English Literature students from York St John University were visited this week by journalist Anna Doble, the author of Connection is a Song Coming Up and Coming Out Through the Music of the 90s and presenter of the BBC World Service radio show, Pick of the World.
The visit, which coincided with YSJU’s LGBTQ+ History month celebrations, took place as part of the third-year module Research Now 2, which centres on the ongoing research of Senior Lecturer Dr Fraser Mann and YSJU’s Music, Memory and Narrative Research Group.
During the visit, students had the opportunity to talk to Doble about her memoir, Connection is a Song, and ask her opinion on the themes that underpin the module and Dr Mann’s research, such as the contemporary cultural phenomenon of the music memoir and the way that music is used to construct memory.
These are questions which have also driven Dr Mann’s collaborative work on such books as Music, Memory and Memoir (2019) and Venue Stories (2024). Students at the event strongly felt that through their learning and teaching they had found themselves at the centre of new and ongoing research.
Doble will also be returning to York in a few weeks to discuss Connection is a Song at the York Literature Festival, where she will be interviewed by Dr Mann. This event, which is open to the public, will be taking place on 24 March.