Professor Gus John and poet Yolanda Lear join Jenni Ramone’s Black Writing in Britain students and Formations audiences for a special event on the history of New Beacon Books and its place in the history of Black British publishing, writing, and activism.
Gus John discusses publishing, decolonisation, and the contemporary university. Yolanda Lear reads and discusses her poetry, and both speakers engage in conversation with English and Creative Writing students at NTU.
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
Click here to reserve your spot at this free online event.
Biographies:
Professor Gus John is one of the co-founders of the Communities Empowerment Network – CEN. He is also a writer, education campaigner, consultant, lecturer and researcher.
He has worked extensively in the fields of education policy, management and international development and as a social analyst he specialises in social audits, change management, policy formulation and review, and programme evaluation and development.
Since the 1960s Gus has been visibly active in issues of education and schooling in Britain’s inner cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and London, and was the first black Director of Education and Leisure Services in Britain. Gus has also worked in a number of university settings, including as visiting Faculty Professor of Education at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, as an associate professor of education and honorary fellow of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London and is a visiting professor at Coventry University.
A respected public speaker and media commentator, Gus works internationally as an executive coach and a management and social investment consultant. He is also a frequent contributor to the Guardian, writing on subjects including Windrush, universities and education, racism in UK institutions, and about Grenada, which is where he was born.
He is a Non-Executive Director for New Beacon Books, which was established in 1966, and is the only remaining independent Black publishing and bookselling entity in the UK. it has been central to the growth of the Black Education Movement, the Black Supplementary School Movement and current calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum.
Yolanda Lear is 28 years old. The project lead for Account Hackney, she is also a poet, an advocate for mental health, a community activist, public speaker, public rep, self-published author, youth leader and spoken word artist. Yolanda has a strong desire to create a positive change within her community and others. With her book, The Journey To An Undefeated Mind, and her workshop, she aims to empower, encourage, inspire and motivate others to take charge of their own paths in life, and help improve their own well-being.
Account Hackney is a youth-led Police Monitoring and Scrutiny Group based in Hackney. Holding the police to account, and empowering our community.
Instagram: @HackneyAccount
‘The Undefeated Mind’
Email: Info@theundefeatedmind.co.uk
Website: Theundefeatedmind.co.uk
Instagram: The_undefeatedmind
To coincide with Cedar Lewisohn’s solo exhibition earlier this year, Patois Banton, join us for a free online talk by Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson entitled Questioning Language and Knowledge: The Challenge to Creole-speaking Communities. This will be followed by a Q&A with Ramisha Rafique.
This event follows on from an in conversation with Cedar Lewisohn, Ioney Smallhorne and Honey Williams which can be watched here.
“That children learn best in their mother language, has been known for several decades. However, the application has been very slow in societies where the mother language of the majority is a Creole language. This is due to what I refer to as an epistemological blind spot emerging from what colonial and neo-colonial education determine to be (real) knowledge, and how those ideological systems designate the languages that are the vehicles of ‘real’ knowledge.
Given their historic low status, Creole languages like Jamaican, Haitian Creole, Barbadian, are therefore not seen as proper receptacles of knowledge. In an attempt to unpack the philosophy of language that drives this state of affairs, I explore the historical roots of these views, and the ways in which they undermine and stunt the production, dissemination, and development of indigenous forms of knowledge.” – Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson, Coordinator, Jamaican Language Unit
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
Click here to reserve your spot at this free online event.
Biographies:
Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at The University of the West Indies, Mona. Dr. Farquharson holds B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from UWI, and an M.Phil. in European Literature (Spanish) from the University of Cambridge. He has been serving as the Coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU) since August 2019 and is currently a member of the Communication & Information Advisory Committee of the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO, and the Convenor of the subject panel for CAPE Communication Studies.
Ramisha Rafique is a PhD studentship funded PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University. Her creative-critical doctoral thesis explores the ontology of the postcolonial flâneuse, considering class, language, religion, and global technological advancements. Her research interests include Islamophobia, British Muslim women’s writing, and flânerie.
This multi-channel video installation from internationally-acclaimed photographer Emily Andersen, explores the work and life of Ruth Fainlight (b.1931) – an American-born poet and writer.
