Author event: Kit de Waal in conversation – in person/hybrid event
2023-05-03 18:00 - 19:30 (Europe/London) | Edith Morley Building, Van Emden Lecture Theatre, Edith Morley Building, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6UR, 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.

Spring Children's Lecture: Wind of Change, Curbing Cow Burps to Fight Climate Change
2023-05-04 16:30 - 17:30 | JJ Thomson Ditchburn Lecture Theatre
Wind of change curbing cow burps to fight climate change
Milk comes from cows and cows eat grass everyone knows that. But along with milk, the average dairy cow also burps out over 600 litres of methane, every day. That’s enough to fill more than 40 party balloons. And methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, which is making climate change worse.
That’s why the University of Reading’s Centre for Dairy Research gave our cows a different menu. We swapped out some of their grass for things like seaweed, garlic and herbs.
What happened next? Can farmers tackle climate change? Will cow’s milk be more planet friendly? And could a cow be trained to burp the National Anthem? Find out at our Spring Children’s Lecture, with dairy science expert Professor Chris Reynolds.
Admission free. Booking essential.
Suitable for children 7 to 12 years.
To book your place visit www.reading.ac.uk/events

2nd CBCP Postgraduate Symposium - call for papers
2023-05-05
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.
PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers are invited to submit abstracts for 15-minute talks on relevant topics, such as:

book production, distribution, and readership in global contexts.
printing and publishing trade.
book history, typography, and book design.
materiality of text and image (both analogue and digital).
environmental histories of print cultures and book printing and sustainability.
wider book cultures and publishing with a distinctive global, multilingual, and
multidisciplinary focus.
protagonists and professionals of the book market (such as publishers, editors,
designers, illustrators, translators, cultural mediators, literary agents, readers).

The deadline for the submission of the abstracts is Monday 5th May 2023. Abstracts should also include single-line bio or affiliation descriptions and should not exceed 350 words in length (references and bio excluded).
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.
Abstracts and 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.

Contradictions of the Digital in Screen and Performance Cultures
2023-05-17 16:00 - 17:30 | Online event
From Hyperconnectivity to Solitude: A Pharmacological Journey in Digital Performance Ecologies
Digital culture, through the democratisation of technologies, personal computing, and the Internet, has required the cultural sector to drastically rethink audiences’ modes of engagement/disengagement, not least during the pandemic, when artists and cultural organisations have been engaging with their audiences through networked and hybrid platforms. Through a pharmaco-phenomenological angle the paper analyses performance practices that invite participants to make/feel their way through a networked reality that oscillates between hyperconnectivity and solitary activity. This paper focuses on the role and significance of solitude in digital performance to propose an alternative understanding of the complex relationship between singularity and plurality in digital culture, where aloneness and togetherness are not necessarily antithetical. The paper discusses how solitude as a relational, embodied and situated experience invites a drastic reengineering of the relationship between humans and their technologies. In this context, the role of digital performance is dual: a) it offers an intervention into the dominant positioning of being alone as being isolated, and b) it serves as a pedagogical exercise speculating about the potentiality of being human in a digital ecology where our vulnerabilities, tensions and limitations can be met with new exigencies of care about self and the other.
Bio
Dr Eirini Nedelkopoulou is a Lecturer in Digital Arts and Performance at the University of Glasgow. Her work as an author and editor appears in the International Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media, Contemporary Theatre Review, Performance Research, Performance Paradigm, and other. She is the co-editor of Performance and Phenomenology: Traditions and Transformations (Routledge 2015, 2018). Eirini is currently working on her monograph In Solitude: The Philosophy of Digital Performance Encounters (Bloomsbury, Thinking Through Theatre).
Deepfakes in screen culture – transformations in image, practice and performance
Since the inception of the ‘deepfake’ process of replacing faces in digital video, the primary use of the technology has been to make very low-quality content for viewing on smartphones. More recent technical advances in this form of machine learning allow their use in film and broadcast media. This talk will focus on how deepfakes are now being adopted in fiction and documentary production, examining ethical and cultural implications of current and future uses of synthetic media.
Bio
Dr Dominic Lees is Associate Professor in Filmmaking at the University of Reading, UK. His research into deepfakes began in 2019/20, with the Virtual Maggie project that experimented with deepfakes to resurrect Margaret Thatcher for a new period drama. He is interested in developing positive applications of deepfakes and synthetic media, including in education. Dominic has written on deepfakes for academic journals, the online current affairs journal, The Conversation and the BFI magazine, Sight and Sound. In 2021, he was co-editor of a special issue on deepfakes of the journal, Convergence. Dominic is convenor of the Synthetic Media Research Network, which held its inaugural symposium at the University of Reading in 2022, funded by The Alan Turing Institute. This work brings together researchers, creatives and screen industry stakeholders to scope the future opportunities for ethical applications of synthetic media. Dominic’s earlier career was in television and film production, working in current affairs and television documentaries; he has directed over 40 episodes of TV drama and the feature film, Outlanders (2008).
About this event
The FTT Research Seminar Series is hosted by the University of Reading and puts research from scholars in Film, Theatre and Television into dialogue. This celebrates the exciting intersection of these fields within our department and seeks to support collaboration and conversation across Film, Theatre, and Television.
Each invited paper is 25-30 minutes long and is followed by a participatory Q&A discussion.
Reserve a space here.

