Author: nenglish

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SELLL UG Fortnightly News

Decorative photograph of a pumpkin.
Last week lots of students celebrated Halloween.

Monday 2nd – Sunday 15th November 2020

New this semester, SELLL UG News is a fortnightly round up compiled by Professional Services (PS) staff in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics. The idea is to give you a summary of what is going on in the School with standard items such as wellbeing support, upcoming events and topical information. If you would like to see certain information included in the Newsletter, please email your ideas to caroline.ede@newcastle.ac.uk

UPCOMING EVENTS

Virtual Go Abroad Fair
Wednesday 4th November 2020, 1-4pm. Online.
Current Stage 2 students are invited to the Virtual Go Abroad Fair to learn about opportunities to go abroad during your Newcastle degree. The event will be hosted on Microsoft Teams. It is recommended that you install the app onto your device in advance. You can sign up to the event online. You will be sent a link to join the Go Abroad Fair on the morning of the event.

UG Student Voice Committee (SVC)
Monday 16th November 2020, 3-4pm. Online.
Your undergraduate committee will be meeting with staff to discuss how you’ve found the start of term, and the transition to teaching online. If you have any thoughts or ideas you would like to raise with the committee, please get in touch with your course representative. All rep details can be found online and will be made available on the NCL app very soon.

Buffer/Enrichment Week
w/c Monday 16th November 2020. Online.
A schedule of events for your Enrichment Week will be made available on Canvas, in the same course you found your induction information.

Mental Health in 20th Century Literature Reading Group
Wednesday 11th November 2020, 5-6pm
A new informal reading group set up in conjunction with the Postgraduate Culture Group (PGCG). The first meeting will be discussing short extracts from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Extracts will be provided by email in advance, so no need to buy the book. The group is open to undergraduates and postgraduates. To register your interest, please email m.stevenson1@newcastle.ac.uk

CURRENT STUDENT SUCCESS

Lucia Qureshi, a 3rd year BA in English Literature and History student, has been highly commended at the Global Undergraduate Awards Programme 2020 for her essay ‘Crossing the Boundaries Between Primates and People: An Exploration of Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism in The Jungle Book and She’. This is a fantastic achievement which came out of her work on the School’s ‘Victorian Passions’ module.

More SELLL student success
Three of our students were nominated for the Endowed Prizes Awards and received confirmation that they have obtained one of the prestigious University awards.
Ashley Roberts (Stage 2, Linguistics) has won the Stanley Dennison Scholarship Prize for their academic achievement during 2019-20.
Polly Dacam (Stage 2, English Language) and Louisa Rimmer (Stage 2, English Literature) have both
received one of the Endowed Prizes based on their respective academic achievements in 2019-20

Decorative photograph of fireworks.
Bonfire Night will be a little different this year. Make sure to stay safe.

STUDENT WELLBEING & SUPPORT

In SELLL, student wellbeing and support is one of our top priorities. We’ve highlighted some of the key contacts, services and processes available:

Personal Tutor
Your Personal Tutor is your first point of contact for any issues you might be having. If you need further help, they can recommend contacting the Senior Tutor or Student Wellbeing.

Senior Tutors
The senior tutors act as a second point of contact for you. They can also be contacted with queries about the personal tutor system or in the event of more complicated issues affecting your academic studies.
Stage 1 Senior Tutor: Dr James Cummings
Stages 2 & 3 Senior Tutor: Professor Martha Young-Scholten

School Office Staff
The SELLL School Office is currently open Monday-Thursday 10am-2pm. Members of staff are also available to contact via email. Key contacts are listed below:

Online Chat for a quick response
If you have a question for the School Office and need a quick reply, you can log onto our twice weekly online chat service, through the Current Student section on the website. To access the chat, scroll down and click on the Contact Us icon on the right side. Online chat is available every Tuesday 10-12am and every Thursday 2-4pm.

Absence Requests
If you are going to be absent for 3 consecutive days or more (Monday-Friday), please submit an absence request through S3P.

Personal Extenuating Circumstances (PEC)
If you have difficulties completing your assignments or handing your work in on time because of personal extenuating circumstances, the most important thing you can do is tell the School about any problems you are having. Please talk to your personal tutor or the appropriate senior tutor in the first instance. PEC forms are submitted through S3P, and more information is available on our website.

Student Support Plan (SSP)
If you need any extra help to support your studies, a Student Support Plan (SSP) can be drawn up for you with an advisor from Student Health and Wellbeing. You can contact Student Wellbeing in person, by phone, or an online form, and the link gives all the information.

