“Nostalgia” (aka “The Iron Music”) by Ford Madox Ford, read by Michael Blackburn

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Ford Madox Ford, 1873 – 1939.

Best known as the author of such novels as The Good Soldier and No More Parades, Ford was also an accomplished modernist poet. He enlisted with the Welch Regiment in 1915 at the age of 41, served at the front and was wounded. “Nostalgia” (with the alternative title, “The Iron Music”) is one of a number of poems that take their rise from his experiences of the Great War.

Image of Ford c/o The Ford Madox Ford Society (http://www.fordmadoxfordsociety.org).

The text is taken from Ford Madox Ford: Selected Poems, edited with an introduction by Max Saunders, published by Carcanet Press, 2003.

Any English Lit students at Lincoln wanting to be interviewed?

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Message from Eloise Joanne:

Hello, me again! I’m the PhD student from Lancaster University that posted a little while ago. I’m still doing research within the English department at Lincoln University and I still need English/English Literature (any joint honors are welcome too!) undergraduate students to interview who are UK residents.

My research is looking into the interactions between students and staff, the relationships you have with staff and how this impacts on your experience as a student, especially in the context of paying fees!!

It’s just ONE interview with me on Lincoln campus, between 30-60 minutes (depending on how chatty you want to be) AND there’s FREE tea/coffee/hot chocolate etc., (I’ll bring whatever you request!) and FREE biscuits (an entire pack actually and I’m talking luxury cookies not just digestives).

It’ll be a great experience, it’s a really interesting project and you can put it on your CV. Win-win! If you’re interested, please send me a message on here or email me at e.symonds@lancaster.ac.uk and we can talk some more!

Thanks so much! Eloise

Towards the gulag, one vote at a time.

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzheitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn’s short masterpiece should be essential reading for all young people. It’s a reminder (or perhaps the first encounter for some) of the horrors of communism in the Soviet Union. Socialism, communism, Marxism, whatever you want to call it, ends inevitably in labour and death camps or in complete social collapse, as is happening now in Venezuela.

Here’s the blurb from Penguin Books about One Day…

Bringing into harsh focus the daily struggle for existence in a Soviet gulag, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is translated by Ralph Parker in Penguin Modern Classics.

 

This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book, the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string or a single match in a world where survival is all. Here safety, warmth and food are the first objectives. Reading it, you enter a world of incarceration, brutality, hard manual labour and freezing cold – and participate in the struggle of men to survive both the terrible rigours of nature and the inhumanity of the system that defines their conditions of life.

 

Though twice-decorated for his service at the front during the Second World War, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was arrested in 1945 for making derogatory remarks about Stalin, and sent to a series of brutal Soviet labour camps in the Arctic Circle, where he remained for eight years. Released after Stalin’s death, he worked as a teacher, publishing his novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich with the approval of Nikita Khrushchev in 1962, to huge success. His 1967 novel Cancer Ward, as well as his magnum opus The Gulag Archipelago, were not as well-received by Soviet authorities, and not long after being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, Solzhenitsyn was deported from the USSR. In 1994, after twenty years in exile, Solzhenitsyn made his long-awaited return to Russia.

 

If you enjoyed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, you might also like Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, available in Penguin Classics.

 

‘It is a blow struck for human freedom all over the world … and it is gloriously readable’
Sunday Times

For a more detailed and more gruelling read, there’s The Gulag Archipelago, also by Solzhenitsyn.

A Lincoln Ghost Story Evening.

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Ghost Poster (1)
Classic ghost stories come to life in an evening of supernatural tales, talks and theatre.
Ghostly image

Some of Lincoln’s most enduring ghost stories will be brought to life in an evening of story-telling, discussion and live theatrical performance set in a historic building famous in local folklore for its paranormal happenings…

A Lincoln Ghost Story Evening, White Hart Hotel, Monday, 27 Nov, 7.30.

Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde at LPAC, 23 Nov 2017

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Jekyll-and-Hyde

This adaptation should be worth checking out (Nov 23):

Doctor Henry Jekyll is a good man and close to a neurological discovery that will chance the face of medical science. However, his methods are less than ethical, and when a colleague threatens to expose his work, he’s forced ti experiment on himself, whereupon he encounters a new friend, the brutal Edward Hyde. A thrilling adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s dark psychological fantasy adapted for the stage by Nick Lane, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde immerses you in the myth and mystery of 19th century London’s fog-bound streets where love, betrayal and murder lurk at every chilling twist and turn. Gripping. Stylist and thought-provoking, this is unmissable theatre. Go on…treat your dark side! Tickets: £12.50 Full // £10.50 Concessions // £5 LIVE PASS (Students & Under 26s) Ages: 11+

Link – http://bit.ly/2ys4rgh

 

 

Great Lives series: University of Lincoln, October 2017.

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The University’s Great Lives series continues this week with lectures by Tom Heap and Sir Mark Walport.

The series, featuring high profile speakers, aims to give an insight into the achievements of leading influential figures and recognisable faces from backgrounds such as the arts, business and economics, politics, health and science as well as bringing more local leading Lecturers and Visiting Professors to the fore.

Staff and students are encouraged to attend.

 Booking is advised, but there may also be tickets available on the door. Please follow the links below for more information.

 Tom Heap

Tuesday 17th October, 5.30pm for a 6.00pm Lecture

Jackson Lecture Theatre, Minerva Building

TV presenter Tom Heap is a freelance broadcaster and journalist with a passionate concern for rural affairs, science and the environment. Tom presents the investigations on Countryfile – Britain’s most popular factual TV programme.

http://lincoln.ac.uk/home/campuslife/whatson/eventsconferences/tom-heap.html

 Sir Mark Walport

Thursday 19th October, 11.00am for a 11.30pm Lecture

Isaac Newton Lecture Theatre, Isaac Newton Building

Recently appointed Chief Executive Designate of UK Research and Innovation, Sir Mark Walport has long been a champion for science, engineering and technology within his career including his role as Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Head of the Government Office for Science and Co-Chair of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology.

http://lincoln.ac.uk/home/campuslife/whatson/eventsconferences/mark-walport.html

 All future Great Lives events can be found listed on the University website:http://lincoln.ac.uk/home/campuslife/whatson/eventsconferences/