CityLife creates spaces where the right to narrate is upheld so that transformative relations can arise, produces literary work that encapsulates and frames those exchanges, and reads it for insights that might help us critique what is current and imagine what is next. We collect our creative writing in anthologies showcasing the wealth of talent of our writers and the depth of experience of our storytellers. We embed theory within our public engagement and creative practice to ensure they happen on the basis of a solid critical foundation and that they are used to deliver rigorous analysis.
Research at CityLife is led by our Co-Director, Stephen Maddison. In our current and forthcoming publications, we tell and reflect on our participants’ stories, engage with where they sit on the spectrum between voice and representation, learn what these narratives of lived experience can teach us and how we can apply it in the future, and much more. See below for a list of our publications, workshops, and presentations.
We have been funded by the Stuart Hall Foundation, the British Academy, the University of East Anglia, the University of Brighton, and the University of East London.
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Publications
Masserano, E. and Dodd, S. (2023) ‘Creative Practice as Community Education.’ NAWE Writing in Education. Issue 89, Spring 2023, pp.21-25. Available at: https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/nawe-magazine/current-issue.html or download PDF here.
Dodd, S., Maddison, S., Masserano, E., McWatt, T. (eds.) (2023) Lockdown Stories. London: University of East Anglia and University of Brighton. ISBN: 978-1-3999-2827-4. Download PDF here. Print version available for loan at Bethnal Green Library, Tower Hamlets. Contact us for a press or research copy.
Masserano, E. (2022) ‘Invisible London: Narratives of Place and Identity in Life Writing by and for Londoners’. PhD thesis, University of East London, London.
Masserano, E., Dodd, S., Maddison, S. and McWatt, T. (2021) ‘Stories of Covid-19: Social Pasts and Futures in the CityLife project’. The Sociological Observer/Irish Journal of Sociology. Issue 3. Remaking Social Futures through Biographic, Narrative and Lifecourse Approaches: Story-Making and Story-Telling in Pandemic Times. Available at: https://www.sociology.ie/publications.html. Download PDF here.
McWatt, T., Dodd, S. and Maddison, S. (eds.) (2015) EastLife: An Anthology of Life Writing. London: University of East London. ISBN: 978-1-9100-5635-6. Download PDF here. Print version available for loan at Bethnal Green Library, Canning Town Library, Tower Hamlets History Archives, and the Metropolitan Archives. Contact us for a press or research copy.
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Presentations & Workshops
“Community Research, Ethical Representation, and Co-created Life Writing,” British Academy Summer Showcase 2023 workshop, British Academy, London, June 2023
“Stories of Covid-19: Social Pasts and Futures in the CityLife Project,” Bringing Creative Writing into the Community conference presentation, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2022
“Invisible London: Memory, Place and Identity in Non-Fiction by Londoners”, conference, International Association for Autobiography and Biography, University of Turku, Finland, 2022
“Reimagining Voices and Identities in Uncertain Times: Social Transformation, Fragmentation and Post-Pandemic Futures“, conference, Sociological Association of Ireland, 2022 (event page)
“Creative Writing in Service of Precarious Lives”, guest session, University of Grenoble, France, 2021
“Teaching Life Writing”, conference, CHASE, 2021 (event page)
“Futures for Creative Writing”, conference, University of East Anglia, 2021
“Writing Talk: Working with the Words of Others”, webinar, Open University, 2021
“Building a Radical University”, book launch, University of East London, 2021
“CityLife: In Conversation With Tessa McWatt”, webinar, The Public Humanities Hub, University of British Columbia, Canada, 2020 (event page)
“Invisible London: Memory, Place and Identity in Non-Fiction by Londoners”, seminar, Centre for Narrative Research, UEL, 2020 (event page)
“Research Methods and Interdisciplinarity”, guest session, Narrative Research MA, UEL, 2020
“Research Methods and Interdisciplinarity”, guest session, History MA, University of Brighton, November 2019
“Invisible London: Memory, Place and Identity in Non-Fiction by Londoners”, seminar, CMNH, University of Brighton, 2019 (event page)
“Invisible London: Memory, Place and Identity in Non-Fiction by Londoners”, Summer School in Narrative Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark, 2019
“Invisible London: Memory, Place and Identity in Non-Fiction by Londoners”, Oral History Spring School, Oral History Society, 2019
“Authentic Voices? Stories by Londoners and the fetishisation of marginality”, research sharing event, Authenticity in the Arts and Media, UEL, 2019