Showing posts with label manchester. Show all posts
Showing posts with label manchester. Show all posts

Saturday 26 July 2014

CFP: Manhood in Anglo-Saxon England

Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies (MANCASS)
Easter Conference 2015

Hulme Hall, University of Manchester, UK
7-9 April 2015

Proposals for 20 minute papers on this topic are invited. Topics that the conference will include, but are not limited to:

• Male identities and constructions of masculinity
• Literary presentations and representations of manhood
• Laws and Penitentials
• Male sexualities
• Manhood and Archaeology
• Representations of masculinity in art

We are looking for submissions (approx. 300 words) on these and related subjects to reach us by 30th November 2014. Please send submissions, and direct enquiries to the conference director, Dr Charles Insley, Department of History, University of Manchester.

Saturday 12 July 2014

Hauntings: An Anthology - Launch Party

International Anthony Burgess Foundation
3 Cambridge Street
Manchester M1
United Kingdom

Thursday, 31 July 2014
7-9pm



Come and join us at the launch party for Hauntings: An Anthology, a new collection of short stories from Hic Dragones.

Hauntings: An Anthology - twenty-one new tales of the uncanny

A memory, a spectre, a feeling of regret, a sense of déjà vu, ghosts, machines, something you can’t quite put your finger on, a dark double, the long shadow of a crime, your past, a city’s past, your doppelganger, a place, a song, a half-remembered rhyme, guilt, trauma, doubt, a shape at the corner of your eye, the future, the dead, the undead, the living, someone you used to know, someone you used to be.

We are all haunted.

Join us at the launch party on Thursday July 31st. Readings by: Tracy Fahey, Mark Forshaw, Hannah Kate, Sarah Peploe, James Everington, Michael Hitchins, Daisy Black and Rachel Halsall

Free wine reception, giveaways and launch discount on the book. For more information, please visit the publisher's website.

Friday 9 May 2014

True Crime: Fact, Fiction, Ideology (Manchester, 7 June 2014)



Registration is now open for True Crime: Fact, Fiction, Ideology, a one-day conference to be held at the Manchester Conference Centre on Saturday 7 June 2014. Registration information can be found on the conference website.

Programme

9.00-9.30 Registration

9.30-11.00 Panel 1: Depicting Taboo Crimes
Chair: Hannah Priest

Karen Oughton (Regents University London): Deliciously Deranged: Depicting the Raison d’être of Jeffrey Dahmer as a Celebrity Serial Killer

Jacquelyn Bent (University of Huddersfield): What Constitutes a ‘Taboo’?: Cultural, Societal and Legal Standards for the Identification of Taboo Acts Including Taboo Crime

David McWilliam (Lancaster University): Without Conscience: Re-opening Old Wounds to Pass the Empathy Test in Dave Cullen’s Columbine (2009)

11.00-11.30 Coffee

11.30-1.00 Panel 2: Generic Boundaries and Conventions
Chair: tbc

Carys Crossen (University of Manchester): Invoke Not Reason: Defining the Parameters of True Crime in the Case of Jack the Ripper

Charlotte Beyer (University of Gloucestershire): ‘Angel Makers’: Recent True Crime Stories of Baby Farming

Maysaa Jaber (University of Baghdad): Crime Culture of Monstrosity: The Cold War, Paranoia and the Psychopathy in Post-war Crime Fiction

Abby Bentham (University of Salford): Cold Blood, Warm Heart: Truman Capote and the Transformation of the Psychopath

1.00-2.00 Lunch

2.00-3.30 Keynote Lecture
Chair: David McWilliam

David Schmid (University at Buffalo, State University of New York): The Moors Murders and the “Truth” of True Crime

3.30-4.00 Coffee

4.00-5.30 Panel 3: Place, History, Communities
Chair: tbc

John David Jordan (Manchester Metropolitan University): Real Life Crimes, Council Estate Dramas and Proleaphobia: How ‘Socio-Chthonic Mythologies’ Serve the Neoliberal Welfare Agenda

Martyn Colebrook (Independent Scholar): ‘Do what you want, just don’t get caught doing it’ – Gordon Burn’s Happy Like Murderers

Het Phillips (University of Birmingham): ‘Digging Up Your Fiction’: Place, Intertext and the Raw Materials of History in Neil McKay’s True Crime Television

5.30 Conference Close

The registration fee for the day is £40, including refreshments and lunch. For more information and to register, please visit the conference website or email the organizers.

