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CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20181018T144243Z
DTSTART:20181108T170000Z
DTEND:20181108T183000Z
SUMMARY:Lives of Letters Seminar Series. Pictures and Postcards: Images a
 nd Letters
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 8s-ctb7cf
DESCRIPTION:The Lives of Letters Network presents 'Pictures and Postcards
 : Images and Letters'.\n\nSchedule:\n\nDr Luke Uglow (Art History\, Manc
 hester): 'Drawing Letters: Ruskin at the Rylands\n \nDespite being a pro
 lific letter writer\, despite being a talented draughtsman\, and despite
  the crucial role images played in his research and teaching\, drawings 
 are notable for their rarity in the epistolary archives of John Ruskin (
 1819-1900). Consequently\, when some small but carefully worked sketches
  do interrupt the flow of hastily written text\, they seem especially si
 gnificant and somehow contain an excess of meaning. This cannot only be 
 for the historian\, but surely also for original recipient. Indeed\, the
  examples of Ruskin’s visual letters we do find contained in The John Ry
 lands Library are all addressed to people with whom the critic developed
  an extended and personal relationship. This paper will focus on just th
 ree: a drawing of an alpine peak in October 1845 sent to his friend and 
 literary mentor William Henry Harrison (d. 1874)\; a sketch of telegraph
  wires obscuring a Welsh mountain range seen from the train\, sent to hi
 s benefactor Fanny Talbot (1824-1917) in August 1876\; and\, an impressi
 onistic vision of the sun above the Kent coast\, sent to his god-daughte
 r Constance Oldham in October 1887. Spanning his entire working life\, t
 hese exceptional letters are rarely treated in scholarship\, and yet doc
 ument moments of pause in which Ruskin gave visual expression to his emo
 tional and intellectual life.\n\n \nDr Julia Gillen (Linguistics and Eng
 lish Language\, Lancaster): 'The “letter of the poor?” Investigating wri
 ting and images on the Edwardian postcard.'\n\nStudies of letter writing
  have tended to focus on the practices of literary writers\, or members 
 of elite strata of society\, although notable studies of vernacular writ
 ing are developing\, e.g. Sokoll (2001).  Edwardian postcard writing is 
 a genre with a specific\, distinct relation to letter writing\, yet clos
 ely entwined with that practice.\n\nDeveloped in Austria in 1869\, the p
 ostcard was very quickly adopted across Europe. In cities there were sev
 eral deliveries a day\, so that cards could be experienced as virtually 
 synchronous. In 1896 The Times declared\, “Now the postcard is the lette
 r of the poor\,” as the possibilities of using images increased. Untramm
 elled by the etiquette and obligations of formal letter writing\, people
  took to exchanging brief\, rapid\, multimodal messages with a verve not
  to be seen again until the digital revolution. \n\nIn this paper I expl
 ore postcard writing from a Literacy Studies perspective (Barton & Hall\
 , 1999\; Gillen\, 2018).  I combine textual and material analyses with a
 n investigation of historical sources\, including census records\, to in
 vestigate how the postcard was used across social classes in Manchester 
 in the Edwardian age.\n\n\nThe seminar will be followed by an informal d
 inner. If you would like to attend the dinner\, please RSVP to Alice Mar
 ples (Alice.Marples@manchester.ac.uk).\n 
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:The Christie Room\, John Rylands Research Institute and Library\
 , 150 Deansgate\, Manchester\, Gtr Manchester\, M3 3EH
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