The portrayal of brothers and sisters in cultural texts and performance will be discussed at the free online event on Saturday January 16, 2021. These include representations in TV series such as Friends, I May Destroy You, Call the Midwife and It's Okay to Not Be Okay, and literature such as Pet Sematary and The Comedy of Errors.
Running throughout the day, the conference is hosted by Dr Katie Barnett, Programme Leader for Film Studies in the Department of Music, Media and Performance at the University of Chester, and Dr Sharon Young, Course Leader for the Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at the University of Worcester.
Dr Barnett said: “Papers will be given on topics ranging from representations of siblings in opera and on stage, in film and television, in music, and in literature, to mixed media musings on China's one-child policy, issues of sibling rivalry, doubles, incest, death and trauma, and reflections on both biological and non-biological iterations of 'brotherhood' and 'sisterhood'.
"Both Dr Young and I are fascinated by the images of siblinghood we've found in film, television and literature, and it's a topic we both feel needs more exploration to understand it better. After our first siblings event in 2018, we're delighted to continue this research and welcome an even more exciting programme of speakers to examine the importance of brothers and sisters in popular and literary culture."
To register for free for ‘Siblings on Stage, Page and Screen’, taking place from 9.15am to 5.15pm, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/siblings-on-stage-page-and-screen-tickets-130581062473.
Dr Barnett teaches a range of modules relating to film theory, national cinemas, media representation and film form across the Film Studies and Media Studies programmes. She has a particular interest in issues of representation and constructions of gender family on screen, and has published a wide range of academic work on fatherhood, boyhood and girlhood in film and television, including the book Fathers on Film: Paternity and Masculinity in 1990s Hollywood, released in 2020.
Dr Young’s research focuses primarily on early modern women's poetry, the critical debates of the 18th century, and poetic representations of the country estate on which she has published. Her teaching interests include Renaissance, Restoration and 18th-century literature, women's poetry, and literary theory.
