Events

Current events

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The Robot at 100: Culture, society, politics, and the future

    Saturday 18 June 2022. Cloisters, Bishop Otter Campus / hybrid event.
On Saturday 18 June the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction will host ‘The Robot at 100: Culture, society, politics, and the future’ at the University of Chichester, an international, interdisciplinary conference to mark the centenary of the first staging in English of Karel Čapek’s seminal play R.U.R. Čapek’s play saw the first appearance of the term robot, which comes from the Czech word robota meaning ‘forced labour’, which has its roots in the Proto-Slavic word for ‘slave’.

The conference will be opened by the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Simeon Keates, who is known widely for his research into artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and building robots, which led to his competing in the hit BBC show Robot Wars. The event’s organiser and Director of the Chichester Centre, Dr Paul Quinn, said “The subject of robots bridges the artificial gap between the humanities and the sciences and we’re looking forward to some very interesting panels on R.U.R, robots in literature, television and film, and the cultural and social implications of robots in relation to politics, work and sex.”

See the current draft programme at here. Tickets are now on sale from our online store.

Previous events

Angela Carter: A Radical Prescience?

  • Symposium: Saturday 5 March 2022
The symposium will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Angela Carter, whose reputation as a leading British writer of fantastical literature remains undiminished three decades after her untimely passing. Its theme also reflects the new decolonial and multi-genre direction of the Centre. In face-to-face and online events, we will highlight, celebrate and interrogate Angela Carter’s legacy, wrestle with her angels and demons, and pickpocket im/pertinent answers to a wealth of questions. See the current draft of the programme here. Tickets on sale now from our online store.

Terry Nation’s Survivors: The Good Life in a global pandemic

A conversation between Alwyn Turner and Paul Quinn.
    Tuesday, 9 November 2021, 6.00 – 7:30 p.m., room E124, Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester
Dr Alwyn Turner, author of many books including The Man Who Invented the Daleks: The Strange Worlds of Terry Nation, will discuss Terry Nation’s long television career, with a special focus on Survivors, Nation’s post-apocalyptic pandemic drama. This event is free and open to all.

The Fabled Coast conference

Taking its name from Sophia Kingshill’s and Jennifer Westwood’s seminal book The Fabled Coast, this conference seeks to explore the abundance of folktales, legends, myths, songs and re-imaginings associated with coastal areas and maritime traditions and practices around the world. The full programme can be downloaded here and a list of local accommodation here.

Fabled Coast Tour and Creative Writing Workshop

  • Sunday 28 April 2019, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., Gunwharf, Portsmouth
A Creative Writing workshop with Victoria Lesia and Sophia Kingshill in collaboration with our partner, Portsmouth University, inspired by a fabled coast guided tour led by Dr Karl Bell.

‘A stock whip wand and a cabbage tree hat: Australian identity in Australian fairy tales’, Dr Robyn Kellock Floyd

European fairy folk were transported to Australia in the imaginations of emigrants, but on arrival they cast aside the trappings of the old world and adapted to their new environs. This lecture will examine how fairy-tale motifs and structures were interpreted and transformed to reflect cultural attitudes and the influence of the bush environment in the Australian colonies. Robyn has kindly given us the paper of her talk to share.

Robyn Kellock Floyd lectures at Swinburne University of Technology and is also the Deputy Head of a Victorian primary school. Her dissertation focussed on early Australian children’s literature, early literary Australian fairy tales and author Olga Ernst. Robyn is interested in early Australian fairy tales (pre-Federation) and the placement of European fairies in the Australian bush environment. She is a Foundation member of the Australian Fairy tale Society.

Kindly sponsored by the Australian High Commission.

‘Lewis Carroll and George MacDonald: An Influential Friendship’

Talks included:
  • Mark Richards, Introduction
  • Daniel Brown, ‘MacDonald, Carroll and the Mathematical Imagination’
  • Franziska Kohlt, ‘A Common denominator: Reassessing the Carroll-MacDonald friendship through their science’
  • Hayley Flynn, ‘“Is Life Itself a Dream, I Wonder?” – Dream in the work of Lewis Carroll and George MacDonald’
  • Fernando Soto, ‘The Mandrake: Botanical folklore in the worlds of MacDonald and Carroll’
  • ‘Heaven, hell and fairy land: F. D. Maurice and the fantasies of Lewis Carroll and George MacDonald’, Bethan Carney
  • Religious crisis in Arundel’, Paul Quinn
  • Adam Paxman, ‘The Rainbow’s Egg: A Practice-led Illustrative Research Dossier Investigating Thematic and Theological Correlations within the Works of Lewis Carroll and George MacDonald’
Kindly sponsored by Elinor Kapp, author of Tales from Turnaround Cottage: Fairy Stories for an Older Generation. ISBN 978-0-244-62531-3. Obtainable by order from bookshops and Amazon online.

THRESHOLDS International Short Story Forum and the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy present …

‘FOLK’, Zoe Gilbert

Zoe Gilbert’s first novel, Folk, was published by Bloomsbury in February 2018. She is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester, focusing on folk tales in contemporary short stories. Her own stories have been published in anthologies from Comma Press and Cinnamon press, and in journals worldwide including Mechanics’ Institute Review and The Stinging Fly. Her work has won prizes including the Costa Short Story Award. She teaches and mentors creative writers at London Lit Lab, and for organisations including the British Library and Arvon Foundation.

