Dr Karl Bell, Reader in Cultural and Social History, discusses the launch of this year’s Portsmouth DarkFest. Karl researches ‘everything spooky’, and his second book was on the Victorian legend of Spring-Heeled Jack. He’s now working on a book on proto-science fiction ideas in British culture between c.1750-1900.
This weekend sees the return of Portsmouth DarkFest, an annual creative and cultural festival that explores the supernatural, the spooky and urban noir.
Now in its third year, the festival originally grew from my historical research into nineteenth-century ghost stories in Portsmouth. I was particularly interested in the power of folkloric stories and the way haunted locations can change our understanding of both the local environment and local histories. This led me to the Portsmouth Writers Hub and my challenging them to create a new body of folklore for the city; ghost and horror stories set in modern Portsmouth. The best were gathered together in an anthology entitled Dark City: Portsmouth Tales of Horror and Haunting. The first DarkFest festival grew from the launch of that book.
Since then I have led a collaboration between an ever-growing number of local artists and University of Portsmouth academics, creating a rich and varied programme of public events for the Halloween season. Over the years the festival has developed into an annual celebration of creative cultures in Portsmouth. Drawing upon shared themes taken from my Supernatural Cities research project (ghost stories, urban legends, crime, horror and dark histories), events now include contributions from a diverse range of multimedia artists, writers, musicians, performers and academics. The festival also involves working with a range of local businesses and cultural organisations, including Aspex Gallery, Southsea Castle, the Kings Theatre and Groundlings Theatre, and some great local coffee shops such as Hunter Gatherer.
This year’s programme will include creative writing and art workshops, public talks on subjects ranging from horror cinema to Spiritualism, theatrical plays and immersive zombie experiences, live music and storytelling, and open mic poetry performances. There is also a call for artists (of all types) to get involved in a future collaboration called Dark Side, Port Side.
Following the popularity of last year’s promotional videos on the festival’s Facebook page, this summer we ran a public workshop to create new videos for DarkFest 2018. (For more details see Eilis Phillips’ report). Everyone had lots of fun creating stories and videos from scratch, most of which feature DarkFest’s mysterious plague doctor character. These videos are now being rolled out as part of the festival promotion and the first can be seen here.
Both the Supernatural Cities research project and Portsmouth DarkFest seek to develop and explore the interconnections between academic and creative practices, and to encourage collaborations between the university, the city’s cultural organisations, and its local creatives. In coming together, we aim to enrich the local community and to enhance the city’s cultural self-esteem.
Portsmouth Darkfest provides an exciting opportunity for students to explore their creative sides. If you are a creative writer, filmmaker, musician, poet or performer, we can introduce you to the many like-minded creatives in the city, and perhaps even provide a way of showcasing your talents at a future DarkFest event. If interested, please feel free to contact me at karl.bell@port.ac.uk
This year DarkFest runs from 19th October – 11th November. All events are open to the public and many are free. For the full DarkFest 2018 programme click here. For regular updates on events you can follow the Supernatural Cities project on Twitter @imaginetheurban
Daniel Millard, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog on the toy mascots carried by Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown on the first Transatlantic flight for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit. Daniel discusses the ways in which we can use these items of material culture to ask better questions of the past. The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.
Next year will see the centenary of the world’s first Transatlantic flight. For the historian this offers an exciting opportunity to re-acquaint with two notable aviators from the twentieth-century. I refer, of course, not to Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, but to the two cats that accompanied them on their sixteen-hour journey from Newfoundland to Ireland.
