Category: Events

CFP: Orphan Identities

Post author By modernistudies
Post date February 9, 2016

CFP: Orphan Identities

Dear Modernists,

We are delighted to announce the CFP for the Orphan Identities Symposium, and hope that you will be able to participate in the event.

Kind regards, Diane

Dr Diane Warren

Dr Alex Gray

Dr Jennifer Jones

Orphan Identities Symposium: Call for Papers

Keynote Speakers: Laura Peters and David Floyd

In 1975, Nina Auerbach commented: “Although we are now ‘all orphans,’ alone and free and dispossessed of our past, we yearn for origins, for cultural continuity. In our continual achievement of paradox, we have made of the orphan himself our archetypal and perhaps only ancestor” (1975 p 416).

The literary orphan figure occupies a liminal position in culture. Poised on the margins of the family, examining the relationship between the influence of the past and the capacity for self-fashioning in the creation of identity, orphan figures prompt important questions about the relationship between the self, the family and the wider social matrix, and self and other in especial.

Forty years on from Auerbach’s influential essay, and in the wake of important new contributions to the debate from Laura Peters and David Floyd (our keynote speakers), it is timely to consider the roles played by literary orphans, and assess the ways in which they reflect and refract the concerns of their contemporaneous cultures.

The Orphan Identities symposium will take place at the University of Portsmouth on Saturday November 12^th 2016.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

fashioning orphan identity; the liminal nature of orphan figures; orphans and transportation/colonial narratives; the orphan as scapegoat; the orphan and modernity; the orphan as dangerous supplement; the therapeutic power of the orphan; the war child/refugee

We are particularly interested in papers that deal with literature post 1800. Abstracts of around 250 words should be sent to: orphan-identities@port.ac.uk by June 10th 2016.

Dr Diane Warren

Milldam LB 1.14, telephone 02392 842193

Events Seminars

Wharton in Wartime, 3 – 4.15pm, Wednesday 10 February, Oxford

Post author By modernistudies
Post date February 7, 2016

Wharton in Wartime

3 – 4.15pm, Wednesday 10 February, St. Luke’s Chapel, Radcliffe Humanities Site, Woodstock Road, Oxford

A roundtable discussion to mark the publication of Alice Kelly’s critical edition of Edith Wharton’s First World War reportage Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort (Edinburgh University Press, 2015)

Featuring
Professor Dame Hermione Lee (Wolfson College, Oxford)
Dr Shafquat Towheed (Open University)
Dr Alice Kelly (Women in the Humanities, TORCH)

Chaired by Professor Elleke Boehmer (TORCH)

Followed by a wine reception sponsored by Women in the Humanities

http://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/wharton-wartime

Events

To the Lighthouse: Musical Inspirations & Responses

Post author By modernistudies
Post date February 7, 2016

To the Lighthouse: Musical Inspirations & Responses

This concert explores the music behind Virginia Woolf’s fifth novel and recent compositions that respond to her work. The inaugural concert of a series on Woolf, Bloomsbury and music, it intertwines readings with Scottish folk song and compositions for voice and piano by composers including Benjamin Britten, Thea Musgrave, Judith Weir and David Knotts. The concert is preceded by a free talk, and there is a small exhibition in the Byre Theatre to accompany it. A free symposium will be held the preceding afternoon, with papers and discussion by Woolf scholars and musicians: contact lmg3@st-andrews.ac.uk for details.

Pre-performance talk by Dr Emma Sutton: Conference Room, The Byre Theatre, St Andrews, 2pm, 4 March. Free

Concert: The Byre Studio Theatre, St Andrews, 3.30pm, 4 March, £10/£8

For further details see:

http://stanzapoetry.org/festival/events/lighthouse-musical-inspirations-and-responses

Discount offers Events Postgraduate Registration open Uncategorized

Stevie Smith Conference Bursaries

Post author By modernistudies
Post date February 3, 2016

BURSARIES AVAILABLE

‘We All Have These Thoughts Sometimes’: A conference on Stevie Smith

11 March 2016

Jesus College, Oxford

https://steviesmithconference.wordpress.com/

We are delighted to announce that, thanks to the generous support of the Oxford English Faculty, seven small bursaries are now available for postgraduate and early-career researchers. Each bursary is equivalent to the registration fee for an unsalaried delegate (£30). They are aimed at attendees who have not secured funding to attend the conference from their institutions or from external sources.

To apply for a bursary, please email steviesmithconference@gmail.com by 14th February 2016, explaining in less than 300 words why you want to attend the conference, and (if relevant) how attendance will contribute to your academic career. Applicants are reminded that it is not necessary to use the full 300 words available.