Deconstructing bi/multilingualism, social communication, and autistic sociality with a focus on clinical application
2023-05-19 18:00 - 19:00
The Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) are happy to announce the speakers for the CeLM Seminar Series for the upcoming year. P
Please find information below, including the date and time, CeLM theme and location of each talk, along with the speaker and talk title.
If you are interested in attending an online talk and are not at the University of Reading, please email Holly Joseph (h.joseph@reading.ac.uk) for a joining link.
17th July, 2023 (tbc) (6-7pm, Health, online)
Betty Yu (San Francisco State University)
Deconstructing bi/multilingualism, social communication, and autistic sociality with a focus on clinical application

AI and the Arts & Humanities
2023-05-24 14:00 - 16:00
The Digital Humanities CoP and the Artificial Intelligence CoP are pleased to announce two joint events for the summer 2023 term.

Wednesday 24 May 2023
14:00 to 16:00
In-person & hybrid
Keynote: Professor David De Roure (Oxford)

Networking Coffee/Tea
Wednesday 14 June 2023
14:00 to 15:00

Bilingualism and Intersection of Race, Disability and Nation
2023-05-25 13:00 - 14:00
The Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) are happy to announce the speakers for the CeLM Seminar Series for the upcoming year. P
Please find information below, including the date and time, CeLM theme and location of each talk, along with the speaker and talk title.
If you are interested in attending an online talk and are not at the University of Reading, please email Holly Joseph (h.joseph@reading.ac.uk) for a joining link.
25th May, 2023 (1-2 pm, Health, online)
Vishnu Nair (University of Reading)
Bilingualism and Intersection of Race, Disability and Nation
Upcoming CeLM seminars:
15th June, 2023 (1-2pm, Language and Literacy, online)
Beverley Jennings (University of Reading)
Adolescent reading habits
17th July, 2023 (tbc) (6-7pm, Health, online)
Betty Yu (San Francisco State University)
Deconstructing bi/multilingualism, social communication, and autistic sociality with a focus on clinical application

Archives, history and memory in memoir writing – a talk by Marina Warner
2023-05-25 17:30 - 19:00 | Museum of English Rural Life (The MERL), Redlands Road, Reading, 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.

2023 Research Awards
2023-06-13 14:00 - 17:00 | Meadow Suite, Park House, Meadow Suite, Park House, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
Invitation to 2023 Research Awards event
We are pleased to invite you to our 2023 Research Awards event on Tuesday 13 June 2023 from 1.45pm. The event will begin with a showcase of projects shortlisted for this year’s Research Awards and ECR Research Output Prize, followed by the announcement of the winners. The event will conclude with afternoon tea and posters and is an ideal opportunity to find out what research is going on across the University and for networking. A list of the shortlisted projects can be found here.
If you would like to attend, please click on the following image (or click the link in the attached PDF). Spaces are limited so please RSVP as soon as possible and before 29 May.