Twinkle toe mascot
‘Twinkletoe’ and ‘Lucky Jim’ were toy mascots presented to the airmen by their loved ones to keep them safe on their record-breaking trip alongside bunches of white heather “carried as evidence of our friend’s best wishes”. [1] This was a time when air crews – fresh from the First World War – had “an atavistic faith in magical powers” with superstitious belief manifesting itself in the carriage of amulets and charms in a cornucopia of size and form. [2] Brown himself later acknowledged his own delight in espying “ a large black cat […] saunter[ing] by the transatlantic machine as we stood by it early in the morning” for “such a cheerful omen made me more than ever anxious to start”. [3]
Five months – to the day – after Alcock and Brown’s biplane took to the skies, a lecture exploring the collection and use of lucky charms was held at the Royal Society of Arts in London at which Arthur Rackham, the then president of The London Society, kicked off proceedings with the words “It is a very general habit to regard folklore as […] something which concerns the historian”. [4] It is a subject field that retains our attention to this day for the material culture of ‘superstition’ – like that of other subject areas – offers the potential of “a more wide-ranging, more representative source of information than words” alone. [5] Tim Dant agrees, believing material culture “provides evidence of the distinctive form of a society […] because it is an integral part of what that society is; just as the individual cannot be understood independently of society, so society cannot be grasped independently of its material stuff”. [6]
Lucky Jim mascot
In a discussion in The American Historical Review , Leora Auslander, Amy Bentley, Leor Halevi, H. Otto Sibum, and Christopher Witmore declared that “for most historians material culture means stuff found in a museum,” and it is within this very institution that Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe reside – the former in the Air and Space Hall of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, and the latter at the RAF Museum, Cosford. [7] Richard Grassby believes the relationship between museum-object and historian remained strained for such a long time because, until recently, curators “sought the unique, significant and noble to the neglect of the ordinary and utilitarian”. [8] Of course, few people can deny that Twinkletoe and Lucky Jim were added to the nation’s collections because of their “iconic or associational value”. [9] In addition, their confinement behind glass also raises important questions around Sibum’s belief that in order to make sense of an artefact it makes a difference as to whether you physically touch it. [10] There are, then, other challenges the mascots pose. For example, three-dimensional objects “are multifarious entities whose nature and heuristic value is often determined by the diverse range of narratives that historians bring with them”. [11] We therefore find many researchers devising “their own models to engage with and analyse the different types of material evidence”. [12] These range from Jules David Prown’s straightforward three-tiered approach involving description, deduction and speculation to Beverly Gordon’s use of proxemics to “illuminate women’s relationships to things such as quilts”. [13]
So, how should we go about beginning to unlock the mascots’ evidence? For Adrienne Hood the starting point is to “uncover [their] collecting […] history” by researching textual and photographic documents found within the Museum’s registration files. [14] Whilst that, in itself, sounds easy to accomplish paper evidence can, in reality, often disappoint. Documented information frequently reveals little more than from where the items were sourced at time of donation, whereas historians “place great significance on the way objects were acquired – through scavenging […] hunting […] means of trade […] gift giving […] conquest or piracy” at every stage of an object’s existence. [15] Whilst we are told from contemporary newspaper accounts that Alcock gave his cat mascot as a souvenir to the welcoming party on arrival in Ireland, Lucky Jim’s registry file does not contain any detailed information as to what happened to the toy in the years between 1919 and its acquisition by the Museum of Science and Industry some seventy-two years later. [16]
For any object the need “to locate, and correctly interpret, the ‘culture’ in material culture is important”. [17] For Nicole Boivin “the consideration of emotion is often crucial to understanding the role that objects […] can have in human affairs and particularly in processes of memory, identity and personhood”. [18] That “people invest things with elaborate meanings” is clear, but from looking at the mascots can we truly get closer to understanding what was going through Alcock and Brown’s minds as they placed the cats within the aircraft or the sentiment that went into their production and presentation by their relatives? [19] It is an enquiry Leor Halevi is fully justified in raising when he states: “I do agree that emotions can be expressed through objects in unique ways that cannot be captured by language, but the question then arises, how can we access those emotions and sense experiences as historians?” [20] For Riello the answer is simple for objects, like Lucky Jim and Twinkletoe, “should not be used as an aid for providing enhanced answers”, but for helping historians “ask […] better questions”. [21] This is a viewpoint that is shared by Adrienne Hood, who believes that “a systematic and detailed consideration of the chosen ‘thing’ leads to a series of questions that would not arise in any other way”. [22]
As Alcock and Brown embarked upon their pioneering voyage Brown reported that Lucky Jim wore “a hopeful expression […] whereas Twinkletoe […] expressed surprise and anxiety”. [23] These are emotions that mirror those of historians as, from the 1970s onwards, they began to emerge from “two centuries [of] little or no engagement with objects”. [24] Whilst the mascots’ validity in helping tell the story of the world’s first Transatlantic flight “is no longer suspect, how to unlock [their] secrets in a meaningful way remains challenging”. [25] Therefore, we must echo Alcock and Brown’s own reaction in readying themselves for the journey: “we hoped for and expected the best, but it was as well to be prepared for the worst”. [26]
Notes
[1] Arthur Whitten Brown and Alan Bott, Flying the Atlantic in Sixteen Hours: With a Discussion of Aircraft in Commerce and Transportation, (New York: Frederick A Stokes Company, 1920), 32.
