BBC Culture emailed me in early March 2023 to ask me to participate in a poll they were holding among experts on children’s literature worldwide in order to compose a…Read More >
English Literature
Black British Women’s Theatre: Encountering intersectionality through the archives
In the summer of 2020, as the UK’s first COVID-19 lockdown gave way (at least for some) to the ‘rule of six’, television screens and social media feeds filled with…Read More >
An English Literature lecturer experiments with film, philosophy and…sniffing
I recently completed the production of my first film. I started work on it last year following a successful bid to a Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures (CFAC) funding…Read More >
Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction Bryan Cheyette at the Cheltenham Literature Festival
It is a rarity that an email arrives which is cause for good cheer. The invitation to speak at the Cheltenham Literature Festival—on Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction— was one…Read More >
Surgery and Selfhood: lessons from open humanities publishing
On 7 June, I participated in the University’s first Open Research Awards, and was lucky enough to win with my case study examining the costs and benefits of open research…Read More >
Beckett our Contemporary
We at the Beckett Centre often draw on our spectacular archives of Beckett’s notes and manuscripts to examine the links between his work and the moment in which it was…Read More >
Trouble in Headlines
Our headlines are currently riddled with selective uses of the passive voice. Passive voice means that it isn’t clear who is doing the deeds mentioned. “Headlines are… riddled” rather than…Read More >
Third How It Is Samuel Beckett Symposium
Gare St. Lazare Ireland (GSLI) and The Samuel Beckett Centre at University of Reading teamed up to present a third How It Is Symposium on the 5 March 2021. The…Read More >
James Joyce’s Ulysses is an anti-stream of consciousness novel
This year marks 80 years since the death of the great Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941). His most famous novel, Ulysses (1922), is one of those books, like Moby Dick…Read More >
Mastectomies have been performed for over 500 years – yet we still can’t talk about them
In the middle of the 17th century, Mrs Townsend found a lump in her breast. Diagnosed with breast cancer by a local physician, she underwent a mastectomy without anaesthetic –…Read More >