International recognition for University lecturer 31/08/10

The work of an English lecturer from the University of Chichester will be reaching international audiences thanks to two projects.

Dr Benjamin Noys (Reader in English) has been invited to present a plenary at a conference on negativity and reflexivity at the Versus Laboratory in Maastricht in The Netherlands. He will be joining other leading philosophers between 10-12 September to reignite the debate about negativity in contemporary theory, something which has been widely contested in contemporary theory but that Dr Noys is keen to rehabilitate.

The invite to the conference in Maastricht is as a result of Dr Noys’ most recent publication, The Persistence of the Negative: A Critique of Contemporary Continental Theory, which will be published shortly by Edinburgh University Press.

In a separate project, an essay by Dr Noys on Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man has been translated into Polish and published in a leading Warsaw-based journal. The essay was originally published in the UK in 2007 and analyses the philosophical and political stakes of Herzog’s vision of nature. The essay is part of a wider series of works that Dr Noys has carried out on the cultural politics of the image, in particular in film and the graphic novel.

Dr Noys said: “It’s gratifying to see my work in contemporary theory being debated and recognised internationally, and to have the opportunity to contribute to discussions about the future of theory.”

History comes alive at University as part of Heritage Open Day 31/08/10

Members of the public have the opportunity to learn more about the history of the University of Chichester campus through a special event organised for Heritage Open Day.

The campus on College Lane was originally the site of an early 19th century church college founded by William Otter, Bishop of Chichester. Although it is one of the oldest higher education institutions in the UK, it is now one of the newest Universities in the country, having gained this status in 2005.

As the institution was established in 1839, there are a number of historical buildings and features that are not normally open to the public, but Heritage Open Day on 10 September provides people with the opportunity to look behind the scenes.

Two guided tours will take visitors around some of the most beautiful buildings and gardens on the Bishop Otter Campus, with stories being told about the many famous visitors and associates from the University’s past.

History will also be brought to life to tell the story of how the campus played a key role in the D-Day invasion during the Second World War. The Bishop Otter Training College, as it was known then, was taken over by the Air Ministry in 1942, just after the Battle of Britain. Its position in the south of the country made it an important military location and it was used for a variety of purposes up until D-Day.

Visitors on Heritage Open Day will be able to see room E124, which was turned into a control room for 56 squadrons of the RAF that featured in the airborne invasion of Normandy.

The tours take place at 10.30am and 2.00pm on 10 September, lasting approximately two hours. Booking is required because of restricted numbers. To book a place, please call 01243 816132 or e-mail s.tressler@chi.ac.uk.

Creative Writing student wins hat-trick of literary awards 26/08/10

A Creative Writing student from the University of Chichester is celebrating a hat-trick of triumphs in the competitive world of short fiction.

Juliet West, who graduates in October from the MA Creative Writing course, began her flurry of success in the national H.E. Bates Competition, winning the £200 First Prize with Beauty in the Bog, the vivid tale of a poetry-loving teenager on the tough streets of London.

Her prize was awarded in front of a large audience at Northampton Library, the home county of H.E. Bates.

Juliet followed this with success at this year’s Winchester Writers’ Conference, where Fifty Six Minutes of Freedom was Highly Commended in the ‘shorter short story’ competition.

To put the icing on the cake, a third story, Rarely Visits Gardens, has been accepted for publication in a forthcoming anthology from Two Ravens Press, an independent publisher based in Scotland. The stories in the anthology all have a gothic flavour, and a link with birds. The anthology is being edited by the author Nicholas Royle, who spoke at the University of Chichester conference on ‘The Uncanny’ in February 2009.

Juliet, who works part-time as a copywriter, said that she was delighted to see the stories find good homes in the literary world.

As a mother-of-three who now lives in Horsham, she says that Fifty Six Minutes of Freedom is set in her old home town of Worthing, with various mentions of the Downs, while Rarely Visits Gardens is loosely set in her family’s back garden, inspired by the appearance of a redwing during the snow in January this year.

The latter story gained publication after Juliet retained occasional email contact with Nick Royle following his successful appearance at the ‘Uncanny’ event at the University.

“He encouraged me to submit a story for possible inclusion in the anthology,” explained Juliet. “Gothic isn’t a genre which I’m naturally comfortable with, but I learnt a great deal during the ‘Metaphor and the Imagination’ MA module, which gave me the confidence to experiment.

“As for ‘Fifty Six Minutes of Freedom’, it was one of the first short stories I attempted several years ago. I dusted it off and re-drafted earlier this year, changing the tense and the period (from past to present, 1970s to contemporary). This seemed to give the story fresh energy, and I’m pleased with its success!”