Wherever I lay my cat, that's my home.

Skinner Young PhD Fellowship in Renaissance Literature.

2014-11-11T15:35:08Z

Skinner-Young Research Studentship in Renaissance Literature: Further Details

Applications are invited for the Skinner-Young PhD Research Studentship in Renaissance Literature, to the value of £13,863 pa plus UK/EU fees, to be held within the Department of English and Media. The Department has particular strengths in drama, adaptation, gender, children’s literature, and the history of the book, and proposals for research on Renaissance literature broadly conceived, including creative responses or reception history, will be considered. Applicants should have, or expect to gain, a good MA in English or a related field. The successful research student will join a department with a thriving postgraduate culture (over 40 PhD students) and a strong tradition in Renaissance studies. The department scored 2.70 in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, placing it amongst the top 'new' university English Departments. Further information about the Department can be found at http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/faculties/alss/deps/english_media/research.html.

The appointed student will be expected to pursue high-level research on Renaissance literature, commencing in February 2015 or October 2015, and teach up to 6 hours per week during term time after receiving appropriate training and mentoring.

The thesis will be supervised by Professor Eugene Giddens. Please email him at eugene.giddens@anglia.ac.uk if you have any queries about the position.

Applications will be accepted through Anglia Ruskin’s normal research-degree application process, which can be found, upper right, here: http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/prospectus/research/englit.html.
Please ensure that a research proposal of 500 words is included, along with a clear statement that you are seeking the Skinner-Young bursary. The application deadline is 22 December 2014.

Question for the Day

2014-09-10T04:28:15Z

I woke up with this in my head: if you write, why do you write?

My Loncon3 Report

2014-08-20T07:19:32Z

If I don’t do this convention report now it won’t happen.

My convention was rather strange, in that it was very much confined to the space of the Exhibits Hall. That might sound dull but it really wasn’t. It was also strange in that for me the fun was in seeing everything I’d had in my head for two years come into place very physically. I had realised years ago that my mistake in theatre had been to get involved in performance. I should have gone in for direction, so much, much more fun and I hold by that now. For all I enjoyed my panels, the real joy of the convention began when Shana Worthen and I stood in that empty hall, the banners newly rigged, and realised it was ours.

Highlights:

Panels: I enjoyed my panel on YA and the sense of wonder with Jo Fletcher, Ben Jeapes (M), KV Johanssen, but did not really enjoy my first panel on the need for government in future sf because I think it got hung up on Statism, and I’m rather more interested in how we govern ourselves in other ways. The panel, Writing the M, on rethinking how we think about Iain Banks was fun but one day Jude and I should do an In Conversation on it. The last panel (of the convention) on taking apart empires, was also fun as by then we were all punch drunk. I did one panel by my request with Clute, on the First World War, which sort of worked, but I am beginning to think that the best reason to put me on a panel with Clute is to get him mad. We don’t seem to play well together in public: I want Facts, he wants Metaphor. The only things I got to were Clute and Gomoll’s interviews—both good tho very different—and a panel on “best sentences” which was frankly a terrible idea for a panel which I am pretty sure I didn’t realise when we as a Lit team discussed it. I think we’d thought it would be a light hearted quiz, but then we put Greer Gilman and Frances Hardinge on it, which resulted in a very erudite and fascinating exchange between them, but an utter failure (in my opinion) in terms of anything that could have been called “light evening entertainment”. I’m afraid I can’t even remember who the other panellists were. I came away convinced that when Niall Harrison and I finally stage our Sercon (yes that is pre-pre-publicity) we should call it In Conversation. There should be no panels and no titles of panels, just X and Y will talk to each other for an hour in front of you.

