109 research outputs found
Calum Colvin: The Magic Box
No full textArtist Calum Colvin introduces his new exhibition, The Magic Box, which is an archaeology of his practice from the last 25 years. The exhibition will feature image transparencies from the early 1980s, new prints created at Edinburgh Printmakers, and an installation of Colvin's photography studio, which will be in use when Colvin photographs Scottish author Janice Galloway.The Magic Box is on at Edinburgh Printmakers, until the 6th September 2014. Find out more at edinburghprintmakers.co.uk
Fortissat Science Alliance podcast: Calum McAndrew
No full textCalum McAndrew is a public engagement professional at the University of St Andrews. He took part in the Fortissat Science Alliance podcast recordings in March 2021.What is the Fortissat Science Alliance?The Fortissat Science Alliance is a Wellcome Trust & Children In Need "Curiosity" project. This scheme provided informal STEM learning opportunities for young people who attended the community centre Getting Better Together Shotts (GBT Shotts) between 2019 and 2023. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, deliveries had to pivot online so the podcast was founded. These recordings were made via Zoom with warm-up STEM activities sent to every young person in advance, along with a profile page for each researcher, so that they were relaxed and able to ask excellent questions.Link to episode on Spotify.Depending on the broadcast date, podcast deliveries were co-sponsored by Glasgow Science Festival, EXPLORATHON 2021, or EXPLORATHON 2022/23.For the duration of the project, it was supported jointly by Children in Need and the Wellcome Trust. In 2021, EXPLORATHON episodes were supported by the European Commission [grant agreement ID 101036101]. In 2022-23, EXPLORATHON episodes were supported by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/X020894/1].Author contributions to contentCalum McAndrew was the guest featured on this episode. Rebecca Hay was the youth worker coordinating the young people who conducted the interviews as well as co-editing and broadcasting the recordings. Iain Hamilton co-edited the episodes. Kirsty Ross was the STEM consultant for the project and uploaded completed episodes to Figshare. </p
Book Reviews: Poetic Artifice, Levity of Design and On Violence in the Work of J.H. Prynne
No full textBook reviews of the following academic titles: Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry by Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Gareth Farmer (ed.), Bristol: Shearsman, 240 pp., 2016. Review by Calum Gardner. Levity of Design: Man and Modernity in the Poetry of J. H. Prynne by Wit Píetrzak, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 162 pp., 2012. Review by Lisa Jeschke. On Violence in the Work of J. H. Prynne by Matthew Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 226 pp., 2015. Review by Lisa Jeschke
"Residence at C___": Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Lisa Robertson writing Cambridge
No full textThis essay explores the much neglected late modernist poetry of Veronica Forrest-Thomson and reads it alongside Lisa Robertson’s book-length poem The Weather (2001), examining its connection to the city of Cambridge. Locating these works in the context of women writing what is commonly called Cambridge poetry, it investigates how this, as well as the surrounding features of the town, are incorporated into the poems and whether they are, as Lisa Robertson suggests, “site-specific.” Through their formal and conceptual innovations, much informed by their institutional and architectural surroundings, texts such as these create new conceptual spaces out of old traditions through formal innovation that is conceptualized as intellectual or emotional “architecture.
Portrait of Hugh MacDiarmid
No full textA commissioned installation/portrait as one of the programme of public events at the National Galleries of Scotland/Royal Scottish Academy collaborative opus Ages of Wonder: Scotland’s Art 1540 to Now exhibition at the RSA. I was invited to ‘bring my studio’ into the building and create an artwork during the run of the exhibition in public view. The finished installation was marked with a public event in the Gallery with Calum Colvin and author James Robertson on 1/1/18. Subsequently the printed and framed photographic portrait was debuted at the RSA Annual Exhibition 2018, which was convened and curated by Colvin and included a number of guest artists who were invited to explore the links between poetry and visual art. This included a programme of public artist/poet talks. The portrait subsequently won the City of Glasgow College Purchase Prize
Smelt and Mary Scotland: Nicknaming in Frank Macdonald’s A Forest for Calum
No full textFrank Macdonald’s novel A Forest for Calum (2005, Sydney, NS: Cape Breton University Press) illustrates a variety of nicknames and explores their social functions and naming practices. The novel is set in Shean, itself a nickname for the town of Inverness on the west side of Cape Breton Island. Macdonald celebrates the culture, traditions and customs of rural Cape Breton while at the same time recording the inevitable changes resulting from the closure of town’s coal mine. Nicknaming, one of these prominent customs, is explored from the point of view of young Rod Gillies as he matures as a person and an artist. Although nicknames of adults occur in the novel, the author has a particular interest in the naming patterns of the younger characters. For instance, the protagonist is named Smelt as a result of a fishing accident, and his girlfriend, Mary Scotland, receives her nickname from an elementary teacher because she is one of three Mary Camerons in the class and her father has an interest in Scotland. Macdonald presents a realistic treatment of nicknames as demonstrated by comparison with the research on nicknames in general and on Cape Breton Island.Le roman de Frank Macdonald intitulé A Forest for Calum (une forêt pour Calum) (2005, Sydney, NS: Cape Breton University Press) illustre une variété de surnoms et explore leurs fonctions sociales et les pratiques de désignation des personnages. Le roman se déroule à Shean, une localité qui porte elle-même un surnom de la ville d'Inverness située du côté ouest de l'île du Cap-Breton. Macdonald célèbre la culture, les traditions et les coutumes des régions rurales du Cap-Breton, tout en enregistrant certains changements inévitables qui ont résulté de la fermeture de la mine de charbon de la ville. L'emploi de surnoms, l'une des coutumes bien implantées, est exploré du point de vue du jeune Rod Gillies, au moment où il devient adulte et artiste. Bien que les surnoms soient surtout le fait des adultes dans le roman, l'auteur manifeste un intérêt particulier pour le mode de désignation des plus jeunes personnages. Par exemple, le protagoniste est nommé Smelt (éperlan) à la suite d'un accident de pêche, et sa petite amie, Mary Scotland, reçoit ce surnom d'un enseignant du primaire parce qu'elle est l'une des trois Mary Camerons dans la classe, et son père a un intérêt pour l'Écosse. Macdonald offre un traitement réaliste des surnoms comme le démontre son ouvrage comparativement à la recherche sur les surnoms en général et sur l'île du Cap-Breton
Without ground: Lacanian ethics and the assumption of subjectivity.
