalti (St. John’s University, US), “Illustrating Cinderella as a Reader: Experimental Front Matter & Metafiction in Walter Crane’s Cinderella’s Picture Book”
The symposium will be an occasion for PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers to showcase their research while engaging with the wider community of researchers within the CBCP. No costs to attend: lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Enquiries should be sent to: Andrea Romanzi and Pritha Mukherjee.
Delegates may also like to register to attend the Marina Warner talk on ‘Archives, history and memory in memoir writing’ which is taking place on the same evening, as an in person/hybrid event. For more information please click here.

Archives, history and memory in memoir writing - a talk by Marina Warner
2023-05-25 17:30 - 19:00 | Museum of English Rural Life, 6 Redlands Road, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 5EX, United Kingdom
Writer and academic Dame Professor Marina Warner will discuss drawing on archives and the interweaving of history and memoir-writing. In her memoir ‘Inventory of a Life Mislaid’, Warner uses memory and imagination as well as writing and objects to recreate the extraordinary world of her childhood. [Cover design by Sophie Herxheimer.]
She has recently presented some of her family papers to the University book and publishing collections, relating to her father’s work in establishing a branch of WH Smith’s in Cairo after the second World War. A selection of artefacts from the WH Smith archives held by the University of Reading will be on display.
This event is run in partnership with the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL).
Dame Professor Marina Warner CH, DBE, FRSL, FBA is a writer and academic. Her works include novels, short stories and studies of art, myths, symbols and fairy tales. She is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London.
This will be an in person/online hybrid event with live streaming via Zoom to remote individuals who have pre-registered to attend. The video files of the talk will be published online after the event.
A selection of artefacts from the WH Smith archives held by the University of Reading will be on display and attendees will have the chance to view this from 5.30pm with refreshments available. The talk will start at 6.00pm.
To book tickets to attend the event in person at the Museum of English Rural Life please click here
To book tickets for the online event (which covers the talk only) please click here
The event will finish at 7.00pm.

CBCP Summer School - Cultures of the book: lithography, consumption, reading
2023-06-20 - 2023-06-21 | University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, Edith Morley, G44
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing at the University of Reading has released the full programme for their inaugural Summer School to be held on 20 and 21 June 2023. The event will be held at the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication and Special Collections at the University.
‘Cultures of the book: lithography, consumption, reading’ will explore how books have been made, consumed and read following the invention of lithography in the early nineteenth century. Talks by leading scholars and practitioners will be combined with a hands-on approach using the University’s collections and archives.
Keynote speakers include Prof Rathna Ramanathan on ‘Beyond the margins: Intercultural collaborations in independent publishing’ and Prof Michael Twyman talking about lithography and printed ephemera.
Other talks will cover the origins of today’s typefaces and text/picture integration (Paul Luna), as well as book-related ephemera popular in the late nineteeth and early twentieth century – the ‘Birthday Book’ (Cătălina Zlotea) and bookplates (Liz West).
Practical sessions on lithographic printing will be available (Geoff Wyeth and Borna Izadpanah), together with ‘hands-on’ examination of book-related printed ephemera (with materials in English and French) from the Centre for Ephemera Studies (Emma Minns).
Participants will also be able to view the exhibition ‘Evolution of the Chinese Typeform’ (curated by Xunchang Cheng).
Enrolment is open now and places can be booked here. Please email with any enquiries.