Sunday 9 February 2014

Dress and Textile Discussion Group Meeting

Below are details of the next Dress and Textile Discussion Group meeting at the University of Manchester.

Our speaker is Dr John-Peter Wild who will be talking about: 'Cotton - the New Wool. A Developing Tale from Roman Egypt'. The meeting will take place on Thursday 13th February between 5-6 pm. The room is Seminar Room 1 in the Graduate Suite, Ellen Willkinson Building, University of Manchester.

To find the room you will need to enter the building via the north entrance. The Graduate Suite is on the left of the foyer. You will need to swipe your university card to gain access. If you do not have a card, the person on duty will know about the meeting and will let you in. They will also be able to guide you to the room which is on the ground floor.

John Rylands Medieval Research Seminar

(including information on Manchester Medieval Society lectures)

Semester 2, 2013-2014

February 6th 2014 – John Rylands Medieval Research Seminar (5.30pm) Professor Gale Owen-Crocker, English, University of Manchester, ‘The significance of the Bayeux Tapestry’ (Venue: John Rylands Library Deansgate, Christie Seminar Room)

February 20th 2014 - Manchester Medieval Society Lecture (6.00pm) Professor Maria Hayward, Southampton University, ‘Merchants and Makers: An analysis of the suppliers named in Great Wardrobe accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII’ (Venue: Samuel Alexander A112, University of Manchester)

March 6th 2014 – John Rylands Medieval Research Seminar (5.30pm) Dr Charles Insley, History, University of Manchester, ‘Ottonians with Pipe Rolls? Kingship and symbolic action in the kingdom of the English’ (Venue: John Rylands Library Deansgate, Christie Seminar Room)

March 20th 2014 – John Rylands Medieval Research Seminar (5.30pm) Dr Georg Christ, History, University of Manchester, ‘Age of Empire: Information and knowledge management in the Venetian and Mamluk empires during the fifteenth century’ (Venue: Samuel Alexander A112, University of Manchester)

April 3rd 2014 - Manchester Medieval Society/MANCASS Lecture (6.00pm) Kevin Leahy, University of Leicester, ‘New Finds of the Staffordshire Hoard’ (Venue: TBC)

May 1st 2014 - John Rylands Medieval Research Seminar/Brook Lecture (5.30pm) Professor Andrew James Johnston, Freie Universitaet Berlin, ‘Chaucer's Postcolonial Renaissance’ (Venue: John Rylands Library Deansgate, Christie Seminar Room)

Supported by the John Rylands Research Institute

Monday 21 October 2013

CFP: True Crime: Fact, Fiction, Ideology

Fact, Fiction, Ideology

6-7 June 2014
Manchester, UK

Keynote Lecture: David Schmid (University at Buffalo, SUNY), author of Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture: ‘The Moors Murders and the “Truth” of True Crime’

Call for Papers

As Mark Seltzer notes, ‘true crime is crime fact that looks like crime fiction’, a popular genre that is obsessed with real-life murder and extreme acts of criminal deviance. Emerging as a genre in magazines of the mid-twentieth century such as True Detective Magazine, and drawing on earlier discourses of confession, memoir and speculation, true crime first received attention as a form of literature with the publication of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966). It has since diversified into a variety of other media, from television series such as Neil McKay’s Appropriate Adult (2011) to Hollywood films about famous works of the genre, such as David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007). In recent horror-crime fiction and film, such as Adam Nevill’s Last Days (2012) and Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012), the act of writing and filming true crime is presented as ensnaring its creators in the gruesome worlds they seek to capture. While its adherence to orthodox law and order perspectives, typified by a tendency to present offenders as monstrous and evil, may seem to position true crime as a conservative genre, its fascination with the lives and minds of serial killers can sometimes lend it a transgressive quality.

