Creative, Critical, Editing: A Virtual Symposium | 22 – 30 April 2021
Creative critical approaches are having a growing impact on how we do research in the humanities – from practice-based work in art, drama and performance, to creative writing, visible and interventionist modes of translation and annotation, autoethnography and experimental ways of curating archival resources. At the same time, the digital humanities are offering new avenues for disseminating creative critical work – enabling a mixture of textual, audible and visual formats, interactive elements, audience participation and a more international scope. But the rise of the digital has also taught us to appreciate the materiality of the book in new ways even as Zoom reminds us of the joys of personal interactions.
We propose to make connections between these various developments through the concept of ‘editing’ – a practice that can take many forms: an edited collection of essays, a scholarly edition of canonical texts (from the Bible to contemporary poetry), an artistic practice (artist’s books, exhibitions), an advertising gimmick (a special edition of scented candles), a form of censorship (redacting out sensitive material). We are hoping to bring together scholars and critics, archivists and librarians, artists and creative practitioners, textual and digital editors and other thinkers – within and beyond the academy – in a virtual symposium that will explore the work of editing in its various facets.
We will start off with a virtual roundtable on 22 April 2021, 17:00-18:30, featuring:
Ruth Abbott – Caroline Bassett – Deborah Bowman – Susan Greenberg
Tim Mathews – Wim van Mierlo – Marta Werner – John Schad
This will be followed by interactive workshops – on Friday 23 April, Thursday 29 April and Friday 30 April – where we can put some of our ideas into practice. We will use Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem The Mask of Anarchy as a base-text, but you are welcome to bring in your own materials. We hope to create an environment in which you can share your own work, try out editing in new forms, and generate ideas for future projects and collaborations.
If you would like to take part in the workshops, please submit a statement of approx. 150 words outlining your current research/practice and what you hope to gain from participating in the Symposium. We do not expect you to have any prior experience of editing or creative critical practice – all we request is curiosity and a willingness to experiment. If there are more applicants than places, priority will be given to students and early-career scholars and practitioners whose work has the potential to benefit the most from attending a workshop.
Please submit your expression of interest to IESEvents@sas.ac.uk by 14 March 2021; make sure to include the event title in the subject.
If you have any questions, please contact Mathelinda Nabugodi on mn539@cam.ac.uk.
Organizers
Christopher Ohge, Lecturer in Digital Approaches to Literature, Institute of English Studies
Mathelinda Nabugodi, Leverhulme Trust/Isaac Newton Trust Early Career Fellow, Newnham College, University of Cambridge