People: I loved having a venue that meant I saw huge numbers of you in the hallways because otherwise I wouldn’t have seen you at all. It wasn’t a dinner and hang out Convention for me, and I am deeply grateful to those of you who took the time to find me or to stay around when I had a few moments spare. I am also terribly grateful to everyone who helped with MIMO, and in awe of the number of my current and ex students who turned up to contribute. I loved so many members of the Committee Team that it’s embarrassing to do shout outs but Mike Scott, Nigel Furlong, Pat McMurray and Mark Meenan were just lovely on the day, calm even when I went into full scale melt down (four completely different serious problems in the space of one hour). I came away from the convention feeling thoroughly blessed by the people in my life.

Venue: this worked well for me. For those complaining about size, seriously, are you kidding me? Don’t you remember Denver and Reno? This was actually pretty compact and easy to navigate. I liked the boulevard (see above) not least for the cheap food and easy availability of vegan, and gf on site. On the first day of set up I walked 17 miles but by the final day was down to 7 miles. I know there are people with mobility issues for whom that’s a problem but we put seating everywhere, advertised scooters in advance and had access seats in every room (I was particularly impressed by the wait space outside the auditorium as I don’t really need an access seat for mobility—tho I do for deafness—but I sure as hell can’t stand in line for an hour any more).

Dealers: almost all the dealers were very happy. We had to move the occasional table where I had screwed up, negotiate placement of tables where something unusual was wanted, and one gentleman made the mistake of believing that because he was 80, had been a public speaker and was 6’ 5 he could be a louder and more commanding presence than me. I’ll leave that one to your imagination. But otherwise it couldn't have gone better: I’ve read a lot on retail over the years for no particular reason other than a vague interest in motivational psychology so right from the start I planned to attract footfall for the dealers.
1. We pulled the dealers right to the front and centre of the hall.
2. We set up Displays and Artshow to ensure that there was no way to get to (the whole of) either without crossing the Dealers Area.
3. We used small blocks (this was decided after talking to the Dealers in Chicago but is also the advice of Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
4. We created three conversation pieces in the Dealer Area both to attract people into the centre and to encourage people to turn left/right (also Jacobs’ advice); these were, in order, the Bone Chair from Use of Weapons, made by Edward James; the Hugo Display on a nice new stand which is Loncon3’s gift to Worldcons Future, and the Wasp Factory by the artist Tessa Farmer. You can find her work on line and you might want to remember the Wasp Factory when you are nominating for awards next year.

This worked like a dream. If you wondered why we lost a lot of dealers on Sunday night, it’s because several had run out of stock. Not everyone did well, but as dealers were giving me discounts, chocolate and kissing my hand, I think overall people left happy.

In some ways the Dealers were the easiest as most came to us, but some were sought out at Bethnal Green market, others came via the good works of the Outreach Team at ComicCon and elsewhere, and some I simply have no idea. Thanks to Noel Collyer and Liz Sourbut for dealer wrangling on the day.

Art Show: see Colin Harris’s report on FB for the finance which was excellent—to the point that the art auction was rather denuded thanks to advance sales. From my more subjective point of view the Art Show was light, airy, very large and beautifully hung. Well done to Serena Culfeather, John Wilson, Colin Harris and others. The Art Showcase book looks beautiful.

Displays:
This is where my heart was. We began hunting for displays two years ago with the principle, “We don’t just want displays about science fiction, we want displays science fiction people are interested in”. That left us a hell of a lot of leeway.

I owe a vote of thanks for whichever government thought up “impact” as an assessment criteria as it proved the golden word for hooking universities, and we had representatives from Imperial, Dundee, UCL, Greenwich and my own Anglia Ruskin. We had fan exhibits, serious contributions from Kids Company (who were lovely people and please go look them up and support them), Darwin’s Pigeons and the Wriggly Wild Show. We had the Proxonomics Forum and Costume displays. We also had silly displays such as the Match the Cat Competition (no one won, but the display itself cropped up in people’s reports), and the Raw Spirit Project which was surprisingly popular in twitter feeds (and a thank you to Meg MacDonald who sourced the final three bottles of whisky). I lost track of some of what we had. One of the exhibits I’m proudest of was Edward James’ Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers in the Great War. This belongs to the Science Fiction Foundation and will be touring. Ask Edward.James@ucd.ie if you want to borrow it or use pdfs to create your own (ie in the USA). Again, this is something you might want to think about come nomination time as it has a web site as well: http://fantastic-writers-and-the-great-war.com/