True Crime: Fact, Fiction, Ideology is an interdisciplinary conference seeking to explore this genre in its myriad incarnations. Proposals are sought for 20 minute papers. Possible topics may include:
• True crime in popular culture
• Forensic psychology and criminology
• Prison narratives and memoirs
• True crime in fiction and metafiction
• The politics of true crime
• True crime and the law
• Theorizing true crime
• Serial killers and profiling
• Taboo crimes
• The ethics of true crime
• ‘Proto-true crime’ – early examples of the mode, predecessors and precedents

Please send 300-word abstracts to David McWilliam and Hannah Priest by 31st March 2014. All enquiries should also be sent to this address.

This conference is organized by Hic Dragones. For more information about the company and its work, please see the Hic Dragones website.

Blood and Water Launch Parties (Manchester and Leeds)

Blood and Water

The debut novel by Beth Daley


Release Date: 7th November 2013
Publisher: Hic Dragones
For more information, visit the publisher's website



Dora lives by the sea. Dora has always lived by the sea. But she won’t go into the water.

The last time Dora swam in the sea was the day of her mother’s funeral, the day she saw the mermaid. Now she’s an adult, a respectable married woman, and her little sister Lucie has come home from university with a horrible secret. Dora’s safe and dry life begins to fray, as she is torn between protecting her baby sister and facing up to a truth she has always known but never admitted. And the sea keeps calling her, reminding her of what she saw beneath the waves all those years ago… of what will be waiting for her if she dives in again.

Praise for Blood and Water:

A talented new author with a feel for details and how to make them count. Daley’s writing is a cumulation of neat touches that grab hold of you, persuade you to care, and drag you deep into a debut novel soaked in menace.
Toby Stone, author of Aimee and the Bear

Blood and Water Launch Parties

FREE EVENTS in Lancashire (Manchester) and Yorkshire (Leeds), our very own WAR OF THE ROSES! Join us for the launch of Blood and Water.

Thursday, 7 November 2013 from 19:00 to 21:00
Portico Library
57 Mosley St
Manchester M2 3HY
United Kingdom

Wine reception and readings by the author



Friday, 8 November 2013 from 18:00 to 20:00
The Maven
1-3 Call Lane
Leeds LS1 7DH
United Kingdom

Monday 23 September 2013

MANCASS News and Programme 2013-14

New publications from the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies:

- Nicholas J. Higham and Martin Ryan, The Anglo-Saxon World, London, Yale University Press, 2013.
- Nicholas J. Higham ed., Wilfrid: Abbot, Bishop, Saint, Donington, Shaun Tyas, 2013.
- Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian W. Schneider, ed., Royal Authority in Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, Archaeopress, BAR British Series 584, 2013.
- Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Brian W. Schneider, ed., Kingship, Legislation and Power in Anglo-Saxon England, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies Volume 13, Woodbridge, Boydell, 2013.

Talks and conferences 2013-14
After ordinary meetings members are welcome to join the Director and the speaker for dinner at their own expense.

Monday 30 September 2013
5pm, Samuel Alexander Building Room S. 1.7
Dr Rory Naismith, of the University of Cambridge, will speak on ‘The Forum Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Coins’

Monday 11 November 2013
5pm, room to be announced
Dr Susan Youngs, formerly of the British Museum, will speak on ‘The Prince and the Hanging-bowl: the British presence at Prittlewell’

Monday 10 Feb 2014
5pm, room to be announced
Dr David Woodman, of the University of Cambridge, will speak on ‘The writing of history in twelfth-century Worcester’

Monday 3 March 2014: The Toller Lecture
Professor John Hines, University of Cardiff, will speak on ‘A new chronology and new agenda: the problematic sixth century’ exploring the issues raised by the recent high-precision radio-carbon dating project; 6pm, in the Historic Reading Room, John Rylands Library Deansgate, followed by a free wine reception, followed by dinner at Pesto, Deansgate (about £25 per person). If you wish to attend the post-lecture dinner please book by Monday 24 Feb 2013 with Gale Owen-Crocker.