Multisensory translation for children: Mirror by Jeannie Baker as a soundscape audiobook
2023-06-27 17:00 - 18:30
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing in partnership with Outside in World, the organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring world literature and children’s books in translation, are delighted to announce the latest event in their seminar series on translation for children:
Multisensory translation for children: Mirror by Jeannie Baker as a soundscape audiobook
This is event is free and open to all. To register for the zoom link, click here.
CBCP and OIW will be in conversation with Rafaela Lemos, translator, and Nuno Bento, sound artist, about their project to translate picturebook Mirror by Jeannie Baker (Walker Books, 2010) into a soundscape audiobook, aimed especially at visually impaired Portuguese children.
Rafaela Lemos – Born and raised in Portugal, Rafaela Lemos has always been a creative mind. After completing a Modern Languages BA (Spanish and Mandarin) University of Hull, with First Class Honours, she moved to London where she completed a Masters in Audiovisual Translation from the University of Roehampton. She is currently working as a Localisation Producer for a children’s media entertainment company and as a freelance illustrator and audiovisual translator.
Nuno Bento – Foley artist and sound designer from Lisbon, Portugal: you can find out all about his award-winning work in film and game design here: https://www.nunobento.com/home

Bookshops Online and On the High Street
2023-07-03 - 2023-07-04 | University of Reading, London Road Campus
The 2nd Annual Bookselling Research Network Conference, in association with the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, 3rd-4th July 2023 at the University of Reading, UK.
To register for in-person attendance, please go to event store here.
Jeff Deutsch, in his recent In Praise of Good Bookstores, reflected that because “we no longer need bookstores to buy books…bookstores might well be an inefficient and inconvenient way to buy books in the twenty-first century.” Yet, as he goes on to show, and the industry seems to confirm, “good bookstores” are evident everywhere. The second annual Bookselling Research Network conference looks to discuss both the impact of bookshops in an era of online retailing and how booksellers, the book trade, and book-reading communities use online environments to return people back to the bookshop – wherever in the world these might be. What are the affordances, pitfalls, and challenges of bookselling in a digital era? What innovative, unique, or era-defying practices are evident and thriving? How have changes in bookselling affected literary production and reception? What cultural or political concerns remain prevalent for booksellers? What does it mean to operate a bookshop today?
Schedule
Monday, 03 July
London Road Campus, University of Reading
11:00-11:30 Registration & welcome (room G03) Coffee
11:30-13:00 PANEL 1: Bookshop Profiles (room G07)
Chair: Nicola Wilson (University of Reading)
* Sarah Pyke (Institute of English Studies, University of London) “Literary and Extraliterary Reading at Gay’s the Word bookshop”
* Andrew Thacker (Nottingham Trent University) “Conversation and Daily Liveliness: City Lights Bookstore”
* Peter Willis (Coventry University) “The Bookplace: Community Bookselling and Publishing in Peckham 1977-1994”
13:00-13:45 Lunch (room G03)
13:45-15:15 PANEL 2: Independent Booksellers (room G07)
Chair: Matthew Chambers (University of Reading)
* Lanora Jennings (Princeton University Press) “A Store of Her Own: The History and Legacy of Women-Owned Bookstores in America”
*Aditi Kumar & Charlie Richards (Bookbag, Exeter) “Independent Bookshops in the Publishing Marketplace: In Conversation With Bookbag”
* Louise O’Hare (London Bookshop Map) “Interrogating the “Halo” Effect of Independent Bookshops – Mapping Cultural Ecosystems and Interdependencies”
15:15-15.30 Break
15:30-16:30 Presentation and exhibition of Bookseller Documents (Special Collections)
18:00-19:00
Booksellers’ Panel (At Fourbears Books, Caversham)
Moderator: Philip Jones (Editor, The Bookseller)
Panelists: Emma Corfield-Walters (Book-ish), Alex Forbes (Fourbears Books), Eben Muse (Parnassus Book Service)

