ALSS Newsletter November 2012

Faculty of

Arts, Law &

Social Sciences

November 2012 • Edition 3 Welcome to our third biannual newsletter.

This newsletter provides a summary of some of the best and most exciting activities and events that shape our unique Faculty.

Professor Derrik Ferney Dean and Pro Vice Chancellor

Participants of The Big Draw in the Ruskin Gallery

The Big Art School Draw Almost a hundred teenagers filled the Ruskin Gallery at Cambridge School of Art on Saturday 20th October 2012, to register for ‘The Big Art School Draw’, where they were welcomed by student ambassadors and lecturers from Cambridge School of Art, and a team of tutors from AccessArt. AccessArt artists and staff from Cambridge School of Art led teenagers on six drawing workshops, including Drawing with Light, Autobiographical Drawing, Drawing Space, Drawing the News, Drawings which Move and Drawing with Textiles.

This event, promoted through the national Big Draw programme, was funded by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund and Cross-border cooperation program 2007-2013) as part of the VIVID project. Chris Owen, Head of Cambridge School of Art, praised the way this new European project is opening up opportunities for young people in Cambridge, as well as partners in Holland and France: “VIVID is about recognising and promoting the value of design in our community. One element of the project is the promotion of design to young people.

When I saw the energy and excitement generated by these young designers as they drew in such inventive ways, it reinforced my confidence in the future for the Creative Industries, both in this country and across the EU. There’s plenty of fresh creativity out there; we just need to keep giving youngsters the opportunity to express it.”

A programme of similar activities that will build on the success of this event and link young people from Cambridge, Southampton, Breda and Lille, is planned to take place over the next two years.

Anglia Law School

Career advice for students

NEWS Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference Just before Easter, new Head of Anglia Law School Penny English spent three days in Leicester at the annual SocioLegal Studies Association Conference.

Together with Sarah Blandy from Leeds University, she again organised one of the streams at the conference, entitled ‘Challenging Ownership’. Building on the success of the stream last year it attracted an excellent set of papers, which all looked at aspects of property and ownership in contexts as diverse as housing, the occupation at St Pauls, and Parma ham.

They included a paper by Ray Savar, a PhD student at Anglia Ruskin, who is nearing completion of his thesis on the reform of commercial leases. Penny also gave a paper in a different stream concerning the reform of European Union Directive 7/93, (which, in case you are wondering, is on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory).

New judicial appointment for Senior Lecturer Diana Reid, Senior Law Lecturer and Solicitor, has been appointed to sit as a Tribunal Judge in the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal, sitting in Colchester and other locations across East Anglia. This is a notable achievement by Diana and adds to a number of statutory, public and regulatory appointments of professional qualified academics working within Anglia Law School.

Tribunal Judges are legally qualified and responsible for ensuring the individual tribunal hearings they chair make the correct decision in law. Tribunals usually sit as a panel, incorporating the Tribunal Judge, as well as panel member(s) with specific areas of expertise. They hear evidence from witnesses but decide the case themselves.

Many cases involve individuals putting their own case, without legal assistance, so the system needs to be accessible to all.

Tribunal judges often help to ensure this, by guiding non-

On 26 April 2012, two recently qualified solicitors from Woodfines attended our University to give an informal talk to current undergraduate and LPC students about applying for training contracts, attending interviews, life as a trainee solicitor and life as a qualified solicitor. They also fielded questions on these topics.

We are most grateful to Woodfines LLP, a leading regional and national law firm for giving this talk and for their willingness to engage with our students and University. James Marsh (qualified at Woodfines in 2008) along with Khala Follenfant (qualified 2011) and Nicola McQuillan (due to qualify September 2013) ran the session in one of the new Lord Ashcroft Building lecture theatres. James, who specialises in Private Client work, led a similar team from Woodfines last year.

James, Khala and Nicola explained to the students how they each came to the law, how they applied for and obtained their training contracts, and how they found training at a large regional firm, each giving their own perspectives on the process and providing valuable advice for the students. They also provided information on a one-to-one basis after the initial session.