Thursday 3 April 2014: Joint meeting of MANCASS and the Manchester Medieval Society
Dr Kevin Leahy, of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, will speak on ‘The Staffordshire Hoard’; 6pm in the Historic Reading Room, John Rylands Library Deansgate. If you wish to attend the post-lecture dinner please book by Thursday 27 March 2014 with Susan Thompson.

15-17 April 2014
The MANCASS Easter Conference on ‘Womanhood in Anglo-Saxon England’ will take place at Hulme Hall, The University of Manchester. The Conference will be directed by Professor Gale R. Owen-Crocker, The University of Manchester, in association with Dr Charles Insley, The University of Manchester, and Dr Christine Rauer, University of St Andrews. Offers of 20 minute papers should be submitted, with a short abstract, to Gale Owen-Crocker by 30 November 2013. Registration enquiries should be directed to Brian Schneider.

Tuesday 30 July 2013

CFP: Suffragette Legacy: How Does the History of Feminism Inspire Current Thinking in Manchester?

Saturday 8 March 2014

Call for Papers

From The Village and David Bowie’s Suffragette City to Femen activists and Pussy Riot, the suffragette legacy is everywhere in modern culture.

As part of the Manchester Wonder Women events celebrating International Women’s Day 2014, this one-day conference seeks to bring together academics, artists, politicians and activists to present and speak about how their work is affected by the suffragette legacy of feminism.

Welcoming academic papers, feminist theory, dance, music or other, this one-day conference wishes to bring together different people to reflect on the important, but often complex, legacy of the suffragettes. Within an interdisciplinary context we wish to explore if, how and why the movement still matters in politics, academia, the arts and other aspects of modern Manchester.

Papers or submissions are welcome from any background, but special consideration will be given to anyone who directly engages with the Manchester history of the women’s movement.

Send your proposed paper, project or idea to the conference convenors by 15 October 2013 at 12pm. We will let you know if you have been successful by 1st November. If your work has a particularly visual or performance element, do send us lots of details about it. We are hoping to display related materials, objects and artworks, so any visual output is welcome in the planning stages.

Venue: People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Spinningfields, Manchester M3 3ER. For directions, please click here.

Fee: £25/£15 (concessions, students or unwaged - proof required); bursaries may be available in the Autumn

Twitter: @wonderwomenmcr

Websites: Wonder Women and blog

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Impossible Spaces Launch Party

Friday 19 July, 7.00-9.00pm
Free entry

International Anthony Burgess Foundation
3 Cambridge Street
Manchester M1 5BY
United Kingdom

Join us at the launch of Impossible Spaces, a new collection of short stories from Hic Dragones.

Sometimes the rules can change. Sometimes things aren't how they appear. Sometimes you can just slip through the cracks and end up... somewhere else. What else is there? Is there somewhere else, right beside you, if you could only reach out and touch it? Or is it waiting to reach out and touch you?



Don't trust what you see. Don't trust what you hear. Don't trust what you remember. It isn't what you think.

A new collection of twenty-one dark, unsettling and weird short stories that explore the spaces at the edge of possibility. Stories by: Ramsey Campbell, Simon Bestwick, Hannah Kate, Jeanette Greaves, Richard Freeman, Almira Holmes, Arpa Mukhopadhyay, Chris Galvin Nguyen, Christos Callow Jr., Daisy Black, Douglas Thompson, Jessica George, Keris McDonald, Laura Brown, Maree Kimberley, Margret Helgadottir, Nancy Schumann, Rachel Yelding, Steven K. Beattie, Tej Turner and Tracy Fahey.

Free event, with wine reception from 7pm. Readings from Douglas Thompson, Rachel Yelding, Tracy Fahey, Jeanette Greaves, Nancy Schumann, Jessica George and Hannah Kate. Launch party discount on book sales and competition/giveaways.

Friday 29 March 2013

Hic Dragones presents... Twisted Tales of Cannibalism

International Anthony Burgess Foundation
3 Cambridge Street
Manchester M1 5BY
United Kingdom
Wednesday 24th April 2013, 6.30-8.30pm
Free event, booking required

A night of dark horror fiction with Conrad Williams (Blonde on a Stick, One, The Unblemished), Stephen McGeagh (Habit) and Harry Whitehead (The Cannibal Spirit), presented by Hic Dragones and Twisted Tales.