“I was thoroughly absorbed. Zoe Gilbert’s invented folk-world is sensuous and dangerous and thick with magic” – Tessa Hadley

An “extraordinary debut novel” – Financial Times

“A powerful sense of mythology” – Guardian

“That rare thing: genuinely unique. It’s part-myth, part-allegory, wholly wonderful” –‘The Best Fiction of 2018’, Observer

‘Jews on Quests! Challenging the ur-texts of genre fantasy’, Farah Mendlesohn

In Rhetorics of Fantasy, historian and SFF critic Farah Mendlesohn argued that most genre fantasy was fundamentally Christian in its understanding of the world. This led her to wonder what was Jewish about genre fantasy by Jewish writers.

In this talk she explores works by authors of huge large-world fantasies such as those from Jane Yolen and Peter Davidson, and Guy Gavriel Kay, and quieter, more whimsical offerings from authors such as Peter Beagle, Sandra Unerman and Lisa Goldstein, to argue that these texts challenge the Christian ur-texts that are so much a part of the Anglo-American fantasy tradition.

ADDITIONAL EVENT: ‘Robert Heinlein: His Lasting Legacy?’

  • 8 February 2018, 4:30-5:30 SF & Coffee, Academic Block 2.01
Please join us for an informal conversation with Farah Mendlesohn about her forthcoming critical study of the ‘Dean of Science Fiction’, Robert Heinlein (Unbound Books). A cultural relativist, a libertarian who famously practised nudism, and a writer who invested SF with literary themes and treatment, Heinlein was a giant of the field and a maverick figure whose ideas remain controversial today. Fans and newbies welcome!

Both events are free and open to the public.

Farah’s visit is part-sponsored by the Chaplaincy.

‘Midwinter Myths’, Dr Steven O’Brien

Steven O’Brien will read an unpublished new tale inspired by Yuletide mythology, as well as reading from his latest book Britannic Myths, a collection of creative retellings of British and Irish myths illustrated by Joe Machine. Steven is the editor of the London Magazine (Britain’s oldest literary journal), and is well known for his fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry.

Free and open to all. Contact h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your ticket.

Arthur Rackham in Sussex: A 150th Birthday Celebration

  • Exhibition, 8 September – 29 October 2017, Bateman’s, East Sussex

19 September 2017 marks the 150th anniversary of Arthur Rackham’s birth. Rackham (1867-1939) was one of the leading illustrators in Britain’s ‘Golden Age’ of book illustration, and his works are still hugely popular today. He is linked to Bateman’s, Rudyard Kipling’s home in Burwash, East Sussex, through his illustrations of Puck of Pook’s Hill, a tale Kipling based on the house and gardens, and to Sussex in general through a number of locations. To celebrate, the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy presents this exhibition of Arthur Rackham’s works inspired by Sussex at National Trust Bateman’s, alongside research-led responses to them by Fine Art MA student Emma Martin. The exhibition will draw connections between illustration, fine art and fairy tales, and the history of the three within Sussex, England and globally.

With thanks to the National Trust, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Chris Beetles Gallery, Brighton Royal Pavilion and Museums, the East Sussex Arts Partnership, the Arthur Rackham Society, the Rudyard Kipling Society, Pook Press and Burwash Parish Council.

Arthur Rackham in Sussex: A 150th Birthday Symposium

  • Research Symposium, Saturday 16 September 2017, Friends Meeting House, Priory Rd, PO19 1NX, 9.30 a.m.-4.30 p.m.
Entry £25/£20 concessions. Buy tickets from the University’s online store.

Symposium Programme, Chichester

9.30 a.m. Registration with teas and coffees at the Quaker Meeting House, Chichester

10.00 a.m. Opening talks

  • Victoria Leslie, Introduction
  • Selwyn Goodacre, Keynote – ‘Arthur Rackham: An Overview’
11.00 a.m. Panel 1: The Rackham Method
  • Sarah Dunnigan, ‘“I hae been to the wild wood”: Scottish ballad tradition and Rackham’s visual imagination’
  • Simon Poe, ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill: Comparing Arthur Rackham and H.R. Millar’s illustrations’
  • Adam Paxman, ‘Arthur Rackham, Alchemist of the Golden Age of Illustration, Unbound’
12.00 p.m. Lunch

1.00 Lunchtime concert at Chichester Council Assembly Rooms

  • ‘Undine – in music, words and illustration’
Buy tickets to the concert only from the University’s online store.

2.15 p.m. Panel 2: Creating Fantastic Landscapes

  • Valentina Polcini, ‘Arthur Rackham and Dino Buzzati: Transmediality and Cross-Cultural Intertextuality’
  • Alexandra Gushurst-Moore, ‘Between Worlds: Arthur Rackham and the Liminal Fantastic Space’
3.00 p.m. Tea break

3.30 p.m. Panel 3: Rackham Resurrected

  • Emma Martin, ‘Contemporary Responses: Echoes of Arthur Rackham in the 21st Century’
  • Steve O’Brien, ‘An imaginative journey through ‘Rackham Land’
4.30 p.m. Close

Download the full programme, with venue, accommodation and transport information, plus all abstracts and speaker biographies, here.

