Zlatina Nikolova's Report
A year ago I applied for the Royal Holloway Travel Award after having a paper proposal accepted to the annual Australasian Modernist Studies Network conference.
The network's mission is to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas between Australasian academics and international scholars. It supports the engagement with ideas and topics on culture and modernity, 20th century avant-garde art and visual culture, literary and film studies, transnational modernisms, digital and new media studies, and modernism's legacy in contemporary culture. Entitled 'Modernist Work', this year's conference was an international and inter-disciplinary event, exploring interpretations of the notion of labour in the context of modernist studies. Taking place at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, it attracted scholars from not only Australian universities, but also from Great Britain, Europe and Asia. Panel presentations included literature, the arts, philosophy, music and visual culture, as well as contemporary takes on modernist contexts.
With the Royal Holloway Travel Award I was able to travel to Sydney, Australia, and attend and present my paper at the conference at the University of New South Wales in March, 2016.
The conference theme was closely related to my current research project, which focuses on the early prose and film writing of the English modernist writer Bryher and her reflections on a number of artistic, social and political topics. Drawing on her work from the early 1920s, my thesis reflects on Bryher's understanding of film, which she recorded in her film essays published in the film theory journal Close Up (1927-1933). I take this further by connecting this interest in film to the predominant themes she explored in her early autobiographical prose, focusing on her three early novels Development (1920), Two Selves (1923) and West (1925). Examining themes such as the representation of women in early 20th century society, the topics of education and censorship, and the influence of cinema aesthetics over her own prose and the imagery it evokes.
The paper which I proposed to this conference dealt specifically with the labour of women and the employment opportunities available to them during the Great War as represented in Bryher's novel Two Selves (1923). Under the title "Development according to Bryher: Social Commentary on Working Women in the Age of Modernism in Two Selves", my presentation contrasted the society's perceptions of womanhood before and after the war. Touching on the freedom for education and travel, previously denied to women, Bryher intertwines these concepts with women's employment. In her text she demonstrates that despite they have access to more aspects of life, women still faces restrictions in their personal development. This is often the case when these new-found opportunities for travel, education and work are only available to certain levels of society and not to all women.
Attending this international conference was valuable experience for me as at the time I was in my second year of my PhD studies. First and foremost, it was an opportunity to present my research to a broad international audience and listen to their feedback, which now I can incorporate in the future development of my doctoral thesis. Since attending and presenting at conference is a part of an academic's work this was also a training exercise for performances at future conferences, which is of high importance to a young scholar. Attending the conference and listening to other academics' presentations also gave me an overview of the course modernist studies are currently taking and the most relevant topics in this field of work. This was also an opportunity to think of ways I can develop my own topic and make it applicable to different fields of study. Engaging with world-calibre scholars was also a chance to develop connections to academics and departments not only in Australia and the UK but also across other European countries.