Queer Wales, a collection of essays on sexuality, identity, and Wales

Queer Wales, a collection of essays on sexuality, identity, and Wales

In recent years, we have become more aware of the complexity of Welsh
identities (national, European, racial, colonial, economic, etc), and a
major feature of this complexity is the queering of Welsh history and
culture.

Queer Wales is currently being studied, written, performed,
legislated, mapped, bought and sold, yet, as far as sexuality is
concerned, to what extent is Wales still “The Land of my Fathers” and
the “Land of the White Gloves”?

At what point may we begin to articulate
a coherent queer history and community in Wales?

As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick explains in /Epistemology of the Closet/,

gay people, who seldom grow up in gay families;

who are exposed to their culture’s, if not their parents’, high ambient homophobia long before
either they or those who care for them know that they are among those
who most urgently need to define themselves against it;

…have with difficulty and always belatedly to patch together from fragments a
community, a useable heritage, a politics of survival or resistance. (81)

GLBT people in twentieth-first century Wales are engaged in building
just such a “useable heritage” and “politics of survival and
resistance,” but this heritage, while it may be belated, need not be
patchwork and fragmentary.




This interdisciplinary collection of essays seeks to locate a gay tradition, culture and community within a history
and nation that have been largely hostile to its expression.

This call for papers solicits essays written from a variety of
disciplinary approaches on all aspects of gay life and culture, past and
present. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

* Policing Welsh queerness
* Education and sexual identity in Wales
* Creative industries and urban Welsh queerness
* Rural queer Wales
* Welsh regionalism and sexuality
* Tourism and sexuality in Wales
* Queerness in the Welsh classroom
* Queer Wales in television and/or film
* Queer Welsh communities
* Gay activism in Wales
* Intersections of class and gender in queer Wales
* Writing the Welsh queer, past and present
* Performing Welsh sexual identity: queer Welsh drama
* Queering the Welsh past
* Sex and sexuality in the Welsh legal system, past and present

Please submit abstracts of 500 words along with brief CVs to Huw Osborne
(osborne@rmc.ca ) by January 15 2010.

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© 2009 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Tragic Lost of Beloved Welsh Women's History Scholar Dr. Ursula Masson: Glamorgan Colleagues in Mourning

Dear Colleagues,

I know that some colleagues will have already been told the tragic news which we got yesterday, that our dear colleague Ursula Masson (History) had passed away.


[Pictured above -- In memoriam: Our Beloved Dr. Ursula Masson -- a dear friend, a wise teacher, and a kind spirit to us all. How much we will miss you.]

Ursula was a tremendous colleague and friend to many, particularly in History and Humanities & Languages and more widely, I know, across the Faculty and University.

Our sadness is immense as we remember how much we cherished Ursula and her contribution and love for her subject and for education.

Many thanks,
Rod

Professor Rod Dubrow-Marshall PhD,

Dean of Humanities & Social Sciences,

University of Glamorgan,

Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, CF37 1DL


[Pictured above: From the Womens Archive Wales site -- AMC / WAW AGM 2006 l-r: Avril Rolph (Sec), Ursula Masson (Chair), Deirdre Beddoe (President) (standing), Gail Allen (Treasurer)]

From the UWE/HLSS Research Bulletin June 2007:

Women and Liberal Politics in Wales 1888 -1914

Ursula Masson‘s thesis, ‘For Women, for Wales and for Liberalism’: Women and Liberal politics 1888-1914’ was completed in 2006.

In her study Ursula argued that there was a distinctive Welsh women’s liberalism at the end of the nineteenth century.

It was distinguished from Welsh Liberalism more generally through its commitment to feminism and to the vote, while also differing from its English counterpart through its relationship with the national movement - Cymru Fydd.

Ursula’s thesis explores the complex relationship between party politics, nationalism and feminism at a national level and also provides two in depth local case studies of the Women’s Liberal Associations of Cardiff and Aberdare.

Dr. Ursula Masson studied for her PhD on a part-time basis.

She has been a member of the History staff at the University of Glamorgan since 1994, and had a long and varied employment history before that, in journalism, the civil service, adult education, trade union education editor, to name the most respectable.

She did her first degree in English and Philosophy at Cardiff, and a Masters degree at Keele in the mid-1970s.

