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Reformation, a new play by James Martin Charlton, June/July in London

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The new play, Reformation, of our colleague James Martin Charlton  opens at the White Bear Theatre on 25 June and runs until 13 July, Tuesdays-Saturdays 7.30pm; Sundays 4pm.

refThis nifty trailer, made by our talented BA Film soon-to-be graduates Dariush Asadi and Patrycja Lisowska will whet your appetites…

https://vimeo.com/342067897

You can learn more about the play, and book tickets, via the production website at www.reformationtheplay.com

 

“…one look in her eyes tells us how she has been wronged…”

Reformation is funny, gripping and challenging new play inspired by the life and art of the Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach.

Berlin. Eva learns that the celebrity artist Cranach is visiting her city. A chance meeting in the market place leads to romance with an artist’s son. Eva gets the chance to model for Cranach’s new painting, ‘The Rape of Lucrece’.

When the all-powerful Elector of Brandenburg sees the sketches of Eva, he wants the model. Is Cranach willing to sell the woman his son loves?

Upsetting the powerful means obscurity or death. What’s a poor girl to do?

Reformation is a play about those who don’t make the history books. This premier production, in contemporary dress, suggests many striking contemporary resonances between Eva’s situation and Time’s Up & #metoo

James Martin Charlton is an award-winning playwright. His previous plays include the critically acclaimed Fat Souls and Coming Up (Warehouse, Croydon), the sell-out hit I Really Must be Getting Off (White Bear), and Coward (Just Some Theatre Co.).

Janice Dunn is an experienced theatre director, who has worked extensively in the UK and Europe throughout her career. She is the former Artistic Director of the Mercury. Colchester, where she directed the premier of Howard Barker’s The Europeans.

 

 

 

James Martin Charlton
Head of Media Department,
Middlesex University Hendon Campus,
The Burroughs,
Hendon,
London NW4 4BT

Tel: 020 8411 6327

“PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE”: THE CASE OF LINGUISTIC HUMOUR

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The Language and Communication research cluster is delighted to announce a presentation by Ilham Taghiyev (Khazar University, Azerbaijan), on the case of linguistic humour.

When? Friday 23rd November 2018, 14.30 – 15.30

Where? Room V105, Vine building, Middlesex University, London, NW4 4BT

Although humour research can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and different disciplines in humanities, viz. psychology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics are involved in suggesting several theories of humor, hitherto none of them has been able to encompass all types and kinds of humour under one theory. Moreover, scholars who mentioned the existence of unintentional humour (Attardo, Raskin, Ross) left the question of distinguishing between intentional and unintentional jokes open. This talk is aiming at demonstrating a different – semiotic approach to ambiguity-based humour research in one respect viz. attempting to find out the relationship between linguistic sign that is ambiguous and unintentionality of humour.

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BIO

Ilham_TaghiyevIlham Taghiyev is a Lecturer in Linguistics at Khazar University, Baku, Azerbaijan. He is currently a visiting researcher at Middlesex, in the English subject area of the Media department. He graduated from Azerbaijan University of Languages and as an international student, attended courses at Delhi University, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and the University of Edinburgh. His research topic is “The Cognitive Properties of English Humour”. He is a participant of scientific conferences and the author of several articles. Currently he is a doctoral research exchange student at Middlesex University. He speaks 4 languages: Azeri (vernacular), English, Russian and Turkish. Besides Linguistics, his sphere of interest (hobby) encompasses ancient civilizations, paranormal cases and abilities, numerology, astrology and ufology.

The Language and Communication Research Seminars are free and open to all staff, students and guests. For any questions or if you would like to lead a session, contact Anna Charalambidou.

Click here to see all 2018-19 Language & Communication research seminars.

Video-recording of Leena Robertson’s presentation

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DqvL-U2WoAAidzZ (1)Our first Language & Communication research seminar for this year was a fascinating talk by Leena Robertson, reflecting on her, her team’s and her participants’ journey in finding names for the Romani languages used by the informants of the large ROMtels project.

Excavating naming practices in language research  methodologies: The case of Romani languages in Europe

In addition to providing a glimpse to a group of silenced and unmentioned group of languages, it raised a number of important ethical issues.

Here’s a brief teaser to the presentation:

 

And here is the link to the entire presentation:

 

The Language and Communication Research Seminars are free and open to all staff, students and guests. For any questions or if you would like to lead a session, contact Anna Charalambidou.

Click here to see all 2018-19 Language & Communication research seminars.

Footage of conversation with Ian McGuire

Published on by Anna Charalambidou1 Comment
Last month, Ian McGuire, author of the celebrated novel, The North Water, visited Middlesex to answer questions from BA English students. The event was sold out and a great success. If you missed it, or would like to watch it again, here’s the footage of the discussion.

ian 2

Week of events hosted by the Language & Communication Research cluster

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The week commencing 12th March will be the busiest week yet for our cluster; we have the final Language & Communication research seminar for this term:

The Embodied Nature of Narrative: Moving with purpose with others, and its disruption in autism

Dr Jonathan Delafield-Butt, Reader in Child Development (University of Strathclyde)

Wednesday 14 March 2018, 16.00 – 17.30, Room BG02 (Building 9) – note room change

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We are welcoming two Erasmus visiting professors who will give a number of exciting seminars.

