M Wynn Thomas Prize – DEADLINE EXTENDED

Wynn Thomas Prize 2016

The M. Wynn Thomas Prize is offered to celebrate outstanding scholarly work in the field of Welsh writing in English. There are two prize categories: the ‘Open’ category and the ‘New Scholars’ category. Essays submitted may be unpublished or published, in English or in Welsh. Published essays should be from 2015/16. Topics may include all aspects of Welsh writing in English as well as the inter-relationship of Welsh writing in English with cognate areas (Welsh Studies, history, cultural studies, film/media studies, translation studies, performance/theatre studies, digital humanities, comparative literature etc.). The judging panel for the 2016 Prize will be Dr Heather Williams (University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth), Dr Emma Schofield (Cardiff University) and Dr Alyce von Rothkirch (Swansea University).

The prize is awarded for a piece of substantial scholarship that is engagingly written. We encourage submissions that are ground-breaking in terms of subject-matter and/or methodology/disciplinarity. Essays that grapple with new ideas in an intelligent and conceptualised way are preferred. The prize will be awarded at the annual conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English, 1-3 April 2016, Gregynog Hall, nr. Newtown, Powys.

 

Prize categories:

‘Open’ Category

Essays in this category will be ca. 6,000-8,000 words long, of the highest scholarly quality and either already published in, or of a standard appropriate to an international, peer-reviewed journal. Authors may be academics or scholars, who are not affiliated with an HE institution.

Prize: £150 and a full set of the Library of Wales series of books published by Parthian.

 ‘New Scholars’ Category

Essays in this category will be ca. 4,000-7,000 words long and of highly developed scholarly quality appropriate to the author’s level of (postgraduate) study. Authors may be postgraduate students or students who have recently graduated.

 

Prize: £150 and a full set of the Library of Wales series of books published by Parthian.

 

 

How to take part:

Please submit your own published or unpublished work, or please nominate the work of someone else, which you feel meets the criteria and ought to be recognised. This can also be published or unpublished work – why don’t you nominate that great article you’ve read in the course of your research?

Deadline extended:

Essays must be submitted by email or by post by 15 January 2016.

 

Contact Alyce von Rothkirch for more information, to submit your work or to nominate someone else’s work:

Dr Alyce von Rothkirch

DACE, Swansea University

Singleton Park

Swansea SA2 8PP

mwynnthomasprize@gmail.com

M Wynn Thomas Prize 2016

The cfp for the M Wynn Thomas Prize 2016 for outstanding work in the field of Welsh Writing in English is out…

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Wynn Thomas Prize 2016

The M. Wynn Thomas Prize is offered to celebrate outstanding scholarly work in the field of Welsh writing in English. There are two prize categories: the ‘Open’ category and the ‘New Scholars’ category. Essays submitted may be unpublished or published, in English or in Welsh. Published essays should be from 2015/16. Topics may include all aspects of Welsh writing in English as well as the inter-relationship of Welsh writing in English with cognate areas (Welsh Studies, history, cultural studies, film/media studies, translation studies, performance/theatre studies, digital humanities, comparative literature etc.). The judging panel for the 2016 Prize will be Dr Heather Williams (University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth), Dr Emma Schofield (Cardiff University) and Dr Alyce von Rothkirch (Swansea University).

The prize is awarded for a piece of substantial scholarship that is engagingly written. We encourage submissions that are ground-breaking in terms of subject-matter and/or methodology/disciplinarity. Essays that grapple with new ideas in an intelligent and conceptualised way are preferred. The prize will be awarded at the annual conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English, 1-3 April 2016, Gregynog Hall, nr. Newtown, Powys.

Prize categories:

‘Open’ Category

Essays in this category will be ca. 6,000-8,000 words long, of the highest scholarly quality and either already published in, or of a standard appropriate to an international, peer-reviewed journal. Authors may be academics or scholars, who are not affiliated with an HE institution.

Prize: £150 and a full set of the Library of Wales series of books published by Parthian.

‘New Scholars’ Category

Essays in this category will be ca. 4,000-7,000 words long and of highly developed scholarly quality appropriate to the author’s level of (postgraduate) study. Authors may be postgraduate students or students who have recently graduated.

Prize: £150 and a full set of the Library of Wales series of books published by Parthian.

How to take part:

Please submit your own published or unpublished work, or please nominate the work of someone else, which you feel meets the criteria and ought to be recognised. This can also be published or unpublished work – why don’t you nominate that great article you’ve read in the course of your research?

Deadline:

Essays must be submitted by email or by post by 30 November 2015.

 

Contact Alyce von Rothkirch for more information, to submit your work or to nominate someone else’s work:

Dr Alyce von Rothkirch
DACE, Swansea University
Singleton Park
Swansea SA2 8PP

mwynnthomasprize@gmail.com

AWWE16

The cfp for the annual conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English is out – and very exciting it sounds, too. This is going to be a fantastic conference.

