Danish author Merete Pryds Helle, funded by the Danish Cultural Agency and the Centre for Modern European Literature, will give a public lecture on Thursday 19 February, from 5-6pm in Cornwallis Seminar Room 5, entitled ‘The Narrative in A Digital Age’.

Merete Pryds Helle is a well-known and prolific Danish author with a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her publications cover many different genres from childrens books, radio plays, poems and novels including Fishing in the River of Life (Rosinante, 2000), as well as brand new genres such as SMS novels and iPad novels.

Her talk will focus on the many challenges literary fictions, and their authors, encounter in the shift from a paper format onto digital and social media, and on how these new media structure the narrative format in various genres. She will include examples from her own designs of literary apps, and SMS novels.

For more details on the event, please visit the  School of European Culture and Languages’ research events website.

The University’s second annual Donor Appreciation Day was held on 12 February 2015, to which all local donors were invited. The event was attended by students who benefit from scholarships that are provided through philanthropic giving, including our 2014 Alumni Postgraduate Research Scholar Jamie Wickham-Eade, Music Scholar Ruth Webster and Christine & Ian Bolt Scholar Michael Mills. Photographs of the event can be seen on our flickr gallery.

Staff from the Centre for Philanthropy also attended the reception, as well as University Archivist Ann MacDonald, who provided archive materials relating to the University’s first fundraising campaign in June 1965.

The event was an informal opportunity for the University to warmly thank those who have supported Kent students in the last academic year. In 2013/2014, over £1.3million was donated by over 1,200 individuals to a range of projects across the University which directly benefit our students, including the Kent Law Campaign and the Kent Opportunity Fund. For more information, please email giving.

Staff and students are welcome to attend Ash Wednesday worship services on the Canterbury campus. Church of England at 8.30am in Eliot College Chapel (preceded from 8.15am with juice and pastries); Catholic at 1.30pm Eliot College Chapel and also 6.40pm in the Franciscan Centre, Giles Lane.

In January, artist Leah Thorn began a ten month residency at the University supported by a Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence Award. Leah will be working with CHSS Professor of Primary Care Patricia Wilson in collaboration with Canterbury Christ Church University.

Leah is a feminist and poet. The residency will support her in completing a film she is making about Dementia, a subject where she has a special interest. As a feminist she is also very interested in the journeys women make through the various transitions and stages of life.

It is hoped that Leah’s residency will stimulate debate and challenge assumptions. In particular Professor Wilson hopes that it will encourage researchers and practitioners to view challenges in a different way and enable them to come up with new solutions.

The School of Politics and International Relations visitor speaker programme presents Maurice Glasman. Maurice Glasman will be giving a talk entitled ‘Common Good and Foreign Policy’ on Wednesday 4th March 2015 at 5pm, Grimond Lecture Theatre 3. All are welcome to attend.

Maurice Glasman is a Labour life peer and one of the founders of Blue Labour. Maurice Glasman is the author of Unnecessary Suffering and was educated at Cambridge University, the University of York and the European University Institute in Florence where he received his doctorate. He is vice chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kurdistan. Maurice is married with four children and lives in Stoke Newington London.

Hosted by Rutherford College and in conjunction with the Former Staff Association, Dr Keith Dimond will be giving a talk on ‘Everyday Life in Palestine’ on Wednesday 18 February, at 6pm in Rutherford Lecture Theatre One.

Keith Dimond spent three months serving with a World Council of Churches programme in the Northern Palestine City of Tulkarm.

During this time he accompanied Palestinians in their everyday life, going with farmers to their fields located across the Israeli Barrier or workers who cross the barrier each day to work in Israel.

He also met with charitable organisations both Israeli and International that provide aid to Palestinians. Over the three months he was able to meet with many Palestinian families and see something of their life.

Keith will illustrate the talk with pictures he has taken. All welcome.

Submissions are now invited for the Student Prize for Feminist Scholarship (2015) hosted by the ‘Radical Women: 50 Years of Feminism at Kent’ project.

Open to undergraduate and postgraduate students currently registered at the University of Kent.

The competition aims to celebrate innovative student scholarship grounded in feminist theory and practice.

Full details available on the ‘Radical Women’ webpages.

Submissions deadline: 15 April 2015.

Laura Garcia Rodriguez Blancas will present her research on Tuesday 17 February at 1pm in G1-04, Gillingham Building, Medway campus.

Laura Garcia Rodriguez Blancas PhD candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant Mainstream news coverage of social movements: beyond protests and demonstrations.

Laura Garcia Rodriguez Blancas comments:

‘My research looks at how the news agenda that drives mainstream media as well as other newsroom factors frame, and sometimes limit, their coverage of social movements. Driven by their timely, and sometimes rushed, reporting on public demonstrations (protests, marches, strikes, industrial action) journalists can sometimes overlook contextual information that would portray a social movement accurately.

‘Social movements exist beyond just protests and demonstrations and my research is trying to figure out where these stories are lost. My proposed case studies include bloggers who write for or about social movements and eventually get used as sources by mainstream journalists.

‘I intend to compare the original stories they write and how information gets filtered out in publication in mainstream media. This alters the narrative of social movements that people read in newspapers or watch on TV. I am generally interested in how journalists cover and interact with social movements and activists.’

Acts of Random Kindness is a lovely way for Medway Campus Chaplaincy to offer love and care to students and staff around the campus.

Coming up for Pancake Day on Tuesday 17 February between 12 – 2pm, an A.R.K. will be FREE pancakes at School of Music and Fine Arts Clocktower common room for students and staff.

Come and share the YUM!