The Author and the World: New Interdisciplinary Approaches to Authorship
Lead Research Organisation:
Lancaster University
Department Name: European Languages and Cultures
Abstract
Content and approach:
In line with the expanding remit of literary studies, my research assesses how authors function as cultural artefacts. Not only do authors create texts that carry cultural significance, they are themselves culturally constructed within different contexts and through different media: the text itself, the literary industry, national and international cultural politics, humanities scholarship and the various institutions it underpins. Authorship - 'being an author' - must therefore be understood not just as a literary practice, but as an ever-evolving process of construction undertaken by multiple players, in multiple contexts and to multiple ends. The precise nature of this process can only be grasped through an integrated approach that interprets textual phenomena historically, sociologically, culturally and linguistically. In pioneering such a research model, my project has the potential to change the way scholars across a range of Arts and Humanities disciplines approach the social significance of studying culture.
The focus of my research is in the first instance the German-speaking world. In particular, I examine the changing nature of the post-war public sphere, and trace the strategies developed by key authors to negotiate their integration in evolving media debates on image and identity over the last 60 years. Working with a range of source materials from literary texts to TV documentaries and government statistics on programmes of literary support, I interrogate concrete examples of how authors manipulate different text types, are received by different audiences, and are put to various wider social uses by a series of intermediaries. I argue that while authors such as Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, or Daniel Kehlmann work within dominant, historically conditioned public understandings of their significance, they also use both their literature and other media texts to challenge these discourses and subvert them. Significant developments in literary aesthetics can be traced across the period that both echo and interrupt wider sociological and technological developments. Equally, the different ways in which authors are constructed by others as symbolic personalities - e.g. as important cultural leaders or markedly compromised individuals - can illuminate the cultural moments into which they are placed.
My interrogation of authors as important cultural phenomena is achieved by fusing together the various different methodological approaches underpinning literary and sociological lines of enquiry. In so doing, I develop a broadly applicable research model that lends itself to comparative investigation.
Outputs:
1) My monograph, Writing Life: The Making of the Author in Germany's Media Age, will provide a first systematic, interdisciplinary analysis of the political, social and cultural circumstances of authorship in post-war Germany.
2) A reader on authorship and fame will be published with a major UK/US publisher following a series of research events that will be carried out under the auspices of a research hub on 'World Authorship'. I am founding this as a long-term venture at Lancaster University to bring my understanding of authorship in the German context into dialogue with researchers from different disciplines (History, Cultural Studies, English, and Linguistics) and different linguistic and geographical contexts. The hub will consist of a number of research strands. This award allows me to pilot the first, on 'Authorship and Fame', which will consist of a series of 4 colloquia and workshops, and a significant website.
3) Further work resulting from the hub: 2 co-authored articles (PI and steering group members) on literary celebrity seen in different cultural contexts and as understood through a discourse historical approach will exemplify the hub's interdisciplinary work; 1 article on authorship and the internet by the RA will also straddle Literary and Media Studie
In line with the expanding remit of literary studies, my research assesses how authors function as cultural artefacts. Not only do authors create texts that carry cultural significance, they are themselves culturally constructed within different contexts and through different media: the text itself, the literary industry, national and international cultural politics, humanities scholarship and the various institutions it underpins. Authorship - 'being an author' - must therefore be understood not just as a literary practice, but as an ever-evolving process of construction undertaken by multiple players, in multiple contexts and to multiple ends. The precise nature of this process can only be grasped through an integrated approach that interprets textual phenomena historically, sociologically, culturally and linguistically. In pioneering such a research model, my project has the potential to change the way scholars across a range of Arts and Humanities disciplines approach the social significance of studying culture.