Ruth’s intensely visual poetry and fiction touch on themes of psychological and domestic situations, time, memory and loss. Born in New York City in 1931, she moved to England when she was 15. In 1959 she married the writer, Alan Sillitoe, and her many literary friendships included Sylvia Plath, Jane and Paul Bowles, and Robert Graves.
Andersen’s work is an intimate portrait of Fainlight, now aged 91, presenting fragments of the poet’s life. Taking inspiration from Renaissance triptychs and their depiction of different elements of the same subject across three panels, Somewhere Else Entirely captures the poet and writer at her home in London, making notes, on her walks, and in the seaside town of Brighton where she spent her teenage years.
In Somewhere Else Entirely Fainlight talks off-screen, revealing fascinating insights into her life, her creative process, and how she is ‘in the hands of the poem’. In her voiceover, she movingly recites her poem ‘Somewhere Else Entirely’ composed after the death of her husband.
Alongside the exhibition commissioned an essay by Daniella Schreir, editor of the Feminist Film Journal Another Gaze, which can be read here.
Come along to our launch night on Friday 24 March, 6 pm – 8 pm for a first look round the exhibition, alongside Nottingham Women’s Centre in our Vitrines. There will also be free food from 6 pm. Book your free tickets
Emily Andersen is a London-based artist and graduate of the Royal College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in galleries including:
A number of her portraits are in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery, London. She has won awards including the John Kobal prize for portraiture. Her third book Another Place was published in 2023. She is a Senior Lecturer in theory and practice of photography at the Nottingham School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University.
Director, Producer, Cinematographer – Emily Andersen
Additional Cinematographer- Bella Riza
Interviews – Kiki Martins and Emily Andersen
Editor – Jonathan Schmidt-Ott
Sound editor – Liam Larkin
Re-recording mixer- Rainer Heesch
Colourist – Jason R. Moffat
Production Assistant – Kyra Paloma
Image: Ruth Fainlight by Emily Andersen
Somewhere Else Entirely is photographer Emily Andersen’s first completed video portrait and is inspired by her decade-long friendship with poet Ruth Fainlight. To coincide with the exhibition, Emily and Ruth will be joining us for a free in-conversation event, hosted by Duncan Higgins, Professor of Visual Art at NTU.
Discover how the artists’ relationship grew after a chance meeting, hear how Emily’s intimate video work was made and enjoy a special reading by Ruth.
BIOGRAPHIES
Emily Andersen has been a photographer for four decades. Her work includes interiors, architecture, and landscape but she is best known for her award-winning portraiture, capturing well-known faces including Nico, Peter Blake, and Helen Mirren. A number of her portraits are in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery, London. She has won awards including the John Kobal prize for portraiture. She is a Senior Lecturer in photography at the Nottingham School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University.
Ruth Fainlight (b. New York City , 1931) is an award-winning poet and translator, whose collections have spanned five decades. Fainlight has lived in England since the age of 15, achieving success in fiction, translation and opera libretti as well as poetry. In 1959 she married the writer, Alan Sillitoe, and her many literary friendships included Sylvia Plath, Jane and Paul Bowles, and Robert Graves. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008.
Join Bonington Gallery’s Director, Tom Godfrey for a relaxed lunchtime tour of our current exhibitions, Somewhere Else Entirely by Emily Andersen in our Gallery, and Nottingham Women’s Centre in our Vitrines.
• The event is free to attend with limited capacity.
• Booking is required.
• Please meet in the Bonington Foyer at 12.55 pm for a prompt start.
• The event will last up to an hour, within the gallery.
Join Bonington Gallery’s Deputy Curator Joshua Lockwood-Moran for a relaxed lunchtime tour of our current exhibitions, Somewhere Else Entirely by Emily Andersen in our Gallery, and Nottingham Women’s Centre in our Vitrines.
• The event is free to attend with limited capacity.
• Booking is required.
• Please meet in the Bonington Foyer at 12.55 pm for a prompt start.
• The event will last up to an hour, within the gallery.
