Richard Evans, a PhD student at Birkbeck, is co-organising a postgraduate and early career symposium titled Holding Things in Common: the vernacular, everyday objects and memory at the Birkbeck Cinema on Monday 12th May.

The event includes three panels showcasing a wide range of interesting papers (see schedule below). This will be followed by a keynote address by writer and broadcaster Dr Matthew Sweet.

You can book your free place and see further details at: http://goo.gl/lC4I52

Registration is from 8.45 am, the event begins sharp at 9.20 am, ending at 5 pm. A drinks reception follows the formal close.

Holding Things in Common: the vernacular, everyday objects and memory
Full schedule:

8.45am: Registration, Tea & Coffee

9.20am: Introduction

9.30am: Panel 1: Heirlooms, Loss and Literary Objects

Aimee Gasston, Short things: lively objects in the stories of Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf

Tom Hendry, Myth, Legend and Dust: Cormac McCarthy and the loss of the vernacular

Elisa Jochum, Women’s Heirlooms in Cinema: Materiality, Memory and “Herstory”

11am: Break

11.15am: Panel 2: Cultural Memory, Cultural Production

Christopher Gonzalez-Crane, Deliberate Culture: Los Angeles, Charles Lummis and ‘The Land of Sunshine’

Sonya Chenery, The role of vernacular and everyday objects and practices in arts-based cultural and social remembrance

12.45pm: Lunch

2pm: Panel 3: Lightbulbs, Allotments and Digital Grammatisation

Grace Halden, Light Bulbs: Theories and Conspiracies and Representation

Dr Katrin Schreiter, Cultivating the Past: Allotment Gardens and Memory in East and West Germany

Dr Daniel Strutt, Digital Grammatisation: The Affective Synthesis of Reality by Digital Screen Media

3.30pm: Tea & Coffee

3.50pm: Keynote Address

Dr Matthew Sweet, “God save Mrs Mop and good old Mother Riley”: ITMA, the Kinks and the English Speaking Vernacular

5pm: Close followed by Drinks Reception