Middlebrow Network

Future Events

Middlebrow Network

• Inventing the Middlebrow: The Middlebrow in 20th-Century Literature and Culture

   27-29 June 2014, St Catherine University, St Paul, MN, USA.

  Conference co-sponsored by Post-45 (http://post45.research.yale.edu/) and the Middlebrow Network.

  This conference takes advantage of this exciting moment in middlebrow scholarship by bringing together scholars from different time periods and national traditions to explore the diverse range of literary production in the twentieth century. We seek proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, workshops, and study groups dealing with any aspect of so-called middlebrow culture, from the Progressive Era, through the interwar period, to Cold War literature and the many literary movements that have marked the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. We envision a wide-ranging and transnational conversation on the middlebrow, and we especially encourage papers from scholars investigating middlebrow culture after World War II. 

  Full details here.

  Interested participants should submit a one-page c.v. and 250-word abstract by October 1, 2013 to Jaime Harker (jlharker@olemiss.edu) and Cecilia Farr (ckfarr@stkate.edu). 

• Special Collection Reading Groups

  Sheffield Hallam University holds a public reading group on the 1st Monday of each month, looking at novels held in their Special Collection of popular fiction, 'Readerships and Literary Cultures 1900-1950'. All are welcome. Email Erica Brown e.brown@shu.ac.uk to take part.

• Sagas, Serials and Sequels

  Our next event will be 'Sagas, Serials and Sequels', on the 14th June 2013, 1.30—3.45 pm at Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

  We look forward to welcoming our speakers John and Margaret Crompton, who will be talking on John Buchan and E. M. Delafield respectively. To complete the afternoon, Erica Brown will be speaking on the quintessential saga of the early twentieth century, John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga. To book a free place email Erica e.brown@shu.ac.uk.

  Full programme and poster.

  This is part of the activities of the Readerships and Literary Cultures 1900-1950 Special Collection.

External

• Marginalised Mainstream: Fading and Emerging

  The second Marginalised Mainstream conference will be 12-13 September 2013 at Senate House, University of London.

• Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (1896-1962) and working-class women’s writing

  A centenary celebration on Saturday 7th September 2013 at the Working-Class Movement Library, Salford, UK. For details see the attached call for papers or contact Nicola Wilson, University of Reading at n.l.wilson@reading.ac.uk.

• Barbara Pym Centenary Conference

  This one-day international conference will celebrate the achievement of Barbara Pym in the year that marks the 100th anniversary of her birth. 12th July 2013 at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK.

• At Play in the Space Between, 1914-1945

  The 2013 Space Between society conference will take place 20-22 June 2013 at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois. Proposals are due December 7, 2012.
   

Past Events

Middlebrow Network

• Memories of Sheffield Libraries

  Friday 19th October 2012, 2-4pm. Ecclesall Library, Sheffield.

  A chance to come and share your memories of Sheffield Libraries and see the fascinating 1956 film ‘Books in Hand’. Community historian Mary Grover will present memories of reading 1945-65, gathered in the oral history project ‘Reading Sheffield’.

  The event is organised by Sheffield Hallam University's Readerships and Literary Cultures Special Collection, and is part of Sheffield's Off the Shelf festival.

  Admission is free. To book a place telephone the library on 0114 2037222.

• Adapting The Constant Nymph: Film and the Bestseller between the Wars

  Friday, 22nd June 2012, Sheffield Hallam University.

  This event is part of the work on the 'Readerships and Literary Cultures 1900-1950 Special Collection', and will include a screening of the 'sumptuous' 1933 adaptation of The Constant Nymph.

• The Battle of the Brows: Cultural Distinction in the Space Between, 1914-1945

  The 2011 Middlebrow Network conference is in conjunction with the Space Between Society.

  16-18 June 2011, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
  

• Readerships and Literary Cultures Special Collection Event

  10th June 2011, Sheffield Hallam University

• 2009 Middlebrow Network Conference

  The 2009 Middlebrow Network conference Middlebrow Cultures took place at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow on Tuesday 14th - Wednesday 15th July 2009. Further details including programme, abstracts and selected presentations

• Historicising the Middlebrow conference

  The network was launched at this event, which took place at Sheffield University in July 2008.

External

• The Marginalised Mainstream

  8-9 November 2012, Institute of English Studies, University of London

• Space and Place in the Middlebrow: 1900-1950

   Institute of English Studies, University of London, 13-14 September 2012

• Mass Observation Anniversaries Conference

  To mark 75 years of Mass Observation and 30 years of the Mass Observation Project there will be a conference at the University of Sussex, 4-6 July 2012.

• Material Cultures in the Space Between 1914-1945

  The 2012 conference of the Space Between Society will take place on 14-16 June 2012 at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

• Postgraduate conference: The Popular and the Middlebrow: Women's Writing 1880-1940

  12th April 2012, Newcastle University, UK

• Nostalgia in the Twenty-First Century: ESRC Seminar Series

  University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2010-11

• Researching Popular Fictions: Method, Practice and Resonant Themes

  Conference organised by the Association for Research in Popular Fictions, 19-20 November 2011, Liverpool John Moores University

• The Popular Imagination and the Dawn of Modernism: Middlebrow Writing 1890-1930

  15-16 September 2011, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Keynote speaker: Professor Ann Ardis (University of Delaware).

• Glasgow School of Art Study Day

  This study day took place on 6 May 2010, with speakers Dr Lawrence Napper and Dr Will May. Dr May's presentation 'Books are a load of crap: Reading Society in Postwar Britain' can be accessed here.

• International Penguin Conference

  University of Bristol, 29 June - 1 July 2010.

  In 2010, Penguin Books will be 75 years old and Puffin Books will be 70 years old. Organised by the AHRC Penguin Archive Project, the International Penguin Conference is occasioned by these two anniversaries of what is arguably the most distinctive and the most significant publishing house in the twentieth century and beyond.