From Buenos Aires comes news of the latest issue of Beckettiana, the online Spanish language magazine devoted entirely to Beckett studies. This issue, number 20, is co-edited by Lucas Margarit, María Inés Castagnino and Marcelo Lara and features articles by Bruno Clément and S.E. Gontarski, as well as a number of contributions drawn from the…
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The annual Beckett International Foundation Research Seminar will take place on Saturday 4 November at the Minghella Building on Whiteknights Campus, University of Reading. As always, the line-up consists of papers from four specially invited speakers, with ample time allowed for discussion and chat. This years speakers are Elizabeth Barry, Xander Ryan, Hannah Simpson and…
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The latest title in the Elements in Beckett Studies series has just been published and is available to download here free of charge for a limited period. Beckett and Stein by Georgina Nugent offers ‘the first extended comparative study of Gertrude Stein’s role in the development of Beckett’s aesthetics. In doing so it redresses the…
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Following a keenly contested process, incoming Samuel Beckett Society President Patrick Bixby has announced the results of the election of new members to the executive committee. In a message to members, Professor Bixby decalared: ‘the next Vice President of the Society (to succeed to the Presidency in two years) will be Elizabeth Barry of the…
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The latest title in Cambridge University Press Elements in Beckett Studies series has just been released. Carnivals of Ruin: Beckett, Ireland, and the Festival Form examines and contextualizes the long history of mounting festivals of Beckett’s work in the country of his birth. The summary suggests that the phenomenon of ‘festivalising’ Beckett in Ireland ‘might…
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The School of English at Trinity College Dublin has announced that it will be hosting Niamh Campbell and Nathan O’Donnell as the inaugural Beckett Creative Fellows this coming academic year, 2022-23. This scheme is a collaboration with the Samuel Beckett Research Centre at the University of Reading, which has pioneered a series of Creative Fellowships since 2017. Through…
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The Beckett International Foundation at the University of Reading is delighted to invite applications for the Katharine Worth travel bursary, in honour of the renowned Beckett scholar, Professor Katharine Worth, who donated her Beckett archive to the University of Reading. The archive includes a beautifully detailed maquette by Peter Snow of a version of his stage design…
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Applications are invited for a part-time (0.8FTE) Postdoctoral Research Assistant to work with Professor Dirk Van Hulle and his Co-Investigator on the project ‘Editing Beckett: Towards a Bilingual Digital Genetic Edition of Samuel Beckett’s Works’. This post will be fixed-term until 28 February 2025, and it is anticipated that the appointee will start on 1…
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The Samuel Beckett Society is committed to strengthening the field of Beckett Studies by supporting new scholarship from early career researchers. We would like to invite postgraduate researchers and those within eight years of submitting their PhDs to apply for a Ruby Cohn Travel Bursary to support their attendance at the Beckett and Poetry/Beckett &…
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The Chinese translation of the first volume of The Letters of Samuel Beckett has been published in two volumes in Dec. 2021 by Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House (HLAPH), Changsha City, the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese translation is the first version rendered outside of Western Europe. The translator Bo Cao, a professor…
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In the true Beckett spirit of ‘going on’ despite everything, ‘Samuel Beckett and Nature’, originally planned to take place in 2020 by James Martell and his crew at Lyon College, will finally see the light of day on October 7-9 of this year. The event will feature both original keynote speakers, Jean-Michel Rabaté (University of…
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The latest publciation in the Cambridge Elements in Beckett series is titled Absorption and Theatricality: On Ghost Trio and comes from the University of Reading’s Conor Carville. It is a welcome intervention on such a lightly studied work and promises to encourage further research in the area. As the publisher’s note asserts: ‘Samuel Beckett’s 1976…
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A call for papers has been issued by ibidem-verlag’s ‘Samuel Beckett in Company’ series editor, Paul Stewart, Professor of Literature, University of Nicosia, for a proposed edited volume with the title Samuel Beckett and the 21st Century Novel. Professor Stewart writes: ‘Beckett’s influence on an older generation of novelists, such as Coetzee, Banville, Auster and…
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The 7th International Annual conference of the Samuel Beckett Society will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 26-28 October, 2022 with ‘Beckett and Poety/Beckett y La Poesía’ as its theme. Under the title “Beckett & poetry”, we seek to investigate and debate the role played in Beckett studies by different critical approaches to his…
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The latest issue of the Spanish language Beckett Studies journal Beckettiana is now available to download for free here. Volume 18 is edited by Lucas Margarit from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina and contains articles by Gabriela García Hubard, Graciela Mayet, Lucia Battista Lo Bianco, Francisco Diez, Lucian Belén Jares and Arthur Broomfield as…
