It’s been a busy time for Clugg members! In the last days of April and the first week of May, Clugg was involved in several events.
We started the week off with a trip to the Seven Stories archive to meet Sita Bramanchari, who is currently on an archival quest of her own. We looked at the precious notebooks of Judith Kerr, The Story of Pandavas; the illustration for poems from around the world collection; two versions of Grace Nichols’ Baby Fish.
Then on Tuesday, Clugg members Megan, Devika and Helen conducted interviews with Sita based on her Levenson Family books. We talked about a range of topics; from disability, representation, memory, the archival process, seeking asylum and refugees in children’s literature. (Watch this space for the recorded interviews). The Digital Media centre staff were lovely and very interesting to talk to. We especially loved the paintings of local scenes on the walls. Meeting and talking to Sita was a pleasure for all of us.
On Tuesday night we had the second of Karen’s Carnegie Award shadowing group where we discussed Manjeet Mann’s The Crossing and Alex Wheatle’s Cane Warriors. Our next meeting will be about Sedgwick’s Tsunami Girl and Hitchcock’s Everyone Dies Famous In A Small Town.
On Wednesday, CLUGG hosted Leverhulme fellow Kristin Bluemel for a talk on “Peter Rabbit, Metropolitan Modernism and Rural Modernity”. This was a fascinating insight into the scholarship of Beatrix Potter and the field of modernist literature.
Then on Friday, we attended the first of Emily Murphy and Tyler Bickford’s NUPitt Global Speaker Series. This was a lecture and Q&A session with Macarena Gárcia-González and Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak and their views on the place of social justice in children’s lit scholarship. These lectures will continue on the 6th and (find date).
We hope to see you at our next event!