CREATIVE MINDS FESTIVAL PREVIEW
words: RACHEL MALONEY
For the past month, Cardiff University has hosted its Creative Minds: Festival Of Ideas, and it continues in the coming weeks with many more events to confound, intrigue and inspire.
Many presentations focus solely on the African tradition. We all take the alphabet for granted, but Dr Paul Tench recalls how difficult it is for some African societies to create one for the first time. Dr Paul Nicholson then concludes the evening by revealing Cardiff’s most recent findings of Dog Catacombs in Saqqara, Egypt’s lovingly entitled ‘City of the Dead’ (Tues 27 Nov). Finally, Dr Amanda Villepastour combines music and language in her African study as she looks at how a Nigerian tribe speaks differently to other cultures (Tues 4 Dec).
More accurately depicting the Arthurian Legend than BBC’s Merlin, the English Department holds an exhibition of rare books by Malory, Tennyson and Gustav Doré (Sat 1 Dec). However the Festival also looks at contemporary fiction, as BookTalk discusses Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. Written by Art Spielgman, this graphic autobiography is an interesting take on the stories of Holocaust, as their experiences are retold through cartoons (Tues 11 Dec).
For those interested in Welsh Literature, winner of Welsh Book Of The Year Jon Gower talks to lecturer Tomos Owen about his novel Y Storïwr (Tues 4 Dec). With this purely welsh-speaking event, Cardiff University has successfully created a festival which not only celebrates the best of local talent, but also reveals the most up to date research from around the world.
For more on the festival’s forthcoming events, click here.