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Dr Simon Brooks

Overview

Dr Simon Brooks Position: Lecturer Email: BrooksS2@cardiff.ac.uk
 Telephone: +44(0)29 208 75304
Fax: +44(0)29 208 74604
Extension: 75304
Location: Humanities Building

Research Interests

My work explores tensions between conservatism and liberalism, as they affect literature, politics and the history of ideas in minority language communities.

In 2004, I used this perspective in my volume, O Dan Lygaid y Gestapo, to discuss the inheritance of Enlightenment thought in late 19th and 20th century Wales, and its impact on Welsh literary theory and criticism.

A few years earlier I had been prominent in public policy debate about the future of Welsh-speaking communities. The debate raised the difficulty that attempts by minority communities to resist majority assimilation with communitarian counter-measures can undermine liberal concepts of openness.

In response to this problem, much of my current work explores multiculturalism and ethnic difference in the context of a minority language community. Welsh-language literature provides the discursive evidence. I hope to draw some theoretical conclusions on how ‘conservative’ survival strategies for a minority language community might be reconciled with a ‘liberal’ desire to respect others.

Teaching Profile

BA in Welsh: Year One First Language
  • CY1743 Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg (contributor)
  • CY1744 O Destun i Draethawd (contributor)
BA in Welsh: Year One Second Language
  • CY1584 Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg Fodern (co-ordinator)
BA in Welsh: Year Two and Final Year
  • CY3488 Cyflwyniad i Lenyddiaeth yr Ugeinfed Ganrif (contributor)
  • CY2679 Gwleidyddiaeth a Phropaganda yn Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg yr Ugeinfed Ganrif (co-ordinator)
  • CY3951 Rhyddiaith Ddiweddar (co-ordinator)
  • CY2468 Llên y Ddinas (contributor)
MA in Welsh
  • CYD033 Moderniaeth a’r Estheteg Gymreig; ac Ethnigrwydd, Hil a Hunaniaeth mewn Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg: 1918-1997 (co-ordinator)
Programme for resident Colgate University students
  • 'Modern Welsh Literature' (co-ordinator)

Publications

‘Language needs constitutional pressure group’, Agenda, 45, Winter 2011, 16-17.

'Ffantasi Hil-Laddiad a'r Diwylliant Cymraeg: Dirnad Cenedlaetholdeb Ethnig, a Syniadaeth Slavoj Zizek', Ysgrifau Beirniadol XXX, Gwasg Gee, 2011, 133-167.

'Wynebu Diddymdra Ethnig: E. Tegla Davies a Llenyddiaeth Gymraeg Lloegr', Y Traethodydd, January 2011, 5-17.

'FfugLen' [review] in The Welsh History Review, 25/1, June 2010, 152-54.

"Caradog Wyn" Gwyn Thomas: Cymro Cymraeg "du gwyn" ym Mlaenau Ffestiniog" in Daniel G. Williams (ed.) Canu Caeth: Y Cymry a'r Affro-Americaniaid, Llandysul: Gomer Press, 2010, 134-152.

'Karl Weissmann in Lleifior', Kelten am Rhein: Akten des dreizehnten Internationalen Keltologiekongresses: Zweiter Teil, 2010, 25-28. 

Yr Hawl i Oroesi: Ysgrifau Gwleidyddol a Diwylliannol, Llanrwst: Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2009, 120 pp. ISBN 978-1-845272-35-7

‘Tiger Bay a’r Diwylliant Cymraeg’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion 2008, 15, 2009, 198-216.

'The Rhetoric of Civic "Inclusivity" and the Welsh Language', Contemporary Wales, 22, 2009, 1-15

'Ystrydebau Ethnig Islwyn Ffowc Elis’ in Gerwyn Wiliams (ed.), Ysgrifau Beirniadol XXVIII, Gwasg Gee, 2009, 95-120.

‘Arwyddocâd Ideolegol Dylanwad Sigmund Freud ar Saunders Lewis’, Llenyddiaeth mewn Theori, 3, 2008, 29-49.

‘Thema goddefgarwch yn nofelau Marion Eames’, Taliesin, 131, Summer 2007, 104-115.

‘“Yr Hil”: ydy’r canu caeth diweddar yn hiliol?’ in Owen Thomas (ed.), Llenyddiaeth mewn Theori, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006, 1-39.

‘The Idioms of Race: the “Racist Nationalist” in Wales as Bogeyman’ in Robin Chapman (ed.), The Idiom of Dissent: protest and propaganda in Wales, Llandysul: Gomer Press, 2006, 139-165.

O Dan Lygaid y Gestapo: Yr Oleuedigaeth Gymraeg a Theori Lenyddol yng Nghymru, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004, xv + 201 pp. ISBN 0-7083-1921-1.

‘Miss America: America a Diwylliant Poblogaidd Cymraeg ei Iaith’ in M. Wynn Thomas (ed.) Gweld Sêr: Cymru a Chanrif America, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001, 211-227.

Simon Brooks (ed.), Llythyrau at Seimon Glyn (Tal-y-bont: Y Lolfa), 111 pp. ISBN 0-86243-596-X. Introduction: 7-14 (single author).

‘The Living Dead’, Agenda: Journal of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, Spring 2002, 10-12.

Simon Brooks (ed.), Barn, Swansea: Cyhoeddiadau Barn Cyf., 1996-2006, 10 issues a year: 4 @ 48 pp, 4 @ 64 pp, 2 @ 96 pp. Leading article, ‘Annibyniaeth Barn’ in every issue.

Conservatism and the New Wales, National Eisteddfod of Wales: Wales Today Lecture, 1999, 21 pp.

‘Holi Wiliam Owen Roberts’ in Gerwyn Wiliams (ed.), Rhyddid y Nofel, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 283-4.

Diwylliant Poblogaidd a’r Gymraeg, Tal-y-bont: Y Lolfa, 1998, 32 pp.  ISBN 08624371-8

‘Llythyr ynghylch ôl-foderniaeth’, Taliesin, 93, Spring 1996, 95-100.

‘Ple’r Pla a throednodiadau eraill’, Taliesin, 85, Spring 1994, 38-67.

 ‘Bobi Jones: Interviewed by Simon Brooks’, Verse, 11, Spring 1994, 101-113.

Research

Research Projects

I am currently working on a book-length study of the portrayal of ethnic minorities in 20th century Welsh-language literature. It will explore the extent to which the interaction between ethnic minorities and ‘indigenous’ minority language cultures differs to that between ethnic minorities and majority language cultures. My other interest is the history of ideas in Wales. A current research project, funded in part by the Saunders Lewis Trust, will use German-language material for a comparative study of the history of ideas in the Welsh national movement in the late 19th century.

In 2011, I will be Chair of the Welsh-language Judging Panel for the Wales Book of the Year Competition.

Postgraduate Students

Elidir Jones: Nationalism and Welsh Writing in Comparitive Contexts, 1925-1966 (joint supervisor with Dr Katie Gramich, School of English, Communication and Philosophy)

Llŷr Gwyn Lewis: ''What can I but ennumerate old themes?’ yr Adfywiad Celtaidd yng Nghymru ac Iwerddon'
(joint supervisor with Dr Katie Gramich, School of English, Communication and Philosophy)

Antia Pereira: Visual Culture in Galicia and Wales: the Construction of National Cinema in Minority Language Communities (with Dr Craig Patterson, School of European Studies)

Mair Rees: Images of Pregnancy, Childbirth, Motherhood and Fertility in 20th century Welsh language novels – (joint supervisor with Professor Sioned Davies)