Prof. Susan Sellers ‘Writing Vanessa and Virginia’ 19th Jan

You are warmly invited to come along to the launch of ‘Women and the Arts’ the journal of The Arts Society, Newnham College:

Click here to download the POSTER (pdf)

Professor Susan Sellers, guest speaker from the University of St Andrews, will mark the launch of the journal with a talk, ‘Writing Vanessa and Virginia’ in which she discusses the inspiration behind her novel about sisters Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and the problems involved in fictionalising real people. Professor Sellers also considers whether Woolf was right when she argued that only poets and novelists could be trusted to tell the truth.

And this just in: We will have a few copies of Vanessa and Virginia on sale at the event and Susan has very kindly agreed to sign copies for people – v good of her – thank you, Susan.

‘Women and the Arts’ is a journal inspired by the 80th anniversary of ‘Women and Fiction’, the lecture given by Virginia Woolf to The Arts Society in 1928 and the basis for the 1929 publication, A Room Of One’s Own.

This interdisciplinary and collaborative project features articles and artwork from students, academics and arts practitioners, including Helaine Blumenfeld, Uta Frith, Daina Taimina and Rosemary Anne Sisson. From sculpture to mathematics, ballet to autism, cinema to crochet, considerations of ‘women and the arts’ since Woolf are threaded together in this beautiful collection.

A wine reception with refreshments will (of course) follow the talk.

Copies of the journal will be available for £2 (£1 students and unwaged)

Contents Page from 'Women and the Arts'

If you would like to order a copy of the journal, but cannot make it to the launch, please email info.womenandthearts@googlemail.com Pretty soon we should have an order form and paypal option up here but for now, just email us.

It promises to be a really fantastic evening and we’re very excited about it – I hope as many of you as possible can join us and help us welcome our speaker and celebrate the launch of this special journal.

Prof. Gill Plain: The Wrong Stuff? – Technology and the Reconstruction of the Hero in the Aftermath of the Second World War

 

When: November 26th – 7pm

Where: Newnham College MCR

Wine will be served!

The Arts Society, Newnham College is delighted to announce its next speaker: Prof. Gill Plain, director of the MLitt in Women, Writing and Gender at the University of St Andrew’s. Gill has research interests in crime fiction and popular British Cinema. Her work emerges from an interest in gender and sexuality, and includes Twentieth-Century Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body (Edinburgh University Press, 2001), Ian Rankin’s Black and Blue: A Reader’s Guide (Continuum, 2002) and John Mills and British Cinema: Masculinity, Identity and Nation (Edinburgh University Press, 2006).

A note on the talk:

British cinema of the post-war period abounds with images of the demobbed soldier, a figure frequently depicted as distressed, disorientated and displaced, alienated from the changed world in which he finds himself. The constructions of wartime masculinity could not easily be adapted to the conditions of peace, and cinema was one of the cultural spaces that functioned as a testing ground for ‘modern’ reworkings of gender paradigms. Technology, in both civil and military contexts, was integral to the narrativization of this process, as film makers sought stories that would facilitate man-making out with the parameters of war. This talk will examine a number of these narratives, focusing in particular on David Lean’s ‘The Sound Barrier’ (1952) – a film which not only struggles with the reconstruction of the hero, but also, resoundingly, puts women back in their place.

Please feel free to circulate this notice to anybody you feel might be interested….hope to see lots of you there!

The Arts Society at Newnham’s Societies Fayre

Thank you to all of you who have expressed an interest in getting involved and to all the people who have joined the mailing list. Here’s to another year of exciting events We’ll be in touch shortly!

Jenn Ashworth – June 11

Don't miss Jenn Ashworth...

‘Writing, A Kind of Intimacy’ JENN ASHWORTH returns to Newnham…

When: June 11th – 7pm

Where: Newnham College MCR room

We are very excited to announce that our second speaker will be novelist and former Newnhamite, Jenn Ashworth. Jenn has very kindly agreed to come and speak to us about her writing and will be reading from her brilliant novel ‘A Kind of Intimacy’.

Wine will be served!

‘A Kind of Intimacy’ – buy it here!

Annie moves into her new home bringing little else but her cat and a collection of cow-shaped milk jugs. She’s hoping for a clean slate, but there’s something familiar about her next door neighbour – she’s convinced she’s seen him somewhere before. Undeterred by her target’s hostile girlfriend, she searches for guidance, obsessively studying self-help literature and romance novels. Though Annie struggles to repress a murky history of violence, secrets and sexual mishaps her past is never too far behind her, finally shattering her denial in a compelling and bloody climax.

“An intense and intriguing novel that never quite lets the reader get comfortable. It understands about the fuzzy boundary between the normal and the strange, and weaves them together in a gripping, ever-darkening narrative” Jenny Diski

Journal Submissions – Extended Deadline…

New Deadline: 1st September, 2009

We have had lots of emails from people who would like to submit work for inclusion in our journal but are concerned that the date for submissions is fast approaching.

We have decided to give everybody a little more time so please make a note of the new submissions deadline. We have had some great submissions so far, and lots of people contacting us with ideas for submissions – keep them coming!

Just a reminder of our email addresses:

submissions.womenandthearts@googlemail.com

or for more information:

info.womenandthearts@googlemail.com

Thank you from The Arts Society…

The Arts Society, Newnham College would like to extend a big thank you to everyone who came to hear Helaine Blumenfeld speak at its launch on Tuesday. We couldn’t have wished for a more successful launch or a more fascinating and appropriate speaker for the invigoration of the society. Of course, the biggest thanks must go to Helaine herself for agreeing to be our first speaker and for treating us to such fascinating insights into her work and thoughts about creativity.

If you missed this event, or would like to hear more about future events, watch this space for details about how to join our mailing list…

Helaine Blumenfeld at Newnham…

All welcome...

HELAINE BLUMENFELD SPEAKING AT NEWNHAM…

When: 10th March 7.30pm

Where: Newnham College, MCR room

From her first major show in 1966, Helaine Blumenfeld captured the attention and respect of international critics and collectors alike. Her sculpture has been exhibited both solo and with renowned sculptors like Henry Moore and Brancusi. One of the boldest and most diverse artists working today, she has continually experimented with form producing an extensive body of work which combines a respect for tradition and sculptural values with the breathtaking vitality of the twentieth century.

Eighty years since Virginia Woolf addressed the Arts Society on the topic of ‘Women and Fiction’, the talk that became the basis of A Room of One’s Own, The Arts Society, Newnham College warmly invites you to come along and hear our first speaker in a series of events celebrating ‘Women and the Arts’. Helaine will be talking about ‘madness’ and about finding and escaping the self in relation to creative processes.

Wine will be served. All welcome!

For more information please leave a comment or email the Arts Society secretary, Natalie Fullwood: nlf23@cam.ac.uk

Click here to visit Helaine Blumenfeld’s website.

Email address for journal submissions

Please send your fantastic submissions to submissions.womenandthearts@googlemail.com

We welcome your poetry, photographs, opinion pieces and reviews in addition to academic contributions – so get writing and spread the word!