Lunchtime Concert: Undine – in words, music and illustration

  • Saturday 16 September 2017, Chichester Assembly Rooms, 82 North Street, PO19 1LQ, 1-2 p.m. Tickets £7.
A one-off musical performance of Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s Undine. The story of the romance between a water-sprite Undine and the Knight Huldbrand had a profound influence on the 19th century, inspiring operas, ballets and adaptations, including Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and Dvorák’s Rusalka, as well the imagination of Arthur Rackham.

This concert performance will retell the narrative of Undine, interspersed with some of the most iconic musical versions of the story, all set against Arthur Rackham definitive illustrations, as part of a one-day research symposium devoted to Arthur Rackham’s extraordinary legacy.

Please feel free to bring food and drink to this lunchtime performance.

Buy tickets from the University’s online store.

Dr Steven O’Brien, ‘Britannic Myths’

  • Thursday 27th April 2017, 5.30-7 p.m., Academic Building 1.01
Reading and book signing.

Britannic Myths is a book of eighteen creative retellings of British and Irish myths by mythographer Steven O’Brien alongside new paintings and illustrations by Joe Machine. At this event Steve will present selected readings, accompanied by Joe Machine’s images, followed by a book signing.

£5/£3 concessions (tickets can be used as vouchers for the book). Free to University staff/students.

Contact h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your ticket.

Children’s Fantasy Literature: An interview with Prof. Farah Mendlesohn

Fantasy has been an important and much-loved part of children’s literature for hundreds of years, yet relatively little has been written about it. Farah Mendlesohn, Professor of Literary History at Anglia Ruskin University, recently co-authored Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction, examining the works of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling and others from across the English-speaking world to place each in its appropriate context within the fantasy tradition. This event will be an interview and discussion of Mendlesohn’s research.

Tickets are £5/£3 concessions or free to University staff and students. Please e-mail h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your place or with any queries.

Jeremy Harte, ‘Subversive or What? Fairy Tradition and Social Order’

For a secret people, the fairies have been surprisingly conspicuous in social protest – administering rough justice in colonial Ireland, leading French forest guerrillas, and pixying JCBs at road protest camps. Are these just casual appropriations of the fairy mask, or do they reveal something about the lore behind it?

Jeremy Harte is a researcher into folklore and archaeology, with a particular interest in sacred space and tales of encounters with the supernatural. His book Explore Fairy Traditions won the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Award in 2005.

Tickets are £5/£3 concessions or free to University staff and students. Please e-mail h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your place or with any queries.

Write A Fairy Tale: A Short Story Workshop with Rose Williamson

Come explore the history and craft of fairy tales by writing your own! Whether you want to subvert the tale of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ or dream up a new story that takes place in a wondrous fairy-tale world, this workshop aims to integrate writing exercises and story planning with an introduction to the genre of fairy tales.

This event is sponsored by A Chapter Away, residential creative writing courses in south-west France led by authors, agents and publishers (www.achapteraway.com).

Please note this workshop is for adults and some content may not be suitable for children.

Places are limited so please book early.

£10/£7 concessions or free to University staff and students.

Contact Heather at h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your ticket.

Dr Sue Short, ‘Fairy Tale and Film’

Sue Short is a lecturer in film and media, a research fellow, and writer. Her previous works include Fairy Tale and Film: Old Tales with a New Spin, Misfit Sisters: Screen Horror as Female Rites of Passage, Cyborg Cinema and Cult Telefantasy Series. In this public lecture she will examine how fairy-tale tropes have been reworked in contemporary film, from romcoms to horror movies.

Tickets are £5/£3 concessions or free to University staff and students. Please e-mail h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your place or with any queries.

Prof. Andrew Teverson, ‘The Fairy-tale Collections of Andrew Lang and Joseph Jacobs: Empire, Nation and Identity’

Andrew Teverson is Professor of English Literature and Head of Humanities at Kingston University, London. His recent work includes The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Selected Writings of Andrew Lang (2015, co-edited with Alexandra Warwick and Leigh Wilson), shortlisted for the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2015, and Fairy Tale for the Routledge New Critical Idiom series (2013).

Tickets are £5/£3 concessions or free to University staff and students. Please e-mail h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your place or with any queries.

Dame Marina Warner, Fly Away Home

Dame Marina Warner, writer and mythographer, will present short stories tinged with fairy tale from her third collection of short stories, Fly Away Home, followed by a chaired discussion and Q&A with the audience. Warner has written several critical and historical books and essays exploring the history of myth and fairy tale. She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by 11 Universities and was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2005. In 2015 she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to higher education and literary scholarship.

Tickets are £5/£3 concessions or free to University staff and students. Prof. Warner will be available to sign copies of Fly Away Home after the event, and ticket prices will be discounted from any books bought at the event. Please e-mail h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your place or with any queries.

