Description
AWW-STRUCK December Reading Group:Following the success of our AWW-STRUCK seminar, linked exhibition curated by Astra Papachristodoulou on Poem Atlas and publication in May, we’re thrilled to bring you an online reading group event with special guest (and AWW-STRUCK contributor) Dr Joshua Paul Dale on 8 December, 5-7pm GMT.
Joshua has curated a selection of 5 short videos, including Rachel Maclean’s ‘Dr. Cute’, all of which will be shared with attendees ahead of the event and which we will use to prompt conversation on creative and critical approaches to cuteness.
To attend, please sign up on Eventbrite. We look forward to seeing you.
As a taster, you might like to watch this excerpt from ‘Dr. Cute’.
Possible areas for discussion/conversation points include:
- Relationships between kawaii and cuteness
- Cuteness and commodification, technology, empathy
- Cuteness and transgression
- The various aesthetics of cuteness involving, for example, excess versus simplicity
‘Dr. Cute’s’ assertion that the urge towards cuteness stems from the insecurities and overloads of our current times
Whether you’re a cute studies specialist, or completely new to the subject, please come along with questions and/or areas of interest you’d like to explore.
Reading group facilitators:
Dr Joshua Paul Dale is a professor at Tokyo Gakugei University specialising in Cute Studies. In 2020 he was awarded a four-year JSPS grant to study the Japanese kawaii and American cute aesthetics (kakenhi #JP20K00145). His website is at: www.cutestudies.org.
Dr Isabel Galleymore is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Birmingham. Her first poetry collection is Significant Other. She is currently working on a project involving cuteness, ecopoetry and environmental culture.
Caroline Harris is a writer and publisher, and a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London, where her focus is on the poetics of deer, in particular in relation to cute studies and ecological philosophy. She presented the bookwork Cut-out Bambi at the autumn 2021 British Animal Studies Network meeting.
| Period | 8 Dec 2021 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Seminar |
| Degree of Recognition | International |