The final C19 Research Group seminar of 2018 will feature Debbie Whelan (University of Lincoln) talking on the subject of ‘Controversial clerics and rambunctious rebels: Lessons in relationship, race and the retrospective lens. James Allison and Langalibalele in 19th century Natal’. The session will begin at 4pm (paper to start at 4.15pm) on Weds 14th November in MB1019. All welcome. Details below.

‘Controversial clerics and rambunctious rebels: Lessons in relationship, race and the retrospective lens. James Allison and Langalibalele in 19th century Natal.’

James Allison was a controversial Wesleyan minister who established a number of Mission stations in the colony of Natal, South Africa, in the mid-nineteenth century. He is noted for his expulsion from the Wesleyan Ministry and was ultimately ejected from the Edendale African Mission at Georgetown, near Pietermaritzburg. A milliner by trade, he had crossed the subcontinent, dragging converts with him as he went.

Part of his journey to ultimately settle in Natal Colony took him through the upper Mzinyathi region, around the present day town of Utrecht. Here he stayed for a while with the Hlubi chief Langalibalele, later to achieve notoriety in the Colony for his uprising in 1873 as a result of gun laws. These men it would seem, formed a link which perpetuated, connecting the Hlubi chief with the missionary and ultimately informing indirectly, a heritage of resistance moving into the twentieth century.

This very interdisciplinary paper will discuss the relationship between Langalibalele and Allison, and comment on the fragments of the past which can construct new, alternative dialogues in a contemporary South Africa obsessed with race and oppression rather than the practise of humanity and the everyday.

Biography

Debbie is a trained architect who subsequently wandered into the realms of anthropology and history. She was awarded undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in architecture at the University of Natal in Durban, and a BA in archaeology, anthropology and English from UNISA. Her PhD studies (London) investigated traders in Zululand in the 20^th century, and as such, inculcated a further interest in interdisciplinary work. Whilst carrying out PhD fieldwork, Debbie ran a research company carrying out heritage impact assessments as well as investigating land claims. These endeavours allowed for a greatly extended field of research expertise which has allowed synthetic works such as this one on Allison and Langalibalele, to come together. Her interests are vernacular and indigenous architectures, intangible heritage, hybrid cultures, and other subaltern areas: her architectural interests revolve around the unseen – electrical substations, municipal structures, and architectures of exclusion, particularly relevant to South Africa.

This Wednesday’s session, which takes place in MB1019 at the slightly later time of 5pm, will feature Professor Jason Whittaker (University of Lincoln) talking on ‘Cleaving: Blake, Whitman and the aggravations of influence’. 

‘Frankenstein at 200’, a Public Event in the city of Lincoln 

Venue:  the Lincoln Drill Hall, Free School Lane, Lincoln. LN2 1EY

Date: 31^st October 2018 (9.30am-4pm)

Keynote speaker: Professor Mark Jancovich (University of East Anglia)

Ticket price: £7.50 (including a light lunch). Available from http://lncn.eu/frank

In celebration of the bi-centenary of the publication of the first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the University of Lincoln is holding a public event, to which all are welcome.

The morning session (10am-1pm) comprises a programme of papers, with questions from the audience.

The afternoon session (2-4pm) comprises a work in progress performance by Chamelon 53, followed by a Round Table discussion (with audience participation) titled ‘Frankenstein’s Relevance to the C21st’, chaired by Professor Lucie Armitt (University of Lincoln).

Programme of Papers:

Prof. Mark Jancovich (University of East Anglia): ‘Frankenstein’s Hideous Progeny: Science Fiction, Horror and Political Discourse.’

Bysshe Inigo Coffey (University of Exeter): ‘A Study, the Senses and the Soul’

Eleanor Bryan (University of Lincoln) ‘Hideous Progenies: Reimagining Frankenstein’s monster’

Lauren Christie (University of Dundee): ‘Monstrous Legacies: Literary Adaptations of Frankenstein for Young Readers’

Dr Kelly Jones (University of Lincoln) ‘Adaptations of monstrous “liveness” in contemporary theatrical representations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’

Enquiries and further information: Lucie Armitt (larmitt@lincoln.ac.uk) or Eleanor Bryan (ebryan@lincoln.ac.uk)

The first C19 session of this year will be James Yeoman (Uni of Sheffield) talking about memoir and autobiography in the Spanish anarchist movement. The session will take place in the Minvera Building, MB1019 at 4pm this Wednesday (3rd Oct). We hope to see you there.

Please find James’ abstract and biography below.

Writing the Revolutionary Self: Memoir and Autobiography in the Spanish Anarchist Movement

This paper will discuss life-writing within the Spanish anarchist movement. It focuses the creation of identity through the creation of autobiographies and memoirs, texts in which memory interacts with the multiple, shifting discourses of both the movement, and of Spanish culture more broadly. As such it draws upon historical works on selfhood and ‘ego-documents’ (e.g. Summerfield, 1998; Voglis, 2002; Hellbeck, 2006) drawing comparisons with different genres (such as oral history, diaries and letters) and across different international contexts. Key questions to be discussed include:

• What this material can and cannot tell us
• How anarchist autobiographical writing changed and developed over the shifting political and social contexts of turn-of-the-century Spain
• How authors related anarchist ideology to their experiences through their writing, in areas such as gender, and the relationship between the individual and collective

This paper will focus on one example of anarchist life-writing in particular: volume I of Mi Vida (3 vols., 1929-1932), the autobiography of the eminent publisher and theorist Federico Urales (1864-1942). Urales’ work provides an engaging and colourful example of how childhood, self-realisation, success and failure were framed within a discourse of a ‘good anarchist life’, set in the context of late nineteenth-century Spain, in which the individual and ideological merged to form an ethical, exemplary self-narrative.

Biography: James Michael Yeoman (University of Sheffield)

James is a teaching associate in Modern European History at the University of Sheffield. His work has examined the formation of the anarchist movement in Spain, with a particular focus on the role of print culture in the development of anarchist ideology and practice. His current research and most recent publications have emphasised transnational connections and exchanges between radical movements across Europe and Latin America. In 2016 James guest-edited a special edition of International Journal of Iberian Studies (29:3) with Dr Danny Evans (University of Leeds), which includes his article ‘Salud y Anarquía desde Dowlais,’ which presents a case study of Spanish anarchist migration to South Wales in the early twentieth century. He has also contributed a chapter on the Spanish Civil War for the recently-published Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism (2018).

We are delighted to announce the Programme of events for Semester A.

Events Programme, 2018-19 – Semester A

4pm Weds 3^rd October 2018: James Yeoman (Sheffield) ‘Writing the Revolutionary Self: Memoir and Autobiography in the Spanish Anarchist Movement’

5pm Weds 24^th October 2018: Jason Whittaker (Lincoln), ‘Cleaving: Blake, Whitman and the aggravations of influence’

4pm Weds 14^th November 2018: Deborah Whelan (Lincoln): ‘Controversial clerics and rambunctious rebels: Lessons in relationship, race and the retrospective lens. James Allison and Langalibalele in 19^th century Natal.’

Refreshments are available on the hour, with the session to begin at quarter past the hour. All sessions are in MB1019. Please follow us on Twitter (@19thCLincoln).