Kate Mosse, ‘The Taxidermist’s Daughter’

Inspired by the folklore and mythology of Sussex landscapes and seascape – and a homage to Kate’s childhood passion for a museum of taxidermy in Sussex – The Taxidermist’s Daughter is a Gothic thriller set in Fishbourne in 1912, as the flood waters are beginning to rise. The Chichester-based best-selling novelist will celebrate paperback publication of her latest No. 1 bestseller by sharing her writing trade secrets: from old legends and ancient Sussex folklore, explaining how her research into taxidermy and bird mythology inspired by novel, and how landscape and Gothic fantasy provide the back drop for creating a novel.

A unique event to hear Kate talking in her home town about the novel set in Fishbourne and Chichester.

Tickets £5/£3 concessions; free to University staff and students. Ticket prices will be discounted from any books bought at the event. Contact h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve a place or for more information.

A Celebration of Folklore in Sussex and the South Downs

To celebrate the release of our illustrated map of folklore in Sussex and the South Downs produced with the kind support of the South Downs National Park, the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy is hosting a special celebration of local folktales and songs.

Dr Steve O’Brien will read ‘St Dunstan and the Devil’, Joanna Gilar will perform ‘The Witch of Ditchling’ and Cotillion will introduce the audience to a selection of Sussex folk songs for this special Hallowe’en event. With Guest of Honour Jacqueline Simpson, without whom the map could not have been made.

Tickets £5/£3 concessions; free to University staff and students. Contact h.robbins@chi.ac.uk to reserve your ticket or for more information.

Chichester’s train and coach stations are a 20-minute walk from the campus. For more travel information go to http://www.chi.ac.uk/%3Cfront%3E/about-us/travel-and-sustainability

Professor William Gray, ‘Why we need Fairy Tales’

Professor Bill Gray of the University of Chichester’s Department of English & Creative Writing, and Director of the Sussex Centre of Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy, will be giving a public University Lecture on ‘Why we need fairy tales’.

Bill’s role at the Sussex Centre has allowed him to work with many of the world’s top scholars in Fairy-tale Studies, and with a group of exciting young postgraduate scholars. He was Folklore Advisor to the film Snow White and the Huntsman; his forthcoming book is an edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Fables and Fairy Tales.

His illustrated talk will cover the following topics:

  • What are fairy tales?
  • Fairy-tale histories
  • Why we don’t need fairy tales
  • Why we do need fairy tales
  • Why fairy tales need us
  • Fairy tales and myth.
This event is free of charge. If you would like to book a place please email events@chi.ac.uk or telephone 01243 812155/2171.

Networking event for fairy-tale writers/researchers

A free networking event for fairy-tale fiction writers/researchers, open to any fairy-tale fiction writers and researchers who wish to attend.

The broad topic of discussion will be ‘the enduring elements of fairy tales’. Sherryl Clark, a PhD student from Australia, is visiting the Sussex as part of her research into these elements (what makes fairy tales ‘stick’, as Zipes puts it). She plans to use these elements in four original fairy-tale picture books and a novel for children. The event has been organised to allow her to discuss her topic with other researchers and writers.

If you wish to attend, or if you have any queries about the event, please contact Sussex Centre Assistant Heather Robbins at h.robbins@chi.ac.uk.

Wonderlands exhibition

Illustration from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ by John Vernon Lord.

A selection of illustrations from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by John Vernon Lord and Mervyn Peake is now on display in the University of Chichester’s Otter Gallery. The exhibition is part of the nationwide celebration of Alice‘s 150th anniversary, and runs in association with the one-day symposium, ‘Wonderlands: Reading/Writing/Telling Fairy Tales and Fantasy’ here at the Sussex Centre on Saturday 23 May.

This is a free event running until September. For the gallery’s opening times please visit http://www.chi.ac.uk/otter-gallery/visit-us

Prof. Jacqueline Simpson, ‘The Folklore of Sussex’

To celebrate Sussex Day 2015 England’s foremost living folklorist, former Folklore Adviser to Terry Pratchett and the Sussex Centre’s Visiting Professor of Folklore, Jacqueline Simpson will present an introduction to Sussex’s folktales. To explore the tales further, a free interactive map of folktales in Sussex and the South Downs will be available to download from today. Tickets £5/£3 concessions; free to University staff and students.

To reserve a ticket, or for any queries, please contact Heather at h.robbins@chi.ac.uk. This event is part of the Festival of Chichester.

Our events for the 2014-15 academic year are kindly sponsored by www.Zharmae.com – get your fiction fix!

Wonderlands: Reading/Writing/Telling Fairy Tales and Fantasy

Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this event is primarily aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers, although other scholars and the general public will be welcome.

The day’s keynote lectures will be given by Prof. Diane Purkiss, Oxford University, who is also a creative writer of fantasy fiction (under the pseudonym ‘Tobias Druitt’), and world-renowned illustrator Prof. John Vernon Lord, whose own version of Alice was published in 2009. The day will close with a series of performances from writers and storytellers which engage with the theme of wonder lands, led by folkloric poet and creative writing professor Dr Steven O’Brien.

The draft programme can be downloaded by clicking here: Wonderlands draft programme

If you have any queries, please e-mail wonderlands.symposium@gmail.com.

