AV视频

Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research

Alison Light: Writing 'Common People': Between history and fiction

Respondent: Professor Ben Highmore

15 October 2015
Fulton Building
Room 113, 5-6.30pm

Free, all welcome. No need to book.

Alison Light poster

- writer, professor and public historian -  will talk about her recent book, Common People: the History of an English Family which used her own family history to follow the lives of the migrant, working poor.  A mix of memoir, social history and reflection, the book raises questions about the limits and possibilities of family history as a form of multiple biography; how we write the lives of the unknown, especially in these days of 'poverty porn'; and the boundaries between history, fiction and personal memory. 

Ben Highmore is Professor of Cultural Studies (Media and Film) at the AV视频.

This event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Modernist Studies.

  Alison Light Common People cover                  Alison Light portrait