Author Archives: fjm

February open evening announced in Paris

Admissions and academic members of staff will be present to meet with prospective students and parents on Wednesday, 20 February from 17.00-19.00.

Anyone curious about studying at the University, whether at one of its four postgraduate study centres on the European continent, or in its home county of Kent in the UK are welcome to come along and speak to our admissions representatives. We welcome enquiries for all levels of study: undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD level.

The open evening will be held at the University’s Paris Centre based at Reid Hall, in the heart of the 6e arrondissement. Light fare will be served.

Guests are invited to book their place here: https://www.kent.ac.uk/paris/contact/visit-us.html.

Kent Paris Centre hosts annual summer school on “Revolutions”

The University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture has hosted its annual summer school in July 2018. Taking the theme of “Revolutions”, students examined topics from diverse academic disciplines with Paris as the setting for their scholarly exploration. Led by the University’s expert faculty, students spent two weeks undertaking daily seminars and fascinating study trips. The summer school culminated in the presentations of students’ work and a celebratory farewell meal with staff and students.

A number of summer school students have put together photo and video montages of their memorable time in Paris:

See Giulio’s photographic portfolio

See Gretta’s video presentation

Kent ranked among top 50 in Europe for teaching

The pioneering ranking draws from data that includes teaching reputation, graduation rate and the development of students’ skills for 242 institutions across the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland.

Half of universities’ overall scores are based on the results of the THE European Student Survey – a student engagement survey of more than 30,000 university students, which includes questions on whether teaching supports critical thinking, whether classes challenge students and whether students have the opportunity to interact with staff.

The University’s Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Karen Cox, said: ‘Our teaching is regularly acknowledged as being amongst the best in the UK, so I am delighted to see that Kent features so prominently in this new European table. I would like to thank all those who, through their hard work and dedication, contribute to not only our ongoing success and reputation but also to the teaching and learning experience enjoyed by so many students each year.’

In 2017, Kent was awarded a gold rating, the highest, in the UK Government’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). The TEF Panel judged that Kent delivers consistently outstanding teaching, learning and outcomes for its students. It is of the highest quality found in the UK.

Further information on THE European Teaching Rankings can be found here.

Creative Writing Reading Series – Simon Smith

As part of the Autumn Term Creative Writing Reading Series

University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture

Proudly presents the Paris launch of

Thursday 6 October 2016

6.30pm at Reid Hall, in the Maison Verte

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006 (métro: Vavin)

In a writing career that began in the early 1980s, Simon Smith has published a dozen pamphlets and collections of poetry, reviewed and written essays for Poetry Review, PN Review, fragmente, Stand and Blackbox Manifold among other periodicals, and translated the work of Catullus, Martial and Reverdy. This selection of his work covers the period 1989-2012, and is edited by the poet and art critic Barry Schwabsky. There are generous selections from Fifteen Exits, Reverdy Road, Mercury and London Bridge, alongside unavailable early work, and previously unpublished poetry from the sequences, More Ammo and Content. On first receiving Reverdy Road Schwabsky recalls: ‘It was a revelation: resembling nothing I was familiar with in American poetry despite name-checking Jack Spicer and clear affinities with the New York School’s love of speed, wit, and variousness of tone, it had a music I could tune right into, something very much its own though it has also helped me, I think, hear my way into the work of some of Smith’s British contemporaries’.

To see more Creative Writing Reading Series events in the Autumn Term, click here

To register for the event, either rsvp to our Facebook event or email us: paris@kent.ac.uk

Creative Writing Reading Series – Autumn 2016

University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture is excited to announce our Creative Writing Reading Series for the Autumn Term!

All readings are at 6.30pm at Reid Hall,

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006 (métro: Vavin)

Simon Smith Thursday 6 October Maison verte

Simon Smith in the Paris launch of his new work: ‘More Flowers Than You Could Possibly Carry: Selected Poems 1989 – 2012’, edited by poet and art critic Barry Schwabsky.

Shakespeare in Paris: lectures to mark 400 years since the bard’s death

Tuesday, 3 May 2016

David Ellis

Professor Emeritus, University of Kent School of English

The Sad Tale of Shakespeare Biography

We know desperately little about Shakespeare’s life and what we do know has been in the public domain for a long time. In this lecture, David Ellis demonstrates some of the methods biographers use for overcoming these disadvantages and explores how academics try to make bricks without straw.
Please reserve your place here.

