SIAH Public Life 'Heritage and Harry Potter' with Stephen Manion
Thursday 25th April 2024, 4:00pm
Stephen Manion was the manager at Alnwick Castle, the location for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter movies, and negotiated the filming of the Harry Potter movies at the castle with Warner Bros. He has extensive experience in heritage attraction and destination management including at Arundel Castle, and was Head of Education at Beamish Museum. He is currently Executive Director of Go! Southampton, representing 630 businesses in the city. He will be in conversation with Kevin Brazil, Associate Professor of English Literature, Joanna Sofaer, Professor of Archaeology and Michael Williams, Professor of Film Studies.
Speaker Biographies:
Stephen Manion started his heritage career as a curator at Liverpool Museums before wishing to be more engaged with the visitors, particularly young people. Setting up the first education service at Beamish Open Air Museum led to an introduction to Alnwick Castle where he transformed the visitor experience for families and groups. Then Harry Potter rolled into town, increasing footfall significantly and the business’s income grew, enabling investment in the interpretation and venue. As manager of Arundel Castle, the events programme increased in number and expanded in scale, attracting new audiences. Stephen is currently CEO of GO! Southampton, working to improve the city centre visitor experience.
Kevin Brazil is Associate Professor in English at the University of Southampton, with research focus on twentieth- and twenty-first century fiction, visual culture, and modernism.
Joanna Sofaer (FSA) is a Professor of Archaeology within Archaeology at the University of Southampton, with research interests in the role of cultural and community assets in health and wellbeing; the relationship between heritage and wellbeing; and the social value of archaeology. She is Co-Director of the Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities.
Michael Williams is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Southampton. Michael’s research focuses on film stardom as well as the representation of the past, and particularly that of ancient Greece and Rome. He has a particular interest in the popular reception of stars since the silent era, as well as uses of the past in the constructions of gender and sexuality.
SIAH: Public Life (Series abstract)
Arts and Humanities have always been crucial to the idea of the 'public life': the public is valorised as the realm of collective debate and decision-making, of community and solidarity, of art and culture. Such concepts, of course, have always been contested and never more so than right now. The electronic capture of the commons, the removal of boundaries between work and home, the policing of public spaces, the onslaught of the culture wars, the hold of big data and surveillance, the spectacles of populist politics have all changed the meanings, the spaces and the limits of the public sphere.
SIAH: Public Life draws a range of leading intellectuals into conversation about what the ideal of the 'public life' can mean to Arts and Humanities researchers and disciplines in the twenty-first century.
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