James said: “Applying for a training contract is a stressful business, so it was therefore a genuine pleasure to speak with current students and pass on the benefit of our collective experience.”

legally qualified parties through the necessary procedures.

To date, Diana has been hearing social security benefit appeals based on disability or illness, sitting with a doctor and also sitting on a panel of three consisting of herself, a doctor and a disability qualified member.

Employability events In April 2012, the Careers and Employability Service organised two events for students of Anglia Law School.

Sarah Janes, Faculty Employability Adviser, ran a number of workshops in Cambridge on CV writing, Creative Job Hunting and Interview Preparation for LLB students, while her colleague Laura Sinclair ran a similar Employability day in Chelmsford, which also included an employer presentation by the Government Legal Services.

For more Anglia Law School news: www.anglia.ac.uk/lawnews

(L-R): Graham Humby, James Marsh, Nicola McQuillan, Khala Follenfant, Julia Ramsey

Cambridge School of Art

NEWS

Culture Hack East Creative Front Cambridgeshire produced the first-ever culture ‘hackathon’ in the East region at our University in June 2012. Culture Hack East was run with national partners Caper and funded by Arts Council England.

Student Sustainability Prize Congratulations to MA Printmaking student Richard Kearns, the winner of Anglia Ruskin’s first ever Student Sustainability Print Prize.

Richard’s winning entry ‘Center Parcs Elvis’ was unanimously awarded the £500 first prize by a judging panel consisting of Lizzie Fisher (Curator, Kettle’s Yard Art Gallery), Craig Bennett (Director of Policy, Friends of the Earth), Aled Jones (Director of Anglia Ruskin’s Global Sustainability Institute) and Nick Devison (MA Printmaking Course Leader).

Richard Walker and Elizabeth Fraser were awarded a joint second prize of £250 each.

The Student Sustainability Print Prize was organised by Anglia Ruskin’s new Global Sustainability Institute, which will play a critical role in allying academic disciplines from across the University together with business and governments to address the urgent need for practical solutions to global sustainability challenges.

The aim of the event was to ensure that arts organisations in the region are up to date with the latest advances in technology and recognise the relevance and benefits for their businesses. Clare Denham, Creative Front Co-ordinator, explained: “It is essential that our regional arts businesses are technologysavvy. Culture Hack East aims to demonstrate just how accessible these emerging technologies are and that digitising content can be achieved relatively simply and applied to meet the needs of cultural organisations.”

18 arts organisations worked with 25 developers to create 15 rapid-prototypes. These included two digital maps created from a printed map of the Harlow Arts Trust’s Sculpture Trail. One team created a mobile app, Harlow Art Trail, which enabled visitors to discover sculptures, find their location on a map and follow the trail around the town. The second designed Sculptour, which works as a virtual sticker book. Visitors view the sculptures, collect pictures and unlock them in a personal art book. The prototype used data from Firstsite, a Contemporary Visual Arts venue in Colchester, who have since met the team to develop the idea further.

The event, which included interactive talks with professionals from the arts, culture and technology including Raspberry Pi, ARM, Metis Arts and Rob Toulson from our own Cultures of the Digital Economy research Institute (CoDE), was hailed as a success by national leaders of the Culture Hack Programme.

Grimm news is great Rachel Coldicutt of Caper said: “The development of the Culture Hack East programme is already influencing plans for other regional UK Culture Hacks. The organisational development work with the participating organisations increased both the quality of the data and the amount of hands-on involvement from the cultural organisations.

We feel that this model will have the greatest long-term impact on the digital capacity of the Eastern region, and is a model we will continue to develop and roll-out throughout the UK.” To reinforce the benefits of collaboration between arts and technologies, the delegates were treated to a performance of ‘Of Sleeping Birds’ by artists Circumstance, part of the Visualise public arts programme. Using satellite positioning software to form a symphony, glistening and delicate strands of music were created which crossed the outdoor courtyard to the delight of the listeners.

