To celebrate The William Morris Society’s 60th year, Five Leaves Bookshop will be sharing in this celebration event by attending The William Morris Symposium.

This symposium, to be chaired by the Society’s president Jan Marsh, will examine various aspects of Morris’s legacy. The aftermath of the general election provides a very appropriate opportunity to explore Morris’s political ideas and their contemporary relevance.

Ruth Levitas, a former chair of the Society, looks at the election from a Morrisian standpoint, whilst Tony Pinkney re-assesses Morris’s Marxism. The significant increase in both votes and membership for the Green Party suggests that environmental issues are very much on people’s minds, and Patrick O’Sullivan will speak on William Morris and nature. Education is always politically controversial and Owen Holland, the new editor of the Society’s Journal, re-examines Morris’s views on education. The event will be held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute in Birmingham, in close proximity to the Birmingham Art Gallery, where Jeremy Deller’s exhibition Love is Enough is currently on show. There will be time for participants to attend the exhibition during the lunch break, but in the symposium itself David Mabb will speak about his forthcoming exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, which celebrates the utopian ideas of Morris and the Russian artist El Lissitzky through their seminal book designs.

The event is to be held at The Birmingham and Midland Institute, but for those of you who are not fortunate enough to be able to attend, we have brought together in recognition, a beautiful selection of titles and publications that are available now at the bookshop.

Ticket details: Symposium £30, or £10 concession for students and unwaged
To purchase tickets or for further information please contact the office at Kelmscott House – admin@williammorrissociety.org.uk

Tickets can also be purchased via the Eventbrite page (subject to booking fee)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/william-morris-in-the-21st-century-tickets-17395611743