Delegates who have already registered for the conference, and believe they are eligible, are welcome to apply.

All best,

Noreen Masud, DPhil candidate

http://parrotsatethemall.wordpress.com/

Events

To the Lighthouse: Musical Inspirations & Responses

Post author By modernistudies
Post date February 1, 2016

To the Lighthouse: Musical Inspirations & Responses

Pre-performance talk by Dr Emma Sutton: Conference Room, The Byre Theatre, St Andrews, 2pm, 4 March. Free

Concert: The Byre Studio Theatre, St Andrews, 3.30pm, 4 March, £10/£8

For further details see:

http://stanzapoetry.org/festival/events/lighthouse-musical-inspirations-and-responses

Events Registration open

Registration open: ‘We All Have These Thoughts Sometimes’: A conference on Stevie Smith

Post author By modernistudies
Post date January 21, 2016

We’re pleased to announce that registration for the first one-day conference on poet and novelist Stevie Smith (1902-1971) is now open. The programme and a registration link are available at https://steviesmithconference.wordpress.com/

‘We All Have These Thoughts Sometimes’: A conference on Stevie Smith

Jesus College, Oxford

11 March 2016

Speakers include Dr Will May, Professor Dame Hermione Lee and Dr Frances Spalding. A range of workshops, arts events and exhibitions are included, as well as a closing performance of ‘River Gods’ by Simon Rowland-Jones and Hermione Lee.

Panels are organised around the following themes:

Life-writing
Smith and the feminine
Smith’s drawings
‘Borderlines’
Smith and contemporary politics
Smith and her contemporaries
Smith’s voices
Smith as ‘material’

Please email steviesmithconference@gmail.com if you encounter any problems registering.

Warm wishes,

Noreen Masud, DPhil candidate

http://parrotsatethemall.wordpress.com/

REGISTRATION IS OPEN for ‘We All Have These Thoughts Sometimes’: A Conference on Stevie Smith

11 March 2016

https://steviesmithconference.wordpress.com/registration/

Events

Inventing The Modern Play: Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Leo Butler in conversation

Post author By modernistudies
Post date January 20, 2016

Dear all,

Happy New Year. We’re delighted to announce that the King’s College London Centre for Modern Literature and Culture’s first event in February will continue the theme of Inventing the Modern, bringing a new focus on drama:

Inventing The Modern Play: Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Leo Butler in conversation

Anatomy Lecture Theatre, King’s Building, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS

Wednesday 17^th February, 6.30-8.00pm

A number of contemporary writers of fiction see themselves as interacting with, or even extending, modernism. But what about contemporary playwriting? The work of modernist writers such as Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter still exerts a strong influence over theatre, but does that make contemporary theatre modernist? And how is theatre’s relationship to modernism shaped by the fact that it is always performance, and never just a text? For example, does a modernist play text always make for a modernist performance? Acclaimed playwrights Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Leo Butler will discuss their work and its relationship to modernism.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s plays include Soho – A Tale of Table Dancers, The Night Season which opened at the National Theatre in 2004 and won the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award. Her Naked Skin was the first play to be written by a woman at the National’s Olivier Theatre.The Painter was produced at the Arcola Theatre and Shoreditch Madonnaat the Soho Theatre.

Leo Butler’s plays include Made of Stone, Redundant, Lucky Dog and Faces in the Crowd, all produced at the Royal Court Theatre. He also taught the Royal Court’s prestigious Young Writer’s Programme between 2006 and 2014. He won the George Devine Award for Redundant in 2001. I’ll Be The Devil was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Alison! A Rock Opera was produced at the King’s Head Theatre. His new play Boy is being produced at the Almeida Theatre in April 2016.

The talk is free and open to all, but registration is required via our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inventing-the-modern-play-rebecca-lenkiewicz-and-leo-butler-in-conversation-tickets-19929082422

This event is intended especially to interest students planning to enter our Ivan Juritz Prize. Submissions for the prize are due on Monday 28^thMarch and more details can be found here:http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/centres/cmlc/modcomp/competition.aspx

We hope to see you in February.

