A chance to listen to our own Anne Witchard on BBC Radio 4’s popular history programme Making History in which listener’s questions and research help offer new insights into the past. Anne talks to Tom Holland about how the Victorians disapproved of the ballet, how some artists and poets became infatuated with it, and how London street-dancing may well have influenced the Parisian ‘Can-Can’. First broadcast on June 12 2012. Listen to the podcast here.

It’s with pleasure that we welcome our new Junior Visiting Research Fellow, Yuthika Sharma, who will be hosted by the Institute from 25th June until 25th October 2012. Yuthika is finishing her PhD on the visual culture of Mughal and British Delhi, India between 1750-1857, at the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York. She is co-curator and co-editor, with William Dalrymple, of Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857 Asia Society, New York, February 6 -May 7, 2012 (Yale University Press, 2012). While resident at the Institute, Yuthika is writing about the historical transition from painting into photography in Victorian Delhi, and on contemporary ‘Mughal’ paintings by marginalized artist guilds in present-day north India.

Soho Poly Theatre Festival
40th anniversary celebrations
19-21 June, 2012

A reminder that the Soho Poly Festival opens tonight, with a short talk by Fred Proud (the first ever artistic director of the theatre) then Robert Holman introducing his short play ‘Coal’. A short and sweet evening all round – plus you get to see our amazing reclaimed space!

For details of further events this week, go to: sohopolyfestival.blogspot.com

Saturday 30^th June, 2-4pm
Room 261, 2^nd Floor, Institute of English Studies, Senate House

Alan Moore and the Gothic Tradition

Our own Monica Germanà is one of the speakers at a special Contemporary Fiction Research Seminar to launch the anthology Alan Moore and the Gothic Tradition (Manchester University Press, 2012), edited by Dr. Matthew J.A. Green.  All welcome.  Other speakers include Tony Venezia (Birkbeck) and Maggie Gray (Middlesex)

China in Britain: Myths and Realities
Theatre/Performance and Music

July 18^th 2012, 9:45am – 5:30pm
The Old Cinema, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW

You are warmly invited to the third in this University of Westminster/AHRC funded series. The day will present an eclectic programme with presentations from actors and broadcasters and academics. Dongshin Chang (City University of New York), Diana Yeh (Birkbeck College and University of East London), Simon Sladen (University of Winchester) and Ashley Thorpe (University of Reading) will present research that restores the history of China and Chineseness to the English stage, from Regency Extravaganzas, such as Chinese Sorcerer to chinoiserie theatre in the 1930s and Lady Precious Stream. We will look at subversive pantomime in Thatcher’s Britain, Poppy, and more recently Anna Chen’s Steampunk Opium Wars and Damon Albarn’s opera Monkey: Journey to the West.

The UK’s most high profile British Chinese actor, David Yip, remembered by many for his role as Detective Sergeant John Ho in The Chinese Detective will be talking about his new multimedia show Gold Mountain. There will be performances from comedienne, poet and political pundit, Anna Chen (aka Madame Miaow), actor David Lee-Jones, currently the lead in Richard III – the first British Chinese actor to be cast as one of Shakespeare’s English Kings – and Resonance Radio’s Lucky Cat DJ, Zoe Baxter, playing Korean Punk, Chinese Hip Hop and Reggae, Japanese Ska, Thai Country, and Singapore 60’s pop.

Entrance – including lunch and refreshments – is free of charge so for catering purposes it is essential to book your place by emailing: anne@translatingchina.info