The University is an official partner of Ilkley Literature Festival (ILF) for the second year running.
The festival – one of the most prestigious in the UK – runs from 4-20 October. The full programme is available to download and tickets are on sale now.
As ever, there is a strong focus on poetry, with Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate and University of Leeds’ Professor of Poetry opening the proceedings, and a poetry showcase featuring writers from the University of Leeds Poetry Centre.
Professor Armitage said: “I’m very pleased the University’s partnership with Ilkley Literature Festival has been renewed for another year.
“This is a wonderful cultural celebration between two proud literary institutions, and I’ve been a keen supporter and creative collaborator for many years now."
Staff from across the University are giving talks on topics ranging from the beers of Yorkshire to dinosaurs.
Vice-Chancellor Sir Alan Langlands said: “Our partnership not only celebrates creative writing; it seeks to support, inspire and amplify our emerging talent and enhance the breadth of possibilities for future writers and performers.”
Big names booked to appear at what is the largest and longest-running literary festival in the North of England include Clare Balding, Prue Leith, John Lanchester, Alastair Campbell, Mark Radcliffe, Kirsty Wark and Oyinkan Braithwaite
Professor Armitage added: "My role in helping shape the Stanza Stones trail from Marsden, where I was born, to Ilkley, as well as my work to commemorate Branwell Brontë’s bicentenary in nearby Haworth, highlight my strong affinity with the local landscape and its rich cultural heritage. It’s a particular honour to be asked to open this year’s festival.
“It’s also pleasing to see so many University colleagues adding to the festival programme through events showcasing some of the great work that goes on at the University, often behind the scenes and outside the spotlight, and I really would encourage people to attend some of the sessions on offer, especially on subjects they might not be familiar with. Chance encounters are nearly always the most rewarding and memorable.”
Erica Morris, Acting Festival Director, said: “We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with the University through the Cultural Institute.
“Our festival audiences hugely appreciate the opportunity to hear University academics share their research and expertise on a fascinating range of topics, and one of the joys of the partnership is providing opportunities for University students to get involved with the running, management and organisation of one of the longest established festivals in the UK literary calendar.
www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk. Tickets are available online and through the box office on 01943 816714.
Events presented in partnership with the University
Opening
night with Professor Simon Armitage
Friday
4 October, 7.30-8.30pm
King’s
Hall, £14 (£10 for concessions)
Simon will be reading from his latest collection, Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, which
features some of the hundreds of poems he has written for various projects,
commissions, collaborations and events. They vary from single poems, such as Zodiac T Shirt, written to be performed
at the launch of music artist Beck’s Song
Reader, to a suite of poems written to commemorate Branwell Brontë’s
bicentenary and the six poems commissioned by ILF to form the Stanza Stones
trail.
Dr Sarah
Hudspith: Tolstoy and Contemporary Russia
Saturday
5 October, 1.30-2.30pm
Ilkley
Playhouse Wharfeside, £8 (£5 for concessions)
Associate Professor of Russian at Leeds, Dr Sarah Hudspith,
presents an illustrated talk on how Leo Tolstoy is viewed in Putin’s
conservative, nationalist Russia. Tolstoy’s works, such as War and Peace and Anna
Karenina, are rightly acknowledged to be among the pinnacles of world
literature, but his work is out of kilter with the Russian state’s current
nationalistic and militaristic stance. Looking at the use of Tolstoy’s work in
events such as the opening of the 2014 Sochi Olympics and a televised marathon
reading of War and Peace, Sarah will
explore how Russian society attempts to reconcile Tolstoy’s political views
with his cultural status.
Guided
Reading Group: Dubliners
Sunday
6, Sunday 13 and Sunday 20 October, 3-4.30pm
Ilkley
Moor Vaults, £20 (£12 for concessions) for all three sessions
Dr Georgina Binnie and Dr Karl O’Hanlon are running the
reading groups this year with an in-depth conversation about James Joyce’s 1914
collection of seminal modernist short stories, Dubliners. Written at the peak of nationalism in Ireland, when the
country itself was experiencing a progressive period of influences in its
search for national identity, Joyce places Dublin at the heart of this movement
and attempts to depict Irish middle class life.
James
McKay: Trilobites, Dinosaurs and Mammoths
Sunday
6 October, 5-6pm
St
Maragaret’s Hall, £8 (£5 for concessions)
Palaeoartist James McKay from Leeds introduces the
prehistory of the British Isles. The British Isles are a special place for
understanding the evolution of our world, as almost every time period is
preserved in the rocks beneath our feet. James uses his detailed
reconstructions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals to lead us through
the changes that happened to life on our islands since the beginning of life on
Earth.
Dr
Fozia Bora: Capturing the Past
Sunday
13 October, 3-4pm
Church
House, £8 (£5 for concessions)
In late 1300s Egypt, an obscure school teacher, Ibn
al-Furat, began writing a history book. Resourceful in filling the work with
letters, documents, poems and anecdotes from Arab, Persian and Latin sources, a
rich treasure trove has been left to us. It would turn out to be a monumental
endeavour. His own school crumbled to dust over time, but his history book
survived. It seemed Arab communities valued books over buildings. Exploring the
mindset and working methods of this influential historian, lecturer and
prize-winning author, Dr Fozia Bora, takes us on a journey through this vivid
account of history and the ‘archival’ mindset that produced historical works in
the medieval Islamic world.
