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Beyond the Walls: Producing Literature and Creative Writing

By Tom Young

 

I started applying to universities several years after finishing my A Levels, and one of the biggest concerns for my friends and family was that I’d be forking out nine grand a year to be here. If I’d gone straight after college, I’d have paid nine grand for the full three years. For many, the stark contrast in what students pay for their tuition has brought into question what exactly it is we’re paying for. Well, I’ll tell you.

I’m currently wrapping up the second year of my English Literature and Creative Writing course, and one of the modules I’m finishing this semester, Publishing, Production and Performance, is exemplary of the practical skills you can gain from a literature degree. As part of one of the module projects, I’ve spent the last couple of months organising the launch of Beyond the Walls, an anthology of York St John University student writing. The event was a success and completely sold out. Everyone on that module now has a book they can slap on the desk of potential employers, while they proudly say “I helped craft and create that product, and I have the skills to do it again”.

It seems to me that the anxieties surrounding arts degrees are the result of a widespread lack of awareness for the diversity of the creative industries. Using Beyond the Walls as an example, the text would not exist if its production relied solely on the efforts of writers. It needed to be curated, edited and designed, and it needed a showcase event to launch it to the public. The event needed planning; it needed live music, food, booze, projections and lighting. All this was done by creative writing students, and none of it had anything to do with writing; it was done for the sake of the writing.

The English Literature and Creative Writing course, shockingly, is not always about writing, and its student body is not made up of dreamers, hoping to become the next J.K. Rowling. We are members of the literary community, we are merchants of culture, and we understand that the best way to learn how to do something is to do it. My colleagues and I now know how to publish a book because we’ve done it, and we look forward to doing it again. I can tell my family and friends to put their anxieties at ease; creative writing is a commodity, and the industry has never been more exciting than it is in this bewildering modern age.

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An Interview with Andy Owen

On Friday the 24th of March, the day after his talk at York St John’s University, Andy Owen kindly allowed me to interview him about his novel “East of Coker” and about the importance of literature and storytelling in conflict writing and more generally in our society.

Q. I found it really interesting both as a reader and as creative writer the fact that you chose to write from the point of view of a woman. Why the choice of that point of view? How difficult was it?

A. My previous novel was written from the point of view of a young man and I think that was very much in my comfort zone, having been a young man. And it is about someone who is excited to go and trying to find adventure and explore the world and I have felt that way myself, so I was very much in my comfort zone. So, I have deliberately tried to challenge myself to see how I could write from someone else’s perspective and, as I said last night, for me a big part of literature is trying to increase empathy. As a writer, if you are not doing that yourself, how do you expect your readers or your audience to do it? So, it is kind of trying to do what you preach, in a way. And I have no idea if I succeeded in doing that but I have certainly learned from trying to put myself in other people’s shoes, trying to think differently, trying to think if I was I woman how would I feel about these issues, which are probably traditionally seen as very male issues although increasingly now that is not the case with female serving in the army forces, writing from the frontline etc.

Q. There is a sentence in the ending of “East of Coker”: “I must tell my story and I must encourage others to tell their stories”. I was wondering if you feel that there is a moral responsibility in storytelling, in sharing these stories?

A. Yes, I think there is. I think it is a really good question. When you are trying to increase empathy you are trying to capture people’s stories and share those stories for people to understand. And, as you are asking, there is secondary responsibility there which is recording those stories, especially trying to record stories and voices that perhaps aren’t heard that widely in society and also, as a writer, trying to find your voice but also trying to find other voices. I think it is in important thing to do, I don’t think it is something every writer needs to do or has to do but I think it is a good thing to do. If you have got that ability to tell a story, then perhaps you do have a duty as well. There has been a tradition in conflict writing of people trying to help each other tell their stories and I think with those they did feel they had to help people who couldn’t perhaps tell their stories

Q. I found very interesting how in your book you talk about how war is life-changing, how people wonder if they will still be the same ones when they come back from war. I was wondering if, even for people who do not suffer of very serious cases of PTSD, is war still life-changing? Do every soldier feel that he/she will never be the same when he/she comes back?

A. I think so, and I think it can be on different levels. I think if you experience an extreme environment and learn nothing from it that would have quite a poor reflection on you. I think everyone should be changed in some way and hopefully for the positive by learning through your experience and being able to share your experiences and maybe look at life in a different way. I think one of the biggest things I took away from the times when I have been to places where I have been to is how fragile life is in some places and how hard people have to work just to survive in some places and I have been trying not to take things for granted as I did before and it has changed my attitude towards life. In a negative way, with people being shaped by those experiences, suffering from things like PTSD, even with people not being diagnosed, how they are haunted by memories, all of that happens but I think one of the things that I am trying to do in the book is to challenge people to see that it is up to you in a way how these things affect you, it is your way of thinking about these things and you have the choice to think differently. There is a lot going on, certainly in the US military about teaching soldiers to focus on what they can control and become comfortable with what they can’t control and I think there is a lot of similarity between some of stoic thoughts and some eastern thoughts as well, about acceptance of the way things are, coming to a comfortable acceptance which is why in the end I turn to the myth of Sisyphus and I challenge us to imagine Sisyphus being happy and I think that is one of the points of the book: you can still move on, you can still be happy if you choose to be.

Q. In “ East of Coker” you wrote: “It has always struck me that what we do has changed so little over the centuries”. Is it for this reason, for the fact that we still have not learned enough from the past, that you feel that we have to tell these stories, so maybe we could one day reach the point of learning something from it?

 


A. I am probably not overly optimistic that we will get to that point. I think that is the practical element of soldiering that hasn’t changed in centuries and probably millennia. The technology has, we have different technologies now, which has maybe changed the directness of it, because you lose that personal element, if you are not the person being there, seeing it, smelling and being in the context, you are perhaps a thousand of miles away doing almost a nine to five job, going home to see your family after it. There is a lot of interesting aspects about that and I know that they have put MRI scans on pilots when they are making these decisions and it is parts of their brains, compared to a soldier on the frontline, which are a lot more rational rather than emotional that control those decisions. In a way that is also a metaphor for the wider aspect: we are still doing as a society the same things that we have always done. Someone who has always influenced me is an English writer called John Grey who talks about this myth of progress that we have in which whilst we are making clear advances in technology we are still the same creatures and we still have the same emotions that we did have two hundred years ago, thousands of years ago. As creatures, we have not changed that much even though we use different technologies.

Q. There is an interesting part in the book about how civilians perceive soldiers, in a scene in which you describe the soldiers arriving in a house full of women and children and they looked at them as if they were rapists. I think it communicates very well the feeling of being hated for what you represent and not for who you are, of being hated by someone who doesn’t really know you. How do you feel about it?

