Zoom Lecture Archives - Page 51 of 81 - The Last Tuesday Society

In the Fort Archive: Charles Fort and the Making of the Twentieth Century

Secreted within the New York Public Library’s collections are the Charles Fort archives: literally thousands of small scraps of paper, loosely indexed, each containing small notes written in smudged pencil by the uncategorizable writer, Charles Fort. Crumbling and largely illegible, they nonetheless tell a hidden story of human culture, an alternative picture of how the world works.

Fort’s four books – The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents, published between 1919 and 1932 – arrived at a time when scientific pursuit had been largely institutionalized, removed from amateur naturalists and dilettantes to university labs and government funded research. And while science had once been aligned with religion (for centuries, scientific inquiry had been understood to be a means of better understanding the works of God), by the twentieth century these two realms were firmly opposed to one another.

Fort’s interest in rains of frogs and fish, of ball lightning and inexplicable meteorological phenomenon, or the strange and unsettling, resisted this binary between science and religion; Fort focused intensely on those things which seemed to fall between the cracks, events which had neither easy scientific explanation nor theological import. By focusing on stories that were “damned,” outside of the bounds of science and religion, he set the stage for much of the twentieth century’s obsessions, from cryptids to UFOs, from the Bermuda Triangle to spontaneous human combustion.

Colin Dickey has spent many hours in the Fort Archives of the New York Public Library, and far more hours trying to decipher what Fort wrote on those tiny slips of paper in his illegible pencil scribblings. In this talk he will not only report on the archive and some of the unpublished writings of Fort contained therein, but also situate Fort’s work in the larger context of the twentieth century and its systems of belief.

Colin Dickey is the author of The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained, and Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, among other books. His next book, on secret societies and conspiracy theories, is due out in fall of 2022.

Your host for this event will be the writer Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country. Edward Parnell lives in Norfolk and has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. He is the recipient of an Escalator Award from the National Centre for Writing and a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship. Ghostland (William Collins, 2019), a work of narrative non-fiction, is a moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – as well as the author’s own haunted past; it was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 prize, an award given to a literary autobiography of excellence. Edward’s first novel The Listeners (2014), won the Rethink New Novels Prize. For further info see: https://edwardparnell.com

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Candle Magic as Practical Spellwork – Lucya Starza

Candle Magic as Practical Spellwork – Lucya Starza

Candle magic is a basic and central skill in the repertoire of witches and anyone who practises magic as well as being a part of many folk customs. Who hasn’t made a wish over a birthday cake? Candle spells are among the easiest yet also the most effective to perform. They are perfect for anyone who wants to have a go at casting a spell for the first time and for the solitary witch with a busy life. This talk is aimed at all who want to use candle magic, from beginners to those experienced in the craft. It’s easy to learn, handy, and many people find it a favourite method. Lucya Starza will demonstrate a basic candle spell and you will have a chance to do one yourself using a tealight if you want to. The talk will then explore ways of expanding the art using moon phases, colour, anointing oils, scent and other magical symbolism.

Bio

Lucya Starza is an eclectic witch living in London, England. As well as being a Wiccan and having a long-standing interest in traditional witchcraft, she grew up in a family where folk magic practices were part of everyday life. She writes A Bad Witch’s Blog at www.badwitch.co.uk and is the author of Pagan Portals – Candle Magic as well as other books published by Moon Books on scrying, poppets, and guided visualisations.

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Dion Fortune’s Literary Initiations – Georgia van Raalte

Dion Fortune’s Literary Initiations – Georgia van Raalte

Abstract: This talk will explore the fictional and magical work of Dion Fortune (1890-1946), one of the most prolific British occult authors of the interwar period. In her 1936 article ‘The Novels of Dion Fortune’ Fortune claimed that her occult novels—The Winged Bull (1935), The Goat-Foot God (1936), The Sea Priestess (1938) and Moon Magic (published posthumously in 1956)—had an initiatory quality and that reading them, and meditating on their contents, could produce a lasting change, both in personal consciousness, and in the ‘group soul’ of the British people.

Based on Dr van Raalte’s doctoral research, this talk will explore Fortune’s radical initiatory project in the context of interwar Britain. Highlighting Fortune’s innovative use of literary eroticism, this talk will reveal the ways that Fortune’s occult novels both describe changes in consciousness and have the potential to cause them in the reader, through their skillful weaving of polarity, desire and the imaginal world. This talk will further show the potent influence Fortune’s work has had upon modern occultism, interrogating the connections between fiction-based religion, fantasy, and the rise of witchcraft in the contemporary occultural moment.

