Welcome to our digest full of interesting events, opportunities and schemes that may help you meet collaborators, improve their career prospects or simply broaden your horizons.
Please let us know if you have any suggestions for next edition via sed-web@qmul.ac.uk
From QMUL, Partners & Friends
New Black History Month alumni profile – Tomiwa Owolade (English BA, 2018)
I’m excited to share my latest profile for Black History Month, featuring freelance writer and critic, Tomiwa Owolade (English BA, 2018). (Thank you to Suzanne, who bumped into Tomiwa at a book signing recently and told me about him!)
In his profile, Tomiwa explores the idea of ‘pride’ and talks about how his degree helped to develop his skills as a writer, how lucky he feels to have a job that aligns so much with his interests, and why he’s been inspired to begin writing a book about black British identity.
“[My book] is a critique of a tendency to conflate the experiences and cultures of the black British population with the black American population. Obviously, there are instances when comparisons are valid, but the assumption, which I found pervasive after the Black Lives Matter protests last year, that we can analyse black Britain through an American lens, is reductive.”
For the full interview, visit: https://bit.ly/TomiwaOwolade.
Please like and share the social media posts if you can:
Twitter / Instagram / LinkedIn / Facebook.
Craft Podcast
Calling all lovers of reading and literature! Join Wasafiri’s Malachi McIntosh and your favourite international writers including Daniel Mella, Chen Chen, Bernadine Evaristo, and Raymond Antrobus to take you on a journey behind the scenes and unpack the often-hidden side of how their work was created.
New Learning Resources
- Digital Theatre + (digital recordings of theatre productions). This is in addition to Drama Online (digital recordings of theatre productions and play scripts), which we started subscribing to last year.
- Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Literature (dynamically updated key reference work on literature)
- Alexander Street Academic Video Online (documentaries and films across all subject areas)
Diversity QMUL Diversity Speaks Coaching
We have the opportunity for you to engage with some specialist mentoring.
Unlock your Talent, build confidence and tackle any difficulties you are facing whilst being at university and identifying from a Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Background.
If you are interested please sign up here or via the QR code in the email.
Outside QMUL
A Free Inclusive Festival of Theatre, Dance and Cabaret
18th – 28th November 2021 At Stanley Arts & Online A Bit Of A Do, our annual festival of theatre, dance and cabaret, featuring work by disabled and non-disabled artists is back! Everyone is invited! We will be returning to Stanley Arts – a community arts venue in South Norwood, from the 18th to 28th of November. This year there will be two ways to experience the festival: this can be in person or online, so you can choose which you prefer. All events include British Sign Language interpretation and some events include enhanced access for visually impaired audiences. We have a range of amazing performances and digital experiences including work from Bert & Nasi, Forced Entertainment, Moxie Brawl, GymJam, Ellen Renton, Jack Dean & Company and Aby Watson. As well as an evening of Cabaret Performance, an inclusive club night and a Scratch Night that will showcase brand new performance ideas from disabled artists. As always all events are Free to attend – you just need to book a ticket so that we know how many people will be with us! You can find all of the festival information and book tickets by following the link below. We can’t wait to have ‘A Bit Of A Do’ with You! Learn More
Friday Late: remake with gal-dem
Friday Late takeover, this month gal-dem and friends are back for a night of live performances, workshops, installations, talks and screenings. As we enter the Roaring Twenties, this Friday Late, we’re asking you to remake with us, using your hands, minds and imagination to radically change the times we live in. 29 October, 18.30 – 22.00
Rough Trade Books presents an evening curated by Musa Okwonga at The Social
Featuring live readings from two of the UK’s most exciting literary voices, Inua Ellams and Nikesh Shukla, a long-overdue Social performance from the incredible 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE and finally, Musa himself in conversation with Ian Wright (can’t believe we’ve actually just written that…
We’ll also have music from DJ Pierre Nedd, and the usual array of Rough Trade Books merchandise for sale. So get down to the best bar in town for what promises to be a classic night.
Calling all avid readers! Enrich your CV with a portfolio of book reviews on our independent review site Reedsy Discovery.
We spotlights gems of the indie publishing world — great books that are often overshadowed by big bestsellers. As a reviewer, you can contribute as much or as little as you like, and great reviews will be featured in our newsletter, sent weekly to 300k readers.
What do you need to apply? At least 1-2 book review examples.
Interested students can apply here: https://reedsy.com/discovery/reviewers/apply?source=uni
If you have any further questions, you can drop me an email at victoria@reedsy.com and check out our FAQ here: https://reedsy.com/discovery/reviewers-faq
WebCrafters
WebCrafters is a student-led project aiming to enable students to access the hidden job market through the power of the personal website. Whether you are a student, a graduate, or looking to have a change of career, we are here to help you promote your personality and achievements in the best possible light. How? By teaching you to code your own personal portfolio website and showing you how to interface that site with LinkedIn and other key employability sites to maximise your online presence. These will enable you to gravitate towards the hidden job market and showcase yourself in the best possible light to prospective employers.