Inaugural debate for Legal Debating Society On 5 March 2012, Anglia Ruskin Legal Debating Society held their first ever debate, which was well attended by both students and lecturers.

The event, held in the Chelmsford campus courtroom, was organised by Law student Catherine Mitchell. She reported: “The debate went really well and the speakers were impressive, with well-researched and well-reasoned arguments”.

The motion for debate was ‘Is a child at age 16 or under competent to make decisions about their own medical treatment?’ The teams debating this controversial and topical area of law were: David Smith / Akim Shokeye and Erika Hagon-Torkington / Marcin Bronski, with Ms Mitchell also acting as speaker. Both sides put forward their arguments in a clear and reasoned manner, producing a lively debate that Erika and Marcin won by a single vote.

The Guest of Honour at the event was David Bannister, who graduated from Anglia Law School last year and is now taking the Bar Professional Training Course in London.

The School would like to say a big thank you to Catherine for organising the debate, and we look forward to the next one.

Times Higher accolade

The award, which recognises the collaborative and interdisciplinary work that is taking place in universities to promote the arts, sees Anglia Ruskin shortlisted alongside Queen Mary University of London, De Montfort University, Edge Hill University, Northumbria University and University of Salford.

“We have played a major role in the growth of interest in children’s book illustration as an art form, both in the UK and internationally,” said Martin Salisbury, Professor of Illustration and Course Leader for MA Children’s Book Illustration. “We have also, through the accumulated international sales of books by students, graduates and staff, had a significant impact on the children’s publishing industry.”

Tim Parker, a BA (Hons) Illustration student has landed the Puffin Children’s Prize at the national Penguin Design Awards, drawing praise from an illustrious panel of judges.

The Penguin Design Awards, an annual competition with entrants being asked to design book covers which “stand out from others on the shelf, whilst appealing to the book’s target market”, also saw another Anglia Ruskin student, Alison King, named as a runner-up in the Penguin Adult Prize category.

This year’s competition received 1,450 submissions, with entrants in the adult books category asked to design a cover for Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm was chosen for the Puffin Children’s Prize competition.

Our world-leading MA Children’s Book Illustration has been shortlisted in the Excellence and Innovation in the Arts category at the 2012 Times Higher Education Awards.

The MA Children’s Book Illustration at Anglia Ruskin was the first such specialist programme in the country when it began in 2001.

It has rapidly grown in both size and reputation, and now attracts students from all over the world. Currently there are students from 27 countries, including the United States, Japan, Russia and Mexico enrolled on the course.

as Tim lands Puffin Prize

Tim Parker and Alison King

Commenting on Tim’s winning design, leading illustrator Raymond Briggs, famous for The Snowman and Father Christmas, said: “A clear winner - strong design, fierce without being frightening.”

For more Cambridge School of Art news: www.anglia.ac.uk/csanews

English, Communication, Film & Media

NEWS

Poetry and Popular Protest is an international hit

Sentimental education: a new book on Dickens

Dr. John Gardner, Principal Lecturer in English Literature, is celebrating the success of his internationally acclaimed new book.

Dr Valerie Purton’s new book Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition, published September 2012, explores the ‘sentimental’ in Dickens’ novels, placing them in the context of the tradition of Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Lamb.

The study re-evaluates Dickens’ presentation of emotion as part of a complex literary heritage that enables him to critique nineteenth-century society. The book sheds light on the

New exploration of women’s writing Mary Joannou, Professor of Literary History and Women’s Writing, is pleased to announce the publication of her latest book Women’s Writing, Englishness, National and Cultural Identity: The Mobile Woman and the Migrant Voice 1938-1960.

An exciting new mapping of women’s writing in the 1940s and 1950s, this book focuses in particular on issues of Englishness and national identity.

