Sunday February 18th 2024, 2.30pm (QMUL Mile End Arts One): Poetry. Join us to read aloud select passages from Carpenter’s great, sensual, politically prescient Whitmanian four-volume poem Towards Democracy, at Queen Mary, University of London (Mile End). Arts One Building. Email Charlie Pullen – c.pullen@qmul.ac.uk – or Matt Ingleby – m.ingleby@qmul.ac.uk – if you would like to attend, and read!
Sunday March 17th: Sexuality. Join us for a walk around Bloomsbury, to think about Carpenter’s writings which celebrate the rich variety of human sexual identities and modes of connection, paying homage to the site of the residential commune for the Fellowship of the New Life that could be found in 1880s Doughty Street. Reading for this session will include excerpts from The Intermediate Sex, as well as some of Edith Lees’s satirical fictionalisation of the Fellowship’s commune. MEET 2.30pm, in Russell Square, by the central fountain.
Sunday April 21st: Liberty. Join us on a walk around the Trafalgar Square area, to think through Carpenter’s opposition to state violence and carcerality, be it domestic or abroad, in war or empire (particularly India). Carpenter was one of the prominent left-wing writers to be present at Bloody Sunday, the famous 1887 protest against both the authoritarian Coercion Acts in Ireland and unemployment in London, which was brutally put down by police action. Will include excerpts from Prisons, Police and Punishment (1905). MEET 2.30pm, on the steps of St Martin’s in the Fields, Trafalgar Square.
Sunday May 19th: Ecology: Join us on a visit to Epping Forest, beloved of Carpenter’s major influence and co-activist, William Morris. This ancient woodland’s (partial) survival from unregulated urban sprawl testifies to an anti-capitalist environmentalist discourse both writers contributed to. Among our reading will be Carpenter’s translation of the French anarchist Reclus’ ‘The Great Kinship’ and his own ‘Weeds’, from Sketches from Life in Town and Country (1908)). MEET 2.30pm, just outside Loughton Underground Station.
Sunday June 9th: Afterlife. This final run-up event is a trip to visit the twin graves of Carpenter and his life long male partner, George Merrill, in Guildford’s Mount Cemetery. Reading will include excerpts from Tom Crewe’s award-winning historical novel, The New Life (2023) and obituaries from the time of Carpenter’s death. MEET 2pm, at London Waterloo Station, just outside Boots, aiming to get the 14.12 together to Guildford.
Edward Carpenter and the Future: Friday 28th June 2024 One-Day Symposium (QMUL) & Run-Up Events. 