In addition to all of this were the guest of honour booths. I think we did particularly well there with teams of people who really cared about the guests. We went for funny, intimate and metaphor rather than just representational. The Hobbs booth (Jude Roberts, Tiffany Angus, Serena Culfeather, and Kirsty Harris) was a seascape of dragons and live ships, with the Extra Bonus Dragons! lent by the scarily talented Sarah Haddock (who I just want to note here is also Anglia Ruskin). Round the back the many Loncon 3 pigeons which fans produced flew in to hang out with the Wizard of the Pigeons. The Bryan Talbot display was almost solely the work of the talented Verity Glass who also did awesome worldcon history posters for us.
The Clute Study was my idea and the flowers for it were made by Eastercon participants: we had hoped to build a book labyrinth for John but just couldn't get it to work which I’m a bit sad about, but I love what we did. Kudos to K. Dawn Plaskon for pulling it all together and adding immense value to my original idea. The Edwards banner was also my idea but written by Adam Roberts and produced by Edward James. By this time I was starting to feel like Damien Hirst ie a fraud. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the people with the skills to pull off these whims. The Banks booth was produced by David Haddock and Jude Roberts, a sandy beach complete with Bomb and Books. The Gomoll Both tried to encapsulate the degree to which Jeanne has been at the centre of so much in fandom.

Getting people to send exhibits is only a fraction of the job. By the time we were well on our way, I had a new job at Anglia Ruskin (and they have been fantastic, without them we couldn’t have afforded the display equipment, and they also got PR for us) and my life was emails and reports. Shana Worthen took over much of the administration, and once we had the provisional layout in place, she and Joe Raftery took over the hall plan. In March Clare Boothby came on board to help with furniture orders and eventually became such a key member of the project that I can’t remember how we did without her (badly is the answer, as we realised on the Saturday before when we discovered we had ordered 200 too few chairs). Phil Dyson supervised layout on the day and helped us all stay calm and structured. Laurie Man and Stu Segal have been our advisors and critical friends and Laurie stepped up to the Committee as Deputy when I stepped down.

I don’t want to talk about the events that led me to step down from the Committee except to say that it was a mistake on my part to take a role that required me to take collective responsibility in that way because the chance of it ending in tears was too high. That I still got to do the actual job I signed on to do was just fine. I also want to say that while there were definite moments in which some people got awkward dealing with my anomalous position, on the whole everyone on the Committee has been fantastic.

Finally I want to say how utterly awesome Shana Worthen was and is. This report rather elides her role because so much of what Shana did is the small, detailed stuff that’s hard to point to. She checked info over and over again, made sure everyone could see files, set up mailing lists, reminded me of things I hadn’t done, took over the skype meetings when I realised that I really wasn’t coping well with them (I am not an evening person at all and would approach them tired, cranky, and knowing that was my entire evening gone and that dinner was probably optional), made sure we were communicating with logistics and facilities and was, in all ways, far more organised than I was. When I stepped down from the Committee, it was Shana’s support—as both friend and colleague—that helped me through what was more personally traumatic than I expressed at the time. We worked as friends and colleagues and by the end the idea that anyone was anyone’s deputy/junior/assistant or anything else was ludicrous and absurd. I will never be fully able to express my gratitude.

For me this was the best Worldcon Ever. Not just because I had fun but because of the clear signs of excellence and happiness all around me. I usually hate fan rooms, the Fan Village was awesome. I’ve spent three years listening to discontent around Worldcon Programme and got to see oodles of love for this year’s Programme Team spilling across the internet. I realised years ago that to be part of something amazing is far more rewarding for me than anything I, personally might do, and I truly got to be part of something amazing.

Collections needed for Worldcon

2014-07-29T19:37:48Z

Is anyone driving down to Worldcon from or through or nearby Newcastle or Milton Keynes? We have two fragile exhibits that need collecting.