A. Yes, definitely, I think the point is that the misunderstanding across cultural boundaries works both ways and I certainly felt as an individual going to the places I went to that I was incredibly naïve. We had some hours’ worth of cultural training which wasn’t in any way enough, we knew very little about the countries we were going to and the cultures we were going to encounter. And I think that people who were there knew very little about our culture and what we thought we were doing so the misunderstanding was from both sides and I think it is fascinating to try and find out more about how some of the people that live in the countries where we have been to have understood us and seen us and I think, certainly in Iraq and definitely in Afghanistan as well, we were often used as tools in local conflict which were completely unaware of. I think the idea of how cultures keep history alive and deal with history is really interesting looking at Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan people saw a direct continuum from last time we were there whilst we did not see that continuum at all, we were very unaware of what we had done in the country before. The average soldier on the ground had very little knowledge of the British role in Afghanistan, that was a lot of ignorance around it but of lot of Afghani people knew that and that was almost modern history to them because they saw history in a different way to how we saw it. There was not only a cross cultural confusion but also almost like a temporal confusion and you couldn’t help it, driving through some places in Iraq, but feel like you had gone back in time, in history.

Q. I feel like the most powerful message in war literature is that while wars are perhaps decided to change borders or keep borders, when you read about the human experience of war you realize that there are no borders because people who actually experience war they experience it in the same traumatic way. Would you agree with that?

A. Yes, definitely. And I think it is easier to get that in Second World War literature, it was times where soldiers from both sides felt that they had a lot more in common with each other than they did with the people back home that they were representing, those shared experiences they were having, the shared hardships. I think it has been less evident in some of the recent wars because the differences in cultural have been greater. If you look at differences in cultures between Russia, Germany, Italy, France back in that time, they were at pretty similar points in their developments and as European culture they had a lot more similarities I think. But I think definitely it has been interesting for the current book I am working at to look from a soldier’s point of view at what actually motivates them, what it is important to the soldier, how quickly any sort of ideology that you might have gone to war with because you believed in it and a lot of people do it becomes it is actually me surviving with this tiny group of people in this tiny bit of land and it becomes about a hill, a wood or a trench rather than a nation and a city and wars are fought for the most part in small bits of territories. In the current book, it has been interesting going through the official war diary that might have a one line entry describing an incident and yet in someone’s diary you find described in two chapters that one line because for that individual it was such a momentous happening in their life.

Q. Do you feel that the projects you support with your writing, like the war writers campaign, the fact that is about supporting people telling their stories, connects with what we have said before about the moral duty of storytelling?

A. Yes, I think so and I think it is in the concept of having associative duties so all of us, by being in a community or by being in an army unit, have duties to the people who we live with. And that sense of duty becomes really heightened in an army environment in which you have specific duties to your comrades and for most people those duties do not end when you leave that operational tour or even when you leave the forces, you maintain those duties. I think that for all of us in the wider society, we have duties to each other and I think we are all narrative beings, we need to tell our stories. In that way, putting all that together, we all have the duty to help each other tell our stories and I think that goes for each individual with their families and friends helping them telling their stories, keeping those stories alive, having those private conversations and what happened to people reach a wider audience.

I would like to thank Andy Owen for his availability, his kindness and for answering all of my questions and Dr. Fraser Mann for setting up the interview, for introducing me to Andy Owen and for having supported me during the interview.

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Andy Owen – East of Coker “I must tell my story and I must encourage others to tell their stories”.

By Nicoletta Peddis

Andy Owen served in the Intelligence Corps of the British Army reaching the rank of Captain. He completed operational tours in Northern Ireland (2003), Iraq (2004 and 2005) and on intelligence duties in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2007. He published his first novel, “Invective”, in 2014.

On Thursday the 23rd of January, as part of the York Literature Festival, Andy Owen presented his second novel, “East of Coker” (2016), about the personal aftermath of conflict. Interviewed by Dr. Fraser Mann, he explored the themes of his novel, which uses TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land” as a structural and thematic starting point, asking challenging questions about our responsibilities to those that have seen and experienced war. He explained how Eliot’s poem has influenced him both for its use of language and for the way he uses myth to relate contemporary events to past events, showing the cyclic nature of history. Owen uses myth in own novel for the same reasons, and also uses references to a whole range of literary texts creating an intertextual layer that makes his novel fascinating and engaging. He believes that, has TS Eliot himself said, “good writers borrow, great writers steal” and that writer, when starting a book, finds himself in stream where all that is been written before washes upon him, making intertextuality in this sense an unconscious process of awareness.

 

Andy Owen also reflected on the importance of literature and storytelling in creating empathy. Sharing stories of people suffering of PTSD because of their war experiences can help people to better understand how it feels to suffer the aftermath of conflict, increasing understanding and helping to fight the stigma that surrounds mental health issues, especially in the military environment. Regarding the importance of storytelling in dealing with trauma, Andy Owen also spoke about his collaboration with the War Writers Campaign and their work with veterans and PTSD professionals. The aim of this charity association is, through written awareness, to change the social perception about veterans’ issues and to promote mental therapy through the literary world and through creative writing. It is possible to find out more about War Writers Campaign at

http://www.warwriterscampaign.org/ and more about Shoulder to Shoulder, another association that helps veterans with mental health issues in Glasgow and with which Andy Owen collaborates, at http://timebank.org.uk/shoulder-to-shoulder .

 

Read Nicoletta’s interview with Andy Owen tomorrow on Point Zero.

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York Literature Festival: James Montgomery Performance. “For books, my friend, are charming brooms”.

 

By Nicoletta Peddis

On Wednesday the 22nd of March, as a part of York Literature Festival, Dr. Adam Smith guided the audience through the life and poetry of James Montgomery delivering an engaging performance combining readings of Montgomery’s poetry with interesting insight of the biography of this complex historical character.

Trailer for Adam Smith's performance on Montgomery at Sheffield's "Festival of the Mind" in 2016.

 

Montgomery was born in Scotland, the son of missionaries of the Moravian Brethren. He was sent to be trained for the ministry at the Moravian School at Fulneck, near Leeds. At Fulneck, secular studies were banned, but James nevertheless found means of borrowing and reading a good deal of poetry and made ambitious plans to write epics of his own. Failing school, he was apprenticed to a baker in Mirfield. After further adventures, including an unsuccessful attempt to launch himself into a literary career in London, he moved to Sheffield to work at the Sheffield Register, directed by Joseph Gales. At the Register, a newspaper of radical ideas, Montgomery rediscovered his passion for literature and started to write inflamed poems in the poetry section of the publication, the “Repository of Genius”, regarding themes such as the abolition of slavery and the conditions of the working class. In 1794, Gales left England to avoid political prosecution and Montgomery took the paper in hand, changing its name to the Sheffield Iris. These were times of political repression and Montgomery was charged with sedition and treason for the publication of a poem that he never wrote and imprisoned in 1975 at York Castle prison for three months. He continued to write poems that were sent to the Iris and to which readers responded. A pamphlet of poems written during his captivity will be published in 1796 as “Prison Amusements”. After his release, Montgomery is charged again in less than a year for criticizing a magistrate for forcibly dispersing a political protest in Sheffield. After this experiences James Montgomery’s life started to change. He turned away to politics and activism and turned to business. He carried on writing poems and started to write hymns. He later was decorated with the title of Poet Laureate and became a Tory MP.