Dr Aleksandra Vukotic (Assistant Professor, University of Belgrade), Erasmus+ visiting professor will give three transdisciplinary interactive seminars and an Open Lecture in the domain of literary, media, cultural, and film studies:

1. Metafiction in Postmodern American Literature and Popular Culture: Tuesday, 13 March, 12.00-14.00 at room BG09B (Building 9)

2. Intertextuality in Jeanette Winterson’s ‘The Gap of Time’: Wednesday, March 14, 12.00-14.00, room CG48 (College Building)

3. Negotiating the Technological Sublime: DeLillo’s and Antonioni’s Murder Mysteries: Thursday 15th March, 15.00-17.00, room CG43 (College building)

4. Whoever controls your eyeballs runs the world : A “Paranoid” Reading of Media: Friday 16th March, 10.00-12.00 at room CG09 (College building).

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Professor Ksenijah Kondali (Assistant Professor, University of Sarajevo), Erasmus+ visiting professor will give a seminar entitled Fictionalizing Transatlantic Slavery: A Comparative Study: Friday March 16th, 15.00 – 17.00 at PAG02 (Portacabin).

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You are welcome to attend any or all seminars  – no prior knowledge needed.

And of course, in addition to all these, Creative Writing & Journalism students are organizing a whole-day North London Story Festival (March 13th).

 

Dr Aleksandra Vukotić, University of Belgrade, coming to Middlesex for an Erasmus+ teaching visit: 12-16 March 2018

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We are delighted to host Dr Aleksandra Vukotić, University of Belgrade (Faculty of Philology) for an Erasmus+ teaching visit between March 12th and 16th, 2018. She will give three transdisciplinary interactive seminars and an Open Lecture, in the domain of media, cultural, literary and film studies.

Metafiction in Postmodern American Literature and Popular Culture

Tuesday, 13 March, 12.00-14.00 at room BG09B (Building 9)

In this session, Aleksandra will explore the reasons why metafiction became immensely popular in the 2nd half of the 20th century, especially in the 60s in the U.S. Through numerous examples from the U.S. fiction and popular culture (from ‘Pulp Fiction’ to the latest season of ‘Twin Peaks’) she will discuss why we cannot dismiss metafiction as ‘a thing of the past’ and why metafictional strategies still have the capacity to inspire us to think critically about today’s world.

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Intertextuality in Jeanette Winterson’s ‘The Gap of Time’

Wednesday, March 14, 12.00-14.00, room CG48 (College Building)

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Whoever controls your eyeballs runs the world : A “Paranoid” Reading of Media

Friday 16th March, 10.00-12.00 at room CG09 (College building).

This seminar explores one of the most pressing issues of today’s world – the problem of ever-present violence in the media and terrorism as a new world narrative. It focuses on the feedback loop between media and violence, escalating in terrorist attacks (which would be ‘nothing without the media’ as Baudrillard explained), again as reflected in contemporary fiction and film. It also discusses the misuse and abuse of the power of media, inviting the audience to think about the possible ways out of this ‘vicious circle.’ The novelists and filmmakers who closely follow and explore media strategies in their works (only to subvert them) will surely be a fertile source of ideas and inspiration.

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Aleksandra will also give an Open Lecture on Thursday, 15th March, 15.00 -17.00, Room CG43 (College building):

Negotiating the Technological Sublime: DeLillo’s and Antonioni’s Murder Mysteries

Have we placed too much faith in reason and technology? Is technology our fantasy? As we rely more and more on technological advancements and innovations, do we move away from the factual reality towards fiction and illusion? Is our wish to explain away the mysteries of our time through science and technology ultimately a death wish? Or, as a character notes in DeLillo’s Zero K, Does technology have a death wish?

Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, and Don DeLillo, one of the greatest contemporary American novelists, have repeatedly adressesed these questions in their works, examining what happens with the human need for the marvellous and the sublime in the world of technology which promises revelations of all mysteries. We will discuss this topic through examples from Antonioni’s cult film Blow-Up (1966) and DeLillo’s novels Libra (1988), Underworld (1997) and Falling Man (2007), focusing on the characters’ fascination with dead bodies caught on film and photograph.

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Aleksandra Vukotić is Assistant Professor at the English Department of the University of Belgrade. She holds a PhD in American literature, and she is currently preparing a manuscript on history and fiction in the novels of Don DeLillo. Aleksandra is also a freelance translator and member of the editorial board of the Belgrade BELLS Journal published by the University of Belgrade. Her interests include, among other, contemporary American literature, selected problems of literary theory, literary and visual studies.

You are welcome to attend any or all of Dr Vukotić’s seminars. No need to register.

For an outline of all Language & Communication events the week commencing March 12th 2018, please click here.