Humanities Postgraduate Research Student Symposium
12 June 2013
Claus Moser Research Centre
Symposium Report by Rachel Hallett (PhD Candidate, Psychology, Keele University)
Although not technically a humanities postgrad, I decided to go to the symposium in the name of
interdisciplinarity and my former incarnation as a musicologist. With an array of papers from both
Keele and beyond covering literature, music, law and history, the ‘something for everyone’ box was
undoubtedly ticked.
Presenting to an audience from different disciplines within humanities is no easy task, and the ability
of the speakers to do just that made for an absorbing day. Musicology can easily sink in jargon, but
the three musicological papers avoided that trap. Adam Whittaker (Birmingham Conservatoire) talked
engagingly about the Renaissance composer Johannes Tinctoris, giving the audience a real insight
into a strong character unafraid to criticise his contemporaries on matters of music theory. Geoff
Thomason (Royal Northern College of Music) presented a poignant paper on the later career of
’cellist Carl Fuchs – or rather the lack of it as his playing skills deteriorated and he was rejected in
favour of younger musicians. Caroline Amy Vince (University of Southampton) discussed recordings
of English choirs and the characteristics that have established them as having a particularly ‘sweet’
sound.
Literature is not at all my area of expertise, but I enjoyed several interesting papers and have been
inspired to fill up my Kindle and visit Keele library for my leisure reading. Holly Eckersley spoke
about Dickens, politics and the public sphere, exploring Dickens’ novels as vehicles for Victorian
society to make sense of rapid political change. Emma Robinson (University of Birmingham) took an
interdisciplinary approach to the work of George Orwell, applying expertise in both law and literature
to explore the government’s emergency powers in World War II. The literary angle was brought right
up to date with Dr. David James’ (Queen Mary, University of London) keynote paper on the ‘antinovel’ and departures from realism, with discussions of works by Zadie Smith and Cormac McCarthy.
Social historian Pete Collinge (Keele University) has unearthed a fascinating array of documents
relating to women entrepreneurs in Georgian Derbyshire, and talked engagingly about the proactive
marketing strategies of female businesswomen, which seemed to outdo that of their male counterparts.
After such a varied and stimulating array of papers, I was disappointed to miss the final session in
which Konstantinos Vasilakos (Keele University), researching in music technology, discussed
dynamic mapping in gestural improvisation, while Wallis Seaton (Keele University) contributed a
paper entitled ‘Hollywood’s New Anti-heroine: Transcending Gender Norms in David Fincher’s The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011).’ No doubt there will be more humanities symposia at Keele, and
the accessibility and range of papers means that humanities specialists and those from other
disciplines are bound to find something to inspire and interest them at future events.