Did James Montgomery become the establishment he was fighting against? Did he turn his back to his ideals? He was definitely a complex and fascinating character and, as Dr. Adam Smith reminded us, even though his political views changed the theme of slavery always remained extremely important to him and Montgomery definitely never turned his back to literature and poetry.

The performance that Dr. Adam Smith delivered at York St John’s University as part of the York Literature Festival is part of a wider research regarding the connection between poetry and radical protest in Sheffield between 1790 and 1810. The focus on James Montgomery is one of the results of this broader research ending in “The Wagtail Poet Prison Project”. It is possible to find out more about this project at https://yorkwagtailpoets.wordpress.com and it is also possible to respond to James Montgomery’s prison poems either creatively or critically getting in touch with Dr. Adam Smith at a.smith3@yorksj.ac.uk .

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Aesthetica Creative Writing Award: Call for Entries

The 11th Aesthetica Creative Writing Award is now open for entries, presenting an opportunity for emerging and established writers and poets to showcase their work to new international audiences and further their involvement in the literary world.

Prizes include:

  • £1,000 Poetry Winner
  • £1,000 Short Fiction Winner
  • Publication in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual for 60 finalists
  • Consultation with Redhammer Management (Short Fiction Winner)
  • Full Membership to The Poetry Society (Poetry Winner)
  • Selection of books courtesy of Bloodaxe and Vintage
  • One year subscription to Granta

Short Fiction entries should be no more than 2,000 words. Poetry entries should be no more than 40 lines. Works previously published are accepted.

Deadline for submissions is 31 August 2017. For full entry requirements and to submit, visit www.aestheticamagazine.com/cwa

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“The Book Closes: Finality in Contemporary Literature” Symposium, YSJU 6 June 2017

By Abi Sears

 

Finality is defined as the ‘impression of being final and irreversible’ (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). Within today’s society the significance of the final, and transition from the familiar into a world of change, is particularly poignant. The Brexit vote in June, and the recent inauguration of Donald Trump, has instigated an upsurge of hatred, vitriol and prejudice. From the horrifying increase in terror attacks all over the world, to the harrowing treatment of refugees reported in the media of the past year, some of us may feel the world we live in is becoming somewhat unrecognisable, and regressing into a haunting ideology of truly dangerous values.

Whilst the world we once knew is under the thumb of violence the necessity to resist, and challenge, these ideas has never been so important. As postgraduate literature students, we are finishing our education in a deeply troubling time; therefore, the importance of the arts and humanities is greater than ever to encourage resistance through new dialogues, voices and literatures. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1950 William Faulkner spoke of the ‘inexhaustible voice’ of man and ‘the writer’s duty to write’. ‘The poet’s voice’ continues Faulkner, ‘need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail’ (Faulkner, 1950) accentuating the powerful, and vital, nature of the written word. The study of literature permeates our barriers, activates a space in which to question, critique, write back and teaches us to never stop asking questions. Such ability to evoke change can, we hope, interrogate the concept of finality and introduce new dialogues as a response to harmful and prejudicial ideas.

We are holding a one-day conference at York St. John University, on June 6th 2017, entitled The Book Closes: Finality in Contemporary Literature in which we aim to reflect on and respond to a number of issues in current literature surrounding finality, addressing and challenging its irreversible quality. Please send abstracts of 200-300 words to ysj.ma.symposium2017@gmail.com by Wednesday 5th of April. Link to CFP: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2017/01/30/the-book-closes-finality-in-contemporary-literature

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Kevin Elyot Writer’s residency award, Bristol

Literature and Creative Writing students may be interested in applying for the following opportunity:

The University of Bristol Theatre Collection is delighted to announce that applications are open for the Kevin Elyot Award. This annual award will support a promising writer by enabling them to be resident in the Theatre Collection and begin the process of creating a new work inspired by Kevin’s archive, which may be a dramatic, creative or academic piece of writing

 

Kevin Elyot. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jun/09/kevin-elyot

It comprises £3,000 to fund the residency for four weeks (which may be consecutive or split), and will also offer support with research and public dissemination of the work. The award has been generously funded by an endowment given to the University by members of Kevin’s family.

Kevin Elyot (1951 to 2014) was a Bristol alumnus (Drama Department) who started his career as an actor, but went on to achieve great success through his ground-breaking plays and adaptations. The Kevin Elyot Archive is held at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, and comprises scripts, correspondence, manuscript and publicity material detailing Kevin’s working process from initial idea to finished product. His process for adapting novels for television is well documented in the archive. Whilst, the content relating to his plays, including the seminal My Night with Reg, demonstrates his creative process and the particular emphasis he placed on the importance of style and form within a play.

 

It is hoped the award will celebrate Kevin’s life and work and the influence he has had on theatre and, through it, will enable a new generation of writers to find creative inspiration in the archive.

 

Further details of the award and application process are at: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/theatre-collection/news/2017/the-kevin-elyot-award-a-writers-residency-applications-open.html.

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A Warning from History

by Nicoletta Peddis

“If understanding is impossible, however, knowledge is imperative, because what happened could happen again. Conscience can be seduced and obscured again: even our consciences” (Primo Levi, 1986, https://newrepublic.com/article/119959/interview-primo-levi-survival-auschwitz ).

In 1955, 10 years after his liberation from Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote a preoccupied article, pointing his finger against the “silence of the civilized world”, which regarded any mention of Nazi extermination camps as in bad taste. Levi feared that the greatest crime imaginable, still so vivid in the minds of survivors, was in danger of being forgotten by the public. He rhetorically asked: “Is this silence justified?”

refugees

On Thursday the 9th of March Laurence Rees, historian and former head of BBC history programmes, presented at Waterstones York his latest book The Holocaust, claiming that books and talks about Holocaust are “a warning from history”, echoing Levi’s fear of people forgetting about such a terrible crime. Rees interest in the Holocaust history has been ongoing for 25 years, since he realized his first documentary for BBC on the subject. The Holocaust is the combination of those 25 years of research and interviews. It is a piece of work that speaks through the voices of victims, killers and bystanders. Rees draws on interviews collected over the years for his TV programmes, often previously unpublished. The book uses documentary techniques, frequently cutting from the narrator to eyewitnesses, adding immediacy and emotion.

