English, Drama and Creative Writing Taster Day
Made for Year 12 A-Level Students & Teachers (Suitable for Years 10-13)
Are you thinking of studying English, Creative Writing and/or Drama at university?
Interested in London’s vibrant performance culture and literature?
Then this in-person taster day in the School of English and Drama, QMUL, is for you. You’ll hear some lightning talks live in our brand-new lecture theatre and cinema, BLOC, and have a chance to chat to staff and current students about studying English, Creative Writing, and Drama at degree level. You’ll get insights into how London has been imagined by writers and artists as a meeting place of global histories and cultures. You'll also get a chance to think about London as a theatrical city by exploring where live performance takes place, who it is for and how it gets made. Finally, you will get to hear about how contemporary creative writers respond to the city.
In addition, there will be a showcase of current student work and a Q&A where you can ask about their experiences studying at Queen Mary.
Our speakers are:
This event will be held on campus in BLOC, Arts 1, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End E1 4NS.
Nearest tube: Mile End (Central Line).
Arrival from 1pm, with talks to begin at 2pm. The day will conclude by 5pm. Refreshments will be provided.
Made for Year 12 A-Level Students & Teachers (Suitable for year 10-13)
Interested in climate justice?
Then this in-person taster day in the School of English and Drama, QMUL, is for you. You’ll hear some lightning talks live in our lecture theatre and have a chance to chat to staff and current students about studying English, Creative Writing, and Drama at degree level. You’ll get some insights into key Victorian landscape writer Thomas Hardy, hear a successful writer discuss nature writing, and explore pioneering research on the relationship between literature and the environment in present-day Britain and South Africa. We’ll talk with a QMUL Drama graduate using immersive theatre to explore how humans interact with the world around us. Think in new ways about our planet and its peoples at this QMUL study day.
See our previous events here:
Book now
Wednesday 29 March 2023
For Year 12/13 A-Level Students & Teachers
Online via Zoom | 14:00-1600 | Free
We will be exploring how the arts and sciences collide looking at:
Monday 12 December 2022
For Year 12/13 A-Level Students
Love is at the heart of literature and drama. This TED talk style event will help A-level students understand the importance of love in poems, plays, and prose from Shakespeare’s day to our own time. Based on Love Through the Ages, a unit within AQA’s A-level syllabus, these short talks will also include helpful resources for all year 12 students studying English and/or Drama. We are a Russell Group university who aims to be the most inclusive of our kind. We aim to support you with your A-level studies and help you succeed in English and Drama.
Queen Mary’s School of English and Drama is a dynamic and inclusive learning environment, led by globally-recognised academics, writers, and practitioners who combine cutting-edge research and teaching with a commitment to community and social change. By challenging norms, championing marginalised voices, and exposing our students to a breadth of material, we improve lives and foster understanding of complex issues.
You can expect:
Schedule
Wednesday 20 July 2022 – 2-4.15pm - Online via Zoom
A study day to help bring in ideas around race and racism as tools to engage with the world through English literature, drama and creative writing.
In person | Scape 0.14 - QMUL Mile End | 2-5pm
A study day to help bring in queer + trans ideas as tools to discover English literature, drama and creative writing in fresh ways. Please register every individual attendee through this form or email us sed-web@qmul.ac.uk for group bookings.
· 2pm Introduction to the terms queer + trans – Rupert
· 2.05pm Sebastian Mylly on trans in academia and experiences as a student.
· 2.15-2.45pm English Session – 30 minutes - Professor Susan Rudy on Queer Poetry.
· 2.45-3.15pm Drama Session – 30 minutes with Professor Dominic Johnson – Head of Drama and writer of Theatre & the Visual.
· 3.15-3.45pm Creative Writing Session – 30 minutes - with Charlotte Byrne writer of fantasy novel Folked Up.
· 3.45-4.00pm - Break
· 4.00-4.30pm Skills Session – Books & Beyond - 30 minutes with Rupert Dannreuther
· 4.30-5pm Careers Session (Recorded) – Inclusive Careers You Can Do After Studying English and Drama – 30 minutes - with Careers consultant Charlotte Brown
Wednesday 8 December 2021 – 2-5pm - Zoom
Please note for safety this event is now online
An A-level/BTEC study day for year 12s to help bring in feminism as a tool to discover English literature, drama and creative writing in fresh ways.
2. 1415-14:45: English Session: Dark humour, feminist laughter and the grotesque – 30 minutes
Feminism is a serious subject, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be funny. In this session we will discuss the relationship between dark humour and feminism, with a particular focus on Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber.
3. 14:45-15:15: Drama Session: Figs in Wigs: Feminist theatre blah blah blah! – 30 minutes
After graduating from the QMUL Drama degree, the five members of Figs in Wigs continued to make shows together. In this session we will find out about Little Wimmin, their new feminist adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women (1868), recently staged at the Battersea Arts Centre.
4. 15:15-15:45: Creative Writing Taster Session: Hearing Our Many Voices – 30 minutes
In this session, we will listen to a selection of contemporary poets who draw attention to marginalised voices in their work, especially around gender, sexuality, and feminist issues. We will discuss their work, and then try writing our own politically conscious, multivocal texts.
