School of Modern Languages & Cultures

Glasgow through the Looking-Glass (events)

07 Jun

Date: Saturday 07 June 2025
Time: 10:00 - 15:00
Categories: Open days and visits, Social events, Public lectures, Exhibitions
Venue: Mitchell Library, North St, Glasgow, G3 7DN
Speaker: Various

Parallel to the exhibition at the Mitchell Library to mark the publication of reputedly the world's first comics in Glasgow, in 1825, the Stirling Maxwell Centre and Glasgow Libraries are hosting a day of talks and family-friendly events. Free, but ticketed.

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Languages, Cultures, and an International Mindset for Success in the 21st Century

09 May

Date: Friday 09 May 2025
Time: 13:00 - 15:00
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: The Debating Chamber, Glasgow University Union, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Speaker: Baroness Jean Coussins

This event celebrates the power and positivity of languages and cultures in the 21st century, highlighting their role in personal growth, global careers, and societal benefits. Inspired by Baroness Jean Coussins’ call for ‘languages positivity’, the event features her keynote on the importance of languages and international thinking. SMLC graduate Jaclyn McKie, now Head of Marketing at Isle of Arran Distillers, will also speak. With presentations, a panel discussion, and a Q&A, the event welcomes students, staff, and the public. Hosted by Professor Stephen Forcer, it includes refreshments and whisky tasting, with a potential online option to be confirmed.

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Comics world/s in Canada: beyond the two solitudes

27 Mar

Date: Thursday 27 March 2025
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: TalkLab (University of Glasgow Library Seminar Room, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Chris Reyns-Chikuma, University of Alberta

Reyns discusses how the key Canadian concept of the “two solitudes” (Hugh MacLennan, 1945), though it may be outdated in literature today, it's still useful in the world of comics. Although there are more bridges between the English and French traditions, and also with other cultural traditions now recognized both within Canada (aboriginal, other Canadian minorities) and abroad (Japan, Korea, etc.), these have long remained distinct from one another.

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Spanish fashion in the age of Velázquez: a tailor at the court of Philip IV (seminar and book launch)

20 Mar

Date: Thursday 20 March 2025
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: TalkLab (University of Glasgow Library, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Amanda Wunder, City University of New York

Amanda Wunder discusses the life and world of Spanish royal tailor Mateo Aguado and his colleagues during the reign of Philip IV, and exploring the distinctive look of the court in seventeenth-century Madrid. From book to textile to fine art. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase the book with a 30% discount on site or via a voucher code.

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‘Broken kites’: the representation of vets in comics of the Vietnam War

06 Mar

Date: Thursday 06 March 2025
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: Library Seminar Room (formerly TalkLab, University of Glasgow Library, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Harriet EH Earle, Sheffield Hallam University

The talk addresses the direct representation and erasure of traumatized veterans, while also considering the wider representation of trauma at play in comics about Vietnam. CONTENT NOTE: some images of combat and violence; sustained discussion of trauma and PTSD.

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Glimpses of Gustave Moreau at the fin-de-siècle of Hispanic Literature

04 Mar

Date: Tuesday 04 March 2025
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: Library Seminar Room (formerly TalkLab, University of Glasgow Library, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Ricardo de la Fuente

Ricardo de la Fuente argues the influence of the French painter Gustave Moreau across the work of poets Rubén Darío and Julián del Casal, which incorporate themes, motifs or even reproduce the pictorial text.

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Threshold in Translation: meditation on the poetry of António Ramos Rosa

01 Mar

Date: Saturday 01 March 2025
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Categories: Student events, Social events, Exhibitions
Venue: The Briggait Gallery, 141 Bridgegate, Glasgow, G1 5HZ
Speaker: Students of Senior Honours Portuguese Studies

Poetry reading in English and Portuguese of poems by António Ramos Rosa, to accompany the exhibition by Janice Deary.

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Salvador Dali: emblems and mystical art

27 Feb

Date: Thursday 27 February 2025
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: Library Seminar Room (formerly TalkLab, University of Glasgow Library, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Verónica Tartabini

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) recovered the legacy of sixteenth-century Castilian mysticism of Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross. Horrified by the atomic bomb, Salvador turned to Discalced Carmelite mysticism seeking an alternative knowledge to technical and warlike destruction. As a Stirling Maxwell fellow at the University of Glasgow, our aim is to not only address Dalí's affiliation to the mystical tradition of the Siglo de Oro, but also his link with the emblematic tradition of the Italian Renaissance.