[2] Bill Wallrich, “Superstition and the Air Force”, Western Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Jan., 1960): 11.
[5] Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method”, Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 17, No.1, (Spring 1982): 3.
[6] Tim Dant, Material Culture in the Social World: Values, Activities, Lifestyles, (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999), 2.
[7] Leora Auslander, Amy Bentley, Leor Halevi, H. Otto Sibum, and Christopher Witmore, “AHR conversation: Historians and the Study of Material Culture”, American Historical Review 114, No. 5 (2009): 1365.
[8] Richard Grassby, “Material Culture and Cultural History”, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Spring, 2005): 598.
[9] Prown, ‘Mind in Matter’, 4.
[10] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1384.
[11] Giorgio Riello, “Things that Shape History:Material Culture and Historical Narratives”, in History and Material Culture: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Source edited by Karen Harvey 24-46, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 30.
[12] Adrienne D Hood, “Material Culture: The Object”, in History Beyond the Text: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources edited by Sarah Barber and Corinna M Peniston-Bird, 176-198. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 180.
[13] Prown, ‘Mind in Matter’, 7; Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 180.
[14] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 182.
[15] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1366.
[16] The Lancashire Daily Post, “Atlantic Crossed”, June 16 1919, 5; Museum of Science and Industry registered file, (Ref: Y1991.437.5).
[17] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1367.
[18] Nicole Boivin, Material Cultures, Material Minds: The Impact of Things on Human Thought, Society, and Evolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 112.
[19] Ludmilla J Jordonova, The Look of the Past: Visual and Material Evidence in Historical Practice, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 5.
[20] Auslander et al., ‘AHR Conversation’, 1364.
[21] Riello, ‘Things that Shape History’, 30.
[22] Hood, ‘Material Culture’, 178.
[23] Brown and Bott, Flying the Atlantic, 32.
[24] Alan Mayne, “Material Culture”, in Research Methods for History, Second Edition edited by Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire, 49-67, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 49; Riello, ‘Things that Shape History’, 25.
Dr Karl Bell, Reader in Cultural and Social History at Portsmouth, has organised another series of events this autumn as part of Portsmouth Darkfest, a creative and cultural festival that explores all things dark, supernatural and sinister. For details of the wide range of exciting events taking place, click here. Karl’s research interests cover nineteenth-century British society’s continued fascination with supernatural beliefs, magic and folklore, and feeds into his final year Special Subject, Magic and Modernity: Witchcraft and the Occult, c. 1800-1920s.
In June, four members of the history team at Portsmouth participated in a series of field trips, presentations, and workshops with academics from Kobe University in Japan. In this blog, one of the founding members of the Port Towns and Urban Cultures research group, Dr Rob James, who is a senior lecturer in history, discusses the visit and what potential future opportunities the collaboration promises.
As part of our goal to extend links with other institutions worldwide, four members of the University’s Port Towns and Urban Cultures (PTUC) project, Dr Mel Bassett, Professor Brad Beaven, Dr Karl Bell and Dr Rob James, travelled to Kobe, Japan in late-June to meet scholars from the Port Cities Research Centre (PCRC) at Kobe University. The aim of the visit was to both collaborate on port city research and explore research interests between Portsmouth’s and Kobe’s academic communities. Both universities have strong research interests in history, literature, sociology, politics, education and languages, and during the visit we realized that there were great opportunities for working together.
The PTUC crew at the ‘Intersecting Port Cities’ workshop
On the first day of the visit members from PTUC and PCRC gave presentations on their various research areas at the Intersecting Port Cities. Kobe and Portsmouth. Their History and Potentialities workshop. This provided a chance for each of us to familiarize ourselves with both groups’ research interests and start to think about ways we could develop future collaborations. While both Kobe and Portsmouth are port cities, they are very different in terms of their history and social composition. Portsmouth is a city with deep naval roots, but Kobe’s port is more industrial, with strong commercial links to large manufacturers such as Kawasaki. Due to its broader industrial base, Kobe is a wealthier city, but we learned that pockets of deprivation still existed, particularly in areas with a strong immigrant community. Despite these economic and social differences between the ports, both operated (and still do) as contact zones in which people from differing cultures meet and mix. Both are waterfront cities at the intersection of maritime and urban space, offering the chance of cultural exchange that both reinforces and challenges local, national and international boundaries. The comparative histories of Kobe and Portsmouth discussed in these workshops thus helped us hone our methodologies and understanding of port cities in general.
