Author: Saffron Vickers Walkling

Victoria Walpole is one of our artist liaisons on the Literature at Work module. This week she has been working with our visiting performers from  the Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre Company in Ukraine. Victoria tells us more.

Saturday 20th April sees the world premiere of Working Title: a collaboration between York International Shakespeare Festival and the National Theatre of Ivano-Frankivsk (UKRAINE) in York St John University’s Creative Centre, at 2pm and 7.30pm This performance promises to be incredibly imaginative and powerful, so you will not want to miss it. The show will feature a blend of Ukrainian and English culture, creating a captivating and unique experience for all.

I hear that, despite the challenges of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre Company has continued to showcase plays and even created a humanitarian logistics centre called “Movement of Resistance – Movement of Help” to support those displaced by the war and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre Company has a reputation for producing creative and innovative shows that have established its place in the Ukrainian cultural world, having always been acclaimed for its unprecedented creative “explosions”, highlighting its active artistic position in culture. 

This highly respected theatre company has an exceptional cast of star actors, including Ivan Blindar and Mariia Stopnyk, who have joined us this week on our campus. Ivan and Mariia  have been working closely with the York International Shakespeare Festival to create an original piece of work in collaboration with volunteer actors from and around York. These include Ukrainian performers who are currently living here.

For the past week, the actors have been hard at work in rehearsals, creating and practising pieces to perform on the first weekend of the festival. The pieces they have created combine Shakespeare’s incredible plays with the contemporary. They blend Ukrainian and English culture to create compelling pieces that will astound audiences. Working alongside Ivan and Mariia has been a privilege and a fun experience for all involved. Their love and passion for their work is reflected in their performances, and it has been a pleasure to be alongside them during the creative process. Through the use of imaginative warm-up exercises and sonnet performances, Phillip Parr has been able to direct the creative process to mould a stunning performance that beautifully symbolises the collaboration between the Ivano-Frankivsk theatre and the festival. Part of this process is making sure everyone who volunteered has a voice in what they want to give and take from the final performance.

During the rehearsals, local artist Lynne O’Dowd has been diligently capturing the dedication and momentous efforts of everyone involved through her paintings. These paintings will be part of the final performance, highlighting the creativity and hard work that has gone into bringing this production to life.

This performance promises to be incredibly imaginative and powerful, so you will not want to miss this! Everyone involved has put their heart and soul into creating a beautiful piece to perform, making these performances even more special. Creating a performance in such a short amount of time is a real feat of skill and everyone involved worked incredibly hard to make this possible.

When and where?

The event will be performed on Saturday the 20th of April at 2 pm and 7.30pm in the York St John Creative Centre Auditorium as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival. Tickets are only £15 at full price, with students and concessions only paying £5.

When buying tickets also look out for and consider buying a Pass It On Ticket which we can offer to community members who may not otherwise be able to attend as we want to make it possible for as many members of the community to come to festival performances!

To buy tickets and or more information about the York International Shakespeare Festival you can go to its website.

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Let’s celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month!

February is LGBTQ+ History Month!

We are very excited to celebrate and there’s a lot to get hyped about at YSJ:

Free Speech and Hate Speech: Analysing ‘anti-gender’ Discourse

7^th February 2024, 4:30-5:30pm, Creative Centre Auditorium

This LGBTQ+ History Month talk focuses on what is commonly referred to as homophobic and transphobic ‘soft hate speech’ which (unlike ‘hard’ hate) operates within the limits of the law and may be perceived as ‘sayable’ in the public sphere. This makes it more difficult to recognize and challenge. This talk is being given by our very own Helen Sauntson (Professor of English Language and Linguistics) and is going to be a must-be-at event. Book your ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lgbtqhm-free-speech-and-hate-speech-analysing-anti-gender-discourse-tickets-756706679047?aff=oddtdtcreator

In Conversation with Dom&Ink

Tuesday 13^th February, 6-8pm, Creative Centre Auditorium

Come along and listen to illustrator and author Dom&Ink talk about their work, from illustrating RuPaul’s Drag Race for the BBC to writing their new graphic novel. Dom will be interviewed by Lali from York’s own The Portal Bookshop, and the event will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception. Book your ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lgbtqhm-2024-in-conversation-with-domink-tickets-780078825767?aff=oddtdtcreator 