Break 15 minutes
5. 16:00-16:30: Skills Session – How to write an essay – 30 minutes
This session will focus on improving your writing for exams, coursework and your career.
6. 16:30-17:00: Careers Session – What can you do with English and Drama in future - 30 minutes
This session will offer you valuable career tips and an introduction into the world of careers available to those interested in English and Drama.
Independent Performance Making with Lois Weaver
Drama
Theatre and the Supernatural with Professor Nicholas Ridout
English
Contemporary Middle Eastern Writing
Drama / Creative Writing
1 December and 8 December 2020
5-7pm - London Time
Everyone welcome – safe space with moderators
Free online via Microsoft Teams
Limited capacity - 10 spaces for each workshop
In his play The Colored Museum, George C. Wolfe used satire to explore how African American lives were shaped by the legacy of slavery. The uncomfortable, absurdist humour of the play allows Wolfe to write, and rewrite the dynamics of race in 1980s America.
How does race become visible in our lives today?
How can we reposition The Colored Museum into a British context?
The global BLM movement in 2020, is not something that started this summer, it’s our daily lives. How can we use this new visibility to explore who we are and how our history impacts our identity? How can we explore through writing and performing?
In this university Drama workshop, artist-performer Vanessa Macaulay will share her practices.
You will:
Biography
Vanessa Damilola Macaulay is a performance practitioner and a PhD student and Teaching Associate in the Department of Drama at Queen Mary University of London. Her practice is interdisciplinary often using spoken word, movement, and video to challenge the imbalances of intersectional identities, speaking to contemporary struggles and anxieties about navigating the world in a specific body. Her performances have been programmed in places such as Talawa Firsts festival, The Yard Theatre, Derby Theatre and Camden People’s Theatre.
Wednesday 9 December 2020
4-5pm - London Time
Free online via Zoom Webinar
Monday 23 November 2020
5-6.30pm - London Time
Book free tickets
This session aims to join up the dots in thinking for young people studying A-level English about the representation of authors of colour. Wasafiri magazine has 35 years of championing authors like Bernadine Evaristo (Booker 2019 Winner).
Join Wasafiri founder Professor Susheila Nasta MBE who will be in conversation with Angelique Golding (PhD Student - Wasafiri: The history of a little magazine) discussing issues around:
Free
“A half civilised ferocity” is how Emily Bronte’s narrator describes Heathcliff. Such racialized descriptions – subtle and explicit – are common across many A-level texts, including Shakespeare. Yet school curriculums rarely equip you to discuss, analyse and challenge them.
This event, for Year 12 students interested in studying English, Drama and Creative Writing, will introduce you to postcolonial analysis. You will leave with the tools to begin unpicking the colonial attitudes enforced by your A-level curriculum, giving you a taste of what it is like to study English, Drama and Creative Writing at Queen Mary.
The event will also consider what it can mean to make the curriculum more inclusive taking examples from The Globe theatre. We will also explore how contemporary spoken word poetry is used to explore and challenge portrayals of race in the school curriculum.
You do not need to be studying Wuthering Heights to access the ideas put forward in this event. It is suitable for any student of A-level English or Drama.
Thursday 27 June 2019, 2-4pm
ArtsTwo Lecture Theatre, Queen Mary University of London - Mile End
Is your English teacher always telling you to refer to literary and historical context but you’re unsure what this looks like in practice?
Have you heard that there are theoretical and philosophical approaches to texts but aren’t confident using them yourself?
Do you wish you knew about the Gothic genre and how this could link to more contemporary genres, such as Science Fiction?
Three outstanding academics, from Queen Mary’s School of English and Drama, are here to help.
An expert in the body and technology in contemporary culture, Zara Dinnen, a specialist in the Gothic across the nineteenth century, Sam Halliday and an expert in Romanticism with interests in theory and philosophy Shahidha Bari will be unpicking issues around context, theory, genre and Frankenstein. They will share their expertise on context, theory and genre, to unpack how the text could have been received then and how readers receive it now. They will discuss different frameworks that can be used to interpret this seminal text, and demonstrate to you what it looks like to apply those frameworks in practice.
You will leave this event with a better sense of how to use literary and historical context to develop your analysis of this text; and you will leave knowing what it would be like to study English at Queen Mary, where diversity of ideas is at the heart of what we do.
It promises to be the type of lively and engaging discussion our School of English and Drama is known for!
Thursday 27 June 2019, 4-6pm
ArtsOne, Queen Mary University of London - Mile End
Join Conrad Murrary for an introduction to using beatbox as a performance form to adapt texts. Using Battersea Arts Centre Beatbox Academy's critically acclaimed production of Frankenstein (How to make a monster) as a stimulus for the workshop.
Friday 21-Saturday 22 June 2019, 10am-4pm
We offer a wide range of free taster sessions including English seminars, lectures and Drama workshops. Sign up with an interest in our subjects and we will send details of the programme nearer the time.
Monday 29 April 2019
10am-1pm
Wednesday 20 February 2019
10:00-16:00, QMUL – Mile End, FreeGroup sessions with top academics from Queen Mary will look at key A-level English and Drama texts and concepts to help with your revision.