The focus of my research is in the first instance the German-speaking world. In particular, I examine the changing nature of the post-war public sphere, and trace the strategies developed by key authors to negotiate their integration in evolving media debates on image and identity over the last 60 years. Working with a range of source materials from literary texts to TV documentaries and government statistics on programmes of literary support, I interrogate concrete examples of how authors manipulate different text types, are received by different audiences, and are put to various wider social uses by a series of intermediaries. I argue that while authors such as Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek, or Daniel Kehlmann work within dominant, historically conditioned public understandings of their significance, they also use both their literature and other media texts to challenge these discourses and subvert them. Significant developments in literary aesthetics can be traced across the period that both echo and interrupt wider sociological and technological developments. Equally, the different ways in which authors are constructed by others as symbolic personalities - e.g. as important cultural leaders or markedly compromised individuals - can illuminate the cultural moments into which they are placed.
My interrogation of authors as important cultural phenomena is achieved by fusing together the various different methodological approaches underpinning literary and sociological lines of enquiry. In so doing, I develop a broadly applicable research model that lends itself to comparative investigation.
Outputs:
1) My monograph, Writing Life: The Making of the Author in Germany's Media Age, will provide a first systematic, interdisciplinary analysis of the political, social and cultural circumstances of authorship in post-war Germany.
2) A reader on authorship and fame will be published with a major UK/US publisher following a series of research events that will be carried out under the auspices of a research hub on 'World Authorship'. I am founding this as a long-term venture at Lancaster University to bring my understanding of authorship in the German context into dialogue with researchers from different disciplines (History, Cultural Studies, English, and Linguistics) and different linguistic and geographical contexts. The hub will consist of a number of research strands. This award allows me to pilot the first, on 'Authorship and Fame', which will consist of a series of 4 colloquia and workshops, and a significant website.
3) Further work resulting from the hub: 2 co-authored articles (PI and steering group members) on literary celebrity seen in different cultural contexts and as understood through a discourse historical approach will exemplify the hub's interdisciplinary work; 1 article on authorship and the internet by the RA will also straddle Literary and Media Studie
Planned Impact
Media debates about the public function of authors have been a recurrent feature of the post-war German cultural landscape and my monograph directly speaks to these. It has the potential to impact on the work of cultural journalists, agents, curators, prize juries and publishers within the well-developed network of public and private cultural institutions and media holdings in Germany and Austria. In order to develop this potential, I am liaising with two German colleagues, Dr G Nickel, who works in academe (U of Mainz) and for the national German public body, the German Literary Fund, and Dr D Stolz, who is a freelance literary editor and agent. We are proposing a series of public lectures / talks on the changing nature of authorship in contemporary Germany, to be held at a series of public locations in Germany throughout summer 2015. This will not only help me promote the scholarship underpinning my monograph to a wide German-language audience, but also has the potential to influence the German Literary Fund's policies and wider German media debate about the way authors are supported by various cultural programmes and funds. Other academic studies addressing some of these issues have already been widely referenced in ensuing media debate and taken up by industry insiders (e.g. Vandenrath 2006). We will draw on Dr Nickel's previous association with the Marbach Literary Archive to negotiate a first location with Dr M Lepper, the Director of International Research Scholarships and Summer Programmes at Marbach. Further contacts with public Literary Institutes will be made through the German Literary Fund.
In the UK, my proposed interdisciplinary research hub has the potential to provide a valuable forum for creative practitioners: authors, publishers and cultural agencies, many of whom are increasingly hit by cuts in public funding. Due to its location within Lancaster University's Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research (http://www.transculturalwriting.com/; 1 million hits a year) the website will make participation in our events freely available to creative individuals working around the world. Their input into the strategic direction of the project will be actively encouraged through such features as an authors' blog, feedback on position papers, and an interactive Authors' Resources facility for individuals to share materials relevant to the creative process. The high visibility and stability of the CTWR website provides a valuable 'shop window' for creative practitioners to profile their work and engage in collaborative initiatives that help them negotiate the challenges of authorship in the current economic climate. In line with the non-Anglophone element of my project, we will work particularly with cultural agencies specialising in translation and foreign-language promotion in the UK. The fact that this creative exchange unfolds alongside academic research undertaken by scholars from a diverse range of disciplines further enhances the exposure of these practitioners to important elements of the global literary field. Their work will be highlighted in research, and there is the further possibility that it will be placed on curricula as an object of study.