Call for Papers

Wales and the World:
Re-Framing the Literature of Wales in an International Context
Friday 1st April – Sunday 3rd April 2016
Gregynog Hall, Newtown

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The Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English

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Call for Papers

Wales has a distinctive national culture. The 2011 Census, however, indicated that the Welsh, like other British nationals, were becoming more culturally diverse. This is not surprising: the effects of the World imposing itself on Wales – industrialisation in the nineteenth century, for example – are continuous and impact profoundly on its literature.

Simultaneously, the Welsh have reached outwards beyond the confines of their homeland: as explorers and travellers, in Africa and South America for instance. Wales, too, ‘sells’ itself through ‘exported’ literature and the arts: the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations in 2015 provided a timely reminder of a national literature that is inter-national, not only within the U.K. but further afield in Europe and across the globe.
​
The conference invites contributions on any topic relating to the literature of Wales in an international context. Contributions are encouraged from across disciplines, historical periods, and methodological approaches.

​Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:​ Travel Writing/Literary Tourism Patagonia Selling Wales abroad ‘Four Nations’ comparative studies The connection between place and politics Myths and Legends The Welsh as colonisers or empire builders Post-Colonial Wales Migrancy Concepts of ‘Nation’ and ‘Native’ Welsh writers who choose to set their texts outside of Wales Welsh writing in a European context

​Abstracts of 300 words for twenty-minute papers (accompanied by a 250 word biographical note) should be submitted to awwe16@awwe.org by Friday 8 January 2016. Proposals for panels of three twenty-minute papers are also welcomed. Applicants will be informed by 31 January 2016.

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Download the CFP as a PDF file here:

call_for_papers_awwe_2016.pdf Download File

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Conference Organisers

Emma Schofield (Cardiff University) and Steve Hendon (Cardiff University)

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Contact / Keep up-to-date

To contact the conference organisers with any queries, please email awwe16@awwe.org

To keep up-to-date with all conference-related discussions, search for the conference hashtag #awwe16 on Twitter.

Public Lecture on the Poetry of Nerys Williams

Another chance to see IJWWE editor Dr Matthew Jarvis give a public lecture. He will speak on the poetry of Nerys Williams on Friday, 3 July 2015, at 6:30pm in the Gas Gallery, Aberystwyth. The talk arises from work done by the Devolved Voices project, a Leverhulme-funded research project, based at Aberystwyth University.

Everybody welcome!

My People at 100 – One-Day Symposium at Bangor University

My People at 100: A one-day symposium to mark the centenary of Caradoc Evans’s My People.

Speakers: 

• Prof Katie Gramich (Cardiff University), 
• Dr Aidan Byrne (University of Wolverhampton), 
• Prof Daniel Williams (Swansea
  University),
• Dr Tomos Owen (Bangor University),
• Dinah Jones (Producer, ‘Ffrae My People’ S4C).

Conference fee: £20 (full rate), Postgraduates, unwaged: £12

For further information visit the website or email Dr Tomos Owen – t.l.owen@bangor.ac.uk or Prof Tony Brown  a.d.brown@bangor.ac.uk. Prifysgol Bangor University, Darlithfa 2 / Lecture Room 2 at 10am – 4.30pm.

 

 

Richard Burton Centre Conference, Monday, 6 June 2015

Richard Burton Centre Postgraduate Conference Programme

9.30-11.00= Welcome and Panel One

Liza Penn Thomas, Protest, Participation and Theatre for the People: an audience for English language Welsh drama 1900-1950

Clare Davies, Fierce and Fatal Struggles: T. S Eliot, Saunders Lewis and canon (de)construction

Dr Kieron Smith, Constructing the Map: Caradoc Evans and 100 Years of Welsh Criticism in English

11.00-11.15 = Coffee/Tea

11.15-12.45 = Panel Two

Bleddyn Penny, ‘The Others and the Brothers’? New Perspectives for Welsh Labour History

Matthew Small, Imposed or organic? An examination of social institutions in the workers settlement of Trevivian in the nineteenth century

Alex Jones, ‘Injured men with black dust covering their broken bodies’: Literature, history and disability in 1930s British coalfields literature.

12.45-1.30 = Lunch/Cinio

1.30- 2.30 = Panel Tri (sesiwn yn y Gymraeg).

Meilyr Powel, Cynhyrchu Rhyfel Sanctaidd: Crefydd, y Welsh Outlook a’r Rhyfel Mawr

Catrin Heledd Richards, A ydy Theomemphus yn Hen?: Astudiaeth o arwyddocâd y teitl cyfeiriadol, Mae Theomemphus yn Hen yn nofel Dafydd Rowlands.

