November/December 2003
People

New Writer-In-Residence and the story of Bog Bodies

The University has a new Writer-in-Residence based in the JB Priestley Library.

Dr Christine Finn arrived at the University in September to write the authorised biography of the late Jacquetta Hawkes.

As well as her new post, Christine is also Honorary Research Fellow in Archaeological Sciences at the University.

After an early career as an award-winning newspaper, magazine and television journalist, Christine studied archaeology and anthropology as a mature undergraduate at Oxford. She has since developed a varied academic career as a practising archaeologist specialising in the arts, co-editing two books on the subject, and has published widely in academic journals. She also writes on the culture of technology, and her last book was 'Artifacts: an archaeologist's year in Silicon Valley' (MIT Press).

In addition to her work on Jacquetta Hawkes, Christine has been working on a study of the famous Irish poets WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney, and has written 'Past Poetic: archaeology in the poetry of WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney', which will be published by Duckworth in January.

The research was her doctoral thesis at Oxford, but she also spent a year at Trinity College, Dublin, meeting Seamus Heaney, and going through the books in Yeats library with his daughter, Anne, not long before she died. Christine wrote most of 'Past Poetic' at a desk in the Fishamble Theatre company production office in the city, after working for the Dublin Fringe Theatre Festival as voluntary publicity assistant.

From her unique research, Christine also created the idea for the future 'Bog Body' exhibition at the University's Gallery II.

Seamus Heaney's renowned poems on 'Bog Bodies' were inspired by Lennart Larsen's photographs of human corpses preserved by Northern European bogland for more than 2,000 years.

Christine has been given permission by the National Museum of Denmark to promote Larsen's photographs, and these will be exhibited early next year.

Christine said: "As well as the fascinating task of writing about the late Jacquetta Hawkes, who was herself a published poet, I am enjoying my discovery of the great selection of poetry in the University's library. I'm having a wonderful time here at Bradford, and I look forward to the exhibition at the Gallery on the 'Bog Body' phenomenon."

Further details on the exhibition will be available in the new year. Visit www.bradford.ac.uk/gallery

If you would like further information on Christine's book 'Past Poetic: archaeology in the poetry of WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney' or the authorised biography of the late Jacquetta Hawkes, please contact Christine on 01274 (23) 3413/07980 913795 or via email at c.a.finn@bradford.ac.uk

6 January 2004

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