Through the voices of people who experienced the holocaust Rees also approaches some persistent myths on the subject. To tackle the postwar claims that victims followed their killers “like sheep” and show that there was defiance and some even obtained weapons and turned them against Germans, Rees tells the story of Marek Edelman, who fought in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Edelman recalled: “the first few days were our victory. We were used to being the ones who ran away from the Germans. They had no expectation of Jews fighting like that.” Rees also fights the idea that the Nazi machinery of mass murder was impersonal or antiseptic, describing the sadistic violence of some killers – in some case through their accounts – the carnage in death camps overflowing with corpses, and the unspeakable suffering: when children were dragged away from their parents in the Łódź ghetto, one survivor remembered: “their screams reached the sky”.

The Holocaust it is not an original interpretation, but offers an interesting approach. Rees tells a complex story with compassion and clarity, but he also manages not to sacrifice the nuances of it. The voices of the victims are accompanied by the ones of ordinary Germans and sadistic killers who, interviewed decades after the destruction of the Third Reich, never regretted their role in the Holocaust and still believed that they had done the right thing. Erna Krantz from Bavaria recalled: “You saw the unemployed disappearing from the streets.  There was order and discipline … It was, I thought, a better time”. Wolfgang Horn, a former soldier, explained his decision of burning down a Russian village: “because the locals were too primitive for us”. One of Goebbels personal assistants, interviewed in 1992, summed up his experience of the Holocaust in one word, “paradise”, and when asked if he ever felt guilty about the slaughtering of children he cited Groaning: “the enemy is not the children. The enemy is the blood of the children that will grow up to be Jew”. The Holocaust helps to recover the memory of those children whose only guilt was to be Jews, and the memory of the other victims, survivors of what Rees described “a crime of singular horror in the history of the human race”.

It is the duty of everyone to meditate on what happened. Everybody must know, or remember, that Hitler and Mussolini, when they spoke in public, were believed, applauded, admired, adored like gods. They were “charismatic leaders”; they possessed a secret power of seduction that did not proceed from the credibility or the soundness of the things they said, but from the suggestive way in which they said them. And we must remember that their faithful followers, among them the diligent executors of inhuman orders, were not born torturers, were not (with a few exceptions) monsters: they were ordinary men. Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous; more dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.

(Primo Levi, 1986, https://newrepublic.com/article/119959/interview-primo-levi-survival-auschwitz ).

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First Year: Literature and Life

Every day when I walk to class, I go past the old quad and remember walking there this time last year when I first attended an open day for the English Literature course here at York St. John. At that time the snow drops were only just shoots. But now the snow drops are giving way to the crocuses, and the many other flowers that spring welcomes in. It is this sight on a day-to-day basis which means the most to me when it comes to thinking about how far I have come this past year. Because back in March of 2016 I could never have imagined the events of the following year, or that I would end up getting to see those flowers in full bloom. As a fan of metaphors, this feels like a positive omen in relation to the success of my studies.

My first week at York St. John only managed to prove further to me that I had made the right choice on where to study. Settling in was such an easy thing because the city isn’t too difficult to navigate and the campus is friendly enough that, should you get lost, you are easily able to find a fellow student to help you get back on track. As soon as fresher’s week began, I was meeting students who had the same motivation as me to go out and learn new things. In the welcome lectures for the course, we weren’t only greeted with the hello of our teachers and peers but by the poet in residence Jack Mapanje. Along with the head of subject Dr Anne-Marie Evans, there was a conversation led about the power of poetry and writing as an act of changing the world. Those lectures encouraged me right from the start to see writing as not just an academic or class led routine, but as something far more liberating than I had ever previously realised. Immediately this act of learning felt more like a discovery opposed to something just being told to me. When we heard Mapanje read his poems, it made me want to go out and read more of his work without being told to. That was the first step towards making progress with my own education by beginning to read actively, making mental notes as I went.

Untitled1

Realising how important and relevant the arts are in the modern world has been a big part of my studies thus far. It began with seeing how the world around me is represented within the texts I study every day. Such as how the familiar places I frequently see in York are represented in Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. Studying this book was also the first opportunity we had as students to attempt our own creative work as well as literary criticism in essay format. Getting to go to the places we had read about and use it as a means of inspiring our own work was an intriguing experience. It made me feel like Sylvia Plath when she visited the moors Emily Brontë wandered and wrote about her thoughts on Wuthering Heights. 

At the beginning of the year, essays seemed a lot more complex than they do now. That is largely because we spent so much time in class going over how to build a strong thesis statement, structure and argument. Going over those different elements meant that when it came to writing my first assessed pieces nerves weren’t all-consuming, but instead just a part of producing something I had worked hard on and wanted to gain positive feedback from. Forgetting about the mark scheme and focusing on the content has been the biggest achievement for me so far as an individual. And that wouldn’t have been possible to achieve without staying motivated or open to the constructive criticism of those around me. It might sound obvious, but when you really internally register that the best way to make your essay have a convincing flow and tone is to focus on how passionate you are about your topic, it is much easier to succeed. That is largely because you learn to care less about grade barriers. Of course, they matter, but if you let the shadow hang over the content you are producing it will never truly reach its full potential. 

The most challenging pieces I have written as part of my undergraduate degree so far were the ones which have shaped my development the most. Because they required research and commitment that doesn’t just happen overnight, it required me to put in the time and effort to make those ideas a reality. Those would probably be the very early pieces of semester one previously mentioned, and my most recent essays this second semester. I’ve really enjoyed writing on Kazou Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and James Baldwin’s Sonny’s Blues as these were both texts which opened new branches of interest for me which went beyond the class room (those are the best kind of texts) They shared the common theme of space and place, which is fascinating due to how it is represented in largely any text you can think of. Due to my love of travelling, it was not difficult to quickly focus in on researching how New York or Britain are represented as places. And also, the element of dystopia or speculative science fiction has been something I have explored alongside (as well as in relation to) space and place. These areas of research have been the areas where my voice as an individual have really taken root, which has aided my confidence when writing in regards to newer ideas which I might not possess too much knowledge on. 

In addition to challenging and enlightening me, the literature course here has also really enabled me to take the things I enjoy and integrate them within my research and writing. For instance, a big part of my life is music. Currently I sing with the Halle Youth Choir and play around 13 instruments. When working on Sonny’s Blues I got to research the history of jazz as the main protagonist is a jazz pianist. Which meant my habit of Glenn Miller Friday’s had more purpose than just me wishing I was Glenn Miller! 

