Strange Sightings in the Stratosphere
Saturday 30th of June 2018
St. Mary's University, Twickenham
Beasts of The Sky
Previous Beasts
How to st. Mary's
Car
You can use the AA route planner to plan your journey. In accordance with our sustainability policy, visitors are advised to travel to St Mary's by public transport wherever possible.
St Mary's is located on Waldegrave Road (A309), please see our location maps for more details.
If you are using a sat nav, the postcode for our Strawberry Hill campus is TW1 4SX and for our Teddington Lock sports facilities it is TW11 9BE.
Please note: parking restrictions apply on the campus from 9am to 4pm Monday to Friday and parking is limited at other times. Please call the main reception on 020 8240 4000 if you require further clarification.
Useful websites
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Google Maps (location)
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Streetmap.co.uk (location)
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TheAA.com (route planner)
Train
From Central London
Travel direct to Strawberry Hill station from Waterloo station using the Kingston loopline operated by South West Trains. The journey takes about 35 minutes and there are usually four trains an hour. These are listed with the final destination of either Strawberry Hill or Teddington on the Waterloo departures board. You can use an Oyster card for this journey.
From other destinations
For train travel from other destinations you can use the National Rail Enquiries or Transport for London websites to plan your journey.
Walking from Strawberry Hill station to St Mary's
St Mary's is a five minute walk from Strawberry Hill station. Turn left when you leave the station, then walk past Premier Wine and the Post Office on your left and take the second road on your right, which is Waldegrave Gardens. At the end of Waldegrave Gardens, turn right onto Waldegrave Road and St Mary's main reception is on your left.
Underground
Travel by the District Line to Richmond underground station, and then take a taxi from the rank outside, take the train to Strawberry Hill or take one of two buses (see below) which stop near St Mary's. See the Transport for London website for Underground station and timetable information.
Bus
From Richmond-upon-Thames
You can catch the R68 towards Hampton Court from a bus stop just outside Richmond station. Get off at the Twickenham, King Street stop and then take the 33 towards Fulwell. Get off at the ‘St Mary's University’ stop, which is just outside of St Mary’s main reception. You can also take the 33 from Richmond, although the bus stop is a 5 minute walk from Richmond station on Sheen Road (Bus stop L on this map)
From Twickenham or Teddington
The 33 heading towards Fulwell stops on Richmond Road and York Street in Twickenham. The 33 heading towards Hammersmith stops on Stanley Road and Broad Street (Teddington High Street) in Teddington.
From Heathrow Airport
Please see below.
*The fare price for each bus journey in as of August 2015 is £1.50 with an Oyster card or contactless payment card. London buses no longer accept cash.
For route and bus stop maps please see the Transport for London website and enter the number of the bus you would like to take.
Taxi
Taxi ranks are located at all major airports and railway / underground stations. There is a taxi rank at Richmond station (Kingston loopline, overground and underground) and a 24 hour taxi company, Strawberry Hill Mini Cab (020 8898 2009), is located on the platform at Strawberry Hill station. There is also a taxi rank at Twickenham train station.
Transport for London promotes the ‘Cabwise’ initiative, whereby you can use your mobile to text CAB to 60835 and get the numbers of one taxi and two licensed minicab firms in the area you are texting from.
Beasts of the Sky will form the final part of our trilogy of conferences, the first of which - Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures and Popular Culture - has now been published as a collection with John Libbey.
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Each of the conferences we have hosted has explored representations of monsters and the monstrous in different geographic settings - the sea, the forests and finally, the sky. For each assembly of presenters the discussions churned out new ideas and conceptions of the complex representations of the natural and supernatural worlds that are contained in these places.
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Have a look through our galleries below, and see what creatures and apparitions joined our previous festivities...
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Beasts of the Forest - July 2017
Beasts of the Deep
June 2016
Taking place in the drawing room of Horace Walpole’s Gothic mansion in Strawberry Hill, this symposium will discuss the sky as space, as well as the creatures associated with it, whether monstrous or mundane, in popular culture. The sky is a privileged locale in popular genres, from science fiction, horror and dystopian film; in animation as well as live action; to natural history programming on television.
Sometimes the sky is linked to the archaic, in myth and with prehistoric airborne creatures; at other times it is the site for our projections of the future, extra-terrestrial or otherwise. In both cases, our representations invariably mediate social and cultural anxieties that are current, even if projected into the distant past or far future. In documentary and natural history, the earth’s flying creatures are seen to be imperilled by global warming and the anthropocene.
We therefore welcome submission of abstracts on any related topic in film, media and cultural studies. Submissions from perspectives on popular genre cinema, transnational screen media, animation, fandom and audiences will be particularly encouraged. The symposium organisers will compile selected papers with a view to publishing an edited collection, following interest from an academic publisher.
The conference day will close with a book launch for the first publication from our conference series: Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures and Popular Culture (2018) John Libbey Publishing.
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Proposals are invited for an interdisciplinary symposium at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, to explore representations of creatures of the sky and air, within the context of popular culture. The one-day conference is on the 30th of June 2018, and will feature a keynote from Chris Pallant.
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Abstract Deadline: 13th of April 2018
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