The impact model followed is that of the highly successful £380 000 AHRC-funded Moving Manchester project and website (2006-10), as well as earlier work on the 'Crossing Borders' and 'Radiophonics' projects, completed under the auspices of the British Council and now also housed on the CTWR website. All three projects created sites that helped authors, publishers and cultural agencies showcase their work and share information about the creative process. Writers from the 'Moving Manchester' project have performed and lectured to Lancaster undergraduates; the work of African writers in the online 'Crossing Borders Magazine' is available to and has been used by teachers internationally. My hub will adopt similar strategies of engagement and dissemination.
In the UK, my proposed interdisciplinary research hub has the potential to provide a valuable forum for creative practitioners: authors, publishers and cultural agencies, many of whom are increasingly hit by cuts in public funding. Due to its location within Lancaster University's Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research (http://www.transculturalwriting.com/; 1 million hits a year) the website will make participation in our events freely available to creative individuals working around the world. Their input into the strategic direction of the project will be actively encouraged through such features as an authors' blog, feedback on position papers, and an interactive Authors' Resources facility for individuals to share materials relevant to the creative process. The high visibility and stability of the CTWR website provides a valuable 'shop window' for creative practitioners to profile their work and engage in collaborative initiatives that help them negotiate the challenges of authorship in the current economic climate. In line with the non-Anglophone element of my project, we will work particularly with cultural agencies specialising in translation and foreign-language promotion in the UK. The fact that this creative exchange unfolds alongside academic research undertaken by scholars from a diverse range of disciplines further enhances the exposure of these practitioners to important elements of the global literary field. Their work will be highlighted in research, and there is the further possibility that it will be placed on curricula as an object of study.
The impact model followed is that of the highly successful £380 000 AHRC-funded Moving Manchester project and website (2006-10), as well as earlier work on the 'Crossing Borders' and 'Radiophonics' projects, completed under the auspices of the British Council and now also housed on the CTWR website. All three projects created sites that helped authors, publishers and cultural agencies showcase their work and share information about the creative process. Writers from the 'Moving Manchester' project have performed and lectured to Lancaster undergraduates; the work of African writers in the online 'Crossing Borders Magazine' is available to and has been used by teachers internationally. My hub will adopt similar strategies of engagement and dissemination.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Rebecca Braun (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Braun R
(2018)
DOING GERMAN DIFFERENTLY: NEW RESEARCH PRACTICES AND PARTNERSHIPS AROUND THE UK DOING GERMAN DIFFERENTLY: NEW RESEARCH PRACTICES AROUND THE UK
in German Life and Letters
Braun R
(2014)
PRIZE GERMANS? CHANGING NOTIONS OF GERMANNESS AND THE ROLE OF THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
in Oxford German Studies
Braun R
(2016)
Introduction: re-viewing literary celebrity
in Celebrity Studies
Braun R
(2015)
Introduction: The Rise of the World Author from the Death of World Literature
in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies
Braun R
(2020)
World Authorship
Braun R
(2016)
The world author in us all: conceptualising fame and agency in the global literary market
in Celebrity Studies
Braun R
(2018)
PACING OUT A POLYGLOT POETICS: AN INTERVIEW WITH ULRIKE DRAESNER AT THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM AN INTERVIEW WITH ULRIKE DRAESNER
in German Life and Letters
Braun, R
(2021)
Really Existing Utopias: Co-Creative Authorship in the Literary Works of 20th and 21st-Century German-Language Women Writers
in Gegenwartsliteratur
| Description | The grant has advanced knowledge on literary authorship in three distinct areas: 1. My monograph (full manuscript submitted to the publisher) has interrogated the specifically German, post-war contexts of authorship. It casts its net widely to include analysis of publishing houses, emergent media networks, friendship groupings and professional literary organizations across West Germany, East Germany, and unified Germany alongside close-readings of key self-reflexive literary texts over the past seventy years. In so doing, it conceptualizes four modes of authorship - attitudes taken to (being) an author -that emerge from the particular historical context of twentieth-century writing, coupled with broader factors that affect any theoretical analysis of authorship and are linked to questions of geographical place, human agency and physical bodies. I use these modes to trace how dominant models of authorship became established in the post-war period and look at how they have both resulted from and perpetuated patterns of gender-bias and ethnic exclusion within mainstream literary achievement. While these models have been subject to modification and diversification as Germany has opened out to the international market and global patterns of migration, significant, historically conditioned blind spots remain that continue to affect contemporary practices in the literary industry. 