The editors of Utopia and Reality: Documentary, Activism and Imagined Worlds introduce their edited volume in our New Dimensions in Science Fiction series. The literary genre of utopia has a long and venerable tradition. Starting with the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia in 1516, there has been a steady stream of works that depict a
Jonathan Newell introduces A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832-1937: Disgust, Metaphysics and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror. Deliquescent corpses murmuring from beyond the grave; slimy molluscoid horrors oozing through the ancient hills; a ravenous, miles-long pig stirring in a miasmatic abyss – the pages of weird fiction teem with grotesques, a bestiary of dripping, festering,
Sam Blaxland introduces his new book, Swansea University: Campus and Community in a Post-War World, 1945–2020. At the end of 2016, I was employed by Swansea University to collect a series of oral history interviews that would be part of marking the institution’s centenary in 2020. The following year, the project expanded and we decided
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas introduces her book Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces. In 2019, the University of Wales Press published my book, Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces, as part of its Horror Studies series. During the many years of research and writing that led to the book’s release, one question was always at
I am delighted to announce that we have confirmed our brand new Journal Editor team for the Wales Journal of Education: Gary Beauchamp from Cardiff Metropolitan University, Thomas Crick from Swansea University, and Enlli Thomas from Bangor University. Our new Journal Editors bring with them a wealth of educational experience. Each has a strong track
The publication of the third edition of Coastal Systems in 2016 by the University of Wales Press was timed so that, as I outline in my preface to the book, the edition included the most up-to-date information from the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in 2014. Indeed, the publication
Jen Wilson introduces her book, Freedom Music: Wales, Emancipation and Jazz 1850-1950 This book was a slow burn, probably from that day in school when the piano lid was slammed down by the deputy head, near-missing my fingers, all for ‘lowering the decorum of the whole school’ etc. I was 14, and the piano remained
A new series from the University of Wales Press, introduced by series editors Dr Diane Heath and Dr Victoria Blud. Animals are good to think with, wrote Claude Lévi-Strauss, and ‘Medieval Animals’ is designed to enable the curious reader to do just that. The aim of this series is to promote work that challenges preconceptions about
Luci Attala introduces How Water Makes Us Human: Engagements with the Materiality of Water, the first book in the Materialities in Anthropology and Archaeology series. I am not a great water drinker; I prefer to get into it. As I have grown older it is the quietness that is created by going deep under the water that
David Stephenson introduces Medieval Wales c.1050-1332: Centuries of Ambiguity. Long after it was published in 1911, Sir John Edward Lloyd’s History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest remained the most influential book on the medieval centuries in Wales. The picture painted by Lloyd was in essence simple: a succession of great Welsh
David Callander introduces Dissonant Neighbours: Narrative Progress in Early Welsh and English Poetry. Scholars in recent years have shown an increased and more explicit interest in medieval multilingualism. The study of codices and texts in multiple languages, quite a norm for much of the medieval period, has led to exciting new work and opened up fresh avenues
Gethin Matthews introduces Having a Go at the Kaiser: A Welsh Family at War, which has been nominated for Wales Book of the Year 2019. The book ‘Having a Go at the Kaiser’: A Welsh Family at War was launched at an event in Mynyddbach chapel, north Swansea, on 8 November 2018. It is based