Bio:

Georgia van Raalte holds an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in Literature from the University of Surrey. Her PhD research explored the initiatory potential of literature, with a particular focus on the occult novels of Dion Fortune. She has published articles on the divine feminine in 20th century British occultism and on the epistemological foundations of the Study of Esotericism.

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Somerset Folk Tales – Sharon Jacksties

Sharon Jacksties will tell tales from her collection of Somerset Folk Tales published by the History Press

These Somerset tales, newly collected or retold with a strong sense of the land and the waters that shaped them, reflect our enduring interest in the natural landscape. Let these stories from the Summer Lands take you on a journey: across wind-wild moors that plummet to treacherous tides traversed by sea morgans; on a scramble from gorges shaped by the Devil’s spite to caves dwelled in by bitter witches. Discover ancient mines and dragons’ haunts, and emerge into forests and fields to be befriended by bees or bedevilled by fairies; then stroll beside ancient waterways, where willows walk and orchards talk. From Gwyn ap Neath to Joseph of Arimathea, your travelling companions will meet you from legend, history and living memory – from the places where they were once known best. Sharon Jacksties has a sharp eye for the landscape of Somerset and the seen and unseen stories that it holds, a sympathetic ear for the dialect of the South West, and a playful wit that brings this collection of tales to vivid and delightful life.

Bio

Sharon Jacksties www.sharonjackstories.co.uk has been a professional storyteller for over 30 years. She runs storytelling projects with all kinds of groups in Somerset, London and Romania. Sharon was up until recently UK’s ambassador for the Federation of European Storytelling Organisations, until Brexit stopped play. She has won the national Crick Crack Grand Lying competition twice and is also the author of three subsequent folk tales volumes.

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The Hidden History of British Girls’ Horror Comics: Magic, Mystery, Monsters… and Mothers? – Julia Round

The Hidden History of British Girls’ Horror Comics: Magic, Mystery, Monsters… and Mothers?

British girls’ comics dominated children’s entertainment in the last century but have been all but forgotten today. When remembered, they are often characterised as all about horses, ballet and boarding schools. But nothing could be further from the truth! – these comics were not for the fainthearted, and told tales of Nazi soldiers, cursed choirs, deals with the devil, schoolgirl sacrifice, parallel worlds, monsters, possession, criminals and more..

This talk looks closely at two supernatural British girls’ comics: Spellbound (DC Thomson, 1976-77) and Misty (IPC/Fleetway, 1978-80). It reveals the background to the launch of both titles and explores the relationship between them, looking closely at their key characters, most shocking stories, and most dramatic artwork. In honour of Mothering Sunday, it also shows how these comics challenged male authority, particularly through their treatment of parents and depiction of motherhood.

Bio

Julia Round’s research examines the intersections of Gothic, comics and children’s literature. Her books include Gothic in Comics and Graphic Novels (2014), Comics and Graphic Novels (2022), and the award-winning Gothic for Girls: Misty and British Comics (2019). She has published over forty book chapters and articles on aspects of comics and Gothic and is an Associate Professor in English and Comics Studies at Bournemouth University, UK.

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The Concealed Revealed: The Magic of Shoes Rebecca Shawcross

The Concealed Revealed: The Magic of Shoes Rebecca Shawcross

She will explore the fascinating practise of deliberately hiding boots and shoes in buildings for no obvious practical purpose and no obvious intention of retrieval. For many years people have been trying to shed light on why people since the fourteenth century having been hiding shoes and other random objects. Very few sources have been identified which explain why it happened, so there have been many reasons put forward to explain why. Do shoes act as apotropaic devices protecting the house from malevolent spirits, are they good luck charms or simply hidden as objects that speak of sentiment and memory a way of declaring ‘we were here’ to anyone who might come after.

Bio

Rebecca Shawcross has been the Assistant Curator and now the Senior Shoe Curator at Northampton Museums and Art Gallery since 1998. She is responsible for the Designated Shoe Collection, which includes collections management, exhibitions, research and enquiries, talks and advising other museums and the media. She has published various articles including ‘I Stand Corrected? New Perspectives on Orthopaedic Footwear,’ a research paper for the publication Rethinking Disability Representation in Museums & Galleries, and her book Shoes: An Illustrated History was published by Bloomsbury in 2014, with a revised and extended edition coming out in October 2022.

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Beowulf – performed at bedtime by Hugh Lupton

Beowulf is the oldest story in the English language – and it still has the power to raise the hairs on the back of the neck.
It tells of a hero’s life, a life mapped by three blood-curdling encounters.
As a young man Beowulf fights the monster Grendel and his even more terrifying Mother (the original creatures from the Black Lagoon).
Then, at the end of his life, he tries his strength against a gold-guarding Fire-Drake. The story explores the journey we all make from the seeming invincibility of youth to the heroic vulnerability of old age.