Shifting the focus of the global warming agenda to deal with adaptation and loss & damage (AL&D)
2023-06-14 14:00 - 16:00
In this workshop, Dr Terry Cannon, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, will be presenting a paper and leading a discussion on the global political realities of policies and practices relating to climate change adaptation and loss and damage (AL&D). It should be a lively and provocative discussion so please come along. Please RSVP to a.h.arnall@reading.ac.uk by Wed 7 June to confirm attendance.
Everyone attending the workshop will be sent Terry’s short paper in advance. The paper has been discussed by a group at the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, by a group from Toronto, York and Montreal Universities in Canada, and now at Reading and soon at Cambridge. There are many additions and some corrections to be made following the earlier discussions, and Terry hopes that new ideas and responses will emerge at Reading.

Screen Work Group: Practice as Research screening
2023-06-14 15:00 - 16:30 | Minghella Studios, Minghella Building, Whiteknights Campus, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
The University of Reading’s Screen Work Group is delighted to present an afternoon programme of practice work (at various stages of development) by research staff: Wed June 14th, 3.00 – 4.30.
The screening will take place in the cinema at Minghella Studios, and will be followed by a drinks reception. All welcome; no booking required.
Programme
Films to Die For: Wim Wenders and the Death of Glauber Rocha [PILOT] (Lúcia Nagib)
This essay film revolves around Wim Wenders’ The State of Things (1982), an emblematic cinephilic film that brings Hollywood and European cinemas together in a passionate, but ill-fated, affair, fed on allusion and self-reflexivity.
Creative Geography, Creative Connections: Candyman (John Gibbs)
An audiovisual essay foregrounding creative connections and overlooked histories in the relationships between a number of films, their creators and the spaces and social contexts with which they interact. Making use of a concept map, the video centres on Candyman (Rose, 1992) and its ‘spiritual sequel’, Candyman (DaCosta, 2021).
something is Happening (Christine Ellison)
This film documents a residency at the Bonotto Foundation in Veneto, Italy, home to the Bonotto Collection of Fluxus scores and concrete poetry. Here, Christine collaborated with filmmaker Robbie McKane (UoR Art and Film & Theatre graduate) and an international team of designers, dancers and musicians, in the development of a live performance and documentary, in which experimental scores from the collection become access points to open up critical questions around digital devices and the language of the interface.
Green Hills and Fresh Fish [WORK IN PROGRESS] (Adam O’Brien)
An experimental documentary, bringing together an audio recording of a poetry seminar (exploring Roger Robinson’s ‘A Portable Paradise’) with images taken by the photographer Peter Adams, sourced from the MERL archive. It probes the relationship between spectacle and language in our conceptions of better worlds (and how these worlds might work).

Reading Emotions
2023-06-15 - 2023-06-16 | University of Reading, RG6 6UR
Fluctuation and Change
Implications for Neurocognitive Development and Psychopathology
This year’s edition of Reading Emotions explores how we measure and understand the fluctuations in neural and psychological components of thought and behaviour, across development and through the course of disorder.

Keynote lectures will examine central themes and latest developments in theory, methods, and application
Early career researchers will present ongoing work in short talks
Poster presentations will facilitate the informal exchange of ideas, with opportunities for feedback and collaboration
Training workshops will address empirical and theoretical aspects of the challenge of fluctuation and change

Speakers:

Anastasia Christakou (Chair)
University of Reading

Eiko Fried
Leiden University

Rogier Kievit
Donders Institute, Nijmegen

David Lydon-Staley
University of Pennsylvania

Argyris Stringaris
University College London

Patrik Vuilleumier
University of Geneva

Schedule (TBC)

