QUILTING POINTS:

 Introducing Raymond Williams The Quilting Points Critic in Focus for 2026–2027 is Welsh author and academic Raymond Williams (1921–1988), one of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers and writers. The first Quilting Points: A Year of Raymond Williams meeting will take place on Monday 16 th  November 2026 . In this session, we will discuss   Williams’ 1958 essay, Culture is Ordinary , which is available online here . Date:  Monday 16 th  November 2026 Time:  5.30 pm – 7.30 pm + optional pub social Location:  Meeting Room, Ground Floor, House 10, School of English  This will be a hybrid  session, taking place in person and on Teams. If you would like to attend on Teams, please register here  to receive the meeting link. To learn more about Raymond Williams and his work visit  The Raymond Williams Society .

We are happy to announce that the next  Quilting   Points  session will take place on   Thursday, 15th October . In this session, we will discuss   Susan Sontag’s 1978 extended essay,  Illness as Metaphor , focussing on Chapters One and Nine  (a total of around 18 pages).   Physical copies and an audiobook edition are also available from the University library. This will be our final session on Susan Sontag.  During the session, we will share the plans for  Quilting   Points  for this academic year and information on how to get involved as an organiser.  Our reading of Sontag’s essay will be supplemented by the introductory chapters of her 1989 companion work,  AIDS and Its Metaphors , which extends her earlier analysis of the language of and attitudes towards illness to the punitive and stigmatising language of the AIDS crisis.  If you are interested in getting involved in running  Quilting  ...

We are happy to announce that the next Quilting Points session for 2026 will take place on Thursday, 26 th  March. In this session, we will discuss Sontag’s essay 'Fascinating Fascism' (1974) from  Under the Sign of Saturn (1980). Our discussion will be supplemented by the chapter 'Peeking Under the Black Shirt: Italian Fascism’s Disembodied Bodies' from Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, Gender, Citizenship (2002) edited by Wendy Parkins. We hope to see you there! Time: 5.30 pm – 7.30 pm + optional pub social Location: Alumni Room, House 10 Cavendish Road 

 We are happy to announce that the first Quilting Points session for 2026 will take place on Thursday, 29 th January. In this session, we will discuss Sontag’s essay Notes on Camp (1964).  Our discussion will be supplemented by the chapter 'Gesture, Ephemera, and Queer Feeling' From José Esteban Muñoz's Queering Utopia . We hope to see you there! Time: 5.30 pm – 7.30 pm + optional pub social Location: House 10, Cavendish Road — first door on your left when you come in