2. The research hub 'Authors & the World' has pioneered a multi-disciplinary, multi-language approach to the topic of 'literary celebrity'. This has significantly advanced our understanding of: the deep historical roots of literary celebrity throughout the Western world, the links across Western cultures between literary celebrity and discourses around nation-building, the gendered nature of the spaces in which literary celebrity is expressed, the reach of literary celebrity across multiple genres and media, and the economic and cultural specificity of literary celebrity to individual literary markets. These findings have been captured in a special issue of the journal Celebrity Studies, entitled 'Literary Celebrity', ed. R Braun & E Spiers, published in autumn 2016. 3. Building on our findings on literary celebrity, the 'Authors & the World' hub has initiated a further research strand into 'world authorship'. This strand has begun to conceptualize how, while individual manifestations of literary celebrity remain tied to national contexts, images of culturally-significant authorship circulate as part of a global flow of literature. We contend that this needs to be understood as a collective process whereby literary value is repeatedly re-mediated by a series of locally grounded actors who both draw upon and relativize the original author. This research has been develop in two principal collaborative fora: (1) a first exploration of our ideas with reference to the global reach of German-language writing can be accessed in the special issue of the journal Seminar, entitled 'World Authorship', ed. R. Braun & A. Piper, 51:2 (2015); (2) a handbook on World Authorship, gathering some 25 chapters from academics and people working across the literary sector, is due to appear in Oxford University Press's 'Twenty-First-Century Approaches' series in 2020. Taken together, the multi-disciplinary research strands pursued on this project have allowed us to conclude the following. Modern-day authorship is the outward facing embodiment of literary agency, and it is defined by four foundational principles: it is collaborative, it has a human and a non-human element, it relies on the illusion of individuality and determinacy, and it occurs across a wide range of media. These preliminary findings are informing a new programme of research for the 'Authors and the World' hub with effect from 2016. |
| Exploitation Route | My monograph encourages a re-reading of German literary history that resists the idea of a fundamental caesura in the role of the author around 1989/90 and provides instead a way of grasping how authors have routinely more and less consciously embodied a certain attitude to writing that has itself been part of a larger cultural ebb and flow in what people believe literature can achieve and where it should be placed in society. My study provides an overarching interpretative lens that looks in detail at the last 70 years of German literature, but also embeds this within the broader sweep of the past two hundred years, framed by Goethe's idea of 'world literature'. In so doing, it connects up a new way of understanding recent German writing with current discussions of what 'world literature' is, providing its own particular 'real world' angle on this phenomenon. There is much research being done into very contemporary individual manifestations of authorship / modes of literary self-presentation in German-speaking Europe by scholars in German Studies, Theatre Studies, History of the Book and Comparative Literature. My monograph should provide an important backbone and backstory to these analyses. Celebrity Studies is also a thriving area of research, but there are few publications dealing with the specific phenomenon of literary celebrity across multiple disciplines and contexts. We therefore expect the findings that have informed our special issue of Celebrity Studies to be of interest to a broad range of cognate disciplines. World Authorship is a particularly emergent area of enquiry specifically associated with the work of the 'Authors and the World' hub, and we expect this to attract considerable interest from scholars of World Literature and cognate areas across literary and language studies. Further work remains to be done on the following areas of both literary celebrity and world authorship, each of which have been staked out in individual contributions to our various publications, and some of which are being actively pursued on other international projects: the authoritative academic voice / the academy and celebrity / digital humanities' approaches to tracking literary celebrity and world authorship / the gendered aspects of processes and spaces underpinning celebrity and world authorship. We expect the key academic users of our research to be based in Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, English & Creative Writing, Film & Theatre Studies, Linguistics, Modern Languages, Translation Studies. For potential users / ongoing collaborators beyond academe, please see our impact narrative. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.authorsandtheworld.com |