Submit an abstract for Reading Emotions

Register for Reading Emotions

Plus ECR short talks, research posters, workshops and debates.
Submit your work and/or register to let us know you are coming (free for UoR staff and students). For details: https://sites.google.com/site/readingemotions/
What: We established Reading Emotions as a small, specialist symposium in affective neuroscience with an interdisciplinary outlook in 2012. We tackle a different theme every year, typically inspired by our current research and/or compelling emerging ideas in the field. We host in the region of 100-150 participants, although hundreds more have been joining online in recent years. The intimate set-up encourages deep dives in theory and current experimental work, practical and clinical applications where relevant, and usually includes an explicit ECR/student training component. Past contributors have included BJ Casey, Irene Tracey, Hugo Critchley, Elaine Fox, Karl Friston, Mara Mather, Randy McIntosh, Russ Poldrack, Essi Viding, Tor Wager, as well as clinical practitioners, philosophers, and on occasion artists and architects. You can read about Reading Emotions, including the themes and speakers of previous years, here.
When: The symposium typically takes place over two days in mid- to late June, with the first day devoted to keynotes and ECR presentations, and the second day devoted to training workshops and methods presentations. This year’s symposium is on Thursday 15th and Friday 16th June.
Where: This year we meet in person at Whiteknights, our beautiful campus in Reading, and encourage deeper interactions with our students, colleagues, and visitors.

Adolescent reading habits
2023-06-15 13:00 - 14:00
The Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) are happy to announce the speakers for the CeLM Seminar Series for the upcoming year. P
Please find information below, including the date and time, CeLM theme and location of each talk, along with the speaker and talk title.
If you are interested in attending an online talk and are not at the University of Reading, please email Holly Joseph (h.joseph@reading.ac.uk) for a joining link.
15th June, 2023 (1-2pm, Language and Literacy, online)
Beverley Jennings (University of Reading)
Adolescent reading habits
Upcoming CeLM seminars:
17th July, 2023 (tbc) (6-7pm, Health, online)
Betty Yu (San Francisco State University)
Deconstructing bi/multilingualism, social communication, and autistic sociality with a focus on clinical application

Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace Conference
2023-06-19 09:00 - 2023-06-20 17:00
The first Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace Conference will be held in person at the University of Reading, UK on 19–20 June 2023.
This interdisciplinary conference is aimed at academics, practitioners and employers interested in issues of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and their implications for workplace practice.
Submissions of theoretical, experimental, quantitative and qualitative empirical work on any aspect of diversity in the workplace from any field are invited.
There is no conference registration fee.
Submit your abstract (max 500 words) by midnight on Sunday 23 April.
Keynote speaker: Dr Krystal Wilkinson, Reader in Human Resources Management, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Read Bio >

The first set of results from Prof. Jewell and Prof. Longhi’s ‘Maternal well-being, infant feeding and return to paid work decisions‘ project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, will be discussed at the conference.
Information on registration will follow soon.
Visit the University of Reading website for details on travelling to the University, staying on campus and campus maps.
If you have queries, please contact the local organisers: Professor Sarah Jewell (s.l.jewell@reading.ac.uk) or Professor Simonetta Longhi (s.longhi@reading.ac.uk).

CBCP Summer School – Cultures of the book: lithography, consumption, reading
2023-06-20 - 2023-06-21
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.