She is chair of the Women’s Archive of Wales, which works to ensure the retrieval and survival of records relating to the history of women in Wales, which has recently received a large Heritage Lottery Fund Grant to expand its work.

In recognition of her writing, and her work in promoting women’s history and education in Wales, Ursula was selected as a ‘woman of achievement for 2006’ by the Nominating Council of the Women of the Year Lunch.

Ursula says ‘my link with UWE has been extremely rewarding, not just through the great friendships formed in the History department, but in connecting to research communities and bringing south Wales into the regional Women’s History Network, of which I am currently chair’.

She has published a number of articles arising from research for her doctoral thesis and is now co-editing a volume of Welsh women’s political writings into the early 20th century, to be published later this year.

She and her co-editor, Professor Jane Aaron, have recently established the Centre for Gender Studies in Wales at Glamorgan. Ursula is also co-editor of Llafur, the annual journal of the Welsh People’s History Society.

Ursula Masson



{Pictured above: Ursula Masson (standing) speaking at a book launch at the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff. (Baroness Glenys Kinnock in the background).]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For additional info please contact Dr. Mark Leslie Woods at mwoods[at]glam.ac.uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2008 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2008 Dr. Mark Leslie Woods

Is History Your Thing? University of Glamorgan in Wales Celebrates Late Autumnal Harvest of Histories and Anthologies (Some Great Xmas Gift Ideas!)

This is to invite you to a celebration of recent publications by members of the History Division in HASS, University of Glamorgan.



Please join us at Blackwells bookshop on campus on Tuesday, 4 December 2007 at 5 p.m. for wine and light refreshments.



Titles include:

Witchcraft, gender and society in early modern Germany (Brill) by Jonathan Durrant



Baltic iron in the Atlantic world in the eighteenth century (Brill) by Chris Evans and Göran Rydén



Debating the revolution: Britain in the 1790s (IB Tauris) by Chris Evans



Brittany 1750-1950: the invisible nation (University of Wales Press) by Sharif Gemie



Galicia: a concise history (University of Wales Press) by Sharif Gemie



The other Germany: perceptions and influences in British-East German relations, 1945-1990 (Wißner) edited by Norry LaPorte and Stefan Berger

The very salt of life: Welsh women’s political writings from Chartism to suffrage (Honno) edited by Ursula Masson and Jane Aaron



A woman’s work is never done (Honno) edited by Ursula Masson



Sport: an anthology (Parthian Press) edited by Gareth Williams



RSVP to Dr Norry LaPorte ([nlaporte[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk])

Descriptions and reviews of recent books by University of Glamorgan scholars include:

Sharif Gemie, Galicia: a concise history (University of Wales Press, 2006)
Sharif Gemie’s innovative study provides an introduction to the landmarks of Galician history, from pre-history to the present.

Clearly written and easily understandable, it alerts the reader to some of the controversies and debates linked to Galicia’s development, and points out the connections between Galicia and Spain, Europe and the Atlantic world.



The study concentrates mainly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and analyses issues such as the strengths and weaknesses of Galician nationalism, the status of Galego (the Galician language), Galicia during the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship, and the rise and fall of the Fraga and the conservative Partido Popular in Galicia after 1981.

Elizabeth Andrews, A Woman’s Work is Never Done and other writings, edited and introduced by Ursula Masson (Honno, 2006)

The autobiography of Andrews (1882–1960), a prominent Labour activist in South Wales during the party’s ‘heroic age’, is reprinted with a scholarly introduction by Ursula Masson and a foreword by Glenys Kinnock MEP.

Chris Evans, Debating the revolution: Britain in the 1790s (I.B. Tauris, 2006)

‘A wonderful book: authoritative, informative and full of intriguing interpretations and interesting perspectives. A historiographical tour de force’. Professor Stefan Berger, University of Manchester.

Chris Evans and Göran Rydén (eds), The industrial revolution in iron: the impact of British coal technology in nineteenth-century Europe (Ashgate, 2005)

“Chris Evans’s introductory chapter is a masterful summary of British technology and the historiography of nineteenth-century iron . . .

This book makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of technology transfer and the global modernization of the iron industry.