Cannibalism disrupts our relatively stable position at the top of the food chain. From Jeffrey Dahmer to Hannibal Lecter, cannibals are the subject of popular fascination in both fiction and crime reports. However, they have a much longer heritage and their monstrous appetites can make them seem something both greater and lesser than human. Join Twisted Tales and Hic Dragones for an evening of readings by authors known for their cannibal fiction, before engaging in discussion about this primal taboo.

Hic Dragones is a small press publisher and events organizer based in North Manchester. This event is a tie-in with the Cannibals: Cannibalism, Consumption and Culture conference running on 25-26th April 2013. For more information about this conference, please visit the website.

Twisted Tales is an award-nominated series of horror readings based in the North West, with the aim of promoting the best of 21st century horror through engaging the public in a series of dynamic literary events. Now entering into its third year, Twisted Tales has worked with a range of top authors, including China Miéville, Sarah Pinborough, Ramsey Campbell, Jeremy Dyson, Adam Nevill, Stuart MacBride, Graham Joyce, Alison Littlewood and many more. For further information, please visit the Twisted Tales website.

Saturday 16 February 2013

Symposium: Isidore of Seville: Transforming Knowledge from Scriptorium to Cyberspace

Isidore of Seville (d. 636 CE) is a crucial figure in the preservation and propagation of Classical and Patristic learning. He put such learning to varied use in his own day, in the process ensuring that it could be made useful for future generations. Because of the depth of what he preserved and the breadth of its diffusion, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Isidore the patron saint of the Internet in 1997. This one day symposium looks at the sources on which Isidore drew, how he selected and arranged them for future use, and what posterity made of his legacy.

DATE: Thursday 18th April 2013

VENUE: Instituto Cervantes, 326/330 Deansgate, Campfield Avenue Arcade, Manchester 

PAPERS:

- Andy Fear (Manchester), A Grand Design: Isidore and the natural world

- Laura Carlson (Queen's University, Canada), The use of Isidore in the Opus Caroli

- Martin Ryan (Manchester), The Reception of the Writings of Isidore in the Atlantic Archipelago in the Early Middle Ages

- Amy Fuller, (Nottingham Trent), Archiving Idolatry: Isidore and the recording of native superstition in the New World

- Jamie Wood (Lincoln), LA Law: Isidore, late antique legal sources and the Carolingians

- Melissa Markauskas (Manchester), Rylands MS Latin 12: A Carolingian example of Isidore’s reception into the Patristic Canon?‏

Other contributors include: Mary Beagon (Manchester), Jeremy Lawrance (Nottingham), David Langslow (Manchester), Andrew Laird (Warwick) and Jeremy Tambling (Manchester).

Contact Jamie Wood for further information or if you would like to register for the symposium.

Thursday 22 November 2012

Returning to Oz: The Afterlife of Dorothy

Thursday 7 February 2013
International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, United Kingdom

Registration is now open: please visit the Hic Dragones website for more information.

Programme

9.30-10.00 Registration

10.00-11.00 Keynote Paper: Geoff Ryman (University of Manchester)
Harrowing the Land of the Dead: Oz, Was and Joseph Campbell

11.00-11.30 Coffee

11.30-1.00 If I Only Had a Heart: Storytelling and Oz
Chair: TBC

Matthew Freeman (University of Nottingham): Across the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum’s Land of Oz as the Historical Origins of Transmedia Storytelling

Hannah Priest (Hic Dragones/University of Manchester): The Once and Future Dorothy: Intertextuality in Tin Man

Alexander Berezkin (Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok): Dorothy Gale and her twin Ellie Smith in a magical land of the USSR

Dee Michel (Independent Researcher): Gay Folkloric Beliefs About the MGM Film and Judy Garland

1.00-2.00 Lunch

2.00-3.30 If I Only Had a Brain: Theorizing Oz
Chair: TBC

Johanna Schorn (University of Cologne): “Just you and I / Defying Gravity”: A Queer Reading of Wicked