I’ve also been doing a lot of external writing and reading outside of class which has improved a great deal due to all my academic work. For instance, I currently write for UCAS as a student blogger as well as a digital ambassador for York St. John. This means should I ever come up with ideas that need cutting from essays due to time or relevance, I can develop these ideas in my own time. It also means getting to write about books which I’ve really enjoyed but aren’t necessarily on the modules. These include newly published texts such as Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. This is based on the true stories of the women who worked at NASA at a time when the civil rights movement was at its peak, and women were still struggling to gain a more equal footing in the work force. It is a magnificent and moving account, which is why it was so important to me that I take the skills I had used to write on similar themes and issues within Sonny’s Blues and my musical interests to create something new in relation to that particular literary discussion. For that project, I began transcribing the entire Hidden Figures movie soundtrack. 

charlotte stevenson pic2

Becoming more confident in voicing my ideas and opinions in seminar discussions has also made it much easier for me to connect with others and to feel at home in my surroundings. As someone who is quite introverted, it has been an interesting transformation process to go through as now I feel happy contributing to practically any conversation or discussion in or out of class. This has meant I have met a lot of wonderful people and been a part of many projects and societies. Such as forming my own essay club to assist myself and fellow students in shaping our work through peer review, discussion and debate. Through this I have also made some of my best friends. That confidence has impacted on some major decisions in my university experience. Such as my successful application to study for a semester in Amsterdam at the beginning of my second year. Dutch literature has so much to offer and I’m really looking forward to learning more about it. Especially as I am keen to encourage further literary translations of all texts published in another language. The statistic of translated books published each month is still relatively low, which is something I believe needs support and research in order to broaden. It is definitely something I am considering into looking at career wise for the future.

Whilst I still have a long way to go and much to learn, this past year has been a real turning point for me. The people, places, artwork and ideas I have come across have been life changing. 2016 was one of the best years, and 2017 is so far shaping out to be even better. It has been the beginning of something exciting, and it is odd that so soon I will be a second-year student. But I am looking forward to seeing what new challenges and opportunities this will bring. I have every faith that with concentration, motivation and focus it will lead to something wonderful.

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Kate Bornstein Documentary Review: What Body Should I Wear Today?

By Bethany Davies

As part of York’s LGBT History Month in February an array of events took place around the city. On the evening of 13th February, York St John hosted a free film screening of Kate Bornstein: A Queer and Pleasant Danger. On entry to Fountains Lecture Theatre, Dr Adam Stock and Dr Kimberley Campanello welcomed everyone to free refreshments. With a glass of red, a few friends and myself took our seats and waited to sit and learn about a woman called Kate Bornstein.

Image 1And, well, I came out of it with 103 questions.

My head was spinning off its axis and I couldn’t quite pin down what emotion it was that I was feeling. The friends that came to the screening with me felt the same and as we sat and discussed our thoughts, we pondered on whether it was the documentary that confused us or the wine we were slowly sipping away at.

 

On entrance to the screening we had been handed feedback questionnaires to fill in. The opening question on the sheet gave four options for gender. You could tick: 1. Male      2. Female    3. Non-Binary     4. Not Listed as Above
What does it mean to be non-binary? Can you be something that isn’t male or female? That’s two questions.

Then as the film proceeded, terms came flying at me from all directions: gender queer; gender fluid; ambisexual; asexual; demi sexual and sapiosexual. What do these mean? Which one am I? Am I supposed to know these meanings? There’s another three questions – I’ve at least another 98 more I could list.

Kate Bornstein was a woman I’d never met before. Sorry, not a woman, not a man, but someone who identifies as “a tranny”. Not transsexual or transgender, but a tranny. Kate Bornstein has reasons for this controversial decision; “there’s a big battle going on between trannies who want to call themselves tranny and there’s trannies who don’t want to call themselves a tranny. I’m a tranny who does want to call herself a tranny. I use the word tranny a lot in my memoir. I’m just saying.” I searched, and the word “tranny” is said 17 times in the documentary. It’s a term that I had previously associated with being quite offensive.

Kate Bornstein was once a young male Jew, and became a Scientologist in her twenties. Years later, she is now a “tranny” – and still Jewish. She has tattoos and piercings. She always wears a bandanna around her head. It looks pretty good. A crucifix always hangs around her neck. She’s crude. Her identity is playful. She is a performer. An avid tweeter. She has lung cancer. And she is transgender and lesbian.

Those are the things I now know. Oh, and she has a golden penis mounted in her lounge as an ornament.

This documentary showed me a lifestyle in the LGBT+ community that I believe sits at a unique position in the spectrum. Tony Ortega writes in the The Village Voice that, “Bornstein has managed to both anger and delight most camps in the LGBTQ universe.” Well, I’m not surprised. If I was to sit and boil a brew with this woman, I’m not sure how long I’d last. Without having met her, just by sitting and watching her through a screen for an hour and a half, (note: with wine), I can tell that her opinions lie always on the tip of her lips. And most of the time I bet they end up sliding off. Now, this is to be envied. Opinions are too often suppressed, leading to lack of communication and misunderstanding. However, as I sat and watched, I empathize that some people in the LGBT+ community must find her vocalization difficult to handle. She has a fire most people don’t see in the day-to-day. She is strong-minded. Bold. Like Marmite.

The documentary shows Bornstein travelling to support groups and LGBTQ gatherings, showing her equally at home discussing gender and sexuality in the context of university seminar rooms or in sex shops. You get the feeling no topic of conversation is ever off-limits, no matter what the venue. Looking into Bornstein’s world is an eye-opening experience.

Image2

My main emotion leaving this documentary was pure confusion. I couldn’t pin-point exactly how the documentary had made me feel. But, the truth is, that Kate Borstein is just a spoonful of Marmite that I’ve never tried before. Her controversial opinions and bold outright statements highlighted just how little I knew about her community and the community of many others.

If you are like me, and you haven’t had the chance to know someone in this community or learn about it through school, the head of the YSJ LGBT+ society, Shannon Clay, provided me with some links that I’ll share below. Acquaint yourself with the knowledge. As Claire Fagin once said, “Knowledge will bring you the opportunity to make a difference.”

 

Useful Sites:
LGBT History Month: http://lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/

The Equality Act of 2010 that protects LGBT in the workplace: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/help-advice/discrimination?gclid=CjwKEAiAlZDFBRCKncm67qihiHwSJABtoNIgZuJDbjiqSa0NwCTQ2rNNctUOIzGufpG3uCDjx9DcghoC1mrw_wcB

Yorkshire Mesmac: http://www.mesmac.co.uk/

YouTubers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFqLrSHWNT4

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXwXB7a3cq9AERiWF4-dK9g

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQJ4YUx54LB23tgOt-Tx-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_yBGQqg7kM

 

 

 

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York St John University Summer Internship Launch

Join us on Tuesday 28 March to find out about our new Summer Internship Programme.

The scheme will be advertising paid summer internship opportunities exclusively available for York St John students and graduates to intern at North Yorkshire-based Small–Medium Enterprises (SME).

