Conferences, Symposia and Public Lectures

Writing Equipment Society Meeting
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 10:00 - 14:00

Speakers: Dr Irving Finkel (Assistant Keeper, Department of the Middle East, British Museum); Professor Michelle Brown (Professor of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the Institute of English Studies, University of London); Dr Geoffrey Roe (retired Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Manchester University)

In recent years the Writing Equipment Society has established a pattern of holding a meeting in London on the day before the London Writing Equipment Show; this year is no exception. However, since this year is our 30th anniversary, the meeting will be exceptional and one not to be missed.  As well as hearing outstanding speakers, there will be the opportunity to see an exhibition of items from the Museum of Writing. This is rare opportunity as the Museum does not yet have permanent exhibition space.

Admission will be by ticket only. Non-members of WES are welcome to book for this event. The cost is £20 for the day which includes refreshments on arrival, a buffet lunch and afternoon tea. Please send a cheque for £20 per person made payable to “WES” to Bill Linskey, 32 Stockwell Green, London, SW9 9HZ and please do not forget to include your full address for the return of your ticket(s). CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Psychology/Aesthetics in the Nineteenth Century
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 10:00 - 17:30

Speakers include: Professor David Amigoni (Keele); Professor Isobel Armstrong (Birkbeck); Professor Jenny Bourne Taylor (Sussex); Dr Neil Vickers (Kings College London).

This interdisciplinary one-day conference reassesses the complex and intimate relationship between the emerging discipline of psychology and the field of aesthetics in the nineteenth century.   CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION AND MORE INFORMATION.

"Mr Popular Sentiment": Dickens and Feeling
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 09:30 - 17:45

Speakers include: John Drew, Valerie Sanders, Catherine Waters, Tony Williams. CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION AND MORE INFORMATION.

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George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 09:30 - 17:30

Keynote papers will be given by Professor George Levine, Professor Kathryn Hughes (UEA) and Professor David Amigoni (Keele).

To celebrate the 150th birthday of The Mill on the Floss, one of George Eliot's most remarkable works of fiction, this one-day conference will be held along the lines of the Adam Bede conference in November 2009.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

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Radical Imagination: Reflections on the Work of Sally Ledger
Time: 10:00 - 17:30
Speakers:

Isobel Armstrong, Carolyn Burdett, Regenia Gagnier, Bill Greenslade, Juliet John, Scott McCracken, Jo McDonagh, Kate Newey, Mike Saunders, Michael Slater, Paul Young

This one-day symposium brings together a host of scholars to celebrate the life of Sally Ledger and reflect on her intellectual contribution to the fields of Victorian and Literary Studies. Sally's ground-breaking and inspirational work critically engages with topics across a range of subject areas and this event will consider her work on Dickens, Ibsen, the Fin de Siècle and the New Woman, Melodrama, Sentimentality and Affect, Theatricality, Radicalism, and the theory and practice of historicism.

The event is free but registration is required. For further information please contact Jon Millington,
Institute of English Studies, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU tel. +44 (0) 20 7664 4859 | email:  jon.millington@sas.ac.uk

Mick Imlah: His Life and Work
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 09:30 - 19:00

Speakers include: Paul Hamilton, Clair Wills, Peter McDonald, John Lyon, Andrew McNeillie, Bernard O’Donoghue, Alan Jenkins, Nick Everett, and John Fuller. Readers will include Martin Amis, Alan Hollinghurst, Andrew Motion, John Fuller, James Fenton, Alan Jenkins, Bernard O'Donoghue, Isabel Fonseca, Glyn Maxwell, Helen Simpson.

Mick Imlah (1956 - 2009) was one of the most brilliant poets of his generation. He published just two collections, Birthmarks in 1988, and twenty years on, the long-awaited The Lost Leader, which won the Forward Prize, and was short-listed for the T.S. Eliot and Griffin prizes. Both volumes reveal a poetic sensibility that was wholly original: Imlah's poems are by turns lyrical, sardonic, hilarious, and unsettling; there is nothing quite like them in contemporary poetry.

This conference, timed to coincide with the publication of his Selected Poems (edited by Mark Ford and with an introduction by Alan Hollinghurst) will explore his life and work from a variety of angles. It will be followed by a reading of poems by or about Imlah by writers who knew and admired him.

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UCL English Graduate Conference 2011
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 09:30 - 17:30

CLICK HERE FOR CALL FOR PAPERS.

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Chaucer and Celebrity: The Third London Chaucer Conference
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 09:30 - 17:30

Speakers include: Alexandra Gillespie (University of Toronto), Thomas Prendergast (College of Wooster).   CLICK HERE FOR CALL FOR PAPERS.

Publishing in the Hot and Cold Wars
Time: 10:00 - 18:00

to be confirmed.

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The Power of the Word: Poetry, Theology and Life
Venue: Other
Time: 10:00 - 17:30

Keynote Speakers:  Professor Gianni Vattimo (University of Turin), Professor Helen Wilcox (University of Bangor), Professor M. Paul Gallagher (Gregorian University, Rome), Professor Paul Fiddes (University of Oxford).  Other invited speakers include: Professor John Took (UCL), Professor Jay Parini (Middlebury College, Vermont),  Olivier-Thomas Venard (Professor Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem),  Dr Antonio Spadaro  (Gregorian University, Rome), Dr Stefano  Maria Casella (IULM University,  Milan), Dr Florian Mussgnug (UCL), Prof. Georg Langenhorst (University of Augsburg).

Religion has always been part of Western literary traditions. Many canonical literary texts engage extensively with theology and religious faith and practice, and theological and spiritual writers make liberal use of literary genres, tropes and strategies. Recent work in philosophy of religion, theology, the study of religions and literary criticism has once again brought to the fore issues which arise when literature, faith, theology and life meet, whether in harmony or in conflict. This international conference aims to: foster a dialogue among scholars in theology, philosophy, spirituality and literature and between these and creative writers;  discuss the ‘truth’ of poetry and the ‘truth’ of theology in relation to each other; reassess the idea of poetry as a criticism of life;  discuss the relationship between faith, theology and the creative imagination through an examination of theoretical issues and the study of specific texts;  examine the importance of poetry for personal and social identity, social cohesion and relations between faiths and cultures.

This  conference  is organized by Heythrop College and the Institute of English Studies, University of London.  Heythrop College, University of London, Kensington Square, London W8 5HN Tel: (+44) 020 7795 6600 Fax: (+44) 020 7795 4200.  CLICK HERE FOR CALL FOR PAPERS.

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24th International Ezra Pound Conference: Ezra Pound and London
Venue: Institute of English Studies
Time: 00:00

The 24th Ezra Pound International Conference will be held in the city where Pound spent the pivotal years of 1908 to 1920 and a place that figures prominently in his work. In addition to four days of papers and panels on Pound and others' work, special events tentatively planned are for walking tours of Pound's Kensington and Pound's Bloomsbury, as well as visits to the Courtauld Gallery and the Tate. Additional plans include a reception in Fleet Street, a reading of contemporary poetry related to Pound, the conference banquet, and a two-day excursion after the meeting (10-11 July) to sites in Sussex and Kent, including possible visits to Stone Cottage, Henry James's Lamb House, and the homes of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Ford Madox Ford, and Virginia Woolf. CLICK HERE FOR CALL FOR PAPERS.