We can help with petrol.

Karen Traviss, Going Grey.

2014-07-04T08:22:27Z

For her return to creator copyright fiction Karen Traviss has decided to self publish. As she has lots of fans, and is a big name in areas of the field I suspect this will work very well for her. At the moment the book is available as a Kindle but I gather Audible has picked it up as well.

Going Grey, if I were to go all academic on you, is a futuristic crime/thriller rather than an sf novel, in that it starts in the wrong part of the story for sf, which is why I’ll look particularly forward to Book 2. In this one we discover that someone has created genes for morphing: some of the protagonists know that the genes are expressed in the body of an actual live young man, while the investigators think it’s a cluster of DNA which might be extractable. The race is on as to who can get to the young Ian Dunlop first, and once he is extracted, how well his new protectors can protect him.

The thing is, none of that is really what the book is about, and once I realised that I enjoyed it a great deal: all the reveals are early on, and the outcome is never in doubt because Ian falls in with super rich Mike and super tough Rob (of whom more in a minute) and no one is taking them down, so there is no point at all in reading the book for some kind of great twist.

What the book is really about, is mateship: from the very beginning, when Rob (a marine) saves the life of Mike (a security contractor) on the battlefield the emphasis is on the cultivation and growth of friendships and within that twin tracks of patronage—how it works and why it should be accepted—and honour or, as it is often expressed, how to be a real man.

I’m not going to disguise that Karen’s politics are not mine, but then the world she describes is not mine either. When Rob saves Mike’s life he is plucked from his hard, working class existence in which he struggles to save enough to put his kid through college in the UK and whisked off to the unimagined luxury of the life of a son of a senator. But Traviss is not telling a rags to riches story and she doesn’t gloss over the strain it puts on a relationship to be Buttons to Prince Charming: she explores the situation and allows for the tensions. Similarly when she introduces us to Mike’s wife Liv, we learn just how frustrating it can be to be the stay at home wife when one is an educated woman with ideas of her own and how difficult it can be to break free when the world around you has nailed you down. Then there is Ian. Ian Dunlop has been brought up off the grid by a woman he thinks of as his grandmother and told constantly to emulate his great grandfather who was a “real man”, a soldier, and a man of honour. Isolated from everyone, Ian is as impressionable as a day old chick and he impresses firmly on Rob and Mike, so the book too is about his growing up, how he thinks about the people around him and his own desires—which mainly boil down to controlling his morphing to the point that he can get Birds, Beer and a BMW, or to translate, can stay looking the same for long enough for a girl to go out with him, to get an ID card and a driving liscense. It’s all pretty realistic for a decently smart but rather average teen boy. The book is surprisingly internal, there is a lot of self analysis on the part of many of the characters. This, combined with the emphasis on friendship as the real story, means that the book feels about as unlike science fiction—which, I am sorry my friends, but is mostly rubbish at dealing with the every day of friendship structures—as it’s possible to get, even while it has an sf premise. That Ian comes to control his morphing so that there are none of the consequential ripples that you get from new inventions in sf, confirms my feeling of “not sf”. But there are more books to come and I suspect Karen has some tricks up her sleeve.

Recommended but don't go into it with preconceptions that you know what a Traviss book looks like.

A job that might interest some of my friends,

2014-06-15T07:34:05Z

Senior Disability Advisor, Deputy Head of Student Wellbeing
Student Wellbeing Service, Teaching and Learning Centre
London School of Economics and Political Science
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AIZ196/

Made a Difference Awards

2014-05-10T08:53:37Z

The students at my university run a Made a Difference Award. Any student can nominate any member of staff (academic or support). Anyone nominated is invited to a dinner. At the dinner there is a short list, and then final awards.

Some of my staff won't accept nominations because they feel it's divisive: I feel that this would be true if it were for "best teaching" etc, but this is not a "best" award, it's simply: in this year, and for this student, you made a difference to their lives. I once had an appraisal that quite seriously turned me into the academic I am. It doesn't mean other appraisals were useless (some were, some weren't), just that this one came along at the right moment and intervened in my life. I'll be forever grateful to the chap who conducted it. I also think it a bit churlish to the students to turn down what is essentially simply a "thank you".