It gives Anglophone readers access to literatures that have until now been unknown to many of us.” Technology and Culture, July 2006.

Ursula Masson (ed.), Women’s rights and ‘womanly duties’: the Aberdare Women’s Liberal Association 1891–1910 (South Wales Record Society, 2005)

The minutes of of the Aberdare WLA, which had over 500 members at its peak, shed light on a rich period in the history of women’s political activity, when women campaigned on issues dear to the Liberal Party such as Home Rule for Ireland, Welsh Church disestablishment, temperance and reform of the House of Lords, but also on many aspects of women’s fight for equality in all walks of life.

Stefan Berger, Andy Croll and Norman LaPorte (eds), Towards a comparative history of coalfield societies (Ashgate, 2005)

A selection of papers from the international conference on coalfields and their peoples organised by the Labour History Society and hosted by the University of Glamorgan in 2002.



Stefan Berger and Norry LaPorte, The other Germany: perceptions and influences in British – East German relations, 1945–1990 (Wißner, 2005)

Britain did not recognise the German Democratic Republic until 1973, but throughout the forty years of the GDR‘s existence there were significant political and cultural exchanges between the two.

This path-breaking book explores the cold war relationship between the ‘friendly enemies’.

Norman LaPorte, The German Communist Party in Saxony, 1924–1933: factionalism, fratricide and political failure (Peter Lang, 2003)

”...contributes new and important material to the major debates on the history of German Communism during the Weimar Republic.” Central European History, 2006.

”...essential reading for all scholars of German communism… LaPorte offers a cogent analysis of the historiographical questions regarding the KPD.” H-German, June 2005.

For additional info please contact Dr. Mark Leslie Woods at mwoods[at]glam.ac.uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

AIM -- ATRiuM Intelligent Media, Cardiff, Wales, U.K. on Face Book

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Welsh Women and Gender Studies in Wales Glamorgan Scholars' Series Launch Saturday 27th October 2007

You are warmly invited to the launch of the book series Gender Studies in Wales in the Glamorgan Business Centre on Saturday 27th October 2007 at 2.00 pm.



A number of editors and contributors to the volume will be talking about their books and their hopes for the series:

Launching the New Series / Gender Studies in Wales

Saturday 27th October 2007 at 2.00 p.m./

Programme of the afternoon’s events

2.00
Arrivals and refreshments (tea, coffee, Welsh cakes)

2.15-2.20
Brec’hed Piette welcomes the audience and gives a brief introduction to the series, and to its Sociology strand in particular.



2.20-2.30
Paul Chaney, University of Cardiff, talks of his contracted volume for the series Equality and Public Policy: Wales in Comparative Focus



2.30-2.40
Nickie Charles, University of Warwick, talks of Charlotte Aull Davies (University of Swansea) and her contracted volume for the series Gender and Social Justice in Wales



2.40-2.50
Sian Rhiannon Williams, UWIC, introduces the History strand of the series, making particular reference to Ursula’s and her suffragette volume

2.50-3.00
Ursula Masson, University of Glamorgan, talks of her contracted volume for the series ‘For Women, for Wales, for Liberalism’?: Women and Liberal Politics in Wales
c.1880-1914



3.00-3.10
Jane Aaron introduces the Literature strand of the series, making particular reference to her published volume Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales

3.10-3.20
Katie Gramich, University of Cardiff, talks of her published volume Twentieth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales

3.20-3.30
Sarah Prescott, University of Aberystwyth, talks of her contracted volume for the series The Cambrian Muses: Women Writers and Wales, 1600-1800



Chair asks for questions and comments from the floor, and concludes the formal part of the meeting any time between 3.40 and 4.00

Series Editors: Jane Aaron, University of Glamorgan; Brec’hed Piette, Bangor University; Sian Rhiannon Williams, UWIC



The aim of this series is to fill a current gap in knowledge.

As a number of historians, sociologists and literary critics have for some time been pointing out, there is a dearth of published research on the characteristics and effects of gender difference in Wales, both as it affected lives in the past and as it continues to shape present-day experience.



Socially constructed concepts of masculine and feminine difference influence every aspect of individuals’ lives; experiences in employment, in education, in culture and politics, as well as in personal relationships, are all shaped by them.