New readings of established English writers such as Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Dodie Smith, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Daphne Du Maurier, Jessie Kesson, Lynette Roberts, Doris Lessing and Muriel Spark attempt to address the absence of women in literary discussions of Englishness. Themes addressed include the displacements of war, women’s radically altered understandings of their sexuality, the retreat from Empire, the relationship of women to the idea of nation, the migrant experience, the literary representation of Welsh, Scottish and English identity, and meanings of ‘home’.

construction of feelings and of the ‘good heart’, ideas which resonate with current critical debates about literary ‘affect’. Sentimentalism, as the text demonstrates, is crucial to understanding fully the achievement of Dickens and his contemporaries.

Movie characters brought to life in Cambridge!

Rob Thomson, a graduate of our BA Film Studies course, has been making a name for himself as the latest Youtube sensation, with a series of videos that recreate (very publically) famous scenes from Hollywood movies.

To date, The Robson Experience’s ‘...in Real Life’ series has delivered its brand of chaotic humour to the streets of Cambridge through such characters as Chris Nolan’s Batman (complete with home-made batpod), Doc Brown from Back to the Future, and Forrest Gump.

Since its inception (one film that has yet to feature in Rob’s recreations), the channel has attracted over 7,000 subscribers, and over 1,200,000 video views!

Poetry and Popular Protest: Peterloo, Cato Street and the Queen Caroline Controversy focuses on the years immediately following the Napoleonic wars (1815-1822).

The book provides new information on the great Romantic poets such as Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, anonymous poets, pamphleteers, balladeers and ‘publishing pirates’ and focuses on their relationship with contemporary political events.

Poetry and Popular Protest has been shortlisted for a European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) Book Award and also nominated for the James Russell Lowell Prize. The ESSE awards were announced at the 11th ESSE Conference in Istanbul in September, while the James Russell Lowell Prize will be presented at the Modern Language Association’s annual convention in Boston in January 2013.

Dr Gardner said: “Poetry and Popular Protest examines the importance of poetry in the early nineteenth-century, when Britain was close to having a revolution. At that time few had access to representation, with about 5% of the population being eligible to vote, and, driven to the edge by poverty and government-sanctioned violence, people looked towards ways that their voices could be heard.

“My book argues that poetry, with its ability to compress complex ideas, and its capacity for easy and cheap transmission - even to people who were illiterate - became a key way that political ideas could be spread, whether this was by well-known poets, such as Shelley and Byron, or anonymous poets who would publish their poems in newspapers.

“Anglia Ruskin has been very supportive of my research. I am delighted and honoured that my book is being considered for these prestigious awards, and by the response that I have had from readers and reviewers.”

Publishing course kindles demand for Top Tips Two new guides for job-hunters by Cambridge based author John Hodgson hit the heights in Amazon’s Kindle chart recently - with a little help from MA Publishing student Charlotte Choules.

John offered the guides, Top Tips: Writing a CV and Top Tips: Interviewing, as a design project for students, having guest-lectured at a series of masterclasses on the course. Charlotte decided to get involved with the project, and created new covers and layouts for the booklets, which have since risen to No. 2 and 3 in the Kindle Store chart respectively.

Cover of Mary Joannou’s new book

For more ECFM news: www.anglia.ac.uk/ecfmnews

John attributed much of this popularity to Charlotte’s redesign: “A strong cover design needs to be eye-catching and informative at the same time. Charlotte’s design meets both requirements and paves the way for new covers in the same series.”

Charlotte found that working on the Top Tips project was both challenging and rewarding. She said: “The MA Publishing course at Anglia Ruskin has certainly provided me with the knowledge of what must be done and how best to approach such a project.”

Humanities & Social Sciences

NEWS Ready to party like it’s 1899!

Dr Rohan McWilliam, Course Leader for History, has become President of the British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS), the main British society of scholars dedicated to understanding the world of the Victorians.

Dr McWilliam, the first historian to become President of BAVS, will be working with academics from around the world to develop new research and thought focusing on nineteenth century Britain.

The organisation, which brings together researchers across a range of subjects including history, literature, art and science, boasts a membership of over 700. Dr McWilliam, who will serve a three-year term from 201215, said: “The society has a proud history of championing interdisciplinarity and forcing different academic subjects to engage with each other.