Ashley Wilson (University of Cambridge): East or West, Home is Best: Using Place/Space Theory to Identify the 1939 Wizard of Oz as the True ‘American Fairy Tale’

Sorcha Ní Fhlainn (Manchester Metropolitan University): The Oz you haven’t see before!’: The Gothic Sublime in Return to Oz (1985)

3.30-4.00 Coffee

4.00-5.30 If I Only Had the Nerve: Merit and Madness
Chair: TBC

Maria Cohut (University of Warwick): The Grotesque and the Sinister in The Wizard of Oz: Perpetuating Christian Models of Merit

Karen Graham (University of Aberdeen): ‘Now what are we going to do about Dorothy?’: The Judgement of Dorothy in Gregory Maguire’s The Wicked Years series

Carys Crossen (University of Manchester): We’re off to See the Psychiatrist: Madness, Feminine Symbols and Female Power in Disney’s Return to Oz

5.30-5.45 Short Break 5.45-6.45 Special Guest (via Skype): Gregory Maguire (tbc)

6.45 Conference Close

For more information about the conference, or to register, visit the Hic Dragones website or email the conference convenors.

Thursday 15 November 2012

EVENTS TONIGHT - ALL WELCOME

Two events tonight at the University of Manchester...

Dress and Textile Discussion Group

Dr. John Peter Wild: Roman Textiles
5pm,Studio 5, Samuel Alexander Building

Manchester Medieval Society

Dr. William Rossiter (Senior Lecturer, Liverpool Hope University): 
Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio: The Trecento Anxiety of Influence?
6pm, Room A102, Samuel Alexander Building

Tuesday 26 June 2012

CFP: Cannibals: Cannibalism, Consumption and Culture

25-26 April 2013
Manchester, United Kingdom

From contemporary horror film to medieval Eucharistic devotions, from Freudian theory to science fiction, cannibals and cannibalism continue to repel and intrigue us in equal measure. This two-day interdisciplinary conference will explore humanity’s relationships with, and attitudes towards, cannibalism, whether fascination, horror or purely practical considerations.

Papers are sought from all disciplines, including but not limited to literature, film studies, history, anthropology, archaeology, psychology and medicine.

Call for Papers:

Proposals are sought for 20 minute papers. Possible topics may include:

• Cannibalism in popular culture
• Cannibalism as cultural metaphor
• Theorizations of cannibalism
• Taboos, socialization and psychoanalysis
• Survival and necessity
• Maternal infanticide
• Vampires, werewolves and zombies – a question of species?
• Eating the enemy
• Rites, rituals and sacrifice
• Serial killers (in life and in fiction)

Please send 300 word abstracts to the conference convenors by 31st December 2012.

For more information, please see the conference website.

Monday 21 May 2012

CFP: Returning to Oz: The Afterlife of Dorothy

Thursday 7th February 2013
Manchester, UK

CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers are sought for a one-day conference in Manchester on representations and interpretations of Dorothy and Oz in popular culture. This conference seeks to address the perennial popularity of L. Frank Baum’s creations, and to explore their most recent incarnations.

Possible themes may include (but are not limited to):
• Film, TV and animated adaptations
• Sequels and prequels (other than Baum’s series); translations, editions and revisions
• Music and musicals
• Kitsch
• ‘Friends of Dorothy’ and gay culture
• MGM and Judy Garland
• Graphic novels and visual art
• Merchandise, memorabilia and ephemera

This conference is the sister project to our Further Adventures in Wonderland: The Afterlife of Alice project. As such, papers are also welcomed that offer some comparison of the respective afterlives of Alice and Dorothy, or that deal with texts featuring both characters. For more information on our Afterlife of Alice conference, please click here.

Abstracts of 250-300 words (for a 20 min paper) should be sent via email to the conference convenors by 30th September 2012.

Selected papers may be invited for inclusion in an academic collection of essays following the conference.

For information, please click here.

Tuesday 3 April 2012

Manchester Monster Convention

Saturday 14th – Sunday 15th April 2012
Sachas Hotel, Tib Street, Manchester

Weekend Tickets: just £10
For more information on this event, and to book tickets, please visit the Hic Dragones website.