Ethnic identities are also gendered; a country’s history affects its concepts of gender difference so that what is seen as appropriately ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ varies within different cultures.

What is needed in the Welsh context is more detailed research on the ways in which gender difference has operated and continues to operate within Welsh societies.

Accordingly, this interdisciplinary series of volumes on Gender Studies in Wales, authored by academics who are currently leaders in their particular fields of study, is designed to explore the diverse aspects of male and female identities in Wales, past and present.



Crynodeb

Mae cysyniadau o wahaniaethau gwrywaidd a benywaidd a luniwyd yn gymdeithasol yn dylanwadu ar bob agwedd o fywyd yr unigolyn.

Mae hunaniaethau cenedlaethol hefyd yn rhyweddol; mae hanes cenedl yn effeithio ar ei chysyniadau o wahaniaethau rhyweddol fel bod yr hyn a ganfyddir yn briodol fel ‘gwrywaidd’ neu ‘benywaidd’ yn amrywio o fewn gwahanol ddiwylliannau cenedlaethol.



Yr hyn sydd ei angen yn y cyd-destun Cymreig yw mwy o ymchwil manwl ar y ffyrdd y mae gwahaniaethau rhyweddol wedi gweithredu ac yn parhau i weithredu o fewn cymdeithasau Cymreig.

Yn unol â hynny, mae’r gyfres ryngddisgyblaethol hon ar Astudiaethau Rhywedd yng Nghymru, a ysgrifennwyd gan academyddion sy’n arweinwyr cyfoes yn eu meysydd o astudiaeth, wedi ei chynllunio ar gyfer archwilio’r agweddau o hunaniaethau gwryw a benyw yng Nghymru, gynt a nawr.



Mae’r gyfres yn anelu at gynnal fframwaith rhyngddisgyblaethol gan fod dimensiynau cymharol gyfyng y ffrâm a osodir gan ethnigrwydd yn yr achos hwn yn gwneud ymdriniaethau rhyngddisgyblaethol yn fwy dichonadwy.



Credwn hefyd, lle mae’r fath ymchwiliad yn ddichonadwy, ei bod yn dal yn ffaith drwy chwalu’r rhaniadau confensiynol - ond mympwyol - o ddisgyblaethau academaidd y gellir datgelu darluniau llawnach o fywydau dynion a menywod.



Ni fydd pob teitl a gynhwysir yn y gyfres yn cynnwys elfen ryngddisgyblaethol ond disgwyliwn i’r gyfres fel cyfanwaith elwa o’i dimensiwn rhyngddisgyblaethol cyffredinol.

Bydd i’r gyfres hefyd ddimensiwn dwyieithog a bydd yn cynnwys teitlau Cymraeg yn ogystal â rhai Saesneg.



For additional info please contact Dr. Mark Leslie Woods at mwoods[at]glam.ac.uk

AIM: ATRiuM Intelligent Media

AIM -- ATRiuM Intelligent Media, Cardiff, Wales, U.K. on Face Book

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Queer Advantage, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai Razing Ziggurats, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Mordechai's Post-Evangelical-Granola on the World Wide Web.

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

European Scholars' Debate: Is Wales Postcolonial or Post-National, or both?

Is Wales Postcolonial? Scholars continue to debate this issue, and there are some very entrenched and opposing views:

Welsh historian Geraint H. Jenkins tells us,

"Some historians have simply presumed that the political assimilation of Wales by England necessarily meant that the history of this ‘internal colony’ was no more than a tranquil and uneventful interlude between the rebellions of the fifteenth century and the epoch-making industrial revolution." (Prys Morgan, Tempus Publishing Ltd. 2001: 74)

Describing Wales as an ‘internal colony’ of England during this or any period, or variously describing Wales as colony/former colony/neo-colony, etc. of England, raises the question as to whether postcolonial theory is applicable in the case of Wales, which is not without controversy.

'Postcolonial Wales' is a collection of edited essays derived from a one day conference “exploring aspects of contemporary Welsh cultural & political life from 'Postcolonial' theoretical and critical perspectives” considered this question on 13 July 2002 at the University of Glamorgan, Wales, and the papers from this conference address the question in a recently published book, edited by Jane Aaron and Chris Williams.