Nightline
Nightline is a confidential and anonymous listening and information service run by students for the benefit of students. Contact them any night of term to talk about how you’re feeling or request information about other services. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 situation, Nightline is currently only operating its instant messaging service with opening hours 8pm to 2am

And to sign off with a joke…

How did Charlotte Brontë make it easier for everyone to breathe?
She created Eyre…

We hope you enjoyed reading the SELLL news.
From the Professional Services Staff in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics.

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Percy Newsletter Issue 2

In this second issue of the Percy Newsletter we continue to share the wonderful work going on by colleagues in the School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics.

Download the second issue below:

Percy-2Download

In this issue you will learn more about:

  • Staff and Student awards for Creative Writing and Outstanding Research
  • The work of our Visiting Professors, NUAcT Fellow and Northern Bridge researchers
  • Recent research publications
  • And sad farewells to retiring colleagues

Watch out for our next issue!

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Introducing Percy

At Newcastle University School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics we have a thriving research community. The Percy Newsletter details the recent publications, research projects and successful vivas in our School.

Download the first newsletter below:

Percy-1Download

In this newsletter learn about:

We’re very excited to share and celebrate all of the wonderful work happening within the department. Look out for our next issue.

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English Literature & Language (Q300), Email 1

Hello Everyone

Congratulations on your offer of a place to study English Language and Literature (Q300) at Newcastle University! This email comes to you from two lecturers who hope to welcome you to our department this autumn: Cristine Cuskley is a Lecturer in Language and Cognition and James Harriman-Smith is a lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature. 

Everyone at Newcastle University is currently hard at work updating our teaching for the autumn, and module-specific reading lists for you will be available later in the summer. However, in the meantime, we encourage you to delve into some more general material to get you excited about getting started in your studies. To help with this, we have two recommendations for you, one for language and one for literature. 

First, for English language: 

We would like you to listen to an episode of BBC sounds on The Future of English: Dialects and Evolution. They look at varieties of English all over the world – have a listen and think about the differences they discuss. You might then want to read this long article on English dominating the internet and this video on the weirdness of English. What do you think about the future of English? 

Second, for English literature: 

We would like you to make a list of every book you remember having studied in your English (or ‘English Literature’) classes, and then think about what this list might show you.  

  • What do these books have in common?  
  • Are they mainly novels, plays or poems?  
  • When were they written? 
  • What kind of things are they about? 
  • Where do their authors come from?  
  • What class, gender, age (etc.) are those authors?  

Once you have answered these questions, and others of your own devising, the next step is two-fold. First, identify a work of literature that has nothing in common with anything on your list. Perhaps that might be a book of poems by a working-class woman who lived in the eighteenth century and wrote about domestic servitude; perhaps that might be a play written and performed in the last two years. Why not read (or watch) that thing? As you engage with it, think about how you might write about it: can you analyse it like you analysed the texts you studied this year? What else do you feel you need to know? 

We would love to hear what you thought about the future of English, and what you realised about how you’ve been taught English Literature. You can in touch with us about these matters, or anything else, through email or on social media (links below). You can also find even more tips and resources on our Twitter page, or by searching the hashtag #NCLReady. 

Best wishes, 

James Harriman-Smith and Christine Cuskley 

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English Literature & History (QV31), Email 1

Hello Everyone,

Congratulations on your offer of a place to study English Literature and History (QV31) at Newcastle University! I am a Reader in Modernist Print Culture and Programme Lead on the QV31 degree. My colleagues and I hope to welcome you to our department this autumn.

We will send out reading lists for all our modules in the Autumn once we have updated our teaching to take the latest research into account. For now, we have prepared more general material to help you get ready for university study. This email contains some of that material, and will be followed by others, each one written by a lecturer at Newcastle. If you have any questions about the material in these emails, or want to receive even more, please do get in touch with us through social media or email.

Here are a few things to get you thinking about the study of Literature and History at University level.

FOR LITERATURE

Make a list of every book you remember having studied in your English (or ‘English Literature’) classes, and then think about what this list might show you.

• What do these books have in common?
• Are they mainly novels, plays or poems?
• When were they written?
• What kind of things are they about?
• Where do their authors come from?
• What class, gender, age (etc.) are those authors?

Once you have answered these questions, you might want to think with your history student hat on to reflect on how important knowing something about historical context has been to your appreciation of these texts or might improve your understanding of them. With that in mind, the next step is two-fold. First, identify a work of literature that has nothing in common with anything on your list. Perhaps that might be a book of poems by a working-class woman who lived in the eighteenth century and wrote about domestic servitude; perhaps that might be a play written and performed in the last two years. Why not read (or watch) that thing? As you engage with it, think about how you might write about it: can you analyse it like you analysed the texts you studied this year? What else do you feel you need to know?