| Description | As the award has only recently concluded, it is still quite early for reporting on measurable longer-term results across the cultural sector, which is where this project is most likely to achieve significant impact. Nevertheless, we have been consciously developing an iterative model of 'impact through co-design' that has already, on a small scale, borne fruit for our non-academic partners and set up a promising impact pathway. In the portfolio of events run by the 'Authors and the World' research hub since 2014, we have collaborated with professionals (writers, publishers, editors, translators, agents, newspaper reviewers) from the creative sector in the UK, Europe, India, and Latin America. These professionals reported appreciating the space that being involved in academic research has provided for them to reflect on the circumstances of their work in the wider literary industry. Several of them have gone on to engage with similar academic research in other settings through residencies, visiting professorships, and contractual work. We continue to cultivate on-going links with all of these professionals, initially through guest blog contributions to our website (this is now largely archived), residencies at Lancaster University (German writers Ulrike Almut Sandig 2014-15 and Ulrike Draesner 2015-16; UK translator of French and Hispanic fiction, Frank Wynne 2016 - we remain in touch with all of these people), co-hosted public events off campus, and select contributions from creative sector professionals to our two collaborative publication projects (a special issue of a journal on literary celebrity, and a handbook on world authorship). The kind of impact that we are pursuing through such intertwining of academic research in literary studies and the broader professional contexts of literature has lent the project a distinct element of stakeholder 'co-design'. We expect to build on this in the coming years, as fellow researchers at Lancaster University's Department of Languages & Cultures and the Institute for Social Futures expand their links with the creative sector in order to enable new thinking and share best practice within the broad area of public engagement with literature. This has notably been the case for 'Graphic Futures', a follow-on project that PI Braun ran at the Institute for Social Futures 2017/18, working with 13 colleagues and a Visiting Professor in Graphic Fiction, Benoit Peeters. Results from this interdisciplinary exploration of creative practice have been shared with, for example, DSTL, who are interested in adapting our brand of creative collaborative design for their own futures work. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Security and Diplomacy |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Commissioned report for MoD on The Future World of the Author (out to 2050) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Description | Expert input to facilitation of a collaborative Science Fiction workshop for DSTL, 'Us and Them' |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Departmental Research Budget |
| Amount | £500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2017 |
| End | 12/2019 |
| Description | FASS IKE grant 2016-17 |
| Amount | £4,993 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2016 |
| End | 07/2017 |
| Description | FASS Impact and Knowledge Exchange grant |
| Amount | £2,990 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2016 |
| End | 03/2016 |
| Description | FASS Research Fund |
| Amount | £2,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2017 |
| End | 12/2019 |
| Description | Institute for Social Futures, small grant |
| Amount | £1,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2017 |
| End | 06/2018 |
| Description | Blogs on Nobel Prize in The Conversation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | I wrote 2 blogs for The Conversation in the week of the Nobel Prize in Literature. These were also subsequently published on the Lancaster University website, and that of the Authors and the World research hub. I used the blog partly to disseminate some of the academic research on literary celebrity that had been presented at our inaugural workshop in September (including embedded links through to our website, where there was specially produced, accessible multi-media material). I also used it to spark further debate, particularly around the idea of translators and the Nobel Prize. I have received a number of emails from members of the public about my work on the Nobel Prize and translation issues. I also received and engaged with a number of comments on the site of The Conversation. I was asked to write the second blog on the basis of the success of the first. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | https://theconversation.com/patrick-modiano-wins-nobel-prize-in-literature-we-need-to-reward-transla... |
