Hello all,
A quick post to confirm that due to the current Coronavirus (Covid-19) situation, we are postpoing planned on-campus screening and discussion sessions for the foreseeable.
Updates as to possible online activities, and the resumption of on-campus meetings later in the year, will be posted here in due course.
You are very welcome to join the melodrama mailing list by emailing me, Sarah, on sp761@kent.ac.uk
Unfortunately we have yet to arrange regular screenings for the term, but we hope many will be able to attend the following exciting event.
We are delighted to be welcoming back Paul Mazey from the University of Bristol. He’ll be delivering a research seminar on Wednesday the 6th of November from 5-7pm. This will take place in Grimond Lecture Theatre 2.
The following blurb is from the School of Arts events calendar (excluding the disturbing Kathleen Byron GIF…) :
Choral voices are a recurring feature on the scores of British films of the 1930s to 1950s, where they conjure the sense of an ethereal presence that intervenes in the human world. This presentation considers how the choral voices heard in British cinema draw upon the tradition of British choral music, in light of their repeated use by composers whose work outside of the film industry includes choral writing, notably William Walton, Brian Easdale and Ralph Vaughan Williams. In particular, it explores examples of choral voices used as a wordless sonority. Wordless voices, freed from religious specificity, are able to project a broader and more inclusive mystical feeling. By analysing their use in such key films as Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger, 1947), Scott of the Antarctic (Charles Frend, 1948) and Gone to Earth (Powell & Pressburger, 1950), this talk will consider the ways that choral voices are used to imbue natural forces with an aura of intention that heightens their influence on characters’ lives and suggests the workings of otherworldly powers.
Paul Mazey is an Associate Teacher of film and television at the University of Bristol. His forthcoming publications include a monograph on musical traditions in British film music, a journal article on the use of opera arias in British comedy films and a chapter (co-authored with Sarah Street) on the piano in melodrama for an edited collection.
After the research seminar, if you would like to join a gathering for dinner, please email Tamar Jeffers McDonald at T.Jeffers-Mcdonald@kent.ac.uk
Everyone welcome.
We hope to see you there!
Our third free Digitizing the War Illustrated workshop will take place on the 31st of July, 10am-4pm, in Jarman 7, at the University of Kent.
These National Lottery Heritage Funded workshops introduce participants to the newly available online archive of the important World War I magazine The War Illustrated (1914-1919).
Visit the dedicated Digitizing the War Illustrated page on the NoRMMA blog to find out more information: http://www.normmanetwork.com/digitizing-the-war-illustrated/
You can read a round-up of our first workshop here: http://www.normmanetwork.com/first-digitizing-the-war-illustrated-workshop-roundup/
If you are interested in booking one of the 12 spaces available at the workshop, please email us on normma.network@gmail.com
A quick announcement that the second free Digitizing the War Illustrated Workshop will take place on the 24th of July, 10am-4pm, Jarman 7, at the University of Kent.
These National Lottery Heritage Funded workshops introduce participants to the newly available online archive of the important World War I magazine The War Illustrated (1914-1919).
Visit the dedicated Digitizing the War Illustrated page on the NoRMMA blog to find out more information: http://www.normmanetwork.com/digitizing-the-war-illustrated/
You can read a round-up of our first workshop here: http://www.normmanetwork.com/first-digitizing-the-war-illustrated-workshop-roundup/
If you are interested in booking one of the 12 spaces available at the workshop, please email us on normma.network@gmail.com
Registration for Frances and Tamar’s third Gothic Feminism conference is now open!
Join us at the University of Kent for ‘Technology, Women, and Gothic-Horror On-Screen’ on the 2nd and 3rd of May. The keynote will be delivered by Dr Lisa Purse (University of Reading).
Costs: waged £50
unwaged £25
Kent undergraduate students £5
The conference fee includes lunch and refreshments for both days.
You can register here:
Find the gothic feminism blog here: https://gothicfeminism.com/
Apologies for any inconvenience, but the screening and discussion of Ladies They Talk About (1933) is postponed.
It is likely this will go ahead at our next planned meeting – the 27th of March – but confirmation will appear here nearer the time.
My sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused, but we’ve had to cancel today’s melodrama meeting. We will hopefully show the film we planned to screen, Baby Face, at a later date.
In the meantime, you can read some great reviews of the film that Lies has gathered on our sister blog, NoRMMA: http://www.normmanetwork.com/?p=614
Many apologies for the late notice, but we’ve decided to cancel the planned melodrama meeting on the 30th of October. We’ve been immersed in Kat and Ann-Marie’s wonderful ‘At Home with Horror?’ conference (https://tvhomeofhorror.wordpress.com/) and are sure we will find the intense Friday- Sunday experience a difficult one to follow!
While there have been many interesting papers and discussions, it was especially great to hear two excellent ones from melodrama research group members on TV programmes we’ve previously screened. Katerina Flint-Nicol’s presentation ‘Home and Hearth? Science, the Gothic and the Female Narrative in Black Mirror’s ‘Be Right Back” (see introduction to the episode in the post below) effectively argued for the importance of temporality.
In ‘”You know ma’am, you just imagine things”. Terror, Technology and the Female Gothic in The Devil’s Vice’, Frances Kamm commented on the thoughts of writer/director/producer Peter Watkins-Hughes, as revealed to her in an interview. Frances convincingly spoke of the domestic setting Watkins-Hughes hoped his work, conceived with the premise of raising awareness of domestic violence, would reach. (A summary of our previous group discussion on this intriguing work can be found here: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/melodramaresearchgroup/2017/02/22/summary-of-discussion-on-the-devils-vice/)
The next melodrama screening and discussion session will therefore take place on Monday the 13th of November, 5-7pm, in Jarman 6. Information on the film to be screened will be posted once known.
“Running since 2012, The University of Kent’s Melodrama Research Group is pleased to be interdisciplinary, as well as open and welcoming to all with our regular screening and discussion sessions. We also maintain links across the University, the UK, and Beyond, attending and organising events such as symposia and conferences.
Currently we are enjoying working with writer/director Tamsin Flower on her play TRANSFORMER.
Our sister blog Network of Research: Movies, Magazines and Audiences (NoRMMA) focuses on fan magazines, but at the moment is also running projects on other magazines from World War I. In addition to using some material from fan magazines to illustrate and investigate melodrama, we have also been considering the related matter of Gothic, within Kent’s Gothic Feminism project. As part of our work on the Gothic we produced a 20 minute video essay, Passages of Gothic, in 2016.
For more information, please visit the Links and Media & Publications pages using the above tabs, or the blog’s search function. Return often for announcements of upcoming screening and discussion sessions, summaries of our discussions, and other relevant blog posts below.”
Email: Sarah at sp761@kent.ac.uk
The Melodrama Research Group is very excited to impart some news about Kat and Ann-Marie’s upcoming conference on TV Horror.
Due to the many quality abstracts submitted, an extra day has been added – it will now run from the 27th-29th of October.
Helen Wheatley’s keynote ‘Haunted landscapes: trauma and grief in the television ghost story’ will open the conference’s second day. You can find out more here:
For the full conference programme visit the At Home with Horror blog:
Once you’ve absorbed all that, make sure you purchase your all-important ticket:
£45 for waged, £25 for unwaged