‘Tolkien and/or Jackson? Filming Tolkien’s legendarium’, Shaun Gunner

  • Tuesday 24th February, 5.15-6.30 p.m., room E124, <,/ula href=”http://www.chi.ac.uk/”>University of Chichester
Shaun Gunner, who is Chairman of The Tolkien Society and runs the Tolkien Gateway website, will give a visual presentation on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, discussing how the films and books compare.

Tickets £5/£3 concessions or free to University staff and students; contact h.robbins@chi.ac.uk for more information.

Dr Steve O’Brien, ‘British and Irish Folktales’

Editor of the London Magazine, Visiting Fellow of Creative Writing at Chichester, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, Steve O’Brien will be presenting his latest work, a retelling of British and Irish folktales. Recent published work includes the poetry collections Dark Hill Dreams and Scrying Stone.

Dr Darren Oldridge, ‘Fairies, Imps, Goblins and Bogies in Early Modern England’

Dr Darren Oldridge teaches History at the University of Worcester. He is a specialist in early modern religious history, with a particular interest in witchcraft and the Devil; his most recent books are The Devil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press: 2012) and The Devil in Tudor and Stuart England (2nd edition: History Press 2010). At present he is writing a study of the supernatural in early modern England, to be published by Routledge next year.

Jacqueline Simpson, ‘Folktales of England’

England’s foremost living folklorist, Folklore Advisor to Terry Pratchett and the Centre’s Visiting Professor of Folklore, Jacqueline Simpson will present an introduction to England’s folktales. England has rather more folktales than people assume, including many local and migratory legends, though they are mainly Sagen not Märchen.

Land Under Wave: Reading the Landscape of Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books

Dr Jane Carroll (University of Roehampton), author of Landscape in Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2012) (and formerly Research Assistant at the the Sussex Centre), talks about her research on the role of landscape in children’s fantasy literature, and especially Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series.

The Marvel Comics version of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower

Robin Furth, Personal Assistant to Stephen King for five years, and author of The Dark Tower: A Complete Concordance and The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger: The Journey Begins (Marvel Comics, 2011), speaks about her experience of working with King, and translating his fantasy masterpiece into graphic novel form.

The American Fantasy Tradition

Prof. Tom Shippey, leading expert on Tolkien and modern fantasy (The Road to Middle-earth, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories).

Tolkien made fantasy mass-market in the 1960s. By doing so he consigned a pre-existing fantasy tradition in the USA, not to oblivion, but to the fringes. Fans know about its great authors – Leiber, de Camp, Anderson, Davidson, Vance – but the wider world of films and TV series has passed them by. This is our loss, for the American tradition was and is distinctive, imaginative, and above all funny. This talk will survey it, and make recommendations for unfamiliar but entertaining reading.

Talking of Grimm Girls

An illustrated talk by Dr Anne Anderson, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Chichester, in conversation with Professor Bill Gray, Director of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy. Hear how the gallery’s exhibition ‘Grimm Girls: Picturing the “Princess”‘ came about, the themes within it and gain some insights into Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Free of charge but please book in advance – email galleryevents@chi.ac.uk or tel. 01243 816098.

Grimm Girls: Picturing the ‘Princess’

This exhibition will feature the illustrations of six familiar and much-loved fairy-tales – ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Snow White’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Rapunzel’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ – by Grimm, Perrault and other authors. As well as framed pictures, there will also be first edition books and other artefacts of various illustrators, among them Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson, Mervyn Peake and Mabel Lucie Attwell. ‘Grimm Girls: Picturing the “Princess”’ is curated by Dr Anne Anderson, a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Chichester, in association with the University’s Department of English & Creative Writing and the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy.
  • Monday 25 November 2013, one-day Symposium of leading fantasy and fairy-tale experts.Kindly sponsored by Scrivener.
Session 1, E124 (4 – 5.30 p.m.), £5/£3 concessions
  • Maria Nikolajeva, ‘“Iron is stronger than grief, but love is stronger than iron”: Reading fairy-tale emotions through words and illustrations.’
  • Terri Windling, ‘Into the Woods: One Writer-and-Artist’s Journey into Fairy Tales’.
Session 2, Mitre lecture theatre, (5.45 – 7.30 p.m.), £5/£3 concessions
  • Jack Zipes, ‘Reinvigorating the Fairy Tale: Radical Visions and Feminist Interpretations in Paintings, Sculptures, and Photography’.
  • Followed by round-table discussion with all three speakers.
Tickets available from the University’s online store.

For more information e-mail scfffevents@chi.ac.uk.

About our sponsor:

Scrivener is a content-generation tool that enables users to outline and structure ideas, take notes, view research alongside writing and compose the constituent pieces of a text in isolation or in context. Visit http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php for more information.