Screening: Samuel Beckett and Artists’ Cinema
2023-06-23 14:30 - 19:00 | Minghella Studios, Minghella Building, Whiteknights Campus, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
Beckett’s work has inspired many contemporary visual artists, but in recent years it has been the area of artists’ film that has seen the clearest impact.
On Friday 23rd of June 2023, The Samuel Beckett Research Centre at the University of Reading will present rarely screened work by several artists. The screenings will be followed by a roundtable discussion and the launch of Samuel Beckett’s Afterlives: Adaptation, Remediation, Appropriation, the recent collection of essays edited by Jonathan Bignell, Anna McMullan and Pim Verhulst.
The programme for the event includes:
Stan Douglas, Vidéo (2007): Introduced by Conor Carville
Stan Douglas’ video installation Vidéo is a reimagining of both Orson Welles’s film “The Trial” (based on Kafka’s novel of the same name) and Beckett’s film “Film”.
John Gerrard, Bone Work (Gulf of Mexico) (2022): Introduced by John Gerrard (Via Zoom).
John Gerrard’s Bone Work (Gulf of Mexico) is a simulation centred on sixteen fragments of dead coral found by the artist on the shores of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Gulf Of Mexico.
Duncan Campbell, o Joan, no…(2006): Introduced by Duncan Campbell.
Duncan Campbell’s o Joan, no…(2006) is a short film drawing on the lighting directions and effects in Beckett’s Play.
Roundtable Discussion on Beckett, Artists’ Film/Installation and Adaptation.
Jonathan Bignell (Reading); Duncan Campbell; David Houston Jones (Exeter); Anthony Paraskeva (Roehampton); Derval Tubridy (Goldsmiths); Jivitesh Vashisht (UCD).
The screenings will begin at 2:30pm in Minghella Studios’s cinema at the University of Reading, with the roundtable discussion beginning at 4:30pm. The event will be followed by a reception at 6:00pm.
The event is free, and all are welcome, but places are limited, so please register here. More details of timings and participants to follow.
Image: Stan Douglas. Vidéo, 2007. High definition video installation, colour, sound (six musical variations. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner New York/London, and Victoria Miro, London.

IFNH Free Statistics and R Programme Workshops
2023-06-28 09:00 - 2023-06-29 17:00
The aim of the statistics and R training workshops is to support our ECRs and PhD students with their research and for their professional development. The workshops will take place on Wednesday 28th June and Thursday 29th June and below you can find the programme for each course. More information, including link access and location details will follow after your registration.
Please note that your registration using the University of Reading email address is mandatory. The workshops are being organised by the University of Reading’s Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH), an interdisciplinary research centre that brings together the University’s world-leading expertise in food, nutrition, agriculture, health and the environment to understand how improvements in food production, processing and nutrition can help deliver better diets and health.

Interdisciplinary Research – information and discussion opportunity
2023-06-28 13:00 - 16:30 | Online
Would you like to learn more about and better understand what interdisciplinary research is, and be inspired to design your research projects accordingly? If so, please join research colleagues and colleagues from Research Services in a short workshop to explore this area, on Wednesday 28th June 13.00-14.30, on Teams.
The session will include:

Exploration of what interdisciplinary research is and isn’t
Case studies – hear about interdisciplinary projects at University of Reading. What worked well, the benefits of the collaborations, and some of the pitfalls to look out for.
Information about the new UKRI cross research council responsive mode pilot scheme https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/ukri-cross-research-council-responsive-mode-pilot-scheme/
Q&A and discussion time

To register your place, please fill out this short form by Monday 26th June (only 2 questions!) https://forms.office.com/e/CHem9ihpcW.
If you cannot attend but would like to be kept informed of future activity in this area, please let us know through the form also.

IFNH workshop: Nutritional Epidemiology Research
2023-06-30 13:00 - 16:00
The workshops are open to anyone with an interest in Nutritional Epidemiology research. Register via Eventbrite.
Agenda:

Introduction to nutritional epidemiology research
Dietary assessment methods and their applications
Study designs and association analyses
Systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and its application
Case of individual studies, evidence synthesis, and policy application
Writing a research paper, peer-review, and post-publication agenda

The workshops are being organised by the University of Reading’s Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH), an interdisciplinary research centre that brings together the University’s world-leading expertise in food, nutrition, agriculture, health and the environment to understand how improvements in food production, processing and nutrition can help deliver better diets and health.