So last night a bunch of us trouped off to what turned out to be a 350 person gathering of staff and students: I heard two lovely singers (Toby and Rebecca) who I expect to hear again one day because they had outstanding voices--I've told them to send me links. We had a nice presenter from Essex Radio, Dave Monk, who--a man in his 60s--demonstrated that you can do an award ceremony, tell jokes and never once descend to racism, sexism, lewdness, or general ogling/inappropriatness or even just misplaced in jokes so if you ever need an MC I recommend him (He's an alumni by the way). Dinner was very nice and decently edible (and safe, always a consideration for me), and everyone had a lot of fun.

Many of my staff were nominated including two maternity cover people and a GTA, enggirl which I am particularly pleased about because it's a lovely thing to happen when you are all new and shiny. One of the cover people made the shortlist, especially good, as did one of my colleagues from my partner colleges. None of us won, but I've been a judge and a nominee enough times to be clear that nomination really is a very cool thing.

Oh yes, and I was nominated and shortlisted: I was really surprised because I don't see many students, and when I saw the citation I was dead chuffed. Really it just says "she does her job as Head of Department" but it's not the kind of job people really notice being done, so to have someone notice it, makes me feel very happy indeed.

Farah always goes above and beyond to help students. If she can't address an issue immediately or doesn't have the correct information to do so, she will look into the matter and get the correct information to address it. Nothing is too much when it comes to students and she regularly goes out of her way to support students in the best way she possibly can. As a rep in the faculty I know I can always approach her with students' concerns and she will do everything possible to address it.

Prop needed

2014-05-09T08:26:49Z

Does anyone have a baby doll they no longer want? Something like a tiny tears?

When will someone invent a proper fuse that doesn't?

2014-05-02T07:35:03Z

We got home last night to find the house fused. I went to bed, E and my Dad looked at it and decided to sort it in the morning. At 5:30am I got up to finish my talk and realised: aargh! No internet, no way to charge my phone to use it to look up things, low power on computer..... whimper.
Have I mentioned I married someone awesome who didn't moan when I demanded he fix it *now* while I tried to get on with my paper in a pre-internet world.
Eventually we got all of the above plus hot bathwater, but it's not been the ideal preparation morning.
Hope to see some familiar faces at the Royal Society at 1pm. I need morale support. (Topic: Science Fiction and the Royal Society).

Mary Stewart's Arthurian Romance: guest lecturer by Dr. Andrey Anisimov, University of Yakutzk

2014-04-30T12:14:27Z

Anglia Ruskin University
Helmore 222
East Road
Cambridge CB1 5PT

The inevitable....

2014-04-28T08:59:33Z

So i have today to pull together a conference paper, and since yesterday I have been feeling distinctly "off colour".

The inevitability of this is so boring.

ps. Last year I said I would give no papers this year. Then an offer I couldn't refuse came up see here, but as the reasons I said I would give no papers have not actually changed, this is promising to be a bit fraught.

17:54

2014-04-27T16:56:41Z

And I told myself I could consider stopping at 6.

I have cleared my email.
Made more lists.
Sold more tables (11 to go)
Hunted out and bought everything from crayons through fake ivy, to a cheap wig.
Sent a letter re sponsorship.
Arranged for someone to do lettering for me.
Written a lot of emails that will probably generate responses tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will write a paper for Friday, but for now, I am done.

If anyone fancies a role as a credit controller drop me a note. I have about 50 people to chase for money.

ps.and those of you who sent me a word to an earlier post--you are all so sweet and I love you. Nothing like a little reassurance.

Needed asap

2014-04-27T15:59:02Z

Three black shirts with collars and cuffs (men's preferred).
Two pairs of black jeans (men's preferred).

These are for cutting up.

