Among Friends: Inaugural Professorial Lecture

What do we understand by 'friendship'? What part can it play in our working lives? Why did friendship with fellow artists and writers seem so important and how did they make these relationships flourish? In this lecture, Janet Floyd takes a friendship between two nineteenth-century US artists, Mary Hallock Foote and Helena Gilder, as a starting point for exploring some of the different ways in which friendship can be practiced.

‘Among friends’ is about experiences of friendship among people working alongside one another. So much of what we have to say about friendship is about the pleasures of close and committed friendship. What we might call work friendship seems both less important and even potentially harmful, and yet it has its own qualities. Professor Janet Floyd will be talking about these issues and drawing on her recent project dealing with friendships among some of the American artists and writers of the late nineteenth century.

This is an inaugural lecture to celebrate Janet Floyd's appointment as Professor of American Literature & Culture. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception on the 8th floor terrace of Bush House.

Janet Floyd came to King’s in 2003 to teach American literature. She has written on nineteenth-century American literature and culture, especially the American West and the literature of the domestic space. Her work explores the ways in which routine experiences of day-to-day life – especially experiences of work – surface in private writing as well as in books and artworks. Before she became an academic, Janet worked in secondary schools, teacher training, London education authorities and the International Baccalaureate, and questions around teaching and learning, and access to arts and humanities degrees have remained extremely important to her in her work at King’s.