Modernist Conversations

We’re delighted to be speaking to Simon Prince about modernism, time, war, and drinking beer for the second episode of Modernist Conversations. Discussing Simon’s research with Jennie Taylor on the Mass Observation Project, we talk about the temporal rhythms of modernity, community, and the idea of ‘pub time’. Modernist Conversations is hosted and researched by Chris Townsend and Polly Hember. We hope you enjoy this metaphorical trip to the pub. Please do review and subscribe for more modernist conversations – and do share with anyone you think might like it. Thanks for listening!  Thanks to Simon Prince for joining us on the podcast. For more information about Simon, see: https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/people/simon-prince  Get in touch:  Emali: [email protected]  Twitter/X: @modernistconvoInsta: @modernistconversations Bluesky: @modernistconvo.bsky.social Clips (voiced by Richard Teverson): Charles Madge, New Statesman and Nation (2 January 1937) Tom Harrisson, Humphrey Jennings, and Charles Madge, ‘Anthropology at Home’, New Statesman and Nation (30 January 1937) ‘Social Diversions in a Cotton Town’, newspaper article about Mass Observation’s work in Bolton, Manchester Guardian, 24 March 1938, WC, 3/A, Mass Observation Archive (MOA) Humphrey Jennings, ‘Poetry and national life’, BBC radio broadcast, June 1938 in Kevin Jackson (ed.),The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader (Manchester, 1993)  ‘The Packhorse restaurant’, observations and overheard conversations at the restaurant, 31 July ?, WC, 3/D, MOA. Charles Madge, ‘Drinking in Bolton’ (1938), in Of Love, Time and Places (London: Anvil Press, 1994), p. 108.  ‘The Grapes by day and by night’, WRL, description of exterior of the Grapes during the day and at night, WRL, Worktown Collection (WC), 3/C, MOA.  Further reading:  John Hampson, Saturday Night at the Greyhound (London: Hogarth Press, 1931) Simon Prince and Jennie Taylor, ‘Temporalities, ritual and drinking in Mass Observation’s Worktown’, The Historical Journal, 64.4 (September, 2021), 1083-1104. Charles M. Tung, Modernism and Time Machines (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020) David Hall, Worktown: The Astonishing Story of the Project That Launched Mass Observation (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016) Anne-Marie Kramer, ‘The Observers and the Observed: The “Dual Vision” of the Mass Observation Project’, Sociological Research Online, 19.3 (2014), 1–11.

In this first episode, Prof. Chris Townsend and Dr. Polly Hember discuss their own research, taking us on a journey along the French Riviera. We’re focusing on the POOL group, who were an influential collective of writers, filmmakers and film critics who became the first Anglophone modernists to argue (amongst other things) in favour of film as an art form. Come prepared to learn not just about the group's core members, Kenneth Macpherson, H.D. and Bryher, but also their lesser known key contributors such as Robert Herring and Oswell Blakeston. This episode maps POOL group’s key figures and moments: from their experimental lifestyles to the avant-garde ideas that they engaged with. This episode explores the influence of Monte Carlo on the group, a town they visited regularly in the early 1930s. Chris and Polly’s analyses are accompanied by H.D. and Herring’s autobiographical notes and personal correspondence, showing how the French Riviera inspired two texts, Herring’s novel Cactus Coast and H.D.’s short story ‘Mira-Mare’. We hope you will enjoy this reflection on what the French Riviera meant to the POOL group, and how it influenced two neglected modernist texts. If you liked it, please consider subscribing to more modernist conversations as we invite guests to discuss more of modernity!