If you have things you can donate, the address is 13 Linden Road, London N15 3QB and I'll pay postage in drinks at our next meeting.

Today

2014-04-27T06:49:56Z

Today is a Worldcon day. There are 100 emails to answer, and files to check. It's the end of April so in particular today is the day I audit the table sales file and send out final notices.

Wish me luck.

Dinner happens when I am finished.

For those outside conrunning, this is what *I* think of when I think of SMOFs. Not all those silly conversations on the SMOFcon list,* but the day to day admin that so many of us do so that on a particular day in a particular month in a particular year, there will be an event for many people to enjoy.

*Which is an open list that anyone can join, and anyone does.

A very short note on this year's Hugo nominations.

2014-04-26T10:35:42Z

Particularly as I'm coming late to the party thanks to a blissful week away without my lap top.

The fan awards were and are excellent. I couldn't be more delighted. The fiction on the other hand... oh dear. I won't rehearse it now but as someone usually not keen on No Award I will be exercising my preference this year.

But I am not with all the doom gloom and what the hell is happening to fandom wailing, because I understand how minorities of various kinds can do very well on a nomination ballot: it's called concentration.

This wasn't a wonderful year for novels: with one exception (and it made the ballot) no one has been rushing up to me with book in hand to say "vote for this!" The Clarkes feel a little dull, the BSFA was more or less what we expected (yay to go for the winners!): it's felt like a competent year but with little sparkle. The effect has almost certainly been to spread the nominations of committed nominators. (That this did not happen in Best Fan Writer is precisely because certain names have come to prominence over and over again this year.) Which made it a perfect year for a concentrated group of people to get a list onto the ballot. In the nomination process, that concentration worked in a year where there wasn't much cohesion around anything in particular. It probably wouldn't have worked in a year when there was a cluster of books everyone was talking about.

Concentration certainly won't work at the vote stage when there won't be enough transfer votes in those directions to secure wins. I've been at the receiving end of this only last year when the Companion to Fantasy came within a whisker of winning on the first round, but ended up fourth as books nominated due to a cohesion of interests transferred their votes to each other (permit a small whimper, but it's perfectly fair) and this is what will happen this time.

The "success" of Vox Day is not some kind of come back of the Right, it's a last gasp final throw of the dice: they are small enough to whip into a line, but without the reach to secure a win.

fjm @ 2014-04-11T23:48:00

2014-04-11T22:49:13Z

Tonight I was told a) that is make a good Head of Department because I was bossy, and b) that I'd make a good Head of Department because I was compassionate.

I think that's a good combination?

Craft work

2014-04-08T17:26:42Z

So where do I get that green stuff flower arrangers poke flowers into? And what is it called?

Leaving Eastercon

2014-04-08T12:40:42Z

Is anyone *driving* from Glasgow to either London or Cambridge after Eastercon? We are likely to have a suitcase full of stuff that we won't want to take on holiday with us (Orkney) and will otherwise have to put in left luggage for a week). Offers to drive it south would be gratefully received.

(It's all Loncon 3 material).

Chichester

2014-04-05T07:55:04Z

It took us four hours to get to Chichester last night thanks to debris on the tracks, but we made it in time for a short walk and dinner at Amelie and Friends. They handled my gf issues beautifully and I recommend the potato cake (flavoured with truffle) as a substitute for the non-gf chips.

This lapsed Jew is v amused that their signature dish is fresh pork crackling when the owners are called Cohen. Still if you are going to sin, best to make it delicious.

May 2nd at the Royal Society

2014-04-03T09:22:09Z

The Royal Society and science fiction
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm on Friday 02 May 2014
at The Royal Society, London
Still from the film 'A trip to the Moon' by Georges Méliès (1902)
Public history of science lecture by Professor Farah Mendlesohn

Event details
Farah Mendlesohn is head of department for English, Communication, Film and Media at Anglia Ruskin University.

The lone (mad) scientist is a common trope in science fiction, but hidden away is a fascination with secret and semi-secret societies who work for the future of all mankind. This talk will look at the representation of the Royal Society in science fiction and fantasy as fact, fantasy and metaphor.