Wednesday, 11 May 2016

Professor Karen Newman

Owen Walker ’33 Professor of Humanities and
Professor of Comparative Literature and English, Brown University

Shakespeare Celebrated: Souvenirs du Théâtre Anglais à Paris

This lecture is about the visit of English Shakespearean actors to Paris in 1827 where they played, first at Odéon, than at Favart, for ten months, performing Shakespeare in English. The commemorative programme reflected French/English rivalries at the time.

Please reserve your place here.

18.30

Grande Salle, Reid Hall

4, rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris

Free and open to the public

Paris students organise end-of-term dinner cruise

The University of Kent’s Paris Graduate Union organised a farewell dinner cruise on the River Seine on Friday 8 April 2016. A total of 27 students and guests were welcomed on board by student leaders and University of Kent, Paris director Peter Brown. Participants enjoyed full French fare as they took in some of the world’s most iconic views.

Yelena Moskovich Leads a Night Walk in Paris

Yelena Moskovich, whose recent debut novel The Natashas has been earning stellar reviews across Europe, visited Kent MA students as part of Paris: The Residency, a Kent module in Creative Writing. Led by Moskovich and instructor Adam Biles, the evening began at Shakespeare and Company for a reading and discussion of her book. It continued on the Place de Notre Dame, where students practised ’embodying’ pedestrians, discreetly imitating their gait and movements as the basis for developing fictional characters. On the Quai de la Tournelle, students focused on their sense of hearing, alternatively listening to and writing the Parisian soundscape.

Olivia Rosenthal, one of the Paris MA students in Creative Writing, commented: ‘We saw places by night that we might have missed by day. We were definitely out of our comfort zone some of the time. Yelena has a background in acting and that helped us to see character from a new angle. It was challenging and fulfilling to try and be somebody else.’

Yelena Moskovich (pictured) is the keynote speaker at the MA conference on Motion at Reid Hall, Kent’s base in Paris, on Monday 6 June — part of a week-long MA festival. Click here for further details.

The Guardian’s review of The Natashas is available here.

Launch of June MA Conference and Festival on Motion

Kent Paris students have launched a festival and MA conference on the topic of Motion. The conference will run at Reid Hall on Monday 6 June and other festival events will take place in the course of the following week. They include an exhibition of student art, conversation with a Paris artist, book launch at Shakespeare & Co., launch of the new issue of the Paris MA magazine, Le Menteur, and a trek across Paris finishing with a celebration in song and readings. Speakers and readers for the week include Vybarr Cregan-Reid, David Herd, Yelena Moscovich, Dragan Todovoric, Joanna Walsh and Lauren Elkin. The conference is designed to attract MA students working on their dissertations, whether from Paris institutions or from Kent’s other campuses. See the call for papers and for further details go to motioninparis.wordpress.com.

Paris students visit Berlin

A group of MA students based at Kent’s Paris Centre recently visited Berlin with their module tutor, Dr Vybarr Cregan-Reid, from Kent’s School of English. Having put the precepts of the module to the test in Paris, by means of regular study trips, the visitors were able to extend their research in Berlin. Their trip was part-funded by Kent’s Schools of Arts and English and by the Faculty of Humanity’s International Mobility Fund.

Activities in Berlin included visits to Berlin’s small galleries such as C/O Galerie for an exhibition by Stephen Shore and the VeneKlasen Werner gallery exhibiting work by the Japanese artist Koji Enokura. As an example of experimental story)telling in film, students viewed ‘The Dreamed Ones’, directed by Ruth Bekerman, which featured in the Berlinale film festival. On the street they put into practice the psychogeography tactics of the Situationist International, taking a photo every 30 seconds or determining the next direction but the flip of a coin.

One of the participants, Rebekah Mays, commented: ‘It was such an enriching experience to travel with a tutor and our classmates to Berlin. We went to contemporary art galleries and experimental films I probably wouldn’t have gone to on my own, and we explored the city not as tourists but as thinkers, helping us delve further into concepts introduced on our modules. Thanks to the International Mobility Fund, our study group was able to expand our academic enquiry beyond the classroom, and even beyond Paris.’

Left to right students Rebekah Mays, Ryan Brown and Sarah Bolwell with (second from left) tutor Vybarr Cregan-Reid.

Paris News

The Blog of Kent University's Paris School of Arts and Culture