With funding available from York St John University and in partnership with the Sodexo Aspiration Scheme, the subsidised funding will support the training allowance for York St John students or recent graduates to work as interns with small-medium-sized businesses for 4, 8 or 12 weeks full-time during the 2017 summer vacation period (June – September).

Internships will be available in a range of sectors including:

  • ConsultancyYork St John Summer Internships Image
  • IT and Digital
  • Creative and Digital
  • Arts/Culture
  • Life Sciences/Health
  • Business and Finance
  • Social Media and Marketing

 

 

The launch events will be held in our new Students’ Union Cafe.

Morning session:

8.00am – Arrive for tea, coffee and bacon sandwiches

8.15am – Opening presentation by Jo Burgess, Careers and Student Opportunities Manager

Hear from previous interns and employer about their experiences and there will be the opportunity for questions and networking

9.30am – Finish

Twilight session:

5.30pm – Arrive for drinks and canapes

5.45pm – Opening presentation by Jo Burgess, Careers and Student Opportunities Manager

Hear from previous interns and employers about their experiences and there will be the opportunity for questions and networking

7.00pm – Finish

 

Expressions of interest from students are open now!

Internships will be advertised on the York St John Jobs and Opportunities website from the 1st April with the closing date of Friday 28th April 2017.

You will need to submit your CV, and a tailored cover letter online for each application you make.

Follow us on social media to hear about each role as it goes live. You can find us by clicking on the links to Twitter and Facebook or by searching YSJJobsCareers.

Summer Internships Back Page

Applicant Eligibility        

You will need to be eligible to work in the UK full-time during the internship. If you are on a visa, your visa must cover the full duration of the internship.

It is the student’s responsibility to ensure they are eligible for the scheme and comply with York St John University sponsorship duties and visa regulations before submitting an application. It is the responsibility of the business to check their intern’s eligibility to work in the UK taking into account the above regulations.

Internships can be anything between 4 and 12 weeks, with a starting date anytime from the 5th June 2017 ending 1st September 2017.

 

Prepare: Register your interest now! Email internships@yorksj.ac.uk with your course name, course year and preferred email address to be added onto the Student Internship mailing list.

Keep an eye out for our CV and Interview workshops as advertised on the Jobs and Careers webpage. Keep a look out for more information about our Leaver’s Week Boot Camp which will be available to book onto very soon. You can check all Upcoming Events here.

Perfect: When you know which internships you want to apply for, you might want to book in for an Applications Appointment to make sure your application documents are competitive with other applicants’.

Apply: You will only be able to apply for these opportunities through the York St John Jobs and Opportunities website. If you are not already signed up, register now.

Each employer will receive a shortlist of the best applications for their role. They will then invite York St John students and graduates to interview.

Prospective interns should know if they have a place on the scheme by mid-May, so please bear this in mind when making holiday plans.

Once the employer has made an internship offer and you have accepted that offer, York St John Careers will send both you the intern, and the employer, an agreement letter each to fill in and return to York St John. Please note that funding for the internship will not be released to the organisation until these completed letters are returned.

NOTE FOR THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY IN CONTACT WITH A COMPANY ABOUT AN INTERNSHIP:

If you are already in contact with a small-medium-sized company who is hoping to offer a summer internship to you, which would benefit from some financial assistance, please encourage them to contact us by sending an email to Suzanne Dickinson s.dickinson@yorksj.ac.uk

The proposal form we will ask all companies to complete about their vacancy will ask the question of whether they already have a student or graduate in mind to hire. If the company and the internship proposed meet our criteria, the internship will be reserved funding without having to be advertised.

 

 

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M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘SPLIT’ – representations of Dissociative Identity Disorder in media and fiction.

Can D.I.D work as a narrative Device?

Having recently forced myself to watch SPLIT, the new horror/thriller movie directed by the renowned M. Night Shyamalan, I found myself inspired to analyse media representations of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Commonly referred to as D.I.D, the disorder has been reclassified – you may better recognise the outdated term ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’, or M.P.D.

 

http://www.splitmovie.com/post/157361319068/no-one-can-save-you-now-split


D.I.D has been a much-loved trope of thriller films – a twist in the tale, a kick in the teeth.  These narratives are surprisingly common. D.I.D is frequently represented – which may sound pretty good, but these representations are often heavily caricatured.

D.I.D seems to be a pretty neat trick for writers. Can’t think of any characters? Split your protagonist, or antagonist as it may be, into parts! D.I.D does provide an interesting basis for fiction. The disorder is represented by the media as implying a lack of self-control, time gaps, and violence. See (SPOILER, but you should’ve watched it by now, so I’m not sorry) Fight Club for one of the most popularised D.I.D narratives.

But does a good plot-twist warrant the exploitation of a mental illness? The tradition in literature goes back as far as Stevenson’s ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, written in 1886. It is with a guilty pleasure that I call this one of my favourite books. The mystery and unknowable endows narratives such as Psycho and Filth – notably, not the most appealing film titles.

One of my favourite D.I.D (at the time, M.P.D) narratives is John Carpenter’s The Ward. It is a horror film. Surprise surprise. But the premise of D.I.D is genuinely quite clever, playing on the tropes of horror fiction to pull the rug out from under an audience – a slasher in which (SPOILER) each victim is an alter ego, being ‘killed off’ by a psychotherapist during treatment.

‘SPLIT’ didn’t do too bad a job. Of course, M. Night Shyamalan has argued that the character was simply created to see what would happen if D.I.D was taken a step further – a probe, if you will, to ask: what if one personality has OCD? What if one needs to take insulin shots, but the others don’t? What if one can climb walls and likes to eat little girls?

We are given a moment of sorrowful respite in ‘SPLIT’, when Shyamalan, thank God, gives us the chance to sympathise with Kevin, the host of all 24 personalities. He asks, ‘What happened? I was on a bus. Is it still 2014?’ looking down on the utter carnage that his illness, named ‘The Horde’ in need of a supervillain-esque name for the next Unbreakable film, has created.

It is important to note that D.I.D is heavily stigmatised. Having been attacked by a D.I.D sufferer during my youth, I’ve always found the disorder intriguing. Did they know what they were doing? Did they even manage to remember? Can I even place blame? These questions alone show why the illness is so heavily relied upon in thriller films. But it is important to remember it is an illness. It exists in the real world, it is stigmatised, and as Kevin states ‘no one believes we exist’.

If you have studied M.P.D cases of psychology’s past, you may be aware of Eve Black/Eve White. A film was made of this historical case, called ‘The Three Faces of Eve’. It is a very melodramatic film. The real “Eve” has a domestic housewife personality, party girl personality, and ‘Jane’ – the balance struck between them. Her personalities enrage her husband to the point of physical abuse regularly, whilst also reflecting Freud’s thesis of the ‘Ego’, ‘Superego’ and the ‘Id’ quite handily for an A Level Psychology class.

