̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Alison Sinclair

Cambridge academics head for Hay

bjb42 — Thu, 31 May 2012 15:00:16 +0000

A series of talks and debates by Cambridge academics on pressing contemporary issues kicks off this week at the Hay Festival.

This year is the 25^th anniversary of the Festival and the fourth year running that the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has run a series of talks there as part of its commitment to public engagement.

This year's line-up includes Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, who will be participating in three of the 10 sessions on in the Classics series on Herodotus, the “Father of History”, on Plato and on the aspirations and concepts of civilisation, democracy, drama, virtue, victory, liberty and xenia and what the study of Classics has meant in the wider world.

For the first time, Cambridge academics will take part in a series of debates about contemporary political and social issues, including Europe, democracy and urban violence. Among those taking part in the Europe debate is Professor Robert Tombs who has written a blog on the implications for France and Europe of the election of Francois Hollande as president of France.

Another debate covers the broader cultural implications of current events, with Professor Adrian Poole, Professor Alison Sinclair and Jennifer Wallace discussing the modern meaning of tragedy and literary representation of current events. Other speakers include Professor Susan Golombok on alternative family structures, Professor Martin Jones on the archaeology of food, Carolin Crawford on the birth and death of stars, Dame Patricia Hodgson on media regulation in the shadow of the Leveson Inquiry, Professor David Spiegelhalter on our risk society and Professor Stefan Collini on what universities are for.

Professor Lawrence Sherman will talk about how science is transforming policing in a session entitled “ ̽��ֱ��new police knowledge”. ̽��ֱ��session will be introduced by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O’Connor.

Brendan Burchell, senior lecturer in the Sociology Department, will be in conversation with Julia Hobsbawm, honorary visiting professor in networking at Cass Business School, about the future of work.

Other Cambridge academics speaking at Hay are Professor John Thompson, Professor Robert Macfarlane, Professor Martin Rees, Professor John Barrow, Dr Julian Allwood and Professor David MacKay.

Nicola Buckley, head of public engagement at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Cambridge series is a wonderful way to get the fascinating research being done at the ̽��ֱ�� out to the public. ̽��ֱ��Hay Festival draws an international cross-section of people, from policy makers to prospective university students. It is a fantastic platform for our research and this year’s debates aim to highlight the broad range of what we do at the ̽��ֱ�� and its relevance to the key issues we face today.”

Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, said: “What’s thrilling about this year’s series is how exacting it is about society. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge experts cut through the political and media spin on big issues and look at them with real attention and intellectual rigour - from policing to European integration and 21st century family structure and risk. It’s a timely reminder about the value of authority; an aspiration that ‘policy’ might be formed by the best ideas and analysis rather than doctrinaire inclination or what’s easiest to sell. What else would you want from the world’s greatest ̽��ֱ�� but the best thinking on subjects that matter?”

Cambridge is fielding a series of talks and debates by leading academics on a range of global challenges at this year's Hay literary Festival.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge experts cut through the political and media spin on big issues and look at them with real attention and intellectual rigour.

Peter Florence

Hay Festival.

̽��ֱ��main site at the Hay Festival.

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Reinventing tragedy in the modern age

bjb42 — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:00:47 +0000

This year's Cambridge series at the Hay Festival will include a debate about how we make “good tragedy” today.

Taking part are Professor Adrian Poole, Professor Alison Sinclair and Jennifer Wallace. ̽��ֱ��debate is just one of five panel discussions organised by the ̽��ֱ�� for the Festival, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. ̽��ֱ��series also includes a number of stand-alone talks by Cambridge academics, including Professor Susan Golombok and Professor Lawrence Sherman.

It is the fourth year for the Cambridge series at Hay, which takes place from 31st May to 10th June, and the first time it has included panel discussions on a range of contemporary issues. Professor Poole, who has taught an undergraduate course on tragedy for many years and is author of Tragedy: a Very Short Introduction, says Aristotle set out to answer the question of what makes good tragedy when he composed his influential handbook, ̽��ֱ��Poetics. He says: “For Aristotle, 'tragedy' mainly meant a form of drama, though it also connoted a kind of story, of which Homer's Iliad was exemplary. ̽��ֱ��answers to this question are bound to look very different in 2012.

“We have many more ways of telling stories in words, sounds and visual images than were available to the ancient Greeks, Shakespeare and Racine, and of disseminating them to audiences around the world, now at the press of a button – all of which will have some impact on our ability to make - and respond to - 'good tragedy'.”

Jennifer Wallace, author of ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy, says that the media and the public still tend to respond to tragic events in ways that echo the age-old traditions which go back to Greek tragedy, for instance, turning horror into narrative and seeking an explanation for events by telling individuals' stories. However, she says Aristotle's notion of catharsis is much more problematic now and can be hard to justify.

