Professor Rosemary Mitchell, who was 54 years-old when she sadly passed away from cancer in 2021, wanted her passion for creative writing and poetry to continue long after her time with the University and with people she called ‘family.’

With thanks to Professor Mitchell’s donation, Dr Amina Alyal, Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University, along with her wider team, has created the Rosemary Mitchell Poetry Series, which consist of free talks by prominent academics and poets open to students and the community.

The debut talk, Mapping the India-Britain Journeys of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream’, taking place on Monday 18 November between 7:00pm and 9:00pm, will be given by Leeds Trinity University alumna Dr Varsha Panjwani, who is a Shakespeare scholar based in London. Her teaching and research focus on the ways in which Shakespeare is deployed in the service of diversity and how diversity, in turn, invigorates Shakespeare.

Dr Panjwani has had work published in international journals including Shakespeare Survey and Shakespeare Studies, and in edited collections such as Shakespeare, Race and Performance; Shakespeare and Indian Cinema; and The Arden Research Handbook to Shakespeare and Adaptation.

She also hosts the award-winning podcast, Shakespeare & Women, where she interviews famous actresses and academics and is writing the Introduction for the Oxford World Classics edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Dr Varsha Panjwani said: “In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, an Indian changeling child born in the ‘spicèd Indian air’ becomes the cause of contention between the fairy king and queen. But what is his parentage? Why does Shakespeare make this child Indian at all? What did he know about India? How can an Indian reading of the text unlock the play?

“These questions were seeded in my mind when I first read the play in Mumbai as an undergraduate student and became urgent when I was commissioned to write a fresh Introduction for the Oxford World’s Classics edition of the play. This talk narrates how I grappled with these questions and how the answers became entangled with multiple personal and historical journeys between India and Britain.

“I am looking forward to being back at Leeds Trinity University where I studied English and graduated in 2004 and where my journey really started.”

Rosemary Mitchell, born in Dorset in June 1967, was a British historian and Professor of Victorian Studies at Leeds Trinity University where she worked from 1996 until 2019. Professor Mitchell was the Director of the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, which she set up in 1999, she was a published poet and won the competition to name Wordspace.

Wordspace is a public performance platform, originally designed as a public open mic to give Leeds Trinity students a venue to perform their work alongside members of the public, and now a hub for anthologies, radio programmes, and funded writing projects.

The Wordspace sessions continue today taking place once a month and are open to anyone wanting to share their work and poetry. The free online and in person sessions attract people from across the country and the world with regular online participants joining in from London and Toronto.

Dr Amina Alyal, Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University, said: “I am delighted that my vision for a Rosemary Mitchell Poetry series has come to fruition. Rosemary was an outstanding historian and someone whose engaging insight and friendship is much missed by her colleagues in English and History and by her former students.

“I am looking forward to having Dr Varsha Panjwani back on campus with us. Varsha is someone we all remember fondly in English, from when she was an undergraduate with us and impressed us all with her intellect, enthusiasm and warmth. Both Rosemary and Varsha are examples of the cohesion and belonging we enjoy at Leeds Trinity, and we are delighted that Varsha’s thoughtful talk on A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be the first event in the series.”

This free event is aimed at anyone interested in Shakespeare, poetry, and budding writers. For more information and to book visit the Leeds Trinity University website or contact Dr Amina  Alyal a.alyal@leedstrinity.ac.uk.