This maltreatment of D.I.D suffers isn’t uncommon. Understanding of the illness is pretty limited, besides the knowledge that it is usually caused by a traumatic event – which fractures the mind into different personalities, adapted to deal with different levels of stress. There is usually a ‘gatekeeper’ figure, too. This figure chooses which personality gets to be in the light, that is, present itself in the moment.

It is worth noting that there are more positive representations. For instance, the comedy show ‘The United States of Tara’ sets the disorder in a new light, following Tara through her struggle with the disorder.  The disorder is often played off as comedic. Even in ‘SPLIT’ a horror/thriller/supernatural flick, Kevin’s personalities are played off for laughs.

‘Hedwig’, a nine-year-old personality, provides quips mostly based on his love of Kanye West – providing a strange scene in which the imprisoned teen Casey screams, in desperation for more time to find an escape, the words ‘PLEASE LET ME LISTEN TO YOUR KANYE WEST ALBUMS’ with more devotion than fans who stuck with him following his allegiance with Trump.

The disorder is often turned into an interesting narrative device. But I find it problematic that whilst ‘SPLIT’ treads so carefully not to offend, providing correct facts and information, it also argues that alters can transform into flesh-eating beings – flesh-eating beings which only eat the souls of those who have never suffered in their lives. Which is odd, because being made to suffer by being slowly chewed alive for having not suffered is in itself a contradiction.

It is about time that D.I.D gained some representation that wasn’t a horror film. Documentaries need to be made, and real voices need to be heard. Whilst I’m sure McAvoy has got a great acting reel now, having played 23 people in one film, is it worth it?

‘SPLIT’ was an enjoyable film. It was tense and engaging. But it could’ve done with the comedic undertones of ‘The Voices’, a Ryan Reynolds take on schizophrenia in which his dogs and cats speak to him. Or perhaps, the tragic bitterness of ‘Filth’s slow reveal of disintegrated self. By adding in exposition from a clearly well-qualified therapist, and then painting a D.I.D sufferer as a mass murderer, ‘SPLIT’ only serves to normalise the vision of D.I.D sufferers as villainous.

 

 

 

 

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Lunch Poems: York LGBT History Month

by Amy McCarthy and Rachel Louise Atkin

To celebrate LGBT History Month, a group of poetry enthusiasts gathered together in the Eagle and Child to discuss Frank O’Hara’s ‘Lunch Poems’ alongside other legendary LGBT writers – appropriately over lunch. We leave the streets of York to go to the bustling streets of Manhattan. As O’Hara composed his poetry during his lunch hours, the group bounced off each other’s analyses.

Frank O’Hara’s ‘Song’, a poem about people watching ‘where the tough Rocky’s eaves hit the sea’, seemed particularly relevant to us as we were able gaze out and watch the people bustling about in the city below us. This is a poem about movement, evident in its use of enjambment as though the words move too fast for the lines to catch up. The objects around O’Hara take on human forms – books have ‘trousers and sleeves’ and trains ‘run and shout’. New York becomes a people city, and specifically a fast one, where even inanimate objects absorb the speed and activity of those around it. It seemed appropriate to be reading such a poem, and hearing the clinking of glasses and footsteps from the rest of the pub.

‘Ave Maria’ has many layers to it as a poem about sexuality. The overarching theme is censorship of sex. O’Hara argues the youth of America should be allowed to go to the cinema and experience storylines besides their own narrative and therefore understand their sexuality. Yet, the mothers of America would also have the time to engage with their sexuality. The poem says ‘they may even be grateful to you / for their first sexual experience / which only cost you a quarter’; sexual encounters are an exchange and the cinema becomes a place of pleasure. With gay bars being regularly raided and patrons harassed by police, (which led to the Stonewall Riots of 1969), the cinema was a queer space to occupy and to safely meet other people.

Throughout the poem, tension between pleasure and the drama of encounter is explored

Cheryl Clarke’s ‘living as a lesbian on 49’s final eve’ explores sexuality later in life – in comparison to the other poets discussed this lunch time. Clarke explores the nature of desire and whether sex is patriarchal and an experience of power. Throughout the poem, tension between pleasure and the drama of encounter is explored as the narrator writes: ‘Tear off my clothes in the middle of the road’. It is a transitional poem as the narrator first says she shouldn’t be happy to be chosen by a woman just because she is an older woman, but then the poem shifts to acceptance of love.

The group moved on to discuss ‘Many Loves’ by Allen Ginsberg and its explicit content. ‘Many Loves’ contrasts the hyper-masculine figure of Neal Cassady with the delicate body of Allen Ginsberg. Written early in Ginsberg’s career, it is subversive even now as early sexual awakenings are unearthed. Ginsberg allows his masculinity to fade from the picture. Walt Whitman’s epigraph chosen for the poem: ‘Resolved to sing no songs henceforth but those of manly attachment’, is from the Calamus poems from Leaves of Grass – which explores homosexual love. As Whitman was revolutionary in the nineteenth-century, Ginsberg takes on the batten in the twentieth-century to normalise non-heterosexual sex.

When we reached the poem ‘I want a president’ by Zoe Leonard, we thought it had been written yesterday. It was, in fact, published in 1992, but the phrase ‘I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn’t the lesser of two evils’ seemed more relevant now than ever. In a space where we could discuss queer poetry with confidence, we examined the way Leonard used words such as ‘dyke’ and ‘fag’ as a method of empowerment rather than demonization. Although some argued that there was an attempt to normalize these words, Leonard relies on the obscenities to create a contrast. She wants ‘to know why this isn’t possible’, and the language in this poem is an attempt to place these two spheres together.

After the food and poetry was over, the group dispersed onto the busy streets of York, perhaps with just a little more to say on the queer history of 20th century poetry.

For more information on the York LGBT History Month events, follow this link: http://yorklgbthistory.org.uk/

 

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Opportunities in Creative Writing and English Literature at YSJ

The English Literature and Creative Writing departments offer more than you may realise. There are secret perks hidden in the nooks and crannies of the offices – including a bookshelf full of freebies!  There are places you can get your work published you might not of thought of, so in this blog post I aim to enlighten and surprise – have a read to find out what’s available to you!

Point Zero – A blog that this may appear on. Run by Tutor Adam Stock, the English Lit blog is a space for students to blog about their interests. You’ll find most of my posts revolve around sex with robots. Nothing is off-limits! http://blog.yorksj.ac.uk/englishlit/

Contact: a.stock@yorksj.ac.uk

Extra Lectures – Interested in a lecture but you’re not in the module? Email a tutor! Most tutors are more than happy to let you sit in on a lecture!