Attending the event
This event is free to attend and open to all. No tickets are required. Doors open at 12.30pm and seats will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

We have a limited number of spaces for wheelchair users and ten bookable seats for people with impaired mobility who are unable to queue. To book in advance, please contact the events team. Further information about accessibility is available.

Recorded audio will be available on this page a few days after the event.

Enquiries: Contact the events team

Temporary Assignment for up to nine months: Digital Communications Assistant/Coordinator

2014-04-03T09:08:09Z

Ftzwilliam, Cambridge

Hourly rate: £11

The assignment will be conducted through the University of Cambridge Temporary Employment Service and the position will be based within the University of Cambridge Museums.

This temporary assignment is to assist the Fitzwilliam Museum marketing and communications team with digital and social media campaigns, and film and audio production.

The work will include assisting with the planning of integrated communications campaigns to include digital and social media and the execution of the digital and social media aspects of those campaigns, including the production and creation of audio podcasts and videos and other promotional material for online media, sourcing, writing and editing digital and social media stories aimed at different audiences, keeping all the Museums’ web entries - on its own site and others - up to date, developing a Museum blog, evaluating the success of digital and social media campaigns and tracking social media trends

A particular focus during this assignment will be the coordination and delivery of the digital and social media communications campaign and related film and audio for the exhibition Silent Partners: Artist and Mannequin from Function to Fetish.

Working with:

Marketing and PR Coordinators, Education Team, Museum Designer, Photographers, Documentation and Access Officer, IT Office, Museum Curators and other Museum project teams, including Silent Partners exhibition team, IT office, UCM colleagues

Digital, Web and Social Media Campaigns

Social and Digital Media Campaigns

Co-ordinating/producing a calendar of promotional digital media - video and audio projects - for Museum communications campaigns, in consultation and agreement with the marketing and communications team to promote all aspects of museum work and collections. Covering topics such as - favourite work of art, hidden treasures in the collection, research / conservation work highlights, new acquisitions, event programmes
Production/creation of short "teaser" trailers for smaller exhibitions and other projects
Production/creation of short behind the scenes film or audio of Museum work
Coordinating and undertaking recording and live-streaming of selected lunchtime talks and other lectures.
Ensuring copyright and interview permissions are obtained for all digital and social media content

Social Media

Research into new social media trends: identifying new potential projects and trialling them.
Helping to manage projects and calendars for the Museum’s main social media: twitter and facebook. Examples include: twitter tours, facebook albums, identifying national initiatives, days and hashtags to tie into.
Encouraging contribution of blog posts to University of Cambridge Museum sites and developing a Fitzwilliam Museum blogsite

Website

Monitoring website content, helping to upload new events and making sure all content uploaded is search engine optimised.
For new season events, sourcing additional information and images from event providers to improve the quality of our event content.
Helping to source stories and content for home-page with Press Coordinator
With Marketing Coordinator compiling monthly reports of digital statistics from google analytics and other tools

General Marketing

General assistance/cover for all aspects of Marketing and Communications department work as required
Development of internal communications material
Assistance with Museum photo and film shoots
Occasional assistance with evening events as required
Silent Partners project work

Podcast series

Produce Silent Partners podcast interviews - liaising with curator over content, sourcing interviewees and locations, coordinating, audio recording or filming, editing, clearing permissions and uploading/distributing content.