“Our understanding of the nineteenth century is being transformed through the impact of digitisation projects, with electronic databases of Victorian documents and publications making Victorian culture accessible to more people. At the same time, we are more sensitive to the ways the Victorians both shaped the world system but were in turn shaped by influences from outside Britain. BAVS is the place where these new approaches are being developed.”

Rohan is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Victorian Culture, where he also serves as Reviews Editor.

First prize for philosphy student Judith Bailey, a Philosophy PhD student, won first prize (£150) for her poster abstract at the Sixth Annual Research Students’ Conference on 13 June 2012. The poster was also ‘Highly Commended’ by the judges.

In reflecting on the ideas behind her design, Judith said: “My favourite area of philosophy is ancient philosophy, especially Plato, and so the obvious choice for my PhD was to research Plato’s use of mathematics, a somewhat neglected area of study. Most entries come from science or social science areas, and I wanted to show that the arts can also be represented and conform to the given rules.”

Judith was both surprised and delighted with her prize, some of which she has used to purchase a copy of The Complete Works of Plato.

New perspectives on older prisoners Dr Natalie Mann’s new book Doing Harder Time? The Experiences of an Ageing Male Prison Population in England and Wales offers a unique interpretation of research carried out with ageing prisoners and their prison officers.

In this topical and timely book Dr Mann, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, uses the theoretical perspective of structuration theory, and draws on aspects of Goffman’s interactionism and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, to show the reality of prison for those who are reaching the end of their life course.

Two standing ovations in one day for Dr. King On 9 October 2012, former Black Panther and member of the Angola 3 Robert King was presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Anglia Ruskin for his achievements as a civil rights campaigner and was also guest of honour at a special event organised by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.

At the presentation, Dr King received a standing ovation for his moving and humbling speech. Later in the day, he received another upon entering the room where a screening of the documentary In the Land of the Free was to be shown.

The documentary, narrated by Samuel L Jackson, exposes details of the injustice that Robert and his fellow inmates endured. It explains how three men, all members of the Black Panther Party, were convicted for murders committed within prison, despite unreliable evidence and witnesses. Dr King spent 29 years in solitary confinement, in a 6 foot by 9 foot cell, before his conviction was overturned and he was released in 2001.

The other members of the Angola 3, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, are still behind bars 40 years after being convicted. During the 1970s, the Angola 3 protested against continued segregation, corruption and abuse facing the largely black prison population within Angola, and formed one of the only recognised Black Panther Party prison chapters.

Dr King has campaigned tirelessly for the release of Herman and Albert since his own conviction was overturned. He is supported by Amnesty International and The Body Shop. Following a short discussion with the audience, Dr King spoke individually with many guests at a reception in his honour, and signed his book From the Bottom of the Heap.

Dr Robert King is now firmly embedded in the life of our department, and we hope that Anglia Ruskin’s recognition of his work will enable him to succeed in securing the release of Albert and Herman.

Dr. Robert King with our Vice Chancellor Mike Thorne

Senior Lecturer in History pens new play A new play by Dr Sean Lang, Senior Lecturer in History, was performed as part of the Cambridge Drama Festival at the Mumford Theatre in April 2012.

Paper Trail follows Angie, an Australian woman who travels to a small archive office in a London hospital to find out who her mother was.

The truth, which is much more terrible than she realises, lies in the documents that make up our personal paper trail through life.

Anglia Ruskin Drama Studio (Covent Garden, Cambridge) on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 April, while the festival performance took place on Tuesday 17 April.

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The production debuted at the

Music & Performing Arts

NEWS Winner!

We are delighted to announce that Jono Gilmurray, who graduated from Anglia Ruskin in 2007 with a 1st Class BA (Hons) Music/Creative Music Technology, has won the audience vote in the European Acoustic Heritage Water Soundscape Composition contest.

The competition ‘encouraged composers and sound artists to share their sonic knowledge of cultures and contexts of water and imagine acoustic heritage in Europe invoking different listenings of soundscape’.