Centre for Modern Literature and Culture

Arts & Humanities Research Institute

School of Arts & Humanities

King’s College London

Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 2375

Email: modern@kcl.ac.uk

Web: www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/centres/cmlc/index.aspx

CFPs Events

Race and Poetry and Poetics in the UK, 27 Feb. 2016 (London)

Post author By modernistudies
Post date December 9, 2015

Race and Poetry and Poetics in the UK

Call for Contributions

University of Sussex and the Poetics Research Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London present:

Race and Poetry and Poetics in the UK

9.30am-6pm, Saturday 27th February 2016

Bedford Square, London

In 2015, discussions about race and contemporary poetry and poetics in North America have dominated creative and critical communities. Following Boston Review’s forum on ‘Race and the Poetic Avant-Garde’, co-curated by Dorothy Wang, boundary 2 published the dossier ‘On Race and Innovation’ this November. The Mongrel Coalition Against Gringpo continues to mobilise social media, disseminating their anti-racist and anti-colonial campaigns. The whiteness of the avant-garde and conceptual art and poetry has been disclosed, and readers, writers, and critics are asked to consider their complicity in a movement inextricable from its racialized and possibly racist origins.

How do these discussions relate to poetry and poetics in the UK? How do readers, writers, and critics address the complexities of social and political histories and contemporary realities of race in British and Irish contexts? How do racialized assumptions structure and determine English language poetics and aesthetics? Why are the intersections between literary tradition and contemporary practice and post-colonialism, diaspora, racial identity and inequality so rarely addressed? This year, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric won the Forward Prize for Best Collection; Andrea Brady published an article stating ‘The White Privilege of British Poetry is Getting Worse’; and Paul Gilroy discussed racism in Britain in the interview ‘What “Black Lives” Means in Britain’. Furthermore, the issues of the pressures on multiculturalism – with rising xenophobia, racialized policing, immigration policy and detention, and material inequality stratified along racial lines – hold great significance for the current of cultural production in the UK. This event will create a platform for questions, dialogues, and collaborations in response to the subject of race and poetry and poetics in the UK.

We invite contributions in the form of short presentations (10-15 minutes), workshop activities (25-50 minutes), topics and texts for group discussion (25-50 minutes), and poetry readings and performances. We hope to schedule two panel discussions and two workshops during the day (at Bedford Square), and a programme of poetry readings and performances in the evening (venue to be confirmed).

We intend to record presentations, readings, and performances, and to make them available on our website. It is our hope that the questions, dialogues, and collaborations initiated by the event will continue online. This event is part of a larger project, which will include further events, digital media, and creative and critical publications.

If you would like more information about this project, or if you would like to get involved, please contact: racepoetrypoetics@gmail.com. Website (under construction): www.rapapuk.com.

About:

Race and Poetry and Poetics in the UK is an international research group founded by Dr Sam Solomon (University of Sussex) and Professor Dorothy Wang (Williams College). The steering committee, which includes Professor Robert Hampson (Royal Holloway, University of London), Nat Raha (University of Sussex), and Dr Nisha Ramayya, is organising a programme of events and activities that will take place at various sites in the UK, internationally, and online.

Events

Alain Badiou and Cécile Winter at Tufts University, November 17 and 18

Post author By modernistudies
Post date November 12, 2015

Dear Colleagues,

If you will be in Boston on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, you are invited to attend two lectures at Tufts University’s campus in Medford (directions below):

Alain Badiou

Destinies of Finitude

Tuesday, November 17, 2015 | 6 pm
Cohen Auditorium, Aidekman Arts Center
40 Talbot Avenue

Alain Badiou is one of the most important and influential philosophers in the world today. Emeritus professor of philosophy at the École normale supérieure in Paris, he is also a novelist, playwright, and political activist. His major books of philosophy areTheory of the Subject (1982; English translation 2009), Being and Event (1988; English translation 2005), Logics of Worlds (2006; English translation 2009), and The Immanence of Truths, now in progress. He has also published dozens of books and innumerable articles on politics, film, literature, music, ethics, mathematics, and many other topics.

Cécile Winter

Capitalism/Communism: Reflections on Politics as a Possible Condition for Philosophy

Wednesday, November 18, 2015 | 6:00 pm
Barnum Hall, Room 104 163 Packard Avenue

Cécile Winter is a medical doctor at the Centre hospitalier intercommunal André Grégoire in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. She specializes in the treatment of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. In addition to her medical research, she has published essays on Palestinian-Israeli politics, pan-Africanism, the Chinese cultural revolution, and the novels of Alain Badiou. She has also co-authored and edited numerous tracts and brochures in the context of her work as a political activist.

Directions:

From the Copley Square MBTA (subway) Station, take any “inbound” Green Line train to Park Street; transfer to the Red Line (outbound to Alewife) and get off at Davis Square. Walk up College Avenue (15 minutes) to the Aidekman Arts Center and Barnum Hall, or take the 96 bus from Davis Square Station to the Tufts University stop. The trip from Copley Square to the campus should take between 45 minutes and one hour.

Joseph Litvak

Professor of English

Chair, Department of English

Tufts University

Medford, MA 02155

USA

Events