Social Media

Help manage projects (pinterest / instagram / facebook albums / twitter campaigns)
Identify and develop new ideas for promoting the exhibition
Create off- beat photography/video around Cambridge for promotion on digital feeds
With press and marketing team keeping a constant watch on social media feeds and SP hashtags to share content and source answers to questions
Marketing videos

Create a series of high quality short videos 1 - 3 minutes each for marketing purposes: behind the scenes in installation, meeting objects, talking to people involved in the project, education events, big events and openings.
Working with Museum designer and M&P team, create pre-promotional videos for major events, evening openings etc
Skill-sets:

Essential

Excellent communication and written skills
Understanding of marketing and communications principles and differing audience needs, coupled with the ability to shape messages and copy to target different audiences
Experience of working in digital/online communications, including strong experience in social media and interest in new media developments
Good online and digital knowledge, experience in web authoring
Time management and organisation, able to coordinate projects and contributors
Friendly, diplomatic and able communicator
Experience of using photo editing software such as Photoshop
Video creation and editing skills, including experience of using video editing software such as Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Flash
This assignment would ideally suit a highly skilled and organised graduate, educated to higher level or with equivalent, demonstrable experience in communications, media, film or photography. As a proportion of this role requires film production, links to film or similar media examples in the application is highly desirable.

Deadline for applications: 10am 22 April 2014
Candidate discussions: 1 May 2014

Method of Application

Interested candidates should register and apply with the University of Cambridge Temporary Employment Service using the online application form.On the online application form, candidates should select 'other' in the ‘types of roles you are interested in’ field and then state ‘Temporary Digital Communications Assistant/Coordinator, Ref: 003’ in the ‘please specify’ field.

Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels; 9th May Anglia Ruskin University

2014-04-02T08:49:36Z

We are delighted to welcome Andrey Anisimov from Yakutz University, Russia as a visitor to Anglia Ruskin University.

On 9th May, 13:00 to 15:00 Andrey Ansimov will be talking about Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels, the genre peculiarities of the novels, main and minor characters, the native Celtic and Latinized Celtic toponyms used in the novels, the description of nature, the description of domestic implements and everyday items, and also the lexical and stylistic distinctions.

Date: 9th May
Time: 13:00
Location: Helmore 222, Anglia Ruskin

On Equal Marriage: a personal view

2014-03-29T08:36:38Z

On equal marriage:

I am a gay woman married to a man. I love him a great deal, but I didn't marry him because I loved him, I married him because the solicitor looked me in the eye and said "you need to do this".* You see, with a 20 year age gap, the consequences of inheritance tax are not a mere fleeting "oh, I'll worry about that later". Fourteen years ago inheritance tax would have left me homeless.

So we married.

And there is that age gap.

And the knowledge that if, one day in my probably-eventual-future as a widow, I met a woman I loved, I would not be able to offer her the same deal as I offered to the man in my life.**

I have never, ever been comfortable with that. It felt like a betrayal of both the women I've loved, and the woman I might love one day in the future.

This morning I woke and for the first time ever I don't have that lurking sense of guilt I have had since 2001.

In amidst all the happiness, it's a minor point. But I know I'm not the only one in this position: one of the things that has bedevilled many who identify as bi or pan sexual, or poly and bi/pan has been the feeling that the relationships they construct are rendered unequal by the law and that this creates pressures that have nothing to do with the you-me of relationships.

So congratulations to all who marry today, and thank you to all who have fought for equal marriage.

*We had a mortgage, 10,000 books and two cats. What did I care about a piece of paper? The nightmare of dividing the books would have been threat enough to keep us going.
**Of course I was the one to propose. How long have you known us?

Amused

2014-03-29T07:46:17Z

A search agency just sent me this:

Here are 1 of 1 vacancies that match your profile. You will need to login first before you can view the full list here.

Deputy Vice Chancellor
Location: London Salary: Competitive
Type: --
Reference: 15433
Deputy Vice Chancellor

Regent’s University London is different. It is the UK’s leading independent, not-for-profit, Higher Education Institution, with full University title, a member of Universities UK...
View/Apply Send to friend

Aiming a little high I think.

Interesting talks at Anglia Ruskin this evening

2014-03-26T08:26:45Z

Wednesday 26 March 2014, 5.00 for 5.15, Helmore 251

Arun Yadla (Anglia Ruskin graduate researcher)
‘Heritage Language Maintenance of the Teluga-Speaking Immigrants in London’

Steven White (Anglia Ruskin graduate researcher)
‘The Undeserving Poor in 1790s Conservative Poetry’