Jono’s submission, titled Badock’s Wood II - The River Trym, was also awarded third prize by the jury, and selected for the European Acoustic Heritage exhibition, which opened in Tampere, Finland on 19 September. The exhibition will tour to galleries in France, Belgium and Spain through 2012-13.

The jury described Jono’s piece as ‘beautiful water recordings... with playful and evocative shifts back and forth and subtle melodies’.

Jono told us: “I’m absolutely over the moon, as I not only won the public vote with more than half of all votes cast, but also won third place in the Jury’s selection, which was headed by Andra McCartney, a respected figure in soundscape composition and pioneer in the creative use of soundwalking, whose work has been a great influence on my own!”

Inaugural Professorial lecture on Musictherapy The new academic year was ushered in with the Inaugural Professorial Lecture of Professor Helen Odell-Miller (Professor of Music Therapy) entitled Music Therapy and Mental Health: methods, outcomes and challenges for the future.

Helen is an honorary music therapist at the Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust. She has published and lectured internationally and led research projects looking at clinical outcomes in

dementia, and arts therapies in the adult mental health field.

The lecture explored the benefits of music therapy for the improvement of psychological and mental well being and included the speaker’s own experience, drawing on audio and visual examples of clinical work.

Drama and Performing Arts students at Festival Week

Festival Week branches out Our annual Festival Week, run by the Department of Music and Performing Arts, broke new ground this year with mobile sound walks and site-specific performance as part of their programme of events.

Sound walks are location-based works experienced using headphones either with an mp3 player or mobile phone, and are intended to be heard in a specific place. The works range from audio guides to mini-dramas, experimental documentaries and ambient soundscapes, with listeners guided by a map.

Third year BA (Hons) Creative Music Technology and BA (Hons) Music students taking the Radiophonica module made a number of imaginative group works featuring locations close to Anglia Ruskin’s Cambridge campus, including the River Cam and the Mill Road Cemetery. The project was sponsored

by Visualise, Anglia Ruskin’s public arts programme.

Meanwhile, Drama and Performing Arts students also explored the great outdoors as part of their graduating projects at Wysing Arts Centre in Bourn, Cambridgeshire.

Members of the public were invited to join the performers to encounter, explore, re-imagine and recreate the landscapes and environments around them through stories, texts, soundscapes, movement, surprise and suggestion.

Student Pamela Jenner said: “Taking performance out of the traditional theatre setting and into the countryside has been both challenging and enormous fun, and has given us the opportunity to experience a new dimension to the concept of devising. We have discovered that wind, rain, sunshine, flying insects and even barking dogs can have a major impact on performance!”

For more MPA news: www.anglia.ac.uk/mpanews

Students enjoying the sound walks at Festival Week

Anglia Ruskin Arts

Deals clinched by Pop Music students Through live project briefs and modules such as Year 2’s Live Music Event Management, our BA (Hons) Pop Music students are learning the tricks of the music business, finding success and making a profit.

Recent successes include student Tyrese Olali who, following a competition brief set by Lecturer Phil Pethybridge, reached a deal with Virgin Atlantic for a soundtrack and dance to accompany a viral advert, and Ross Wilson who, since running a profitable event at the Q-Club, has been hired by them to work on events.

As Ross explains: “After a year of focusing on the music business on the Popular Music pathway, I became an events manager for the Alternative Music Society on campus. When it came to the Live Events module, contacting the bands and venue was a breeze as I’d already made the contacts needed around the city throughout the year.

I’d picked up many tricks along the way in promotion to cover the city, and even get the event on three radio channels and in a newspaper, gaining more contacts.”

We look forward to hearing about our Pop Music students’ success in the industry.

NEWS Starring at the Mumford...

On Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 October the Mumford Theatre was inundated with lively and enthusiastic local school children eagerly awaiting their turn to perform on the stage as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival.

Cambridge School of Art and the Global Sustainability Institute ran a competition for students to exhibit their work alongside the exciting Ruskin Gallery exhibition by Andy Webster entitled (Un)Sustainable?