Saturday 14th April
Doors open at 10am

Talks (Jefferson Suite)

11.00am Before Dawn - a new British horror film set in Yorkshire
Dominic Brunt (Actor/Director) and Neale Myers (Cameraman/Digital Effects Artist) will be showing clips from their new Yorkshire horror movie, Before Dawn, talking about the movie and answering questions

12.30pm Q&A with Sam Stone and David J Howe
Sam is the author of the Vampire Gene series, and David has written numerous books on Doctor Who. Both authors will be reading from their work, answering questions and generally talking vampires, monsters and Who.

2.00pm Tales from the Crypt: Two Real-Life Vampire Cases
Talk by Geoff Holder, author of Paranormal Glasgow and Paranormal Cumbria, covering the hunt for the Vampire with Iron Teeth, and the infamous case of the Vampire of Croglin Grange.

3.30pm In Search of Real Monsters
Talk by Richard Freeman, Zoological Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology

Signings (Washington Suite)

1.20pm Sam Stone and David J Howe
2.50pm Geoff Holder

The Monster Market (Washington Suite)
Stalls will be open from 10am to 5pm

Film Screenings (Jefferson Suite)

From 6pm Monster Movie Triple Bill (sponsored by Grimm Up North)
Island of Lost Souls
Whisperer in the Darkness
Reel Zombies


Sunday 15th April
Doors open at 10am

Talks (Jefferson Suite)

11.00am How to Make a Monster
A talk on creative writing, horror and monsters by Rick Hudson. Rick's work has been published by a wide variety of magazines in the UK, US and Europe as well as appearing in collections and broadcast by the BBC. He is currently working on a documentary for the BBC and a film for a leading Hollywood studio.

12.30pm Psychopaths, Deviants and Serial Killers, Oh My!
A talk on the psychology of 'human monsters' by Jacquelyn Bent, who is currently completing a doctorate in Criminal Psychology at the University of Huddersfield

2.00pm Q&A with Leah Moore and John Reppion
Graphic novelists, creators of the Wild Girls series, the Albion series (with Alan Moore and Shane Oakley) and the Raise the Dead series (with Hugo Petrus). The duo have also created The Complete Dracula and The Complete Alice in Wonderland, and are currently working on the Thrill Electric, a motion comic set in Victorian Manchester.

3.30pm Writers Panel: Readings and Q&A
With Wayne Simmons (author of Flu and Fever) Simon Bestwick (author of The Faceless, Tide of Souls and Pictures of the Dark) and Scott Stanford (author of Dorothy - The Darker Side of Oz and Abaddon Rising)

Signings (Washington Suite)

2.50pm Leah Moore and John Reppion
4.20pm Wayne Simmons, Simon Bestwick and Scott Stanford

The Monster Market (Washington Suite)
Stalls will be open from 10am to 5pm

Convention closes at 5pm
Tickets for the event cost just £10. To book, please visit the Hic Dragones website.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Manchester Medieval Society Lecture: John Gillis

The Fadden More Psalter

MANCHESTER MEDIEVAL SOCIETY and MANCASS are delighted to host jointly a lecture on The Faddan More Psalter by John Gillis Senior Conservator of books and manuscripts at Trinity College Library

Thursday 22 March 2012 at 6 p.m.

A large, leather-covered book was unearthed in 2006 in a peat bog in Co. Tipperary, Ireland. Despite its covering of brown peat, lettering and illuminated decoration were visible and it was immediately obvious that this was a Psalter (book of the Psalms), datable from its decorative style to the eighth-century, a golden age of manuscript illumination in Ireland and Northumbria. John Gillis is working with the National Museum of Ireland on examining and conserving the manuscript.

Venue: The Historic Reading Room, John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Deansgate Building.