Bio

Hugh Lupton has been a professional storyteller since 1981. He tells stories from all over the world, but his particular passion is for the hidden layers of the British landscape and the stories and ballads that give voice to them. He is also a lyricist and a novelist and has published many collections of traditional tales. His novel ‘The Assembly of the Severed Head’ explores the moment the Mabinogion moved from being part of a fluid oral culture to becoming a written text.
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The Exeter Book Riddles – Dr Jennifer Neville

‘Truth is Trickiest’: The Exeter Book Riddles

Although less famous than Beowulf, the Exeter Book Riddles are among the most popular of Old English poems, delighting their audiences with their insights into material culture, their cleverness, and, occasionally, their suggestive humour. Modern audiences, however, tend to underestimate import of these texts, in part because they are always presented to us with solutions. The reality is that these texts come to us in the manuscript without solutions, and that makes them something a bit different from the joke-texts that we tend to get from the riddle-genre today. This talk will introduce the manuscript context of the Exeter riddle collection and then explore a series of sample texts, with the aim of showing not only why these riddles remain so tantalisingly delightful, but also why they offer much more than a challenge to guess a solution.

Bio

Dr Jennifer Neville is a Reader in Early Medieval English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London, and author of Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry (Cambridge, 1999). She specialises in Old English poetry, especially the collection of (almost) one hundred riddles that are collected toward the end of the tenth-century manuscript, the Exeter Book, but recently she has also been working closely with Dr Megan Cavell (University of Birmingham) on Anglo-Latin riddles.

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The Artist as Medium – Jacqui McIntosh

The Artist as Medium – Jacqui McIntosh

Jacqui McIntosh looks back at the exhibition Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist as Medium which explored the changing terms of artistic engagement with mediumship – from spiritual inspiration and creation during séances and trances, to practices of automatism, channelling, and paranormal investigation. In this illustrated talk she will examine key works by artists such as Yves Tanguy, Ithell Colquhoun, Austin Osman Spare & Ann Churchill amongst others (shown at Drawing Room, London, Sept 2020), and the intriguing encounters that connect them.

Not Without My Ghosts was a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition, developed in partnership with Drawing Room, London, and curated by Lars Bang Larsen, Simon Grant and Marco Pasi travelling to Drawing Room, London (Sept-Nov 2020), Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (Oct-Dec 2021), Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (Jan-March 2022) and Millennium Gallery, Sheffield (March –June 2022).

Bio

Jacqui McIntosh is a writer, researcher and curator based in London. She is Exhibitions Manager at Drawing Room where she contributes to the understanding of the medium of drawing through research, curation of exhibitions, writing, exhibitions management and programming of events. She has curated independently and in her current role and has a particular interest in artists whose spiritual development has evolved in tandem with their artistic output. She is currently researching the drawings and works on paper of Ithell Colquhoun and is part of the British Art Network’s 2022 Emerging Curator’s Group. She has written extensively since 2003 and is a member of AICA. Her writing has appeared in newspapers, art publications and catalogue essays for galleries and artists. Jacqui also has her own artistic practice, working predominately in drawing, print and collage.

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Greek & Roman Sex – Professor Marguerite Johnson

Greek & Roman Sex – Professor Marguerite Johnson

This illustrated talk provides detailed information on the fascinating and multi-faceted theme of ancient sexuality. Based on archaeological evidence and original translated passages from Greek and Latin sources, ranging from the era of Homer and Hesiod through to the Graeco-Roman world of the Fourth Century CE, we explore the diversity of approaches to sexuality and sexual expression, as well as how these issues relate to the rest of ancient society and culture.

Based on her book Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature, which is an invaluable resource to students and academics alike, with chapters on all major facets of sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome, the talk will particularly appeal to those interested in sexuality and gender in antiquity, as well as ancient literature.

Bio:

Marguerite Johnson is Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research expertise is predominantly in ancient Mediterranean cultural studies, particularly in representations of gender, sexualities, and the body. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, and ancient magic. Marguerite has published on magic, particularly the portrayal of witches, in Greek and Latin literature and was dramaturg on professional productions of Theocritus’ Idyll 2 (‘The Sorceress’) in 2019 and Euripides’ Medea in 2021. She also researches and publishes on the Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton, with whom she has held a fascination since childhood. Marguerite delivers one of the few undergraduate courses on ancient occultism (AHIS2370: Magic and Witchcraft in Greece and Rome) and supervises several PhD students working on aspects of historical and literary magic.

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