Publishing News
His Dark Materials mania!
Thousands of excited young girls and their families queued for hours on a cold and blustery April day in Oxford. Why? They were all hoping for the chance to audition for the part of Lyra in the His Dark Materials film trilogy. The books on which the films are based – Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass – were written by local author and Oxford Brookes honorary graduate Philip Pullman, and have been an international publishing phenomenon. They are now being filmed by New Line, who made The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the first film is scheduled for release at the end of 2007.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 20 Apr 2006 around 8am
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Publishing Students win Dissertation Prizes
Isabel Essery has won the Sue Thomson prize this year for the work on South African publishing. Her dissertation The Impact of Politics on Indigenous Independent Publishers from 1970-2004 Illustrated by a Case Study of David Philip Publishers, has won her £250 and two days training here at Oxford Brookes.
Sara Montgomery was given a “highly commended” for here dissertation: Queer Today, Gone Tomorrow? What will be the fate of gay and lesbian publishing in the UK in the face of increased competition from mainstream publishers?.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07 Apr 2006 around 1pm
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March grant successes
As part of their work on Belgian modernity Dr Nathalie Aubert and Dr Pierre-Philippe Fraiture (Modern Languages – French) have just been awarded a £2000 grant from the British Academy to support their forthcoming international conference to be held at the Maison Française in November 2006: “From Art Nouveau to Surrealism: Belgian Modernity in the Making”.
The Cultural Service of the French Embassy has awarded Professors Mark Bannister and Valerie Worth a grant of £1000 towards the travel costs of French contributors to the CESAR conference, to be held in Oxford 21-23 June 2006. For more information about CESAR (Calendrier Électronique des Spectacles sous l’Ancien Régime et sous la Révolution), go to http://www.cesar.org.uk/cesar2/. An application made to the British Academy by Valerie Worth for £2000 to support the same conference has also been successful!
Dr Angela McShane-Jones (History Department) has been awarded £240 by the Printing Historical Society towards costs involved in researching her book on ‘The Political World of the Broadside Ballad 1640 – 1695’ at the Huntington library in California, USA.
Dr Dominic Rahtz (Art Department) was awarded just over £500 by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for his research on ‘T. E. Hulme’s Anti-Humanist Theory of Art’.
Hilary Rollin (Modern Languages – Spanish) has been awarded a British Academy Overseas Conference Grant of £800 to allow her to attend a conference entitled "Bridging Cultures, Reaching Heights" in New Zealand (July 2006), where she will speak on ‘Moving towards Intercultural Competence: the experience and perceptions of students and colleagues’.
Dr Alexandra Wilson (Music) has been awarded £500 from the MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) Publications Fund towards the costs of illustrations for her forthcoming monograph, The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity, which is due to be published by Cambridge University Press next summer.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05 Apr 2006 around 11am
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Oxford Brookes representation at the annual conference of the Society for Film and Media Studies
In March 2006, Dr Daniela Berghahn (Film Studies and German Studies) convened a Panel entitled The Third Golden Age of German Cinema at the annual conference of the Society for Film and Media Studies, Vancouver, Canada. The conference panel examined the renaissance which German cinema has experienced over the past fifteen years, in terms of new creative impulses and international recognition. Panelists were Professor Sabine Hake (Texas Chair of German, University of Texas, Austin), Professor Randall Halle (University of Rochester), Professor John E. Davidson (Ohio State University) and Daniela Berghahn, whose paper focused on contemporary German-Turkish Cinema and was entitled No place like home? Or impossible homecomings in the films of Fatih Akin’. (Daniela Berghahn gratefully acknowledges the support of the British Academy which awarded her an Overseas Conference Grant.)
Following the SCMS conference, Dr Berghahn was invited to give a guest lecture at the University of Rochester.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04 Apr 2006 around 11am
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Appointments to the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College
Professors Lis Jay, Steven Matthews and Rob Pope (all of the Department of English) and Valerie Worth (Modern Languages – French) have been appointed to the AHRC's Peer Review College, established in 2004. The College consists of more than 500 academics whose role is to support the 15 peer review panels in making assessments. Each member assesses applications in their own area of expertise and these inform the decisions of the peer review panels.
Professor Mary Chamberlain (Department of History) currently serves on the Postgraduate Peer Review Panel for Medieval and Modern History.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04 Apr 2006 around 6am
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Publishing Visit to Bologna Children’s Book Fair
Blazing spring sunshine greeted staff and students from the Publishing Department to the Bologna Children's Book Fair. From 27-30 March 2006 Claire Squires and nine MA students visited Bologna, which plays annual host to the biggest book fair dealing with children's publishing and the multimedia industry. As well as gathering information for project work and prospecting for jobs, students had the opportunity to meet with a number of key personnel in the children's book world, including literary agent Catherine Clarke, film scout Fiona Kenshole, publisher Robert Seath of Lion Hudson books, and children's literature editor at the Guardian, Julia Eccleshare.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 30 Mar 2006 around 7pm
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Publishing visits Leipzig Book Fair
Between 17th and 21st March 2006, staff and students from the publishing department visited Leipzig. Staff (Angus Phillips, Steve Ball, Jane Potter and Kelvin Smith) were there for the development of the European Master in Publishing with our partners at HTWK Leipzig, Paris and Ljubljana, and Kelvin Smith was interviewed at the Leipzig Book Fair about the European Master as part of a student-led publicity project.
Also visiting the fair were a group of our undergraduate students, who spent three days with their counterparts at the HTWK. Marie Lomax and Lucie Barnes, two of the group who had played a key role in the recent visit of Paris students to Oxford, were this time on the receiving end of some "wonderful hospitality". They were able to make comparisons between the two courses, and Lucie found the students' attitude to the publishing industry "inspirationally professional and committed". We all hope that such visits can be repeated in the future.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 29 Mar 2006 around 2pm
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Working in Publishing Day
This year's Working in Publishing Day, hosted by the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, was a great success. Publishers and recruitment consultants representing over 20 companies joined with alumni to share with current MA and undergraduate students their 'top tips' for how to find jobs in the industry. The highlight of the day took place in the Sports Hall, where in 'speed-dating' meetings with publishers, students were able to ask questions and learn more about individual companies, including Blackwell's, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Oxford University Press.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 29 Mar 2006 around 12pm
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Chinese publishers visit Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies
On Friday 10 March a delegation of publishers from China visited Oxford and met with Angus Phillips and Adrian Bullock. The 45 delegates had been attending the London Book Fair earlier in the week, and came to Oxford for a briefing on UK publishing. Angus Phillips outlined the present issues facing UK publishing, and Adrian Bullock presented the results of his research into the attitudes of UK publishers to trading with China. The delegation included representatives of 20 publishers, including Science Press, China Travel and Tourism Press, Shandong Publishing Group, Jiangsu General Publishing House, and the Commercial Press.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 17 Mar 2006 around 12pm
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Print on Demand
David Taylor from Lightning Source Ltd. gave a very illuminating talk on 'Print-on-Demand' (POD) to Postgraduate students on the Publishing programme.Lightning Source has become one of the largest organisations world-wide to provide 'print-on-demand' services. With plants in the UK (Milton Keynes) and the USA (Nashville), Lightning Source are able to print single copies of books, using a file provided by the publisher.
David explained to us that POD is introducing all sorts of opportunities for new business models, including small scale publishers with 2 or less titles, self-publishing, and removal of the need for warehousing of books.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 13 Mar 2006 around 3pm
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