This national festival invites schools to put on performances of various Shakespeare plays and gives the participating children the opportunity to perform at their local theatre. The Mumford Theatre was one of 7 theatres in the East taking part and played host to 8 different schools across the 2 performance days, including Netherhall School and Bottisham, Comberton, Impington and Sawston Village Colleges. Primary schools were included nationally for the first time and the Mumford Theatre welcomed children from Girton Glebe, St Paul’s and The King’s Junior School Ely.

The large art installation is 45ft wide and the exhibition aims to encourage and explore responses to the idea of sustainability, a term that can be perceived both as a tired worn out cliché but also as an imperative for future thinking and acting. This work will be a new sculptural piece that explores the potential of integrating diy electronics, solar technologies, solar LEDs and found materials.

Before even stepping foot on the stage the children were treated to cast workshops delivered by the Central School of Speech and Drama, while the National Theatre provided directorial training for their dedicated teachers. The children enjoyed rehearsal days at the Mumford Theatre before embarking on their evening performances a few weeks later, filled with excitement and enthusiasm about working in a professional theatre.

Shakespeare Schools Festival CEO, Penelope Middleboe said in a statement: “There is something very exciting about entrusting the work of one of our most monumental playwrights to the next generation. It is only by allowing young people to discover for themselves how art helps make sense of their world that the UK will be able to retain its leading position as a nation with a rich heritage and strong contribution to the arts.”

We may have seen the stars of the future already treading the boards here at the Mumford Theatre. It is hoped that this experience will encourage more children to visit the theatre - in an acting or viewing capacity!

Speaker at NHS Conference

The Cambridge School of Art, together with the Global Sustainability Institute invited current BA (Hons) students from the School of Art to submit work on the theme of ‘Sustainability’, to be exhibited during the period of Webster’s installation. The works were chosen by a selection committee.

This was a great opportunity for students to have their work exhibited with an installation by an acclaimed and exciting artist, working on topics of very high visibility.

The selection committee chose 3 prize-winning entries (1st Prize £300, 2nd and 3rd prizes £100), and 2 ’highly commended’ entries which were announced at the private view on 21 November.

Scene & Heard September saw the start of the Mumford Theatre’s play reading club Scene & Heard, with the first of the fortnightly meetings taking place on Wednesday 26.

The idea for the club came from the theatre staff’s strategy planning day in the summer where Production Manager Leigh Stephenson and Box Office and Marketing Administrator Verity Sanderson committed to running the club for interested students.

The club holds the same premise as a book club: members read the same play between meetings and get together to discuss their ideas.

As plays are read rather than books this can involve discussions on a huge array of ideas from set design to casting, lighting to directing, and costume to marketing the show!

Professor Helen Odell-Miller, Director of the Music for Health Research Centre, was one of the Principal Speakers at a day-conference in October organised by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust in conjunction with the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy.

Evidence for the Arts Psychotherapies in Forensic Practice: Setting targets or being targeted examined the range of innovative work practices and research projects established within UK forensic services as a means of extending the evidence base within arts therapies professions.

(Un)Sustainable?

The first meeting was a huge success with 10 students attending, bringing their enthusiasm for reading, plays and the stage, their knowledge from different areas of study across the university and their different experiences of theatre.

Emily Luthentun, a 2nd year Drama student, said: “It’s great. You get to see plays from multiple angles and can read them without the pressure of having to study for your grades.”

Leigh and Verity also hope to organise theatre trips for members of the group to see local productions.

Pupils from Impington Village College preparing for their big moment on the Mumford Theatre stage

To submit items to be considered for the next ALSS newsletter please ensure you send regular news updates to the ALSS Marketing team.

Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences www.anglia.ac.uk/alss For more information about any of the stories in this newsletter please contact: Sarah Jones Faculty Marketing and Recruitment Manager sarah.jones@anglia.ac.uk 0845 198 2981

Produced by Verity Sanderson Box Office and Marketing Administrator