British
Academy Annual Lecture: Dyslexia – A Very Short Introduction
Thursday
17 October, 6-7pm
Clothworkers' Centenary Concert Hall, Leeds (free, but book
in advance)
Professor Margaret Snowling CBE FBE presents the eighth
British Academy Annual Lecture at Leeds. Since dyslexia was first described in
the British Medical Journal in 1896,
there has been debate about the definitions and diagnostic procedures used,
with some casting doubt on its very existence. However, the contemporary view
of dyslexia has emerged from a century of research in medicine, psychology and
more recently neuroscience, and we now know enough about this learning disorder
to guide policy and practice. Drawing on the findings in her latest book, Professor
Snowling (President of St John’s College, Oxford) discusses how our
understanding of dyslexia has evolved over time.
Simon
Jenkins: The Great Beers of Yorkshire
Thursday
17 October, 8-9pm
Ilkley
Playhouse Wildman, over-18s only, £10 (£6 for concessions), includes tasting
samples
Beer writer and Development Communications Officer in the
Alumni and Development team at Leeds, Simon Jenkins, trawled the length and
breadth of Yorkshire seeking out brewers old and new, large and small. From
fiercely traditional brewers producing time-honoured beers in slate Yorkshire
squares, to the new-wave craft brewers embracing a dizzying variety of imported
hops; from the ancient brewer hemmed in by a tight knot of cobbled streets to
the brewery set up in a care home to draw attention to life-limiting genetic
conditions, Simon found them all. Join Simon on an entertaining, hop-fuelled journey
around the county.
DARE
Liberty Lecture (produced by Opera North and the University): Maya Goodfellow
Saturday
19 October, 3.30-4.30pm
Ilkley
Playhouse Wharfeside, £8 (£5 for concessions)
Maya Goodfellow is a writer, researcher and academic, whose
new book, Hostile Environment,
scrutinises why it is that migrants have become the scapegoats of contemporary
mainstream politics. In this talk, she will offer a compelling answer, showing
that distinct forms of racism and dehumanisation have directly resulted from
immigration policy, and reminding us of the human cost of concessions to
anti-immigration politics.
Dr Alan
Mackintosh: Patents, Print and Georgian Medicine
Saturday
19 October, 5-6pm
Church
House, £8 (£5 for concessions)
In the 18th and 19th centuries, patent medicines
constituted a national industry that was popular, reputable and stable, not the
visible manifestation of dishonest quackery as described later by doctors and
many historians. Dr Alan Mackintosh, Research Fellow in the Centre for the
History and Philosophy of Science at Leeds, explores how the roots of the
commercial for-profit health care industry began much earlier than we might
imagine and how much advertising copywriting was used to influence consumers’
imaginations to boost the effects of the products.
Dr Kimberley
Campanello: MOTHERBABYHOME
Saturday
19 October, 7.30-8.30pm
Church
House, £8 (£5 for concessions)
MOTHERBABYHOME is an
excavation of voices connected to St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Tuam,
Ireland. Run by the Bon Secours Sisters on behalf of the Irish State, it housed
unmarried mothers and their children. The location of the graves of 796 infants
and children who died there between 1926 and 1961 is still unknown. These poems
are composed entirely of text taken from historical archives and contemporary
sources related to the Home. Poet Dr Kimberly Campanello will read from the
sonically rich pages of MOTHERBABYHOME
and will be joined by Professor Fiona Becket – Head of the School of English at
Leeds – to discuss MOTHERBABYHOME’s
poetic response to this important and timely subject.
Professor
John Whale: Preparing Poems for Publication
Sunday
20 October, 11.30am to 1.30pm
Clarke
Foley Centre, £15 (£10 for concessions)
Director of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre and
co-editor of Stand magazine, Professor
John Whale will lead a workshop to help you prepare your poems for submissions
to magazines. Drawing on his 18 years of editorial experience, John will help
guide you along the route to successful publication. Workshop participants are
asked to bring three or four poems with them for shared group discussion.
University
of Leeds Poetry Centre Showcase
Sunday
20 October, 3.30-5pm
Ilkley
Playhouse Wildman, £8 (£5 for concessions)
Poetry in the UK is thriving and nowhere is this more
apparent than in the roster of poets at the University of Leeds Poetry Centre.
Jamaican poet Jason Allen-Paisant’s work has appeared in sx salon, The Cossack Review
and POUI. Dr Rachel Bower’s
collection Moon Milk was published in
2018 and she is co-editor of the Verse
Matters. Dr Kimberley Campanello’s publications include Consent, Strange Country, Imagines
and Hymn to Kālī. Dr Karl O’Hanlan’s
pamphlet And Now They Range was
published by Guillemot Press in 2016. Dr Hannah Copley was shortlisted for the
Faber New Poets Prize and her work appears in Verse Matters. Charlotte Eichler’s work has appeared in PN Review, The Rialto and Stand. Professor
John Whale is Director of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre. His
collections include Waterloo Teeth
and Frieze.