| Description | Focus Group: International Translation Day 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A focus group to evaluate public-facing work undertaken by our partner organisation, Free Word London. We evaluated the success of their 'writing chain' event at ITD 2016, and in return we gathered data about translation discourse in the creative sector. 12 people (professionals from across the creative sector) attended the focus group, opening up a number of impact pathways for our research. In the second part of our focus group, we invited feedback on some of our research findings. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Interactive workshop at Free Word London on Literary Futures |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A workshop to explore different literary futures, bringing together a diverse set of creative practitioners and industry professionals (publishing). All attendees reported enjoying the event, which offered them an opportunity to engage with perspectives they would not usually hear. From a research perspective, we were able to use attendees' responses to refine our scenario writing, which we have developed into further research outputs and ongoing questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Leadership talks |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | c.100 people attended a panel on which I sat, looking at different kinds of career paths in academia. There was a good discussion afterwards. I have been asked to do a number of these talks since. This invitation itself followed on from previous talks I have given to Vitae's national annual conference (2013) and the AHRC RCTAG sub-group (2013). I subsequently spoke at another careers training event in Manchester (2014) for postgraduate students in German (delegates from US, UK, Europe), and will do so again in November 2014 for the AHRC Leadership Fellowship conference in Sheffield. In all cases so far, I am told I have really inspired and/or reassured participants - by speaking honestly but positively about what it means to be an academic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | London Book Fair 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A focus group held on site at London Book Fair, in collaboration with Free Word London, to examine the effectiveness of Free Word's panel earlier in the day on translation and regionalism. We also tested some of our key findings from the Authors & the World hub on our professional audience - used these as tools for further stimulating debate around translation and world authorship. c.15 people attended the focus group, which was recorded for further research purposes. Attendees reported particularly appreciating the extra intellectual space our focus group offered them to explore important issues in contemporary publishing with a diverse group of participants in what is otherwise a very hectic environment. We have since followed up with a number of the participants and are working with them on new projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Public Poetry Performance by Ulrike Almut Sandig |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A mixed audience of staff and students from across Lancaster University together with some members of the general public attended a dual-language poetry performance with sound installation by a German-Language poet who has been working with our research hub, Authors & the World. The students in particular were inspired by the event, with the result that we have now put this poet on our undergraduate curriculum (reaching c.25-30 students a year) and are hosting a return visit and public performance in May 2016. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Public conversation between Paul Muldoon Michael Krüger |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 70 members of the general public attended a public conversation between Irish poet Paul Muldoon and German poet and publisher Michael Krüger about how poetry travels. The conversation exemplified many key ideas about 'world authorship' which we have developed in the Authors & the World hub, and the audience reported enjoying the international space that was opened up and the ideas that were explored. From a research perspective, we were able to use the transcript of this interview for a publication in a handbook on World Authorship (forthcoming). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/articles/2018/moving-worlds-through-poetry--/ |
| Description | Public round table on Shakespeare in Europe |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An expert panel on 'radical translation', presenting and discussing creative translation of Shakespeare into 20th-C German and then back into English- with Ulrike Draesner, Tom Cheeseman, and Benedict Schofield. This was part of the 'Portrait of Europe' exhibition, it was used to profile the cross-cultural work undertaken by Authors & the World and Lancaster's Dept of European Languages and Cultures. The panel discussion sparked questions and lively debate with members of the public and school teachers. The third-sector organiser subsequently requested the podcast be sent to BBC Radio 3. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Public workshop: 'Making it' as an author in the UK |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 25 people attended an interactive workshop, where all participants were encouraged to critically reflect on what it means to 'make it' as an author in the UK. The participants came from a wide mix of backgrounds - interested members of the public, postgraduate creative writing students, academics working in Modern Languages, English, Linguistics, Cultural Studies, and invited industry representatives: a translator, a publisher, a newspaper reviewer, a published author (hence difficult to answer 'primary audience' question above). The prime result of the activity was that all participants reflected on their assumptions and gained immediate feedback from people working in related areas of activity, but whom they do not ordinarily get a chance to meet. All attendees expressed a strong desire to be involved in the future work of our research hub, 'Authors and the World'. Hard to quantify at this stage. Short videos from all industry speakers have been posted to our website, and a photobook of the event published online. We expect these to have a useful role in disseminating our activities. They may lead to more concrete requests for engagement at a later date. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.authorsandtheworld.com/?p=953 |
| Description | Re-casting the Classics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Work undertaken by translator-in-residence, Frank Wynne, with postgraduate students was presented to a general audience as part of Lancaster University's Campus in the City series. MA students explained the translation process they had explored with Frank in electing to translate Jean Anouillh's Antigone for a contemporary British audience. Discussion of the underlying issues followed, with the aim of introducing ideas of cultural transfer to a wider audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Translation workshop (Upcycling Shakespeare with Ulrike Draesner) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | German author and 'radical' Shakespeare translator Ulrike Draesner shared her practice with final year undergraduate students of translation. This was building on work she has done with the research hub, 'Authors & the World', and got the students creatively engaging with ideas of roots and inter semiotic translation. The impact was pedagogic and motivational for this cohort, who subsequently reported enhanced enjoyment of the course to my HoD. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Translation workshop with Ulrike Almut Sandig & Karen Leeder |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 25 undergraduate students of German attended a voluntary workshop on translation with German poet Ulrike Almut Sandig & her English translator, Karen Leeder. They translated poetry for the first time, and several students reported being inspired by the event. 3 students have gone on to apply for our department's MA in Translation Studies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Translator in residence (Frank Wynne) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Frank Wynne, the premier UK translator of Francophone and Hispanic-Language fiction, took up a residency at the Authors & the World research hub, Lancaster, and worked with second-year and final-year undergraduate students in Modern Languages, as well as a mixed cohort of postgraduate students from French, Creative Writing, Philosophy, and the Institute for Social Futures. He brought an industry-perspective to bear on issues surrounding translation for all cohorts, and has given students a wealth of information about pursuing a career in translation. The department of European Languages & Cultures has seen an increase in applications to its MA in Translation Studies for next year. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | A wide range of interested users are able to engage with our research, as it happens, from across the globe. Our facebook and twitter links mean people can interact with project members and contribute to the topics we are discussing. Having the website has helped us structure the research we are doing in new, accessible ways - which have directly helped us communicate our ideas to a wider audience (see my entry on blogs). None so far, though a lot of enthusiasm has been generated. I think the website is one of the main reasons we have had no trouble getting renowned speakers to contribute to our events and/or provide us with material for the site. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.authorsandtheworld.com |
| Description | Workshop at Free Word London on amateur / professional writing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | C.15 literary practitioners attended a workshop to explore how social media are changing our understanding of amateur and professional contexts for writing. The session tried out a series of exploratory interactive methods, which attendees reported opened up new perspectives on their work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/when-does-amateur-writer-or-publisher-become-professional-5... |
| Description | Workshop on interdisciplinary grant writing in literary studies |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | c.30 people learned from sample grants, and heard from AHRC Translating Cultures theme fellow, Charles Forsdick, as well as a North American and Scottish colleague working in Digital Humanities. Delegates universally commented that they found the hands-on dissection of bids (some successful, some unsuccessful) really helpful, and they left inspired for their own projects. I have been approached by colleagues for further advice, particularly for the AHRC scheme which is currently funding my work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.authorsandtheworld.com/?p=205 |