Bookshops Online and On the High Street
2023-07-03 - 2023-07-04
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.
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?
This conference will be hosted at the University of Reading in association with the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing, 3-4 July 2023. This event will be held in-person but we will also make remote participation possible.
The Call for Papers can be seen here.
For more information please contact m.chambers@reading.ac.uk

Young Entrepreneurs Scheme 2023: online briefing
2023-07-03 09:30 - 10:00
YES23 is open for applications! Take part this autumn to gain commercial awareness and business skills from leading entrepreneurs and practitioners.
Your Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES) is open to Master and PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, research fellows and technicians at UK and international universities.
YES will:

Cultivate business acumen
Develop enterprise skills
Communicate research with impact
Network with industry experts
Explore your career options
Enhance your CVs

YES is a hybrid learning experience with a mixture of face-to-face and online delivery.
Please use your university email address to register for this FREE webinar.
YES is organised in partnership with The University of Nottingham’s Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HGI), BBSRC, GSK, Midlands Innovation – TALENT, Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst and Syngenta.
We will be using the Microsoft Teams platform. Depending on when you register, the link will be sent out each day, four days out from the session and 25 minutes beforehand.
There is also an online briefing being held on 17 July at 12.30.
#UnleashYourIngenuity #YES23 #careers #transferableskills #knowledgeexchange

Summer Workshop in Videographic Research Methods
2023-07-10 - 2023-07-14 | Minghella Studios, Minghella Building, Whiteknights Campus, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
Following a successful debut in 2022, we are pleased to announce a second Summer Workshop in Videographic Research Methods. Last year’s workshop was advertised to researchers across Reading’s Arts and Humanities disciplines – this time we are inviting expressions of interest from UoR colleagues working in all research areas.
Context
The digital reworking of sound and image is an exciting and rapidly developing research practice. This workshop is designed to make these methods available to researchers at Reading, across a variety of disciplines. A major ambition of the workshop is to develop the skills of researchers beyond film and television studies, where these approaches are now firmly established. We believe there are significant and underexplored opportunities in applying videographic approaches to other subjects.
The workshop
The workshop will take place in Minghella Studios, July 10th – 14th 2023. It will involve:

basic technical training in non-linear editing and related technologies
producing and sharing feedback on a series of exercises in response to briefs designed to engage with different and videographic approaches
discussion of existing video essays and debates in the wider field of videographic scholarship
reflection on videographic analysis and archival material
planning a longer audiovisual essay, with opportunities for feedback later in the vacation
lunch and refreshments.

Participants will nominate and work with an item of audiovisual material or material object relevant to their research, as a means of ‘testing out’ how to develop critical ideas through editing. No prior experience or equipment is required (computers with appropriate software will be available at the workshop).
The workshop will once again be led by Screen Working Group / CFAC Co-Director Adam O’Brien and H&C Research Dean John Gibbs, an audiovisual essayist with several years’ experience of teaching videographic criticism. It will also draw on expertise from colleagues in Special Collections and the wider videographic field.
Applications
If you are interested in taking part, please complete the expression of interest form and return it to adam.obrien@reading.ac.uk by Friday March 3rd.
The form invites you to confirm your availability for the dates and duration of the workshop, to provide information about your research context, and to identify an object of study, indicating what potential there might be for working with it through audiovisual means.
RSVP by Friday March 3rd.
Please contact Screen Work Group Lead Adam O’Brien with any questions (adam.obrien@reading.ac.uk).
Testimonials from 2022
“This was the most productive skills event I have encountered during my almost 15 years of working at the University. Its tight focus, collegiality, mix of academic and practical expertise, and its lecturer-centered approach were especially welcome.”
“Working in cultural studies, I work across a range of different media. The workshop gave me the opportunity to work with audiovisual material in a different way, improving my aesthetic analysis, and also to think about different types of research output I can produce.”
“The workshop surpassed my expectations and enabled me to develop new skills which will be useful in both teaching/research. The atmosphere was very supportive, constructive and encouraging. It was also beneficial to be able to engage with colleagues beyond my department and breakdown the silos that can characterize research at a university.”
Explore videographic methods…
If you are not yet familiar with videographic work, these examples may help to illustrate the exciting potential and variety of the approach:
Pasta as prologue: the Spaghetti House siege on film (Charlie Shackleton): Two different dramatisations of the 1975 siege of a Knightsbridge restaurant by Black British radicals remind us that history also needs its agitators.
The Elephant Man’s Sound, Tracked (Liz Greene): A deep archival dive into sound design, David Lynch and creative-labour politics.
The Mighty Maestro on Screen (Evelyn Kreutzer): A study of gesture, movement and music, through the figure of the on-screen orchestral conductor.
‘Say, have you seen the Carioca?’ (John Gibbs): Moving between film, popular music, histories of dance and cinema exhibition practice; looking afresh at relationships between different historical periods and national cinemas.
Mediated Auscultation (Emilija Talijan): Stethoscopes, bodies, sounds, modernism, still and moving images.

