Dear blog,

Tomorrow the ‘Thomas de Quincey, Manchester, and Medicine’ conference is taking place: http://www.iscpr.salford.ac.uk/iscpr/p/?s=32&pid=49. I’m really pleased with the programme and the participants; there has been quite a range response to the call for papers, from postgrads to Professors, from Cyprus to UCLA, and from the gothic to astronomy and hangovers. I won’t be able to empathise with the ‘Romantic hangover’ since I’m on an early train the next morning to the CCUE meeting in London, where the much-debated topic of ‘Impact’ will be discussed at length. If anyone hasn’t read Stefan Collini’s article on Impact in the Humanities in the TLS, you can read it here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6915986.ece

The deadline for the first event of the AHRC-training session ‘Theories and Methods: Literature, Science and Medicine’ passed on 1/12/09 and we had 33 applications for only 20 places. This is both good and bad: I’m pleased that so many want to be part of the programme but sad that some people won’t get places. It does show, however, that there are doctoral students put there who affiliate their work with the programme, and that we were right to propose the programme to the AHRC. I hope that those who can’t come to events in person for whatever reason will still engage with the debates and topics covered on the social space.

This week I’ve also been organising the schedule for our research cluster (Literature, Culture, and Science: http://www.iscpr.salford.ac.uk/iscpr/p/?s=36&pid=47) at Salford’s one-day symposium on 15/1/10. We decided that instead of having a series of seminars we would have a day-long symposium and have invited two external speakers: Laurence Coupe (MMU) and Clare Brant (KCL). A number of my colleagues have suggested activities and events, including showing polaroids taken with some of the last polaroid stock to be bought (the company announced some time ago that they would stop producing instant film) and a talk on using science in novels for teenagers.   

Tonight I’m off to the Christmas drinks event at the Museum of Science and Industry. On the invitation we are promised a ride in the reproduction of George Stephenson’s Planet locomotive and I’m ridiculously overexcited about this prospect!

Best,

Sharon