Computacenter roles are now open and they have some awesome opportunities for both placement years and graduate programs.
What do Computacenter do? In simple terms, you’d be joining a company who delivers digital tech solutions to some of the biggest organisations in the world. They have opportunities across Business Management, Project Management, Technical Consultancy, and Sales.
Placement Years – £17k, Locations across the UK, Add real value from Day 1, Hands on experience and the opportunity to learn and work on innovative solutions for our customers.
Graduates – £30k starting salary, Locations across the UK, Structured support programme designed to fast track your learning and development in a business that really cares about it’s employees.
Interested? Follow the link below to their Future Careers page to find out more.
http://ocply.co/am-computacenter21
The Uni Bubble regarding our free weekly careers newsletters where we’re equipping students to move into industries of the future after university. We’ll be guiding you on the opportunities available to you, the free skills and qualifications you can gain to increase your employability and other specific advice on each industry weekly.
Our 7 industry-specific newsletters you can choose from are: Digital, Technology, Creative, Business, Green Jobs, Entrepreneurship and Exploring Opportunities.
It can be overwhelming navigating the career paths available to you so we’re here to guide and prepare you to find work in an industry you’re interested in, regardless of your degree background.
Find out more about us on our website or sign up now using this registration form – it’ll take 5 minutes and you won’t regret it!
Journeys: 150 Years of Immigration – Royal Albert Hall – 29 October – 6 November 2021
Next week sees an all-new festival taking place at the Royal Albert Hall, celebrating 150 years of immigration via a series of inspiring talks, performances, and interactive events, featuring an array of artists, musicians and speakers from immigrant backgrounds.
Part of the Hall’s 150th anniversary programme, Journeys is curated by prolific musician, producer and broadcaster Nitin Sawhney, who will headline the festival with a concert in the main auditorium on Friday 29 October.
Nitin will also be on hand to lead panel discussions covering the relationship between diversity and creativity, and evaluating the meaning of being an immigrant in society today. He will be joined by such names as Andy Serkis, Sonita Gale and YolanDa Brown. Limited £5 tickets for these talks are available for students, under 26s and unemployed.
Find out more and book tickets at: royalalberthall.com/journeys.
Warburg Institute Director’s Seminar – a conversation with Rivka Galchen about her new novel, Everyone Knows your Mother is a Witch, with Ulinka Rublack
Wednesday 27 October 2021: 5.00-6.00pm UK time (BST)
Online via zoom
Rivka Galchen’s novel, published this summer, about the witchcraft trial of Katharina Kepler was described by the Wall Street Journal as “a very beautiful work of fiction” and the LA Times as “a smart book that investigates the power of narrative… while being funny and deceptively easy to read.” Galchen re-imagines the world of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years War, concentrating on the herbal remedies, troubled friendships, and worldly tribulations of the mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler. To discuss the book and the case, as well as the challenges of rendering difficult histories in artistic forms, Galchen will be joined by Professor Ulinka Rublack of Cambridge University, whose book on the trial and its implications for the history of science and magic, the Reformation, and women’s lives, was an important source. Rublack also created an opera, Kepler’s Trial, on the subject.
Rivka Galchen is the author of the novel Atmospheric Disturbances, the short-story collection American Innovations, the essay Little Labors, and the children’s book Rat Rule 79. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards and is a regular contributor of essays, reviews, and fiction to The London Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. She lives in New York and Montreal and teaches in the writing program at Columbia University.
Ulinka Rublack, FBA, is a professor in early modern European history and a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. She is editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations; her other books include Dürer in the Age of Wonder and The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler’s Fight for His Mother, which won the Deutsche Historikerpreis. Her current project, The Triumph of Fashion, charts the rise of fashion in different parts of the globe from 1300 onwards. During the academic year 2021-2 she is a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin.
Free to attend. All welcome. For booking see: https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/directors-galchen-rublack
The Amplify Project – Black Writers In Their Own Words
Recently launched podcast series called The Amplify Project is committed to supporting Black British writers and amplifying the Black British literary cannon. We’ve invited writers for the stage, page and screen to tell us about themselves, their work, what inspires them and why they write.
You can find our website here which also has links to our social media handles.
Further sources of interesting events, opportunities and jobs are…
Apples & Snakes Artists Newsletter | Arts Admin E-Digest | ArtsJobs | Creative Access (Jobs) | JournoResources | Lectures.London | MediaBeans (media jobs) | QMUL Careers | Presspad | Tower Hamlets Arts | Write at Home (freelance writing opps)
