online lectures autumn 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic unfortunately resulted in the cancellation of our normal autumn lectures for 2020. However, we have decided to offer a spring 2021 season of online lectures via Zoom. Details of these lectures are given below. The third lecture, on 13 March 2021, will follow our AGM which will also take place via Zoom.

You will need access to a computer with an internet connection to view the Zoom lectures. This online lecture series is being offered in association with the University of York's Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies (CECS) and we are deeply grateful for the assistance of CECS in making these lectures possible. Each lecture will take place at 2:30pm on a Saturday and will be open to all, but attendees must register for each lecture separately. A link is given below for each lecture: please click this link to go to the appropriate page at the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies where you will be able to register.

William Kent, known for his brilliant Classical works across many media, including architecture, landscape architecture, interiors, applied design, and also furniture was also an occasional dabbler in the Gothic. This talk addresses his now lost contributions to York Minster, and explores how his innovative and idiosyncratic reinterpretation of Gothic design has widespread influence over what is now termed the Gothic Revival. Examples of the latter include Horace Walpole’s Gothic villa, Strawberry Hill, the furniture of the Countess of Pomfret, Shobdon Church in Herefordshire and one of the most significant, but now lost, pieces of Georgian Gothic in Manchester, St John's Church.

In this talk Patrick Wildgust will discuss how Sterne's imaginative and experimental approach to writing has inspired contemporary artists and writers to create new work for Shandy Hall, the house where Tristram Shandy was written. It can be said that it was in this obscure parsonage house in the remote village of Coxwold that the modern novel was born.

Many of our towns and cities reinvented themselves in the late Georgian period in response to the economic and cultural changes that were transforming Britain. This copiously illustrated talk will look at the causes and effects of this 'great rebuilding'. It will draw attention to the ways in which improved communications, new concerns for the public realm, new patterns of leisure, and growing consumerism all made an impact on the urban landscape that we still experience today, both in York and in towns throughout the country. (N.B. This lecture will take place immediately after our 2021 AGM. YGS Members who wish to participate in the AGM will be sent details of how to register for this event.)

If you have any queries about these lectures please get in touch with us via our contact form.