Rob James presenting at the ‘Intersecting Port Cities’ workshop
Although these research workshops focused on a comparative analysis of port cities, it became clear from our discussions that there was the potential to work together on themes such as citizenship, ethnicity, ‘race’, education, translation and cultural transmission between East and West. All of these areas could involve academics from a range of disciplines at each university, and plans have been put into place to link researchers from both universities’ various faculties. For example, Rob James’ research into the cinema culture of ports links well with the work being conducted by postdoctoral researchers at Kobe University, so plans are afoot to work on collaborative projects in which the cinema cultures of Kobe and Portsmouth are compared and contrasted. After this thought-provoking workshop we were treated to dinner on the Luminous Kobe II pleasure cruiser, and while we sailed around the city’s harbour, eating an array of delicious food from sushi to Kobe beef, our PCRC partners continued to share fascinating stories about the development of the port of Kobe and its rich industrial, economic and social-cultural histories.
During the following days we engaged in a variety of trips to areas of historical interest, such as Kobe’s theatre district and ‘foreign quarter’, the Kobe Centre for Overseas Migration and Cultural Interaction, and the Kobe Planet Film Archive. These visits allowed us to see how identities in Kobe have been shaped and negotiated, especially through the city’s economic migration and its industries’ working communities. The visits also gave us a fascinating insight into how the city has changed over time, particularly the ways in which the ebbs and flows of the economy have affected the city’s cultural development. Indeed, while walking around the city, it became clear to us that the mapping project we have established at Portsmouth (that tracks the development of its ‘sailortown’ culture) could also be rolled out in Kobe. Such a task would enable the diverse and multilayered heritage of Kobe to be captured and shared with anyone interested in understanding the port’s history. As well as being taken on these very informative trips covering the city’s history, we were also introduced to the various outreach activities with which PCRC’s members are involved, including the Kobe Foreigners Friendship Centre and Takatori Community Centre, where we were told about the ways in which minority communities have been given a ‘voice’ in the broader Kobe community. We also visited Kobe City Archive and were introduced to many archival sources, including newspapers and trade directories, that showed us what a wealth of material there is available for us to use to enable us to further explore the port’s history while working collaboratively with academics at Kobe University.
Kobe theatre district
In fact, many opportunities for collaboration were discussed across the four days of the workshops, and it was at the final workshop session where both research groups put forward areas where we had identified real prospects for working together in the future. There was very clear potential to develop interdisciplinary projects that will showcase the research of both of our centres on the international stage. We also recognized opportunities to submit large funding bids to research councils that would allow us to fuse PTUC’s European port town network with the Asian consortium of universities, and thus help us to further explore the relationship between urban and maritime societies. In addition, we made initial plans for an international conference to be held jointly by the two centres, with plans for publications arising from the papers presented. We are also aiming to start a collaborative research project on Japanese culture and the West.
Kobe port from aboard the pleasure cruiser ‘Kobe Luminous II’
Overall, our visit to Kobe helped us to establish strong links with Asia, and particularly Japan, allowing us to solidify the port towns’ methodology while also establishing collaborative ways that the University of Portsmouth’s PTUC group could work with its new partner. Indeed, in discussions with our Kobe University colleagues, we have also identified opportunities for exchanges for both academics and students between the two institutions. We’ll keep you posted with future developments!
PTUC would like to thank the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, an organization that aims to support closer links between the UK and Japan, for its generous financial contribution to this trip.
Brad Beaven, Karl Bell, and Rob James are founding members of PTUC. Their edited collection Port Towns and Urban Cultures: International Histories of the Waterfront, c. 1700-2000 is available to purchase from Palgrave MacMillan http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137483157
Dr Karl Bell, reader in cultural and social history at Portsmouth, has written the following blog based on his AHRC-funded ‘Everyday Lives of the First World War’ research project that examined the role of Spiritualism in Britain during the First World War. Karl’s research interests cover various aspects of ‘the fantastical imagination’, including magical beliefs and practices, witchcraft, the supernatural, superstition, prophecy, millenarianism, legends, myths, urban folklore and (proto-) science-fiction tropes from 1700 onwards.