No full textIn this new paperback edition, Calum Neill explores the ideas of Jacques Lacan to present a powerful argument for an approach to ethics which is neither rooted in a traditional morality nor reduced to a relativism, an ethics, that is, which is without ground. However we conceive of ethics, whether by appeal to an exterior or traditional notion of right and wrong, or by appeal to some form of individual virtue or responsibility, it implies some form of agency. Where there is an ethical act, there must be someone acting ethically. Working from this simple premise, this book argues that the manner in which we conceive that 'someone' is the condition of possibility for our conception of ethics and, consequently, our ethical potential. Against the commonplace conception of the modern individual as self-identical, self-aware and self-governing, the author presents a detailed introduction to the Lacanian subject, a conception of the self as anything but self-identical, self-aware and self-governing. The book goes on to show how such a rethinking of the subject necessitates a rethinking of our relation to law, tradition and morality, as well as a rethinking of ethics
Roland Barthes and English-language avant-garde poetry, 1970-1990
No full textThis thesis looks at the engagement of English-language poets with the writing of Roland Barthes, and considers how a reading of Barthes may help understanding of a range of
challenging experimental work. The introduction to the thesis lays a groundwork of how Barthes has been read in English since the first widely available translations of his work appeared in the 1960s, and thus establishes the intellectual context in which poets have
written since.
Beginning in the first chapter with Veronica Forrest-Thomson, the first of these poets to have looked at Barthes in detail, it looks both at poetry and of poets’ writings in the fields of criticism and poetics. From Forrest-Thomson the thesis moves in the second chapter to North America and considers the place of Barthes, particularly his Writing Degree Zero, in the intellectual context out of which emerged what has come to be known as ‘language
writing’, combining a survey of this writing with close readings of the work of Ron Silliman,
Ray DiPalma, Lyn Hejinian, Bernadette Mayer, and others. In the third chapter, the investigation of this diffuse tendency in poetry is followed through various strands, focussing in particular on periodicals and archival material. Finally, the fourth chapter looks at Anne
Carson, Deborah Levy, and Kristjana Gunnars, and considers Barthes’ relevance to their texts’ thinking about writing. The intersection of theory and the emotional life is explored using the theoretical lens of Chris Kraus’ experimental fiction, particularly her notion of a
‘lonely girl phenomenology’.
Barthes has had a diverse range of effects on poets’ thinking about writing and their writing practices, and our understanding of Barthes as a writer, what we mean by the
‘Barthesian’, and individual notions of his such as the ‘death of the author’ and his work on the possibilities of the fragment, have changed over time. The thesis considers the potential of Barthes’ writing to help us think about literature and its future utility for poetry studies
Ages of Wonder: Scotland's Art 1540 to Now. Commissioned Installation.
No full textThis large scale historical exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy included a commissioned installation and residency by Calum Colvin. Ages of Wonder presents work from the NGS and RSA National Collections. The exhibition included over 450 works by over 270 artists and architects, from the masterpiece 'The Adoration of the Magi' painted by Jacopo Bassano of 1540, to recent Diploma Works by Callum Innes RSA and Alison Watt RSA. Integral to the exhibition was commissioned work for and during the exhibition by Calum Colvin RSA, Kenny Hunter RSA and Richard Murphy RSA.This project, recreating the artist's studio within an art gallery in order to allow a public viewing of the process of creation of an artwork over a period of time, allowed a unique access to the various stages in the slow evolution of one of Colvin's staged/painted and constructed pieces - from initial research, set-up and arrangement of objects to the process of painting and final photograph. A large format view camera was installed in the Gallery and the public were able to engage in dialogue with the artist as the piece evolved from an arrangement of objects in a three dimensional set to a large scale painted portrait. The subject was Hugh MacDiarmid- a major figure of 20th Century Scottish and European literature and a controversial political activist, this choice of subject stimulated much debate focussing artistic and visual dialogue alongside political and cultural discussion. Visitors contributed personal letters and objects associated with the poet, which became part of the fabric of the work. Images from the University of Dundee's Peto Collection were used as source material alongside photographic images made by the artist at Brownsbank Cottage, MacDiarmid's former home in Biggar. Public engagement was core to this project, with numerous spontaneous talks as well as pre-arranged lectures. Discussions around visual science, cultural and political engagement, art and poetry and potency of material culture were held. A final public lecture/discussion on the finished artwork/installation was held on Jan 1st 2018 alongside renowned Scottish author James Robertson
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