Can you Adam and Eve It? Queering Heterosexuality in Genesis

Wednesday 21^st February, 4-6pm, Creative Centre

Join us at York St John University for this hybrid event to mark LGBT History Month 2024. Hosted by the Centre for Religion in Society, hear Dr Chris Greenough’s talk, ‘Can you Adam and Eve it? Queering Heterosexuality in the Genesis Narrative’, followed by Q+A and a drinks reception. Book your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lgbtqhm-can-you-adam-and-eve-it-queering-heterosexuality-in-genesis-tickets-732646233607?aff=oddtdtcreator

On Wednesday 13th March 2-4pm, in the run-up to Transgender Day of Visibility, the LGBTQ+ Staff Network and the Athena Swan Initiative are holding a hybrid event to celebrate trans and non-binary scholarship at York St John University. This will be an informal, supportive space where all members of staff and students who are trans, non-binary, gender-diverse or are creating work related to these communities are encouraged to take part and share their work. Whether you are a first-year undergrad with an essay you’d like to share or a seasoned academic, we want to hear from you!

We welcome our London staff and student scholars to join the event, as hybrid presentations are possible.

This is a supportive space for trans, non-binary or gender-diverse scholars and students to share their work. If you know of anyone (staff or students) at YSJ who would be interested in presenting their work, we want to celebrate your contribution to the YSJ community. For more information, please contact Naomi Orrell at LGBTQPlusStaff@yorksj.ac.uk.

This year’s YSJ Literature’s annual Words Matter Lecture  will be delivered by Dr Liesl King, speaking about ‘Speculations on Embodiment’ . This will take place on Thursday 7th December, starting at 6pm, with a drinks reception at 7pm. 

This year’s lecture will explore ways in which the word ‘embodiment’ has inspired Dr Liesl King’s teaching practice, university projects, and publications. She will consider the representation of embodied living in the fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, the ‘tertium quid’ in Dr Angela Voss’ approach to classroom teaching, and the concept of ‘sensuous knowledge’ advanced by Minna Salami in her critical work of the same name published in 2020. The presentation will look at three ways in which Liesl, sometimes through hindsight, has drawn on the word ‘embodiment’ to inform her approach to academic practice: her online science fiction magazine, Terra Two: An Ark for Off World Survival, her upcoming co-written guidebook on Speculative Fiction (New Critical Idiom series, Routledge), and her nascent project on the ‘Embodied University’.

For more details and to sign up, please refer to the Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/words–matter-dr-liesl-king-tickets-732688941347?aff=oddtdtcreator

Anna Brizzolara is a student on the YSJ Creative Writing MA who has recently been focussing on Critical Approaches to Creative Writing. This is Anna’s review of Lemn Sissay’s recent poetry reading at Manchester Literature Festival. Sissay’s adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis is coming to York Theatre Royal 10th-14th October 2023.

I wanted tickets to see Zadie Smith.

That’s how I found Lemn Sissay.

He shared the programme for the Manchester Literature Festival alongside Zadie’s sold-out event.

Lemn hosted an evening at ‘Home’. Home, a theatre, gallery, independent film screen and all-round centre of creativity and culture that had a cosy, community feel. It opened in 2015 in the heart of Manchester; relaxed, no fancy wine list, plenty of craft beer and pots of pic ‘n’ mix. Volunteers in printed T-shirts smiled, ushered you along brushed concrete corridors and showed you to your multi-coloured upholstered seats.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Continue reading “One writer leads you to another – discovering Lemn Sissay’s ‘Let the Light Pour In’ by Anna Brizzolara”

Dr Saffron Vickers Walkling introduces titles to look out for this ESEA Heritage Month and beyond.  Saffron lived and worked in China for five years, and their research area includes late twentieth century Chinese Shakespeare in performance.

September is East and South East Asian Heritage Month. Founded in 2021 by Britain’s East and South East Asian Network (besea.n), it commemorates “those who have contributed positively to British society” and celebrates “the richness of ESEA culture”, says Michelle Chan. 

In alphabetical order, East Asian and South East Asian countries include: Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. 

Besea.n say that their “vision is one where our communities are seen and supported in all spaces”. This includes the sold out ESEA Lit Fest at Foyles Bookshop in London, which started on 23rd September 2023.    

Here are some highlights from their Reading List: 

A Lover’s Discourse by Xiaolu Guo tells of a Chinese woman’s life in London, reflecting on the nature of cross-cultural love and language. The title references Roland Barthes’ book of the same name, and its Cantonese film adaptation. Novelist and filmmaker Guo came to YSJ in 2008 as part of our China Week to speak about her debut English-language novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, which our first years were studying on their Gender and Writing module. Although not a sequel, A Lover’s Discourse revisits and reframes many of the tropes of the earlier book. Her film She, A Chinese is also currently showing on Channel 4. 

Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a collection of poetry by the Vietnamese-American writer and academic Ocean Vuong, reflecting on his refugee experience – both its horrors and its wonders.

Vuong’s novel On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous sustained us through the long holiday of 2021 as our Big Summer Read. See more here.

If you want something that will shock and amuse you in equal measures, check out Yellowface by R. F. Kuang, a hilarious satire on the ultimate in literary cultural appropriation…

This bestseller combines big ideas with humour and is simultaneously thought-provoking and immensely readable! 

If you’ve never read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, then now is the time to remedy this.

A firm A-level favourite for many years, Ishiguro’s novel about a group of young people at an English boarding school quickly reveals the dystopian side of its apparent idyllic setting. 

If it’s film you are interested in, Channel 4 has a selection for ESEA, including the first ever British Chinese feature film, Ping Pong, which I’ve reviewed here. “Elaine Choi (Sheen), a trainee lawyer tasked with executing the will of local businessman Sam Wong, whose body has been found in a telephone box, receiver still in hand. The trouble is, she can’t read Chinese characters.”

You can find Film 4’s complete ESEA listings here:

Dr Saffron Vickers Walkling interviews Adam Kirkbride (he/they). Adam was the 2021 York St John Literature English Literature Undergraduate Dissertation Prize Winner AND the English Literature Undergraduate Programme Prize for achieving the highest degree classification marks in both categories on their programme. Adam has gone on to study on our MA in Contemporary Literature and is completing their second year of part-time study.

Adam, tell us a bit about yourself, what you are studying with us and why?

I’ve been at York St John since 2018 when I started my BA in English Literature. Finishing my degree during the pandemic and a lot of personal turbulence meant that I was unsure about what the future would bring. I’d thought about doing an MA for a while and several of the YSJ literature staff encouraged me to do one here, so I applied, and the rest is history! Now I’m in my final year of my MA in Contemporary Literature and I cannot believe that it’s been nearly five years since I arrived here.

Can you tell us about your awards and what they mean to you?

The awards I received on graduation meant more to me than I can express. My final year of undergraduate study was incredibly difficult due to a range of personal circumstances and knowing that I still managed to do well was an amazing feeling.

You are doing your MA as a part-time student. What have been the challenges of part-time study? What have been the benefits?

Truly, the main challenge and benefit has been the same: I get to work full-time in a job that I love alongside my studies. Working for a charity is very demanding, and so is post-graduate study! I don’t think I anticipated how difficult juggling full-time work and part-time study would be in reality, especially around deadlines. Avoiding burn-out has been a challenge. On the other hand, the MA here at YSJ is timetabled so classes are later in the evenings, meaning I can be flexible in my study and get to commit my 9-5 hours to my job working for Foundation UK in their +Choices (Positive Choices) service, and my evenings and weekends to my study. Continue reading “YSJ Lit Interview: Departmental Prizewinner Adam Kirkbride”

York Shakespeare Project’s The Tempest is touring around North and East Yorkshire between Sept 23rd and Oct 1st 2022, culminating with a special performance at The York Theatre Royal. Book your tickets here.

20 years after YSP began its mission to put on all of Shakespeare’s plays “within the boundaries of the City of York”  it marks the end of this ambitious project with its final production, The Tempest. Directed by Philip Parr, who is also artistic director of the York International Shakespeare Festival, it draws on the talents of “local amateur actors, stage managers, technicians, costume and prop makers”, including our very own Effie Warboys in a leading role as Miranda, Prospero’s daughter. Effie, a third year Creative Writing student, took our Shakespeare: Perspectives module last year. Now she is about to make her stage debut on the mainstage of the York Theatre Royal.

“Taking part in the York Shakespeare Project has been beyond a dream,” she said.  “Playing

Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, has meant more to me than I could have ever imagined it would, especially with such a strong and talented cast around me.” 

Philip Parr explains how important it had been to get the casting of Miranda right: “The York Shakespeare Project had a desire for the actor who plays Miranda to be younger than the project – so, like Effie, to be born after the year 2000.”

I asked Effie what The Tempest was about for her.

 She explained that “The Tempest as a show is one about mystery and about family, both loving and dysfunctional, and really about community as a whole – which is what the York Shakespeare Project has also always been about.”

The director, Philip, has a long relationship with community theatre, both in the UK and in continental Europe, which was why he was the ideal choice to direct this “last play”.