Media scholars tend to see Wales, at least as far as film and media are concerned, in some state of colonial or post-colonial status:

In his new book 'Film, Television and the Break Up of Britain' Professor Steve Blandford has asserted that, while some areas of governance of newly-devolved Wales have achieved a certain level of independence from England, i.e., ‘postcolonial Wales’, Welsh film and television are still subject to residual colonial controls based in London (Aaron and Williams 2005: 191; Blandford 2007: 91).

Professor Dave Barlow (in the recent book, 'The Media in Wales: Voices of a Small Nation' which he co-authored with Philip Mitchell, and Tom O'Malley) confirms that this continuing monopoly of news and copy-righted-entertainment production and marketing in Wales by England and Hollywood is pervasive not only in film and television, but extends throughout other media (Barlow, Mitchell et al. 2005: 34).

Swedish scholar Dr. Johan Schimanski,

an Associate Professor from the Norwegian Universitetet i Tromsø, and former Visiting Professor of Border Studies at the Centre for Border Studies at the University of Glamorgan, has compared post-colonial Norway to post-colonial Wales in his lecture entitled:

Cultural and Political Nationalism in Wales

Johan Schimanski writes:

"Like post-colonial Norway, post-colonial Wales has no aristocracy of its own. I mention this right at the end of my talk to give a hint of what is to come."

"The rise of a Welsh-speaking middle-class has lent prestige to the Welsh language, and has, with the help of the new Welsh-language media and education establishment moved the focal point of Welsh-language culture away from Y Fro Gymraeg - where Welsh-speakers top in percentages of local populations - and to the great cities of Swansea and Cardiff - where Welsh-speakers top in absolute numbers per square kilometre [Aitchinson 1994:91,94]."

"The tensions involved in this hardly expected turn in what we might call the ongoing crisis of representation in the Welsh nation must continue or be resolved, perhaps at some point providing new figurations of the gap between cultural and political borders."

Schimanski, Johan. "Cultural and Political Nationalism in Wales". In Nationalism in Small European Nations ("KULTs skriftserie"). Ed. Øystein Sørensen. Oslo: The Research Council of Norway, 1996.

We recommend both books, by scholars David M. Barlow, Philip Mitchell, and Tom O'Malley, and the collection edited by scholars Jane Aaron and Chris Williams.

Here's the published synopsis of Postcolonial Wales:

"Postcolonial Wales, edited by Jane Aaron and Chris Williams, is collection of essays that uses questions, hypotheses and concepts drawn from postcolonial theory to understand the culture and politics of post-devolution Wales."

"Beginning with discussions of how Wales as a nation has been understood historiographically, as well as historically, the book focuses in the next section on society and politics in post-devolution Wales. "

"The final section of the volume considers Welsh cultural difference in terms of literature, the mass media, music, drama and the visual arts. Flexible in approach and diverse in their approaches, each contribution aims to stimulate ideas and suggest new ways of thinking about contemporary Wales."

Zoë Brigley, a Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Warwick in her post entitled,

Chris Williams: ‘Problematizing Wales: An Exploration in Historiography and Postcoloniality’

writes:

"In this essay, Williams begins by rejecting any models of Wales as a post-colonial nation, but he does embrace aspects of postcolonial theory such as ‘ambivalence, hybridity and post-nationality’ which might be useful in considering Wales as a marginal region (13)."

"William sees ambivalence as bound up with Wales’ complicity with the English and British. There is also hybridity in the ‘migration, settlement and intermarriage’ in Wales: what Williams calls ‘Wales’ “fuzzy borders” and its long inheritance of multicultural experiences, if not of multiculturalism’ (14). "

"Williams is adamant that hybridity has often been ignored by critics and commentators in Wales, yet possibilities might be found in the view of selfhood that defines postcolonial theory."

Cardiff School of Creative & Cultural Industries

mwoods[at]glam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh-American Family Genealogy, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Welsh Music, Film, and Books Symposium, on the World Wide Web.

Click here to go directly to my personal blog page called Celtic Cult Cinema on the World Wide Web.

Visit the UK Film Studies and World Cinema and Music Import Showcase

© 2007 Mark Leslie Woods

Smart & Sexy? Your Queer Advantage is waiting!