Faculty of English of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the City of Poznań would like to invite you to an open lecture entitled "Eighteenth-Century Literary Celebrity and Adaptation in the Twenty-First Century: A Virtual Museum of Laurence Sterne", given by Dr. Mary Newbould. The lecture will take place on 23 April at 16:45 in the Auditorium of the Heliodor Święcicki Collegium, ul. Grunwaldzka 6.
Dr. Mary Newbould is a leading scholar of Laurence Sterne's work and one of the most significant specialists on the adaptation of eighteenth-century literature (particularly Laurence Sterne), author of monographs and numerous articles concerning the various typographic forms associated with the phenomenon. Dr. Newbould is the editor of The Shandean, the most significant journal devoted to Laurence Sterne, the most original novelist of the 18th century, his contemporaries, and the era.
Dr. Newbould taught English literature at Cambridge University in the years 2004-2021. She is one of two creators (the other being Dr. Helen Williams) of an innovative digital library (Cambridge Digital Library) operating since 2021 on the University of Cambridge website under the name Laurence Sterne and Sterneana, dedicated to imitations and adaptations of the works of Laurence Sterne.
She is currently conducting an innovative research project, Networks of Reception, at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, funded by the National Science Centre (under the Polonez Bis grant). The goal of the project is to describe the various broadly understood texts (pamphlets, plays, illustrations, adaptations) that were created inspired by Laurence Sterne's novels and contributed to creating celebrity culture and the phenomenon of fan fiction.
Dr. Newbould is the co-creator in the Eighteenth-Century Novel and the Arts project, which aims to explore the relationship of the novel in its early stages of development with other arts. The project is being carried out under the leadership of Prof. Jakub Lipski and it is funded by the National Science Centre under the OPUS grant.