Young Entrepreneurs Scheme 2023: online briefing
2023-07-17 12:30 - 13:00
YES23 is open for applications! Take part this autumn to gain commercial awareness and business skills from leading entrepreneurs and practitioners.
Your Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES) is open to Master and PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, research fellows and technicians at UK and international universities.
YES will:

Cultivate business acumen
Develop enterprise skills
Communicate research with impact
Network with industry experts
Explore your career options
Enhance your CVs

YES is a hybrid learning experience with a mixture of face-to-face and online delivery.
Please use your university email address to register for this FREE webinar.
YES is organised in partnership with The University of Nottingham’s Haydn Green Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (HGI), BBSRC, GSK, Midlands Innovation – TALENT, Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst and Syngenta.
We will be using the Microsoft Teams platform. Depending on when you register, the link will be sent out each day, four days out from the session and 25 minutes beforehand.
#UnleashYourIngenuity #YES23 #careers #transferableskills #knowledgeexchange

Balam and Lluvia’s House: Translating Poetry for Children
2023-07-20 17:00 - 19:00 | Online
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.

Your Entrepreneurs Scheme 2023: online briefing
2023-07-25 16:00 - 16:30

AHRC and BBC New Generation Thinkers 2024 applicant webinar
2023-07-26 14:00 - 15:00, 2023-08-30 11:00 - 12:00 | Online event
AHRC and the BBC have announced the latest call for New Generation Thinkers 2024, which offers early-career researchers the opportunity to develop programmes for the BBC. Finalists in the competition will be able to workshop ideas with BBC producers, get media and public engagement training, and a platform for informing and influencing public opinion, policy and practice. 60 applicants will be invited to BBC workshops, from which 10 will be selected as New Generation Thinkers and will then experience a year of focused activity and development from the BBC and AHRC.
Webinars are being run by AHRC for anyone interested in applying to the AHRC and BBC New Generation Thinkers 2024 scheme.
Webinars will take place on the following dates. Please click the links to reserve a space. Once you register, you will be sent joining instructions so you can take part in the webinar.

Wednesday 26 July at 2:00pm UK time
Wednesday 30 August at 11:00am UK time

The webinar will cover:

an overview of the scheme and what to expect
some hints and tips for making your application
how to use the online application system
a chance to ask questions about applying, the scheme, and more.

About AHRC and BBC New Generation Thinkers 2024
To apply for the New Generation Thinkers scheme, you must be:

a UK resident
over the age of 18
currently working or studying at a UK research organisation that is eligible to receive funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) (see ‘your organisation’s eligibility’)
studying a relevant area of research (see ‘your research’)

You must also be either:

currently studying for your first PhD and having made considerable progress on your research, for example within one year of submission
within eight years of the award of your first PhD, excluding any period of career break such as parental leave, caring responsibilities, health reasons, or reasons consequent upon the COVID-19 pandemic
within six years of your first academic appointment at an organisation that is eligible to receive funding from UK Research and Innovation, excluding any period of career break such as parental leave, caring responsibilities, health reasons, or reasons consequent upon the COVID-19 pandemic. This must be a paid contract of employment, either full-time or part-time, which lists research or teaching as the primary function, including research assistantships

You do not need to have a permanent contract of employment to be eligible, provided you meet the conditions at the time of your application.
If you have applied to the scheme before, you may apply again provided you have never been selected as a New Generation Thinker in any given year.
Your research must have a primary focus in the arts and humanities. Your research could be bringing together arts and humanities research with other non-AHRC funded disciplines, provided you can demonstrate suitable links to the world of arts and humanities and that arts and humanities remains a primary focus. The main topic areas are: archaeology; classics; cultural and museum studies; development studies; history; information and communication technologies; law and legal studies; library and information studies; philosophy; political science and international studies; theology, divinity and religion; dance; design; drama and theatre studies; media; music; languages and literature; linguistics; visual arts
The deadline for applications is 3 October 2023 4:00 pm UK time.
For further information, please visit: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/develop-research-for-bbc-platforms-new-generation-thinkers-2024/