Join Alison, Marina, and Andrew in conversation, discussing materials they have found in their research on European periodicals post-1945. At the heart of the project is a focus upon the practice of translation:
The Spaces of Translation project studies a small collection of important literary and cultural magazines from three countries (Britain, France, Germany) in order to consider how they explore and construct notions of European identity in the period from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1960s. The current exhibition at the Bonington explores a number of these issues and displays a range of original magazines from 1945-65. Alison, Marina, and Andrew will discuss some of the fascinating material they have found in their research so far.
The event will be chaired by Dr Annalise Grice, Department of English, NTU.
Alison E. Martin is Professor of British Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz/Germersheim, Germany. She is a specialist in translation studies, travel writing and comparative literature. Her books include Nature Translated: Alexander von Humboldt’s Works in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2018) and Moving Scenes: The Aesthetics of German Travel Writing on England, 1783-1830 (2008), as well as two co-edited volumes, Travel Writing in Dutch and German, 1790-1930 (2017) and Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750-1830 (2012). Before coming to JGU, she taught at the University of Reading, Universiteit Hasselt, the Universität Kassel and the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. She is the German PI for the Spaces of Translation project on European magazines, 1945-65.
Marina Popea is a Research Fellow on the Spaces of Translation project, based at NTU. She specialises in translation and cultural magazines with a broad comparative focus. A Latin Americanist with an interdisciplinary background, she is completing an AHRC-funded PhD at Oxford University on the role of translation in shaping modern poetics in Mexican magazines of the early twentieth century. She is particularly interested in Digital Humanities and the methodological challenges of studying translation in the context of periodical publications.
Andrew Thacker is Professor of Twentieth Century Literature at NTU. He is the author or editor of several books on modernism and modernist magazines, including the three volumes of The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines (2009-13) and, most recently, Modernism, Space and the City (2019). He was a founder member and the first Chair of the British Association for Modernist Studies. He is the UK PI for the Spaces of Translation project on European magazines, 1945-65.
Join us for a first look around Emily Andersen’s exhibition Somewhere Else Entirely in the Gallery, and Nottingham Women’s Centre in our Vitrines.
NTU staff and students are welcome for a first look round from the slightly earlier time of 5 pm.
Free food will be available from 6 pm – first come, first served!
The menu will be:
Vegan Balti with Rice & Mixed Salad (V)
Chickpea, spinach & sweet potato Balti served with rice and fresh mixed salad (vegan, vegetarian & gluten free).
Thai Red Chicken Curry with Rice & Mixed Salad
Thai red chicken curry with mangos & sweet peppers served with rice and fresh mixed salad (halal & gluten free).
From 7 pm, the United Voices Choir will sing a selection of songs chosen for their positive and uplifting messages
Photography will be taking place. There is lift and stairs access and an accessible toilet.
This online roundtable is a pre-conference event on Dalit magazines with editors and subject experts from West Bengal and Maharashtra. It is being organised in association with the Network on Dalit and Adivasi Literature and Bonington Gallery as part of our Formations Series.
Conceptualised to draw the attention of researchers working in this field within and outside India, the roundtable will be moderated by Dr Nicole Thiara and Prof Judith Misrahi-Barak.
Funded by the Research Seed Grant Scheme, GITAM (Deemed to be University), the project on Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines intends to critically engage with the underrepresented area of Dalit Periodicals within the broad research field of Dalit Studies. It aims to trace and collect periodicals published in Bangla and Marathi (1950-2000) and look into their publication process, circulation and readership.
Besides, it aims to build a digital repository of Bangla and Marathi periodicals to facilitate easier access, a historiographic narrative on the evolution of Dalit literary periodicals in Marathi and Bangla and encourage translations of Dalit writings published in these periodicals.
As part of the outreach programme, a three-day conference is being organised in GITAM, Hyderabad, titled “Vernacular Periodicals and Dalit Writing: Production, Circulation and Reception” from 1st March to 3rd March 2023 in association with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore. This conference aims to bring together editors, subject experts, early career scholars and graduate students to initiate a conversation across Indian languages and to reflect upon the vernacular Dalit periodicals critically.
The discussion will primarily focus on:
1) the possibility and scope of research in the area of vernacular periodicals and Dalit writing,
2) the challenges in such research and
3) the significance of such research.