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A colloquium in honour of the Beckett pioneer Rosemary Pountney is to be held at Jesus College, Oxford on 28 January 2022. Launching the Cambridge University Press series ‘Elements in Beckett Studies’, the event will include contributions from authors whose work has already been published in the series over the past year. The series is…
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Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon have been awarded funding from the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council for a 3-year project: ‘Editing Beckett: Towards a Bilingual Digital Genetic Edition of Samuel Beckett’s Works’ which forms part of the ongoing Beckett Digital Manuscript Project [BDMP]. The purpose of the BDMP, as stated by its…
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While we struggle with the seemingly-unending pandemic, the Beckett community has been continuing to perform, come together (occasionally) and write as best it can. In this issue, we review productions of Waiting for Godot in the claustrophobic confines of Zoom, to Happy Days in a limestone field on a remote island. Lisa Dwan talks about…
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Beckett in Foxrock has been running annually since 2016 from the writer’s home parish church of Tullow on the southside of Dublin. The highlight of each year’s celebrations is a performance by Mouth on Fire theatre company in the unique atmosphere of the church itself. In 2019, an unforgettable presentation of All That Fall led…
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A new Spanish translation of Lessness/Sans has been announced by Árdora Ediciones in Madrid. The volume is novel in that it contains four versions of the same text: Beckett’s original Sans (1969), followed by its translation into Spanish by Loreto Casado, and Beckett’s original Lessness (1970), followed by its translation into Spanish by José Francisco Fernández. Fernández explained the…
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Spectral Landscapes: Absence, Trauma & Nationhood is a two-day inter-disciplinary conference hosted by the University of Reading which aims to explore questions of spectrality, trauma, hauntings and landscape in connection to national and social identity in Beckett’s works. The two-day event, which forms part of Reading’s annual Beckett Week and runs on 4-5 November, 2021,…
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Coming imminently from Edinburgh University Publishing is Samuel Beckett and Technology, edited by Galina Kiryushina, Einat Adar and Mark Nixon. Drawn from the conference of the same name which was held in Charles University, Prague in 2018, this new volume aims for ‘a comprehensive discussion of the role technology plays in shaping Beckett’s trademark aesthetics’ by…
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This autumn sees the publication of two books which address the issue of translation in Beckett’s oeuvre. Samuel Beckett and Translation (Palgrave), edited by José Francisco Fernández and Mar Garre García adresses a number of themes including Beckett’s self-translations, translations of other authors and the poetics of translation, in a collection comprising thirteen chapters followed…
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Beckett and Buddhism is a new work from Cambridge University Press by long-time Beckett scholar and Society member Angela Moorjani . Drawing on letters and archives along with recent studies of Buddhist thought and Schopenhauer’s knowledge of it, the book charts the Buddhist concepts circling through Beckett’s visions of the ‘human predicament’. Moorjani offers an…
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Lisa Dwan takes on the role of Winnie in Happy Days at the Riverside Studios in London. She spoke to Mert Dilek about tackling the part as a younger (and pregnant) woman, and about working with director Trevor Nunn on another Beckett piece. [A longer version of this interview will appear in the Autumn issue…
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Call for Papers – Deadline 31st July 2021 Spectral Landscapes: Absence, Trauma and Nationhood 4th-5th November 2021, University of Reading “places belong to our bodies and our bodies belong to these places. We learn how to orientate and re-orientate ourselves in relation to them and form internalized representations of them (cognitive maps) which play a…
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The latest on-line version of Waiting for Godot is the first project of American company The New Group Off Stage, and is described as ‘an experimental exploration of a storied play, bringing together a roster of lauded artists from across the cultural spectrum. A combination of theatrical invention and innovative filmmaking. At once both a…
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This issue once again reflects the COVID restricted nature of our times. Performances are on-line but show signs of adapting to the restrictions of form. We feature reviews of five different approaches to the problem and interview actor Marty Rea about his experience in the live broadcast of Happy Days. New Beckett Society President, Laura…
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The Samuel Beckett Society is delighted to congratulate its long-time member, friend and colleague Martha Dow Fehsenfeld on the award of an honorary Doctorate in Letters from Beckett’s alma mater Trinity College Dublin. The ceremony took place online in accordance with COVID restrictions for the first time in the University’s history. The occasions Public Orator,…
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On 12 February, Cal Revely-Calder began his critique of the current state of Beckett studies by allowing readers of the Times Literary Supplement to drop their jaws at the bad behaviour that can go on at academic conferences. The essay made its revelation broadly in the name of ‘care’ – care for the work of an author…
Read MoreAnnouncement: “In response to the current pandemic, we have postponed our annual conference (Bordeaux) to 2021. Details of future events will be circulated once we have a clearer idea of how things will develop in the next few months.”