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Comics and transnational memory: a gendered reading

06 Feb

Date: Thursday 06 February 2025
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: TalkLab (University of Glasgow Library, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Jorge Català-Carrasco (Newcastle University). Respondent: Guillem Colom-Montero (Stirling Maxwell Centre)

Jorge Català-Carrasco proposes a transnational post-WWII memory reading through comics, a cultural production that, from the margins of canonical culture, allows us to study the lived experience and the grounds on which the transformations of societies are worked. The talk will focus on gendered readings, especially from late-twentieth century Argentina, Spain, and Peru, exploring how feminism made its way into comics. Focusing first on Mafalda (by Quino), we will then move onto two graphic pioneers in Spain and Peru: Núria Pompeia and Marisa Godínez, respectively. Respondent: Guillem Colom-Montero (Stirling Maxwell Centre) In-person and online event.

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Stirling Maxwell Centre Seminar Series Spring 2025

06 Feb

Date: Thursday 06 February 2025 - Thursday 27 March 2025
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: Library Seminar Room (formerly TalkLab, University of Glasgow Library, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Various (see below)

This Spring 2025 Stirling Maxwell Centre Seminar Series brings together scholars of comics on transnational memory, Canada's 'two solitudes', comics and war, and Text/Image Studies on Early Modern dressmaking and nineteenth century Spain.

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Stirling Maxwell Centre Seminar Series: Postgraduate Roundtable

28 Nov

Date: Thursday 28 November 2024
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Categories: Student events, Public lectures
Venue: Hetherington Building Library Space

Our Postgraduate Researcher roundtable aims to allow Postgraduate Researchers of any affiliation to showcase their work-in-progress and facilitate brief, but incisive, discussions around Text/Image Storytelling. The concept of storytelling is rich in scope. Possible topics might include, but are not limited to, research on race, gender, sexuality, disability, class, climate emergency, the politics of storytelling and how we perceive events in the past, present, and future.

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Take Me and Make It Happen! How-to-Books from the Ferguson Collection and Corresponding Holdings at the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel

03 Oct

Date: Thursday 03 October 2024 - Friday 04 October 2024
Categories: Staff workshops and seminars, Conferences
Venue: Henry Heaney Room, Level 12, University of Glasgow Library
Speaker: Various (see below)

Workshop: Practical information on distillation, medicine, dyeing, cosmetics, ceramics, metallurgy and many other topics flooded the book market in the century that followed the introduction of printing. The research questions related to this are just as diverse as the topics the books cover. How does one learn skills from a book? Why were these books so popular? What are the characteristic elements of a how-to book?

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Como escrever som / How to write sound

01 Oct

Date: Tuesday 01 October 2024
Time: 10:00 - 10:50
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: 42 Bute Gardens, room 702
Speaker: Rapha Pinheiro

How to write sound in comics? How do different linguistic registers translate into the visual medium when it comes to onomatopoeia? Masterclass, in Portuguese, by award-winning Brazilian comic book artist and author, Rapha Pinheiro.

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Environmental storytelling for comics

01 Oct

Date: Tuesday 01 October 2024
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: Hetherington Building, room 317
Speaker: Rapha Pinheiro

Rapha Pinheiro presents a comic book author's perspective of envirornment(s) as narratological segments.

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The Little World of Stella Benson: fiction in biographical narratives, recreating worlds through literary adaptation

26 Sep

Date: Thursday 26 September 2024
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: TalkLab (University of Glasgow Library, level 3) + Zoom (see below)
Speaker: Nina Six, comic strip artist

Stella Benson, a writer closely associated with Virginia Woolf, fell into obscurity after the war. Benson wrote about the condition of women at the beginning of the 20th century, about war, and about her travels. She was also a great poet and had an infinite love for dogs. The comic strip author Nina Six will discuss the process of reintroducing her writing to a wider audience through the medium of comic books.

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Stirling Maxwell Centre Autumn 2024 Seminar Series

26 Sep

Date: Thursday 26 September 2024 - Thursday 28 November 2024
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Categories: Public lectures
Venue: Various
Speaker: Nina Six; Rapha Pinheiro

The Stirling Maxwell Centre's Autumn 2024 Seminar Series returns with a focus on comic art -- from concept to narrative and the environment. Nina Six discusses fiction in biographical narratives in comic art, and Rapha Pinheiro brings a fresh look into storytelling, comics, and the environment. It is also an opportunity to hear about ongoing research at the Centre -- both from staff and our PhD students.

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