A retired central government employee, Dhurjati Naskar, is an essayist, poet, and novelist from South 24 Parganas of West Bengal. He has been involved in editing periodicals since the early 1970s. Some of the periodicals edited by him are: Bangla Maati (Soil of Bengal), Dakkhin Barasat Sahitya Patra (South Barasat Literary Magazine), Baridhati, Dakhina Path, Baruipur Sambad (Barupipur News), Bharatiya Pundra Samachar (Indian Pundra News) and Pundra-Poundra Badhav. These periodicals, predominantly literary, also published essays concerning the history, ethnonational and folk traditions of the Poundra community. He is a member of Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sangstha (Kolkata), West Bengal Dalit Sahitya Sabha and a founding member of Dr Bhusan Chandra Naskar Archive. He has been a recipient of the West Bengal Sahitya Akademy Award in the year 2019.
Prof. Sipra Mukherjee teaches English at West Bengal State University. Her areas of interest are religion, caste, folklore and orality. She has been a visiting fellow at the department of English University of Hyderabad, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University. She has received many national and international research and travel grants. Some of them are – ICSSR research grant for a research project on ‘Interpreting Folklore: Understanding the relationship between folklore, religion and caste in East India’, 2013-2015; a Research Grant from the University Grant Commission, India, ‘Faiths in the Margins’, 2009; Luce Grant from Comparative Religion Programme, on Religion and Human Security: Negotiating the Power of Religious Non-State Actors, University of Washington, 2008. Besides her research on the intersection between caste and religion, she has been an avid translator. Her translated works include the Autobiography of Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari, Interrogating My Chandal Life, 2018, and Under My Black Skin Flows a Red River: Translations of Dalit Writings for Bengal, 2021, which she co-edited along with Prof. Debi Chatterjee. She is also a member of Ebong Alap, a voluntary non-profit society which works with youth to encourage critical thought.
Dr Asit Biswas is an Associate Professor of English in West Bengal Education Service, currently posted at P.R. Thakur Government College, Thakurnagar, West Bengal. He completed his PhD research on the film adaptation of western texts in Bengali films from the University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal. He has published seventeen research papers, six Dalit short stories, two Dalit plays and some poems in Bengali. He is the co-editor of the book Shotoborsher Bangla Dalit Sahitya; Dalit Poems, Dalit Literary Horizon (translation of Manohar Mouli Biswas’s book, Dalit Sahityer Digboloy), Songs and Dialogues from Bengal in English Translation and Dalit Protest Unbridled: Two Dozen Plays of Raju Das. He also published the book Pardon Not: Marichjhampi Massacre, a translation of the novel Kshama Nei by Nakul Mallik. Recently his translation of Kalyani Thakur’s novella Andhar Bil O Kichhu Manush (Andhar Bil and Some People) has been published by Zubaan. At present, he is translating a Bangla epic.
Urmila Pawar is a widely known Indian (Marathi) writer. She has been active in the Dalit and feminist movements in India since her early life. She was a part of the Marathi Dalit feminist magazine Aamhi Maitarni which was published during the 90s. She has eleven publications to her credit including the popular Marathi short story collection translated into English as Mother Wit by Prof. Veena Deo (Hamline University, USA), published by Zuban. Her Autobiographical narrative Aydaan translated into English as The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman’s Memoirs by Prof. Maya Pandit remains most popular even today (it has been translated into other Indian languages as well – Hindi, Kannada and Tamil). Many of her short stories have been prescribed in the syllabus framework of Indian universities as well as universities abroad (Colombia University, USA).
A bilingual poet, translator, editor, critic and columnist, Dr Chandrakant Patil writes in Marathi and Hindi and occasionally in English. He has several publications – collections of Marathi poems such as Nissandarbh, Ittambhoot, Bayaka ani Itar Kvita, and a collection of Hindi poems Apni Bhasha Ke Sameep to mention a few. Besides, he has also published six critical essay collections and twenty-five collections in Marathi and Hindi translations. He is popularly known for his active engagement in the Little Magazine Movement in Maharashtra during the 1960s and 1970s. He acted as one of the editors and publishers of the highly discussed little magazine Wacha. Besides, he was also one of the founder members of Wacha Prakashan that published the first collections of avant-garde poets of Marathi, such as Bhalchandra Nemade, Manohar Oak, Satish Kalasekar, Dilip Chitre etc. He has been a recipient of national and state-level awards for his various contributions – Sahitya Akademi Translation award (1991), Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sahitya Akademi (1994), Bhasha Vruddhi Sammaan, Govt. Of Maharashtra (2022).