Locus Ludi: Anyone can play!
2023-09-06 - 2023-11-30 | Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, Department Of Classics, Whiteknights, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6AA, United Kingdom
The Ure Museum and Classics Department are delighted to announce the launch of its latest major exhibition — Locus Ludi: Anyone can play!—on display at the Ure Museum from 6 September until 30 November, 2023. This exhibition, inspired by the European Research Council funded project Locus Ludi: The Cultural Fabric of Play and Games in Classical Antiquity, led by Professor Véronique Dasen, is an opportunity to explore the rich collections relating to games and play in antiquity that are available not only at the Ure Museum but at other UK museums. We are most grateful to Colchester and Ipswich Museums, Reading Museum, The British Museum and the University of Reading’s Special Collections for the loan of important artefacts from their collections.
Related activities include:

16 September, 10am–4pm: Unwrap ancient games for Heritage Open Days (fun for the whole family; all welcome but please follow the first link to book)
30 September, 12–2pm: Summer Olympots to celebrate National Sporting Heritage Day (bring the children but again, please book via the first link)
6 October, 5pm: More than just fun and games: Why study board games in Roman society? A lecture from Dr Tim Penn (Oxford). Edith Morley G44
16 October, 5pm: Play or cheat? Games in Greek and Roman antiquity. The James E. Gordon Lecture, from Prof. Véronique Dasen (Fribourg). Edith Morley G44

Find the full programme of activities on the Classics at Reading blog.

CBCP Annual Conference: Publishing Anti-fascism
2023-09-11 - 2023-09-12
Call for papers:
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 invite proposals for 20-minute presentations on the following topics:
– The use and impact of anti-fascist publications and propaganda
– Archival collection and preservation of anti-fascist publishing culture
– Interactions between local presses and national/international organisations
– The translation, editing and marketing of anti-fascist texts
– Anti-fascist journalism (newspapers, magazines, and journals)
– The intersections of anti-fascism, anti-racism and anti-imperialism/anti-colonialism in publishing culture
– Anti-fascist exile and refugee networks
– anti-fascism, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust
– Underground and ephemeral publishing practices (leaflets, pamphlets, posters)
– Memory and legacy of anti-fascist publishing
– Anti-fascism in contemporary publishing cultures
– Anti-fascist literary works (plays, prose, poetry), and their reception
– Autobiography, memoir, and autofiction by anti-fascist writers

Proposals from graduate students and early career researchers are especially welcome.
Please submit abstracts (up to 200 words) and a short 2-line bio by 16 January 2023 to Dr Ellen Pilsworth at e.m.pilsworth@reading.ac.uk. If you would like to participate virtually, please let us know in your proposal. Talks will be given in English.
Speakers will be notified by mid-March 2023. Special keynotes are tbc. 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

Up in Arms: posters for protest, solidarity, engagement and action
2023-09-11 - 2023-12-08 | Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, TOB 2, Earley Gate, Whiteknights Campus, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 7BE, United Kingdom
Up in Arms: posters for protest, solidarity, engagement and action puts posters of protest front and centre.
The exhibition has been curated to align with our annual conference, ‘Publishing Anti-fascism’ convened and organised by Ellen Pilsworth.
The exhibition includes material from the collection of twentieth-century posters from the Lettering, Printing and Graphic Design Collections in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication. It displays posters from a range of sources, some designed by well-known designers including Robin Fior and David King. The exhibition was curated and designed by Clara Fidler-Brown as part of her experience as a Collections Assistant, with support from Ellen Pilsworth, Emma Minns, Sue Walker and Geoff Wyeth.

The Up in Arms exhibition space in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