Old, New, Borrowed and Blue: A Fairy-Tale Symposium

  • Tuesday 26 March 2013, Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester
  • Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota and founding father of the academic discipline of Fairy Tale studies, will give a lecture at the University of Chichester. He’ll be preceded by talks by children’s literature expert Nick Tucker and by Jacqueline Simpson, Visiting Professor of Folklore at the University of Chichester. This fairy tale symposium will run as follows
  • 3 p.m. Jacqueline Simpson: ‘Terry Pratchett, Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men’ (in Room 144)
  • 4.15 p.m. Nicholas Tucker: ‘Grimm Parents’ (in Room 144)
  • 6 p.m. Jack Zipes: ‘Once Upon a Time: Changing the World through Storytelling’ (Mitre Lecture Theatre)
More details to follow; if you have any queries please contact Heather Robbins at h.robbins@chi.ac.uk.

From Steampunk to Pullman and beyond: Exploring the varieties of ‘punk’

Frauke Matz, Lecturer in English at Duisburg-Essen University, Germany, and author of He Simply Went to Pieces, presents this overview of steampunk, cyberpunk, mythpunk, etc.

Please note that this event was cancelled due to illness.

Storytelling, storywriting, storyprinting: Telling tales and the origins of children’s books

Ruth Bottigheimer and Matthew Grenby, Professors at New York and Newcastle respectively, will share the platform at the first ever joint event to be co-hosted by the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy (SCFFF) and the South Coast Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Research Group (SCERRG).

More details to follow; if you have any queries please contact Heather Robbins at h.robbins@chi.ac.uk.

Sex, Lies and Videotape: The Brothers Grimm Experience

Professional story-teller Janet Dowling presents the story of how the brothers Grimm cleaned up their act for contemporary readers … and what Disney did next.

After Grimm: Fairy Tales and the Art of Storytelling

  • 6-8 September 2012, Kingston University
2012 is the bicentenary of the publication of the first volume of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen [Children’s and Household Tales] by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. As this groundbreaking collection moves into its third century, this conference explores the trajectory of the Grimm phenomenon in Britain and the English-speaking world. Examining the varied and colourful reception history of this collection of tales, this conference will discuss the most recent fairy-tale scholarship, as well as looking forward to possible future developments. The Grimm bicentenary will also be celebrated through storytelling events, readings, a creative writing prize, and an exhibition of illustrations.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

  • Donald Haase
  • Neil Philip
  • Marina Warner
  • Jack Zipes
This conference is being run collaboratively by Kingston University and The Sussex Centre for Folklore Fairy Tales and Fantasy and the University of Chichester.

Grimms’ Fairy Tales Study Day

The Children’s Books History Society is staging a Study Day on Saturday 13 October 2012 to celebrate Two Hundred Years of the Grimm Brothers’ Fairy Tales. The venue is the Church Hall of the Great Crown Court Church of Scotland in London’s Covent Garden. The speakers will be:

Brian Alderson on ‘The Making of the Kinder– und Hausmärchen’; Neil Philips on ‘The Influence of the Grimms’; Geoff Fox on ‘There’s Game in the Wind’; Nick Tucker on ‘How grim are the Grimms’ fairy-tale parents?’; David Blaimres on ‘The Role of the Forest in Grimms’ Fairy Tales’; Susan Bailes on ‘The Illustrators of Grimms’ Fairy Tales’.

The cost of the day is £20, which includes all refreshments including lunch. Further details and a booking form are available from:

Robert Kirkpatrick, 6 Osterley Park View Road, Hanwell, LONDON W7 2HH Tel. 020 8567 4521 Email: Rkirkpatrick.molesworth@virgin.net

Postgraduate Symposium at Return of the Ring

Tolkien Society conference 2012

As part of the larger Return of the Ring conference at Loughborough University (16th-20th August 2012), celebrating 75 years of The Hobbit, The Tolkien Society is hosting a dedicated postgraduate symposium on Tolkien studies on Friday 17th August 2012.

The interdisciplinary symposium is the first of its kind and serves to map current scholarship inspired by Tolkien by bringing together emerging scholars across disciplines of art, cultural studies, fantasy studies, gaming, linguistics, medieval studies, literature, film studies, fan studies etc. Post-doctoral or other early career stages scholars are also welcome. It is hoped that a selection of papers will be published as an edited collection following the symposium.

The symposium is led by an internationally renowned team of academics including Professor Martin Barker (International Lord of the Rings audience survey), Dr Dimitra Fimi (Tolkien, Race and Cultural History) and Professor Corey Olsen (‘the Tolkien Professor’). The format of the symposium is based around panels of postgraduate papers and so presents a unique opportunity to hear and be heard by one’s peers across the full range of Tolkien-related study. A networking lunch and an interactive group session, led by the academic team, complement the interdisciplinary approach and students will also have the opportunity to attend the keynote speech by Tom Shippey that evening.