Prof. Dilip Chavan is an academic scholar and a professor of English at SRTM University, Nanded, Maharashtra. His doctoral work, Language Politics under Colonialism: Caste, Class and Language Pedagogy in Western India, was published as a book by Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars in 2013. He writes in Marathi and has published nine books on contemporary social issues such as language, caste, class, imperialism, and women’s education. Some of his notable works are – Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar ani Jativyawastha Ant (1998); Shikshan: Jatvargiya Vastav ani Samatavadi Paryay (1999); Stree Shikshanacha Sangharsha (2007); Dr Ambedkar ani Bhartiya Shikshanatil Jatisanghrsha (2003); Samrajyavad: Bhasha ani Sanskriti (2010); Corona ani Stree-Purush Vishamatecha Prashna (2022). He also has a keen interest in translations from English to the Marathi language (he is working on the Marathi translation of Braj Ranjan Mani’s book Debrahminising History). Besides, he has been a part of the widely read fortnightly ‘Pariwartanacha Watsaru’ as its executive editor. He has been associated with academic institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore.
A graduate from the University of Hyderabad, Dr Sayantan Mondal is currently an Asst. Professor in the department of English at GITAM, Hyderabad (Deemed to be University). His areas of interest are Reading-Print readership, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Dalit Studies and Translation. Sayantan has been an Erasmus Mundus Fellow at the University of Oxford during 2015-16. He has received the University of Heidelberg Travel Grant 2015 and the University Grants Commission Travel grant 2016. Presently, he is working on a research project titled “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman. This project aims to trace Bangla and Marathi Periodicals and the exchange of ideas on the caste question. Some of his published works are – Of Caste-Class and Dalit Writing, 2015; An Introduction to the World of Monoranjan Byapari, 2015; Language and its People: A Comparative insight into the Kurdish and Rohingya Genocide, 2019; Prantik theke Dalit: Nandonikatar Rajniti o Dalit Chetona (From Marginalised to Dalit: Politics of Aesthetics and Dalit Consciousness), 2022; Migration and Cultural Identity: An Introduction, 2022.
Having received a doctorate in English (Cultural Studies) from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFL-U), Hyderabad, Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman is an assistant professor of English at GITAM (Deemed to be University), Hyderabad campus. His doctoral research, Religious Conversion and Dalit Experience: A Study of the Meanings of Conversion among the Neo-Buddhists, emphasises the phenomenon of Dalit conversion to Buddhism and studies the conversion movement in Nanded district (Marathwada region, Maharashtra) through collecting and analysing historical records – pamphlets, posters, record books etc. He is a recipient of a prestigious Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, doctoral fellowship for his doctoral research. He has been publishing in the area of Dalit Studies/literature on issues such as caste, colonial intervention into the caste question, Dalit identity and culture etc. Currently, he is involved in a research project, “Mapping Vernacular Network of Ideas and Recovering the Ephemeral: Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Little Magazines”, along with Dr Sayantan Mondal.
This exhibition explores the rich history of Nottingham Women’s Centre and the fight for women’s rights in the city.
Starting life in a living room during the second wave of feminism in 1971, Nottingham Women’s Centre is one of the oldest organisations of its kind in the country. It was created to support women and fight for equal pay; education and job opportunities; an end to homophobic discrimination; and an end to violence against women – battles still being fought to this day.
Come along to see material from the Nottingham Women’s Library archives, protest placards from Reclaim the Night marches, and more.
Curated by Diana Ali.
Come along to our launch night on Friday 24 March, 6 pm – 8 pm for a first look round the exhibition, alongside Emily Andersen: Somewhere Else Entirely in the Gallery. There will be free food from 6 pm and a performance from the United Voices Choir at 7 pm.