Tuesday, 04 July
9:30-11:00 PANEL 3: Bookselling: Other Spaces, Concepts (room G07)
Chair: Eben Muse
* John Rigney (Second Reader Books) “A Moving Collection: Books, Friends and Poetry at the Second Reader Bookshop”
*Pritha Mukherjee (University of Reading) “‘Pirated’ Boi Bajaar in Kolkata: Books that Sell”
*Samantha Rayner (University College London) “Penguin Books and Penguin Bookselling: A ‘Quiet Radicalism’”
11:00-11:15 Break (room G03)
11:15-12:15 Keynote Address: Corinna Norrick-Rühl (University of Münster)
“Bücher & Books: Cross-Lingual Bookselling in German Bricks-and-Mortar Bookstores”
12:15-13:00 Lunch (room G03)
13:00-14:30 PANEL 4: Algorithms and Bookselling (room G07)
Chair: Samantha Rayner (University College London)
*Anna Muenchrath (Appalachian State University) “Selling Books with Algorithms”
*Nayantara Srinivasan (University of Münster) “Digital Bookselling and ‘Independent Bookstore Activism’ in India”
*David Piovesan (Lyon 3 University) “Bookshops in Europe: The Era of Digital Competition”
14:30-14:45 Break (room G03)
14:45-15:15 Closing remarks/open discussion (room G07)
We are holding the conference in-person at the University of Reading, but we can make accommodations if you are unable to join us there. Any sessions with virtual participation will be hybrid and some of our events will be only for those attending (Special Collections, Waterstones).
To register for in-person attendance, please go to event store here. There will be a £20 fee (for staff/salaried) to help us cover the cost of catering. We are working on a registration process for those attending online. For now, if you could please let us know as soon as possible if you plan on attending online and we will get back to you with a link and other information (contact Dr Matthew Chambers: m.chambers@reading.ac.uk).
The Call for Papers can be seen here.
For more information please contact m.chambers@reading.ac.uk

Balam and Lluvia’s House: Translating Poetry for Children
2023-07-20 17:30 - 19:00
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing in partnership with Outside in World, the organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring world literature and children’s books in translation, are delighted to announce the latest event in their seminar series on translation for children:
Balam and Lluvia’s House: Translating Poetry for Children
This is event is free and open to all. To register for the zoom link, click here.
Balam and Lluvia are siblings who catch fireflies, bid farewell to their pet fish in the bathroom, and wait for Ratón Pérez to collect their teeth. In Balam and Lluvia’s House, the secret tastes and sounds of the everyday are waiting to be found.
To celebrate the publication of Balam and Lluvia’s House, written by Julio Serrano Echeverría, illustrated by Yolanda Mosquera and translated by Lawrence Schimel (Emma Press, 2023) and a PEN Translates Award winner, we will be talking to the publisher, author and translator. We will be asking them all about the book, how it was written, how it came to be translated into English, and the joys of translating poetry.
Georgia Wall is publishing manager at The Emma Press, an independent publishing house based in Birmingham, UK, which aims to make literature and publishing as welcoming and accessible as possible. The Emma Press was founded in 2021 by Emma Dai’an Wright and specialises in poetry, short fiction, essays and children’s books.
Julio Serrano Echeverría is a Guatemalan writer, poet, filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist of mixed Mestizo, African and Mayan descent. He has held fellowships from the Fundación Carolina, the Iberoamerican Artists Residence FONCA-AECID and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in the US, where he has also been artist in residence and lectures regularly on poetry and Latin American culture. His poetry collections include Tierra, Antes del mar, Estados de la materia, Central Ámerica, and his children’s books include En botas de astronauta and Dos cabezas para meter un gol. He was one of the founders of the Quetzaltenango International Poetry Festival. He received the 2022 Premio Gabo, the most prestigious award for Latin American journalism, for his work as co-founder and creative coordinator of Agencia Ocote, an interdisciplinary Guatemalan digital media outlet that views journalism in dialogue with art, historic memory, transitional justice and women’s rights. He has participated in many international poetry festivals, and his work is also translated into Bengali, English, French and the Mayan languages Q´eqchí, K´iche’, and Kaqchikel.
Lawrence Schimel (New York City, 1971) is a full-time author, writing in both Spanish and English, who has published over 130 books in a wide range of genres. His picture books have won a Crystal Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, a White Raven from the International Youth Library in Munich, and have been chosen by IBBY for Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities (three times), among other honors. His writings have been translated into over fifty languages, including Icelandic, Maltese, Farsi, Kurdish, Basque, Luxembourgish, Changana, Romansch, and Japanese. In addition to his own writing, he is a prolific literary translator, primarily into English and into Spanish, who has published over 150 books. His translations into English have won a Batchelder Honor from the American Library Association, a PEN Translates Award from English PEN (three times), a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship (with Layla Benitez-James), and was Highly Commended in the CLiPPA, among other honors. He started the Spain chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and illustrators and served as its Regional Advisor for five years. He also coordinated the International SCBWI Conference in Madrid and the first two SCBWI-Bologna Book Fair conferences. He lives in Madrid, Spain.