She says: “Aristotle implies that through witnessing tragedy, we purge ourselves or gain relief. This suggests tragedy has some moral or therapeutic function in society. But is there such a phenomenon now as "compassion fatigue" or "tragedy porn"? Is it still possible to consider witnessing others' suffering morally improving or enriching?”

For Alison Sinclair, professor of modern Spanish literature and intellectual history, our continuing fascination with the tragedies of others and the popular media's obsession with offering up disaster for consumption opens up interesting questions about the fine line we often tread between thrill and horror. “I am intrigued by why we are moved to consume such stories. While they may not qualify as cathartic our consumption of them raises interesting issues about our experience, and our experience of our experience, that it might be difficult to confront.”

She says 20th century Spanish writers like Federico Garcia Lorca and Ramon del Valle- Inclán grappled with the need to reinvent tragedy for a modern audience. Lorca sought to meld elements of Greek tragedy with contemporary social realities in plays such as Blood Wedding, she says, but arguably either avoided catharsis or undercut it. By contrast, Valle-Inclán theorised in 1920 that a new form was needed to replace tragedy. “ ̽��ֱ��aim,” she says, “was to interrupt the processes of identification and/or catharsis, the point of this being to free the spectator, or indeed to force the spectator, not to feel, but to think, both about what is on the stage, but also about the implications for him or herself.”

Jennifer Wallace adds: "In an era of 24/7 news and constant potential exposure to tragedies around the globe through the internet, it may be paradoxically difficult to focus the kind of active, sympathetic attention on suffering which dramatists could do in the past. Does that matter? Is the capacity to make what might be termed a 'good tragedy' the hallmark of human civilisation, or an indication of a humane society?"

For more information on the Cambridge series at the Hay Festival and to find out about booking, click here.

Is tragedy the perfect dramatic form for our current predicament? Or has the classic idea of catharsis through viewing the suffering of others become much more problematic in an age of 24/7 news and the internet? An event at this year's Hay Festival will investigate.

Is there such a phenomenon now as "compassion fatigue" or "tragedy porn"? Is it still possible to consider witnessing others' suffering morally improving or enriching?

Jennifer Wallace

Jeff Rozwadowski, Creative Commons

Tragedy.

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Yes

Read all about it!

lw355 — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:44:19 +0000

̽��ֱ��flip side of contemporary fear of crime is our fascination with it. Repelled we might be, but the popularity of watching CCTV footage of real crimes or reading the latest salacious scandals in tabloids is testament to modern society’s appetite for stories that shock.

But this fascination with crime is not new; nor is the popularity of the materials that purvey it. Cambridge researcher Professor Alison Sinclair has set out to discover what Spain thought about wrongdoing between 1800 and 1936 by examining a wide range of sources, and in particular the equivalent of the mini-tabloids of the time – so-called chapbooks or pliegos sueltos – of which an extensive archive exists in Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

Sold on street corners by hawkers and luridly illustrated, the sueltos carried vivid tales of the unlawful, the improper and the morally corrupt.

‘Spain in the 19th century was chaotic and troubled. It has no literary work that is the equivalent of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and yet the figures for violent crime in the 19th century in Europe place Spain as one of the countries highest on the list,’ explains Professor Sinclair, whose three-year research project has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

‘With their mix of fact and fantasy, the sueltos provide a window not only into wrongdoing at the time but also into its representation and the way people perceived it, thus complementing in a completely original way other literary and cultural representations of wrongdoing.’

̽��ֱ��sueltos spoke to an audience entranced by the exploits of such characters as Francisquillo the Tailor, a boastful chap whose scissors turn out to be his major weapon in a series of dramatic standoffs about honour. A recurring (and real) character is Diego Corrientes, a Spanish Robin Hood figure who took from the rich and gave to the poor, and who died by hanging aged 24 years.

A key feature of the project will be to catalogue and digitise 4,470 sueltos held in the ̽��ֱ�� Library and the British Library. Many are in an exceptionally fragile state and a goal of the project is to create a world-class and accessible collection, which will be held in the ̽��ֱ��’s central repository DSpace@Cambridge (www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/).

Clearly related to a specific time and place, the project raises questions relevant for modern society. As Professor Sinclair, from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, comments: ‘ ̽��ֱ��research will help us to question, as cultural consumers, our excited and emotional responses to this sort of material, including processes of identification and voyeurism.’

For more information, please contact Professor Alison Sinclair (as49@cam.ac.uk).

A new study of wrongdoing and its cultures in Spain from 1800 to 1936 will explore the fascination of popular versions of crime and other misdemeanours.

With their mix of fact and fantasy, the sueltos provide a window not only into wrongdoing at the time but also into its representation and the way people perceived it..

Professor Alison Sinclair

Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

Pliegos sueltos Diego Corrientes (S743.1.c.8.2)

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Yes