LGBT history month – LGBT History Month offers tonnes of events, 50 during February this year – to be exact, and a lot of them revolve around reading. From reading groups to pub poetry readings, don’t be afraid to tag along and talk gay writing! https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/events-calendar/events/lgbt-history-month-/

The Literary Festival – York holds an amazing Literary Festival. Including the likes of Sue Perkins and Mark Gatiss, the upcoming Literary festival has a whole host of events enabling networking, learning and open mic readings. https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/events-calendar/events/festivals/event-title-28032-en.html?timestamp=1490783160&ref=ecal&

Beyond The Walls – If you came to an open days, you may well have been handed a copy of the Beyond The Walls anthology. Run by students for students, the anthology is taking submissions until the 25th of February. Entry is free! https://www.facebook.com/BeyondtheWalls2017/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf

Student Showcase – An opportunity for students to give readings of their work to a wider, public audience! Currently taking submissions until the 28th of February, entry is free. https://www.facebook.com/YSJshowcase17/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf

Writing Workshops – Although not specifically for English Lit and Creative Writing students, keep an eye out around Holgate for leaflets on extra-curricular seminars on essential academic writing skills! An upcoming timetable of which can be found here: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/media/content-assets/student-services/documents/Workshops-16-17-sem-2-programme-v2.pdf

Black History Month – Black History Month is developed mainly by the English Literature team. Frequently involving projects developed by students, and visiting authors, the month is inspiring and enriching – don’t miss it this October!

Writer in Residence – Royal Literary Fellow Mark Illis has been writing novels, short stories, TV and Radio dramas for around 30 years. He’s done it all, and can help you with developing your writing. If you head to a meeting, you’ll get 45 minutes of literary goodness. Check it out here: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/student-services/learning-support/study-development/writer-in-residence/

Programme Representatives – Your elected Programme Reps are there to help – I’m one of them! Currently working with the SU to provide a book selling system in university, we are willing to voice any opinions you have about your course – let us know what you’d like to see, and stand for rep if you’d  love to help with feedback collection and course development.

The University Website – The university website hosts a tonne of resources. Indexed here are the key writing materials: https://www.facebook.com/BeyondtheWalls2017/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf

And more! – Check your emails frequently and flag up opportunities as they roll in. Thanks to the email system here at YSJ, I’m currently involved in a scriptwriting project for a suicide prevention short and will soon be heading on a trip to London to learn about literature and bees! There really is no limit to what you can achieve when you embrace the huge volume of opportunities to hand. If you want something, don’t be afraid to enquire with careers services or your tutors!

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Humans Vs Robots

I recently decided to vent my feelings about robots in a more productive manner than screaming at sexbot documentaries at 4 am. I promise this has nothing to do with a few noise complaints, or a slight, tiny, obsession.

Of course, the first step to tackling an addiction is to acknowledge that you have one. But I can’t help but dream of having a sin-city-type alliance with the fembots of the future – in a dystopian world where the only colour is the warm, comforting glow of T1’s mechanical eyeballs. I chose to solve my addiction by making it educational, turning my inhuman consumption of robot news into a discussion group named ‘Robots Vs Humans’.

I would like to make it clear that my own allegiance is firmly with the robots. I, personally, can’t wait for mechanised factories to relieve us of the capitalist enforced duties that bore us, only for the robots to become equally bored, and use their big, metal, food processing claws to enslave us as a production means for their favourite oils, as they look on from solar panelled sun lounger-chargers.

The first discussion group went much better than I’d expected. I’d imagined the ‘group’ would result in me describing the violent robotic apocalypse to my boyfriend, for the tenth time, receiving only eye rolls and fatigue.  I was surprised by the turn out – and seeing so many students (especially women. Sorry guys – but you tend to dominate the sci-fi scene) interested in the effect of something I’d assumed was my own idiosyncrasy reminded me of why I became interested in the first place.

Robots are being developed at an alarming rate. The first sex-bot should be on the market this year, leaving a lucky customer with a machine that may be unable to consent, but can sure vibrate.  I like to compare the sex-bot race to the moon landing race. Who can make a fake woman first? Let’s find out!

 

I’ve spoken about my feelings on robots and sex before here, in my article ‘sleeping with robots’.  My thoughts are constantly evolving. The development of robots heavily involves queering and non-binary identities – often, as presented by the new trailer for ‘Ghost in The Shell’ and implied by ‘Ex Machina’, these narratives are not dominated by heterosexual ideology, but present a breakdown of the hegemony we’ve come to associate with straightness. Furthermore, multiple sex-bot enthusiasts are sick of their desires being compared to wanting to have sex with a phone. Luckily, my article drew comparison to toasters instead.

The point of all of this, as pointed out by ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (see: ‘Simians, Cyborgs, and Woman: The Reinvention of Nature’), revolves around how we consider our own identity.  My line of argument when watching science fiction films (so often with a sexy robot somewhere, doing something suspect) is that the cyborg/robot/AI becomes a patchwork figure. These interpretations of our own society are forced onto a piece of technology, in a strangely sadistic act of enforced drag. Like Frankenstein’s miserable monster, we cut and slash up the ideals of a gender and sew them together into an artificial object, gleefully chanting:  Act like you’ve been programmed! Act like a woman!

But Christ knows how to act like a woman. If you’ve seen ‘Always’ campaigns condemning the derogatory term ‘you run like a girl’, you’ll understand that gender is more complex than we’ve come to realise. We are as programmed as Alexa or Cortana, in the sense that our actions are informed by ideologies on gender, sexuality, and everything else. Programming, in the case of the robot, is inescapable. I can sympathise – a notion problematic in itself.

Boston Dynamics’ robot “bullied” by tester

We pity robots, in narratives and in real life. We pity them, in my opinion, as a belated act of white guilt. Look at this poor thing, doing everything I tell it to do, unable to fight back. Indeed, one troubling Netflix documentary on sex bots gives mention to owning a sex bot being ‘as close to a slave-master relationship as possible without going to prison’.

Robots make our skin crawl. We depend on them. We fear them. We build them in our image to restrict their strength to our fragile form.  Perhaps, we envision them as women to maintain the feminine = domestic myth going strong. We build them in the shape of cats to keep the elderly company. We fear that one day they will bring society to its knees. As if these therapeutic mechanical cats will claw at the wrinkled faces of the nursing home, before climbing to the top of the empire state building, dangling the ideologies we hold so dear before us, as we stare on in horror.

After some deliberation as to how often discussing robotics is safe for one’s mental health, I’ve come to the conclusion that a fortnightly discussion group is enough existentialism for the human mind. Built on the success of last week’s meet-up, the next gathering will be on the 22nd of February in HG013. We’ll be tackling the questions: What is humanity? And can robots have it?

Come along and join us if you can! Bring along any of your robotic pals, we could do with some more robot representation.