Non-members are always welcome.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

GUEST POST: Bryan Sitch



The Heronbridge Skeletons at The Manchester Museum

The human skeletons from Heronbridge near Chester have attracted a lot of interest recently. Some of this is thanks to Hannah with whom I discussed the remains last year. Within a matter of hours it seemed Hannah had arranged for me to speak about the discovery at a conference she was organising about Gender and the Middle Ages. In just over five weeks’ time on 29th March there will be another opportunity to explore what the bones mean when the Manchester Museum holds a day school on the Heronbridge skeletons. This is to coincide with a Manchester Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium which is being held on 28th March. Hopefully people will find it worthwhile to stay over. What is it that makes the skeletons so interesting?

The skeletons were found during excavations at Heronbridge during the early 1930s. Many of the finds were of Roman date and it was assumed that the skeletons were also of Roman date. In the excavation publication it was stated that the remains would be deposited at the Manchester Museum and that a detailed report had been presented to the university librarian. On the basis of this statement a number of enquirers had contacted the Museum to ask about the skeletons but no-one was able to find them. It was just over a year ago that the penny dropped.

As Curator of Archaeology I had gone through the human remains in the collection to find out what was known about them. I noticed that many of the bones had no associated information. Some, however, had distinctive labels on which Greek characters were written such as alpha, beta, gamma, delta and so on. At the time this meant nothing to me but it quickly became clear when I re-read the brief report about the Heronbridge skeletons published in 1933. In a table at the back of the report the skeletons were listed but half way across the table the numbering changed and the skeletons had dual numbering using Greek characters. On its own this might not be sufficient to tie down the provenance but the bone report also referred to wounds on the skulls. When I checked the skulls I saw large impact trauma, injuries made by long edged weapons. Dr Elwyn Davies who wrote the bone report speculated the injuries were caused by Roman cavalry swords. This conclusion was based on the presence of Roman finds on the Heronbridge site. However, in 2005 further archaeological work was carried out at Heronbridge and two of the skeletons were recovered and radiocarbon dated. The range of dates suggested a time somewhere around the early 7th century AD.

This was extremely interesting because in his 'Ecclesiastical History of the English People' Bede gave an account of the Battle of Chester. A Northumbrian army led by King Aethelfrith fought a smaller force of northern Welsh Britons and defeated it. Bede's account said that Aethelfrith, seeing British Christian monks praying for the defeat of the Northumbrians, ordered his men to cut them down. Many of the monks were killed. The Northumbrians retreated having suffered heavy casualties in their turn and with British reinforcements on their way.

Could the skeletons in the Manchester Museum be casualties of the Battle of Chester in or about 616 AD? None have been radiocarbon dated but they come from very similar contexts to the skeletons lifted in 2005. As the latter have been radiocarbon dated it seems reasonable to infer that the skeletons from the 1930s excavations are of the same date. As the dead were buried in significant numbers in pits (laid out respectfully like sardines in a tin), it must have been a significant battle. The wounds on some of the bones are very similar to those seen on skeletons from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. And they are all men. I conclude that the skeletons in the Museum must be from the Battle of Chester. To have a sizeable group of human remains showing trauma from a 'Dark Age' battlefield together with an historical account is really exciting.

But who are the skeletons? Which side were they on? Could they be the remains of the monks? Perhaps tidied away respectfully by the Welsh reinforcements that arrived too late to take part in the battle? Prof. Nick Higham of the University of Manchester has argued that we must take what Bede has to say with a large pinch of salt. Bede isn't a reliable guide to events on the battlefield. He was writing providential history and trying to justify the slaughter of Christians by the pagan Anglo-Saxons who would later become Christian. Bede was serving a religious agenda. For instance no early medieval monastery in this country can have had the numbers of monks ascribed to it by Bede. Bu'Lock argued the monks were former warriors who had retired to the cloister to pass their twilight years only to be pressed back into military service in an emergency when the Northumbrians attacked Chester. Again this seems unlikely. Whether we can find out from isotopic studies which part of the world these men came from remains to be seen.

We will explore aspects of the story in the day school at the Manchester Museum on 29th March. Six speakers have confirmed their titles and it looks like a fascinating date.

Bryan Sitch
Deputy Head of Collections and Curator of Archaeology
The Manchester Museum

For more information about the Heronbridge skeletons, see the Ancient Worlds blog from The Manchester Museum.