Author: modernistudies

We’re excited to announce the first Queer London Research Forum event of 2015, which will be a talk by the Wellcome Library’s Lesley A. Hall, entitled ‘‘‘Bearded Fruit-Juice Drinkers”: the Queerness of Interwar Progressives’.

The talk will take place on the 9th of February at 18:30 in the Cayley Room (room 152-3) at the University of Westminster (309 Regent Street). The talk will be followed by a wine reception. Attendance is free, but places must be booked, please email queerlondonresearchforum@gmail.com to confirm your place.

Abstract: “There was a significant mass of individuals and organisations in Britain between the wars, concentrated in the metropolis, who were widely perceived as ‘queer’ both in the contemporary popular sense of generally eccentric and cranky and also on account of their contravention of gender and sexual norms. This paper will look at the ways this somewhat amorphous group destabilised prevalent assumptions of the day, with particular attention to the ways in which they were felt to be violating hegemonic masculinity, whether through belief in pacifism, a dedication to vegetarianism, unconventional personal fashion style, or enjoyment of such unmanly forms of exercise as yoga and folk-dancing, alongside their liberal attitudes towards homosexuality and on other matters of sexual conduct.”

Lesley Hall, FRHistS, PhD, is Senior Archivist at the Wellcome Library and Honorary Lecturer in History of Medicine, University College London. She is the author of numerous works on gender and sexuality in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain, including Sex, Gender, and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (2^nd revised and expanded edition, Palgrave, 2012), The Life and Times of Stella Browne: Feminist and Free Spirit (I.B. Tauris, 2011) and Ouspoken Women: Women Writing About Sex, 1870-1969 (Routledge, 2005). Her website is www.lesleyahall.net.

Confirmed list of lecturers for the 2015 Samuel Beckett Summer School:

C. J. Ackerley
Amanda Dennis
Lois Oppenheim
Paul Stewart
Derval Tubridy
David Wheatley

‘The loutishness of learning’: a roundtable on teaching Beckett, chaired by Jonathan Heron

A tour of the Beckett country, led by Fearful Whelan

Seminars:
Beckett and the Visual Arts, Derval Tubridy
Beckett and Poetry, David Wheatley
Beckett’s Manuscripts, Mark Nixon & Dirk Van Hulle
Performance Workshop, Jonathan Heron & Nicholas Johnson
Reading Group, Sam Slote

Details of the performance schedule to be announced shortly.

The deadline for bursary applicants is 13 March.

The deadline for registration is 4 May.

For a registration form please email: sbss@usit.ie

For more information: http://beckettsummerschool.com

The Contemporary Small Press: A Symposium

The Boardroom, 309 Regent Street, University of Westminster

10:00-17:00

The Contemporary Small Press Book Fair

The Fyvie Hall, 309 Regent Street, University of Westminster

18:00-21:00

Friday 20^th February 2015

The last decade has witnessed a turn to considering the legacies of modernism prevalent and operative within contemporary literature and culture. Within the scholarly discourses surrounding this shift, there has been little discussion of the status of the small press in the twenty-first century, and its vital role in the dissemination of avant-garde writing. This symposium seeks to address the role and status of the small press in the UK as a field of academic enquiry. We aim to offer a forum that will bring together a number of small presses, and facilitate productive dialogue between the diverse publishers working with contemporary innovative writers and poets.

The day symposium consists of three panels of scholars, publishers, writers, and poets, which will explore the history of the small press, literary politics and the relationship between the small press and the mainstream, and take up issues surrounding materialities of the text and small press publishing. The Contemporary Small Press Book Fair following the symposium will showcase and market the rich and varied work currently being published by small presses.

Poets and writers reading from their work throughout the day, and into the evening, include Carol Watts, Peter Hughes, Toby Litt, Robert Hampson, Jennifer Cooke, Nicholas Royle, Amy Cutler, Rod Mengham, Tony White, and Michael Nath.

Participating presses include Oystercatcher Press, Reality Street, Route, Veer Books, Comma Press, and Equipage.

A collection of new writing by writers and poets taking part in the symposium, outLINES: from the Small Press, published in collaboration with Oystercatcher Press, will be available on the day.

The symposium is free to all but booking is essential. Places for the symposium can be reserved through Eventbrite: https://eventbrite.co.uk/event/15401181348/

For further details about the conference, or if you are the editor of a small press and would like to take part in the Book Fair, please contact Leigh Wilson (wilsonl@westminster.ac.uk), or Georgina Colby (g.colby@westminster.ac.uk).