2.30-4.00 = Panel four

Mark Rhodes, ­­Paul Robeson and the Processes of Welsh Memorialization: Context, scale, and agency in the commemorative landscape

Sam Blaxland, The private and public attitudes of the Conservative Party towards Welsh nationhood, 1945-1997

Syd Morgan, The Welsh Nationalist Party and Fianna Fáil 1926–‐1948

4.00-4.15 Coffee/Tea

4.30-5.30 – Dr Simon Brooks in conversation with Professor Daniel Williams.
The conference will be held in JC B02/03 on Monday 8th June, 9.30 start. All welcome/croeso i bawb.

For more information about the Richard Burton Centre at Swansea University, have a look at their blog: http://richardburtoncentre.blogspot.co.uk/

The Future of Welsh Studies – funding secured for another year

Good news for everyone who is concerned about the continued support for the study of Welsh culture, literature, history, etc. in Welsh HE institutions. The HEFCW funding allocations for 2015/16 are out and in it we find the following paragraph:

48. We have also extended, for one further year, the ring-fence on the funding previously allocated to the University of Wales Press, which was transferred to QR in 2011/12. In 2015/16, this funding (£132k in total) will continue to be ring-fenced within QR for the purpose of supporting scholarly publications and related activities in the fields of Welsh culture, history and literature. The ring-fenced amounts for individual institutions remain at the amounts which we notified in 2011.

It is vitally important that scholarship in Welsh studies can actually be conducted and disseminated. It is a pity that funding was only secured for one year, which isn’t a long time in the Arts and Humanities and which is also oddly at variance with the REF cycle – why not (with some suitable get-out clauses added) ringfence funding for the whole REF period? But there is hope that this battle may yet be won.

The full document is available at: http://www.hefcw.ac.uk/documents/publications/circulars/circulars_2015/W15%2009HE%20HEFCW%20Funding%20Allocations%202015_16.pdf

Dr Matthew Jarvis gives public lecture in Aberystwyth

The JWWE’s very own Dr Matthew Jarvis of the ‘Devolved Voices’ research project at Aberystwyth University discusses the poetry of 2014 Costa Poetry Award winner Jonathan Edwards.

Introduced by Professor Peter Barry

http://www.aber.ac.uk/devolvedvoices/

The ‘Devolved Voices’ project is generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust

Bydd Dr Matthew Jarvis (prosiect ymchwil ‘Devolved Voices’, Prifysgol Aberystwyth) yn trafod barddoniaeth Jonathan Edwards, enillydd Gwobr Farddoniaeth Costa 2014.

Cyflwyniad gan Yr Athro Peter Barry
http://www.aber.ac.uk/devolvedvoices/

Ariannir y prosiect ‘Devolved Voices’ gan Leverhulme Trust.

Wales Book of the Year shortlist 2015

The Wales Book of the Year will be awarded in the Galeri Caernarfon, Victoria Dock, Caernarfon, on Thursday 4 June 2015. The shortlist has been out a little while and can be found on the Literature Wales website: http://walesbookoftheyear.co.uk/2015-award/:

Roland Mathias Poetry Award Shortlist:

Telling Tales, Patience Agbabi (Canongate Books)
So Many Moving Parts, Tiffany Atkinson (Bloodaxe Books)
My Family and Other Superheroes, Jonathan Edwards (Seren)

Fiction Shortlist:

The Redemption of Galen Pike, Carys Davies (Salt)
The Dig, Cynan Jones (Granta)
Burrard Inlet, Tyler Keevil (Parthian)

Creative Non-Fiction Shortlist:

Down to the Sea in Ships, Horatio Clare (Chatto & Windus)
Other People’s Countries, Patrick McGuinness (Jonathan Cape)
American Interior, Gruff Rhys (Hamish Hamilton)

 

The Welsh-language lists are:

Poetry Short List
Un Stribedyn Bach, Rhys Iorwerth (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch)
Storm ar Wyneb yr Haul, Llŷr Gwyn Lewis (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas)
Wilia, Meic Stephens (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas)

Fiction Short List
Awst yn Anogia, Gareth F. Williams (Gwasg Gwynedd)
Saith Oes Efa, Lleucu Roberts (Y Lolfa)
Y Fro Dywyll, Jerry Hunter (Y Lolfa)

Creative Non-Fiction Short List
Rhyw Flodau Rhyfel, Llŷr Gwyn Lewis (Y Lolfa)
100 o Olygfeydd Hynod Cymru, Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd (Y Lolfa)
Mwy na Bardd, Kate Crockett (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas)

Everyone who wants to catch a snippet of the shortlisted titles, can watch them being read here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HRc6BeXF3M

Seren is looking for a new marketing officer…

Seren is looking for a Marketing Officer to optimise publicity and the promotion of its titles, and to increase sales and profitability. The successful candidate will be educated to degree level or hold a marketing qualification. They will have experience in a customer-facing environment, good verbal, written and online communication skills, be able to deliver agreed targets within a budget, be a good team member and an enthusiastic worker. They will be part of a staff of seven, promoting approximately 20 new titles each year.

Find more details here: http://www.serenbooks.com/news/could-you-be-serens-next-marketing-officer.