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A reminder that the closing date for submission of abstracts for MLA Convention 2027 is approaching. The Society is seeking applications for three separate panels for which full details are provided below. One panel is guaranteed to be accepted by the MLA organising committee while two will be submitted for consideration by the selection process.…
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Beckett publishers Faber are planning a day-long seminar on Waiting for Godot at their London headquarters in Hatton Garden. The event, which will be hosted by past-president of the Samuel Beckett Society Professor Laura Salisbury, will take place on Saturday 21 March and will be strictly limited to fifteen participants. More information on application and…
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El seminario Vértice Samuel Beckett continua con la intervención de Gabriela Vescovi (UNICAMP) de Brasil hablando sobre el tema ‘el distópico en la obra de Samuel Beckett: los textos claustrofóbicos’ en el viernes 20 de febrero. 14:00 Brasil/Argentina; 11:00 Mexico; 18:00 España. Se puede unirse a la reunión con este link. The latest session in…
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The Samuel Beckett Society is committed to strengthening the field of Beckett Studies by supporting new scholarship from early career researchers across all geographic areas. In this spirit, and to honour an outstanding past member and scholar, we would like to invite postgraduate researchers, as well those within eight years of submitting their PhDs and…
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The Samuel Beckett Society is pleased to announce calls for papers for the 2027 Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association which will take place in Los Angeles in January. One panel is guaranteed to be accepted by the organising committee while two will be submitted for consideration by the selection process. In the spirit…
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A rare opportunity is being afforded those who are lucky enough to be in and around Phoenix, Arizona next week as the highly rated production of Happy Days from Níl Dabht Productions plays for one night only at the Irish Cultural Centre and McLelland Library. Starring Monica Horan as Winnie and Timothy Durkin as Willie,…
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A hybrid event organised by the Carl Gustav Jung Institute of San Francisco has just been announced and should be of interest to those interested in the area of Beckett and psychoanalysis and particularly his engagement with Jung and his ideas. As is well known, Beckett attended one evening of Jung’s ‘Tavistock Lectures’ in London…
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Georges Borchardt (1928-2026) The death recently took place in New York of Georges Borchardt, the literary agent who was instrumental in promoting and developing the careers of Samuel Beckett and other notable twentieth century European writers in the United Sates. Raised in France, Borchardt lived a clandestine life during the war because of his family’s Jewishness…
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The latest in the Cambridge Elements in Beckett Studies series has just been released. Authored by Society past-president Patrick Bixby, Quotidian Beckett: Art of Everyday Life will explore the writer’s ‘enduring preoccupation with the quotidian rhythms of modern life, including the experiences of boredom, routine, habit, and consumption.’ By drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s influential theories of…
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When asked by The Times in 1983 to set out his hopes for the coming year, Beckett replied by telegram with an economy worthy of his aesthetic: RESOLUTIONS COLON ZERO STOP PERIOD HOPES COLON ZERO STOP BECKETT By contrast, in 2026 we at the Samuel Beckett Society resolve to continue promoting his work and ideas,…
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The Samuel Beckett Society 