A series of revelatory hallucinations that Philip K Dick experienced in 1974, radically altering his view of belief, time and history, were the inspiration for his quasi-autobiographical novel Valis which was published in 1981. Professor Sarah Dillon joins Prof Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck) and presenter Matthew Sweet on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking on Thursday 19th […]
Continue ReadingDiarmuid Hester publishes ‘Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories’ (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2023)
A new book by Dr Diarmuid Hester (Emmanuel) explores a queer sense of place in twentieth century literature and art by examining the lives and works of figures such as EM Forster, Josephine Baker, Claude Cahun, James Baldwin, Derek Jarman, and others. ‘With originality and subtlety, Diarmuid Hester examines how the gay imagination deals with […]
Continue ReadingRoss Wilson publishes ‘Critical Forms: Forms of Literary Criticism, 1750–2020’, Oxford University Press, September 2023
Critical Forms is an account of the generic forms in which literary criticism has been undertaken. It examines chiefly Anglophone literary criticism, with comparative discussion of French and German material, from around 1750 to the present and examines prefaces, selections and anthologies, reviews, lectures, dialogues, letters, and life-writing. Link to further information: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/critical-forms-9780198881117?lang=en&cc=au#
Continue ReadingLaura Wright organises a Gibraltar Literature Symposium
Laura Wright is organising a Gibraltar Literature Symposium in the English Faculty 12-13 September 2023.
Continue ReadingProfessor Clare Pettitt awarded the 2023 Rose Mary Crawshay Prize by the British Academy
Professor Clare Pettitt has been awarded the 2023 Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for her book Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity, 1815-1848 (Oxford University Press, 2020). The British Academy jointly awarded the prize to Professor Pettitt and Noémie Ndiaye. Link to further information: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/prizes-medals/rose-mary-crawshay-prize/
Continue ReadingDr Julia Empey co-edits “Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media: From ‘Annihilation’ to ‘High Life’ and Beyond”, published by Bloomsbury, September 2023
Science fiction (SF) as a genre allows for new imaginings of human-technological relations and human exceptionalism. In this way, science fiction affords unique opportunities for the scholarly investigation of the relevance and relative applicability of specific posthumanist and feminist themes and questions in a particularly rich and wide-ranging popular cultural field of production. Where typically […]
Continue ReadingProfessor Orietta Da Rold gives a plenary at the 33rd International Conference of SELIM, September 13-15, 2023
The title of Professor Da Rold’s lecture is ‘Late medieval book culture and the sociology of scripts’. The conference takes place at the University of Murcia. Link to the conference programme: https://eventos.um.es/82437/section/40878/selim-33.html
Continue ReadingBhanu Kapil is a featured performer at the Burley Fisher Festival in London
The Festival is organised by Burley Fisher Books, with funding support from Arts Council England, awarding funds from the National Lottery. It takes place from Thursday 21 September to Saturday 23 September. For further information about the festival: https://burleyfisherbooks.com/blogs/news/bfday23-festival-21-23-september-back-bigger-bookier
Continue ReadingBhanu Kapil is offering a workshop as part of a conference organized by the European Alliance of Academies: “On Freedom of Artistic Expression in Literature in the 21st Century”
The conference, organized by the European Alliance of Academies, in collaboration with the Royal Society of Literature, takes place at Homerton College, Cambridge, on 26-27 August 2023. Link to further information about the conference: https://www.homerton.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-08/eaoa_homerton-college_2023_booklet.pdf
Continue ReadingThe English Faculty was delighted to host 26 students from all over the country for the annual Sutton Trust Summer School last week
Staying at Gonville & Caius College for the week the students had a packed programme of lectures, classes and other activities designed to give them a taste of the life of an English undergrad. Students also completed an individual project; choosing topics from Keats to Plath, Virginia Woolf to Taylor Swift, Vile Bodies to The […]
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