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Dr Christopher Wiley lead-edits new Routledge volume on women’s suffrage and the arts

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Dr Christopher Wiley has edited, together with Dr Lucy Ella Rose (University of Surrey), a new volume entitled Women’s Suffrage in Word, Image, Music, Stage and Screen: The Making of a Movement, published by Routledge in 2021.

The essay collection incorporates chapters written by authors who presented papers at a conference co-organized by Dr Wiley and Dr Rose at the University of Surrey in 2018, together with other invited contributors.

Authors range from distinguished senior academics to up-and-coming postgraduate researchers, and include Anne Anderson, Kathy Atherton, V. Irene Cockroft, Elizabeth Crawford, Brigitte Caroline Dale, Kristin M. Franseen, Amy Galvin, Marleen Hoffmann, Eleanor March, Gursimran Oberoi, Naomi Paxton, Sarah Pedersen, June Purvis, Lucy Ella Rose, Christopher Wiley, and Marion Wynne-Davies. The full table of contents may be viewed here.

Dr Wiley’s chapter in the volume, ‘Ethel Smyth, music and the suffragette movement: Reconsidering The Boatswain’s Mate as feminist opera’, discusses Ethel Smyth’s opera The Boatswain’s Mate in relation to the composer’s recent service to the suffragette movement, and subjects the common supposition that the work constitutes a ‘feminist opera’ to fresh scrutiny.

Dr Wiley and Dr Rose also co-authored the editorial introduction, ‘Women’s suffrage and cultural representation: The making of a movement’, in which they provide some historical context for the women’s suffrage movement and the many ways in which art intersected and engaged with it.

For further information (including reviews), and to purchase the volume: https://www.routledge.com/Womens-Suffrage-in-Word-Image-Music-Stage-and-Screen-The-Making-of/Wiley-Rose/p/book/9780367361983

Bibliographic citations

Wiley, Christopher. ‘Ethel Smyth, music and the suffragette movement: Reconsidering The Boatswain’s Mate as feminist opera’, in Christopher Wiley and Lucy Ella Rose eds. Women’s Suffrage in Word, Image, Music, Stage and Screen: The Making of a Movement. London: Routledge, 2021, pp. 169–85.

Wiley, Christopher and Lucy Ella Rose. ‘Women’s suffrage and cultural representation: The making of a movement’, in Christopher Wiley and Lucy Ella Rose eds. Women’s Suffrage in Word, Image, Music, Stage and Screen: The Making of a Movement. London: Routledge, 2021, pp. 1–14 .

Wiley, Christopher and Lucy Ella Rose eds. Women’s Suffrage in Word, Image, Music, Stage and Screen: The Making of a Movement. London: Routledge, 2021. pp. xxxv, 288. ISBN 978-0-367-36198-3 (hardback), 978-1-032-02492-9 (paperback).

Full text

The full text of Dr Wiley’s chapter is available here: https://www.academia.edu/65113008/Ethel_Smyth_Music_and_the_Suffragette_Movement_Reconsidering_The_Boatswains_Mate_as_Feminist_Opera

And the full text of the co-authored editorial introduction may be downloaded here: https://www.academia.edu/65112276/Womens_Suffrage_and_Cultural_Representation_The_making_of_a_movement

Update: The volume has received an excellent review by Katy Owen in the journal Women’s History Review: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/N36ZJDRPGIQHRC2K7D2X/full

Dr Christopher Wiley writes on stage-to-screen musical adaptations for The Conversation

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Dr Christopher Wiley contributed an article to The Conversation (by invitation) on film adaptations of stage musicals, published on 10 November 2020.

Entitled ‘The Prom: the challenges of adapting the stage to the screen’, Dr Wiley’s article was prompted by the upcoming release of the film adaptation of the musical The Prom on Netflix on 11 December 2020, while also discussing other examples such as A Chorus Line, Mamma mia!, and Cats.

This is the third time that Dr Wiley has written for The Conversation, his other articles being a piece on the 30th anniversary of the musical Les Misérables, and a scholarly response to Stephen Fry. Collectively these have received some 8,000 hits to date.

Founded in Australia in 2011 and launched in the UK in 2013, The Conversation is an independent global news website featuring stories and opinions from the scholarly community. The University of Surrey is one of its 13 founding UK partners.

Bibliographic citation

Wiley, Christopher. ‘The Prom: the challenges of adapting the stage to the screen’. The Conversation, 10 November 2020. <https://theconversation.com/the-prom-the-challenges-of-adapting-the-stage-to-the-screen-149783>.

Dr Christopher Wiley writes on ‘Les Misérables at 30’ for The Conversation

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Les MisérablesDr Christopher Wiley has contributed an article to The Conversation on the enduring popularity of Les Misérables, the world’s most successful musical, ahead of the 30th anniversary of its London production on 8 October 2015.

Dr Wiley’s article, ‘Les Misérables at 30: breaking hearts and records’, discussed aspects of the show’s plot and musical score, the role played by writers Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg and by producer Cameron Mackintosh, as well as more recent developments such as Tom Hooper’s 2012 film adaptation.

The full article may be read here: https://theconversation.com/les-miserables-at-30-breaking-hearts-and-records-48535

This is the second time that Dr Wiley has written for The Conversation, the first being a scholarly response to Stephen Fry, which has received 4,000 hits to date.

Founded in Australia in 2011 and launched in the UK in 2013, The Conversation is an independent global news website featuring stories and opinions sourced from the scholarly community. The University of Surrey is one of its founding UK partners.

Update: Dr Wiley’s Les Misérables article received over 1,300 hits by the end of 8 October (UK time), with readers fairly evenly distributed between the UK, US, Australia, and Continental Europe.