We currently seek proposals for papers (20 mins) on any aspect of Tolkien related research. Proposals relating to gaming, fan films, adaptation, audience cultures etc. are welcome as well as more traditional areas of Tolkien study such as literature, linguistics and fantasy. Students should submit an abstract (max 300 words) and short biography paragraph to:

symposium@returnofthering.org

New extended deadline for abstracts: 29th February 2012

Tolkien: The Forest and the City

  • The School of English, Trinity College Dublin, September 21-22, 2012
Keynote Address: Professor Tom Shippey (St Louis University, emeritus): ‘The Goths and the Romans in Tolkien’s Imagination’

Invited Lecturers:Professor Michael D. C. Drout (Wheaton College): ‘The Tower and the Ruin: The Past in Tolkien’Professor Verlyn Flieger (University of Maryland): ‘Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Sentient Landscape in Tolkien’s Fiction.’Professor Thomas Honegger (University of Jena): ‘”Raw Forest” and the “Cooked City” Lévi-Strauss in Middle-earth’Professor Alison Milbank (University of Nottingham): ‘In a Dark Wood: Tolkien and Dante’ Further details

Launch of new Sussex Centre journal Gramarye

  • Tuesday 29 May at 5.15pm in Cloisters, Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester.
There will be readings by Steve O’Brien (Editor of the London Magazine, poet and Creative Writing Fellow at Chichester University) of new versions of British and Danish folktales. Prof. Bill Gray will also give a short talk about the history of the word gramarye. Entrance free. Copies of Gramarye on sale (£5).

‘Visual Images in Literary Fairy Tales: in and behind the text’, Larisa Prokhorava of Kemerovo State University, Russia

Images of Witches: History, Fairy Tales, Films

Willem de Blécourt is Honorary Research Fellow at the Huizinga Institute, Amsterdam, and author of Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe and Werewolves.

Folklore and Fantasy Conference

The Folklore Society and the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy are delighted to announce a joint conference on “Folklore and Fantasy” at the University of Chichester on Friday 13th to Sunday 15th April 2012.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline 27 January 2012

Many folktales are closely related to the fantastic – through subject matter, content and impulse. Folklore often deals with the fantastic, or turns to the supernatural to provide explanations for extraordinary events. Similarly, folklore has long been a major source of inspiration for fantasy literature, from authors like Kevin Crossley-Holland and Angela Carter and graphic novelists like Neil Gaiman and Bill Willingham who take on and re-present traditional stories, to authors like Lloyd Alexander Susan Cooper, Kate Thompson who draw on established tropes, to authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Susanna Clarke and Terry Pratchett who invent their own folk traditions.

This three-day conf will explore, investigate and celebrate the relationship between folklore and fantasy. We welcome papers on all aspects of folklore and fantasy from the medieval to the modern and the post-modern.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

  • Folklore of the fantastic

  • Invented Folklore in Epic Fantasy

  • Graphic novels

  • Urban Legends

  • Superstitions

  • The Gothic Tradition

  • Monsters, Bogies and Boggarts

  • Real and invented folk history

  • Medieval and Modern Travellers’ Tales

  • Folklore in Children’s Literature

  • World Folklore in American Fantasy

  • Celtic folklore in Popular Culture

  • Folklore on the Stage or on the Screen

  • The Commodification and ‘Disneyfication’ of Traditional Stories

  • Folklore in Art

Abstracts of 250 words for 20-minute papers should be sent to enquiries@folklore-society.com and to b.gray@chi.ac.uk

Fantasy, Ecocriticism and the Place of the Romantic Imagination

Professor Bill Gray will give a talk based on material from Fantasy, Art and Life, the recently published third volume in his trilogy of books on fantasy literature (the others being Fantasy, Myth and the Measure of Truth and Death and Fantasy). Fantasy, Art and Life has just been issued in paperback, and will be available at a 25% discount at the talk.

Illustrating Fables

John Vernon Lord, illustrator, author and teacher, has illustrated many classical texts,including Aesop’s Fables, The Nonsense Verse of Edward Lear; the Folio Society’s Myths and Legends of the British Isles, and Epics of the Middle Ages. In addition, he has illustrated many classics of children’s literature including Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark.He has made extensive contributions to the world of contemporary poetry and narrative, and has written and illustrated several children’s books, which have been published widely and translated into several languages. His book The Giant Jam Sandwich has been in print for over thirty years.As a university professor John Vernon Lord has lectured on the art of illustration for over 40 years and is pre-eminent in the field. Most recently he has been working on Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass.

Mervyn Peake Centenary Events in Chichester

A conference entitled “Mervyn Peake and the Fantasy Tradition” to be held in the University of Chichester on 15 – 17th July 2011, to mark Peake’s 100th birthday and the publication of Titus Awakes, Maeve Gilmore’s conclusion, as she envisaged it, of her husband’s Titus Groan or Gormenghast trilogy.

Speakers to include Joanne Harris, Peter Winnington, Brian Sibley, Colin Manlove, Farah Mendlesohn, Katherine Langrish and Sebastian Peake.

Two exhibitions of Peake’s illustrative works to be held in Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery and The Otter Gallery concurrently with the conference.

“Enter Caelia, the Fairy Queen in her night attire”: Shakespeare and the Fairies

Michael Hattaway, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Sheffield, is editor of A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture; The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama and Shakespeare in the New Europe.

Fairy Tales in Print. A Troubled History

Nicholas Tucker, honorary Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies, University of Sussex. His books include: The Child and the Book: Psychological and Literary Exploration; Family Fictions: Contemporary Classics of Children’s Literature; The Rough Guide to Children’s Books; and Darkness Visible: Inside the World of Philip Pullman.

