Alexandra Harris: The March and the Visitor

MERL SEMINAR SERIES: RURAL RIDERS AND RADICALS

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND MERL SPEAKER SERIES 2018

Booking recommended – BOOK TICKETS

VENUE: The Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road, RG1 5EX

A series of lunchtime talks organised by the Department of English Literature and the Museum of English Rural Life, in celebration of their ongoing collaborations. Events in the series feature (alternately) writers with a national profile, and academic authors showcasing new and exciting research.

18 JANUARY – ALEXANDRA HARRIS – THE MARSH AND THE VISITOR

Alex will introduce and read from recent essays about an area of Sussex which she finds familiar from her childhood, but which she has experience increasingly as unknown territory.

Alexandra describes herself as a “literary critic, cultural historian, lover of buildings, landscapes, seasons, stories”. Her books include Romantic Moderns (2010) and Weatherland: Writers and Artists under English Skies(2015). The latter is an exploration of imaginative responses to the weather in England across the centuries. She is a Birmingham Professorial Fellow at the University of Birmingham.

In this talk, Alex will introduce and read from recent essays about an area of the Sussex countryside which is familiar from her childhood, but which still feels like unknown territory. She will be in conversation with Paddy Bullard, considering differing forms of country knowledge, distance, belonging, and the way we write about it.

Find out more about Alex and her work at www.alexandraharris.co.uk 

This talk is part of Rural Riders and Radicals, a series of lunchtime talks in collaboration with the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading. Events in the series feature writers with a national profile, and academic authors showcasing new and exciting research.