![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/75\/2019\/10\/nightmare-christmas.jpg\")
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For this festive edition of Works Loved<\/a>, we’ll be sharing texts that explore festivities, celebrations, and other occasions that are – or should<\/em> be – joyful. All\u00a0 types of texts, phrases, and festive figures are welcome, from Scrooge to Santa – or feel free to change the tone with a non-festive favourite.<\/p>\n We had a great discussion across many different aspects of feasts, festivities, gifts, Christmas. We talked about the fraught nature of gatherings, the pressures, shame, and delights of giving gifts, and nostalgia and haunting seem to recur in Christmas-themed texts.<\/p>\n \u2022 Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843) We also talked about Charles Dickens’s “The Signalman”, and films including: Muppets Christmas Carol, Christmas Again, and A Christmas Story. Props to Toria’s amazing WHAM! Last Christmas sweater.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This event is run by Dorothy Butchard (d.butchard@bham.ac.uk). Please email Dorothy if you have any question, but you’re welcome to just turn up – no need to register in advance!<\/p>\n In \u2018Works Loved\u2019 sessions, we switch up our usual format and each bring, read from, and discuss a short extract from a text that proved foundational to our research or thinking about literature. This could be a poem that convinced us not to drop out as an undergraduate, a novel that suggested we might need to do an MA to understand it, or an essay that launched the idea of postgraduate study. Academia can often feel overwhelming, with multiple pressures competing for our time and headspace. This seminar is about remembering why we got into this business in the first place \u2013 namely, the \u2018love\u2019 (and we can discuss this term) we feel for the books, poems, and ideas that make up our discipline.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no advance reading in these weeks \u2013 just come along with your chosen text, and be ready to read from it, tell us why it matters to you, and discuss it and other texts. All varieties of text are welcome \u2013 if yours isn\u2019t something you can easily read from, just come and tell us about it instead.<\/p>\n Thanks to\u00a0Rona Cran<\/a>\u00a0who first introduced this format for a session \u2013 it has brought a lot of joy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For this festive edition of Works Loved, we’ll be sharing texts that explore festivities, celebrations, and other occasions that are – or should be – joyful. All\u00a0 types of texts, phrases, and festive figures are welcome, from Scrooge to Santa – or feel free to change the tone with a non-festive favourite. Reflections:\u00a0 We had … Continue reading “Works Loved: Festive Favourites (Wed 11 Dec)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,1,3],"tags":[175,176,174,92],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2019-20","category-english-lit","category-page-breaks","tag-celebration","tag-christmas","tag-festivities","tag-works-loved"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Reflections:\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n\u2022 Ali Smith, Winter (2017)
\n\u2022 The Mabinogion (12th – 13th centuries)
\n\u2022 Derek Mahon, ‘After the Titanic’ and ‘Dawn at St Patrick’s<\/a>‘, from New Collected Poems (2011)
\n\u2022 O. Henry, “The Gift of the Magi” (1905)
\n\u2022 Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943)<\/p>\nTime and Place<\/h3>\n
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About Works Loved<\/h2>\n