From translation to rewriting: text and image in Angela Carter’s The ‘Fairy Tales of Perrault and The Bloody Chamber’, Dr Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochere, University of Lausanne

“The Cave” by Mervyn Peake, World Premiere, Blue Elephant Theatre, Camberwell

  • 19 October-6 November 8:00 pm, Tuesday-Saturday
This unsettling and powerful play by Mervyn Peake – author of Gormenghast – is a dark, inquisitive look at the nature of authority and its effect on the human condition. There will be a post-show discussion with the writer’s son, Sebastian Peake, chaired by writer Neil Norman on Tuesday 26 October.

More details at The Cave

‘The Legend of Spring-heeled Jack: Urban Folklore in Victorian Popular Culture’, Dr. Karl Bell, University of Portsmouth

‘Terry Pratchett: A Vast Consumer of Folklore’, Dr Jacqueline Simpson

This will be Jacqueline’s Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Folklore at the University of Chichester.

Surreal Friends

  • 19 June – 12 September 2010 Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK

Deloitte Ignite 2010: A Three Day Festival of Contemporary Arts

  • 3-5 September, 2010, Royal Opera House, London
Curated by internationally renowned pianist, composer and auteur Joanna MacGregor. Inspired by the theme of forests: forests as a place of quiet, reflective beauty, mystery and discovery, as places of fairytale narrative, as well as metaphorical spaces. Features an event by writer and cultural historian Professor Marina Warner, entitled “Into the Woods,” a series of films, animations and performances exploring the light and darkness of fairytales.

Festival in the Shire

  • 13-15 August 2010
Pafiliwn Bont, Pontrhydfendigaid, Ystrad Meurig, Ceredigion, SW 25 6BB. See Festival in the Shire.The Festival in the Shire will be the most comprehensive event ever held for the fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, with a conference, a fan exposition of original art, rare books and memorabilia as well as a large festival with stalls and entertainment

Anti-Tales: The Uses of Disenchantment Symposium

An interdisciplinary research forum and subsequent publication of proceedings (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) based around the currently under-researched notion of the ‘anti-tale.’ The anti-fairy tale has long existed as a shadow of the traditional fairy tale genre. Plenary speakers include Dr. Anna Kérchy (Senior Assistant Professor, University of Szeged) and Professor Aidan Day (Professor of English, University of Dundee)

Leonora Carrington’s Magic Tales (Talk at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester)

  • Thursday 29th July 2010, 6:00pm
Alongside her paintings Leonora Carrington has also produced an extensive body of writing such as ‘The Debutante’, ‘Little Francis’, ‘The Hearing Trumpet’ and ‘The Invention of Mole’. Her stories are imaginative, surreal, and often funny. The distinguished writer, critic and historian Professor Marina Warner introduces Carrington as a writer.

‘George MacDonald: Master of Fantasy, Seer of Arundel’, Professor Bill Gray

This is part of the 2010 Chichester Festivities and admission is free.

The Case for Owen Barfield

“Not only a decisive influence on both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, but also in his own right an original interpreter of Coleridge’s thought, Owen Barfield is highly relevant to the aims of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy.”
  • Prof. Fanfan Chen (Professor, Department of English, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan)
  • Owen A. Barfield (only grandchild of Owen Barfield, presently publishing both existing and previously unavailable works by Barfield)
The event is organised by the Owen Barfield Literary Estate to mark the opening of the Owen Barfield archive at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University

‘England – the land without folklore?’, Dr Jonathan Roper (University of Tartu, Estonia, and Honorary Research Fellow, at National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield

The Supernatural, Folklore Society Conference

  • 26-28 March – Leeds Trinity University College, Horsforth, Leeds

‘The Rose on the Ash-Heap’, Owen Barfield, Independent Scholar

  • 25 March 2010, 1.30-5.30 pm – St. Ethelburga’s, 78 Bishopsgate, London

Race and the Fantastic

  • 17-21 March, 2010 – the IAFA (Orlando Airport Marriott, Orlando, Florida)

Dragon Tails or Tales of Gragons and Woodland Wyrms (A Folk-Arts Theatre Production for Children), Alison Williams-Bailey

  • 6 March 2010, 2:00 pm – Clair Hall Studio, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH163DN
More information at The Root and Branch Theatre Company

The Dragons of England, Dr Jacqueline Simpson (former President, Folklore Society)

Exhibition on illustrations by Mervyn Peake

Exhibition on illustrations by Mervyn Peake, “Mervyn Peake, l’oeuvre illustrée”

De-Disneyfying the Fairy-Tale Film, Professor Jack Zipes (University of Minnesota, USA)

  • 3 February, 2010, 4:00-6:00 pm – House Auditorium in Mary Allan Building, Homerton College, University of Cambridge

‘The Undomestic Witch: Scottish Witches, Fairies, and Old Religions’, Dr Diane Purkiss (Faculty of English, University of Oxford/ Fellow and Tutor, Keble College Diane Purkiss

‘At the Back of George MacDonald: Romanticism, Fairy Tales and the Redemptive Child’, Bill Gray (University of Chichester)

From Fata to Fairies

From Fata to Fairies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Antiquities to the Present Day Conference Organisers: Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochere and Veronique Dasen.