Dear blog,<\/p>\n
I\u2019m off on holiday for two weeks tomorrow (yippee!) but before I go wanted to say thanks to everyone who was involved in LitSciMed event 5. I particularly enjoyed the second day at Birkbeck College where it really was a privilege to sit as a student and listen to the excellent talks given by Steven Connor, Isobel Armstrong and Esther Leslie. I\u2019m a card-carrying historicist in my research and it was such a treat to think outside the box about such matters as \u2018thing theory\u2019, glass in nineteenth-century literature, and liquid crystals. In fact it was fascinating. I feel fired up to go away and read more Hegel and Benjamin so that I could properly engage with the discussions that were going on. The other events we have had have, I think, been dominated by historicist methods and it was a really interesting departure to think about \u2018things\u2019 in new ways.<\/p>\n
Last weekend was the British Society for Literature and Science conference at Cambridge, which a number of LitSciMedders attended. I heard some great papers and really felt that the sub-field, or sub-discipline, or whatever it is that we are and we do, is thriving. The day before the conference I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum and the University Library, Cambridge to read the Davy letters there. This was fun but there were some crucial words in these few letters that I couldn\u2019t read. I therefore asked the Fitzwilliam for copies of two of these letters and have just been told that it will cost \u00a3248 plus VAT for this service. Of course, I\u2019ve said no thanks.<\/p>\n
On 6th April I went to take a look at Richard Badnall\u2019s \u2018Undulating Railway\u2019 material that we house in the University of Salford archive (http:\/\/www.library.salford.ac.uk\/resources\/special\/badnall.xml) in the august company of two of my colleagues: Professor Alison Adam (who began her research career as a Historian of Science) and Professor Richard Knowles, a Professor of Transport Geography. It was such a pleasure to look at the material there, which includes the original, beautifully ornate patent for the railway. It turns out too that Richard Badnall wrote poetry. I need to take a look at this to see whether it\u2019s any good, but certainly he seems like a figure who is worth spending some time with.<\/p>\n
On 5th April I went to Leicester for a planning meeting for Event 6 of LitSciMed \u2013 our last event! Application forms and programmes for this event (to be held at Leicester and Keele) should go online on 3rd May at http:\/\/www.litscimed.org.uk\/. I\u2019m trying to think of ways to make this last event really special \u2013 we\u2019ve already planned a reception \u2013 let me know if you have any ideas.<\/p>\n
All best,<\/p>\n
Sharon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear blog, I\u2019m off on holiday for two weeks tomorrow (yippee!) but before I go wanted to say thanks to everyone who was involved in LitSciMed event 5. I particularly enjoyed the second day at Birkbeck College where it really … Continue reading