FOR HISTORY

My colleague in the School of History, Rachel Hammersley, a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual History, has suggested the following readings for how history has a relevance for thinking about the present. This issue has been raised a lot in the past few years as we commemorate 100 years since WW1, as we witness the social and political divisions engendered by Brexit, and as we grapple on a global scale with COVID-19, to mention only a few of the pressing issues that lead us to look to history for context and guidance. Here are some articles to get you thinking about these issues:

What Can History Tell us about epidemics?
On Historians, Politicians and Their Duty to History
And here, a slightly older article from the Guardian on the same topic.

BRINGING LITERATURE AND HISTORY TOGETHER

While in your first year, you will be studying the subjects separately, your work at Stage 2 and 3 will ask you to think across subjects in an interdisciplinary way. It is never too early to start thinking in this way and I encourage you, in your first year, to keep the following kinds of questions in the back of your mind as you are studying: How is historical context relevant to the study of this work/this literary period and how is this context important for understanding how literary texts convey meaning? How might a literary text or an analytical or theoretical approach I have learned in literature be applied to a historical text or topic to provide new insights?

My colleagues and I would love to hear what you discover this way. These tasks are intended to make you think in general terms about what constitutes ‘English Literature’ (and what does not seem to) and why History is relevant to thinking through our current moment. You can get in touch with us through email or social media.

Alternatively, you can find even more tips and resources on our Twitter page, or by searching the hashtag #NCLReady.

Best wishes,

Kirsten MacLeod

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English Literature & Creative Writing (QW38), Email 1

Hello Everyone,

Congratulations on your offer of a place to study English Literature and Creative Writing (QW38) at Newcastle University! I am the Subject Head for Creative Writing and my colleagues and I hope to welcome you to our department this autumn.

We will send out reading lists for all our modules in the Autumn once we have updated our teaching to take our latest reading and research into account. For now, I have asked some of my colleagues to suggest some books and exercises that may help you learn more about the craft of creative writing.

First the books, which should be available through your local library. Preti Taneja told me Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird would be helpful to anyone who wants to write creative prose in general. She found Alexander Chee’s How to write an Autobiographical Novel very useful too. Sinéad Morrissey is an advocate of Glyn Maxwell’s On Poetry. Tina Gharavi said she thought Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat was an excellent resource for budding screenplay writers. And now the exercises. Tara Bergin would like you to try the following task, which asks you to make a poem by following instructions, rather than waiting for inspiration to strike.

First, get a pen/ pencil and paper. Now write down the following:
• Two colours you like and why
• Two words you like and why
• Something you’re afraid of and why
• Something that makes you laugh and why
• Something you want (but don’t say why).

Now, using only this information, in any order, compose a short poem. Next, type it up, adjusting as you see fit. Give it a title.

If you want to experiment further, see what happens to your poems if you change the perspective (e.g. change it from the first person (I’) to the second person (‘You’).

Rachel Hewitt invites you to start thinking about non-fiction prose by reading the article ‘Chalk and Bone’ by Sinéad Gleeson.

Ask yourself:
• What sort of stories could be told by writing about the body and its experiences?
• Is language adequate to describe physical experiences?
• If you can’t find the right words, why might that be?
• Why might you want to write about the body?

As you’ll see from reading this essay, Gleeson doesn’t always spell out the emotions that are linked to her physical experiences. She doesn’t directly tell us how she felt emotionally about her experience of living in her body. She shows us her bodily experiences – and leaves us to work out how we feel about them – instead of telling us. Can you do something similar? Try to focus on what happened, instead of the emotions that it conjured up. And, as an experiment, try to do this without using any metaphors or similes.

I hope you found these exercises useful. Please do not worry if you found them challenging; we do not expect you to have studied creative writing before. For most of you it will be a completely new subject, even if you have done some creative writing on your own. Our recommendations should simply give something for you to think about over the summer.

If you have any questions about the material in these emails, please do get in touch with us through email. Alternatively, you can find even more tips and resources on our Twitter page, or by searching the hashtag #NCLReady.

Best wishes,

Lars Iyer

Reader in Creative Writing
Subject Head, Creative Writing

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Are you #NCLReady?

With many students having ended their school studies in an impromptu fashion, we know many of you will be looking for ways to prepare for university.

We will be sending out Reading Lists for all our modules in the Autumn once we’ve updated our teaching to take the latest research into account. So for now we’re preparing more general material to support you in your preparations for university. Here is what we have in store…

1. We’re sending out emails to all our Offer Holders with summer reading suggestions and tasks. These will be written by academics who hope to welcome you in the Autumn, and will be tailored to the programmes you’ve applied to.

2. We’re using #NCLReady on Twitter to signpost you to further free resources, interesting articles and more.

3. We’re planning some more blog posts – just like this one, but with even more content.

We’d love to hear how you find the tasks and resources so do let us know! Follow the blog. Follow our social media channels. Keep an eye on your emails. But most of all, keep safe and enjoy your summer.