Publishing Anti-fascism, CBCP annual conference, 11-12 September 2023
2023-09-11 - 2023-09-12
We are delighted to announce the Provisional Programme for our conference on Publishing Anti-fascism.
This international conference will bring together scholars of anti-fascist publishing activity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from any linguistic or geographical context. Our aim is to broaden the understanding of anti-fascist publishing by drawing attention to previously neglected publications, publishers, and perspectives – from Europe and beyond.
Despite the frequent focus on national contexts, much anti-fascist publishing was transnational in scope. While refugees from fascism crossed borders from one country to another, their anti-fascist texts could appear around the world in multiple translations simultaneously. In the 1930s and 40s, global institutions such as the Communist International and the British Ministry of Information (responsible for propaganda across the whole of the British Empire), gave many anti-fascist texts a truly world-wide reach.
Since the end of the Second World War, anti-fascism has not become superfluous as a movement although it is often misunderstood. As Braskén, Featherstone and Copsey have argued, ‘political myths and misrepresentations of anti-fascist histories are constantly used in contemporary debates’ (Anti-fascism in a global perspective, 2021). Whilst taking a broad approach to the history and legacy of anti-fascist publishing, this conference seeks to fully contextualise these activities in order to understand to what degree they still offer a counterpoint to today’s political right. After all, as Bill V. Mullen and Christopher Vials have pointed out, the USA’s anti-fascist tradition goes back to the 1920s, long before the existence of Antifa (The US Antifascism Reader, 2020).
Though we hope to expand current knowledge of European anti-fascist publishing history and practice, this conference also welcomes contributions which look beyond a white European setting, perhaps exploring the intersections of anti-fascism, anti-racism, and anti-colonialism in publishing cultures. For instance, in 1933, after Nazis ransacked his offices and deported him to England, the Black pan-Africanist journalist George Padmore argued in an editorial for his communist publication, The Negro Worker, that ‘fascism is the greatest danger which confronts not only the white workers, but is the most hostile movement against [black people].’ He also drew an explicit comparison between the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, writing that “the fascists in Germany are preaching race hatred and advocating lynch law” (The Negro Worker vol. 3, no. 4-5 [Apr-May 1933]). Yet these historical parallels and continuities are often overlooked in discussions of anti-fascist history.
We are excited to offer two additional events as part of the conference. One is a screening of Steve Hatton’s 2011 documentary film, Heilig, about the Austrian anti-Nazi journalist Bruno Heilig, and his son, Gerhard, who came to England as a refugee on the Kindertransport. The film will be introduced by a talk by the filmmaker. The other is a tour of Reading University’s collection of anti-fascist Spanish civil war posters, housed by the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication.
The conference will be hosted by the University of Reading’s Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, and will take place in Reading. Virtual attendance will also be possible, as the conference will take a hybrid form. There will be minimal or no cost for attendance.
Organising committee at the University of Reading: Ali Brown, Dr Sophie Heywood, Prof Daniela La Penna, Dr Ellen Pilsworth, Dr Marta Simo-Comas, Dr Nicola Wilson, Dr Ute Wölfel.
Image credit: Wisconsin Historical Society, Image ID: 14802. Can be viewed online at https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM148402
