Beckett and Justice: Submission Deadline 8 December 2023

Beckett and Justice, Cal State LA, June 6-8 2024

In the wake of the highly successful 8th Annual Conference of the Samuel Beckett Society, a reminder that the closing date for submissions for next year’s Annual Conference, Beckett and Justice, is next Friday, 8 December. Abstracts should be sent to beckettandjustice@gmail.com.

As previously announced, the conference will take place in Los Angeles, CA on the campus of Cal State LA from June 6-8, 2024. We hope that the conference theme, Beckett and Justice, will speak to several areas in Beckett Studies and will give space for new lines of inquiry. The theme connects to a longstanding history of Beckett’s personal resistance and resilience in the face of tyranny and censorship, his direct engagement with the incarcerated, and the critical role which his works have played in social activism. It also speaks to engagement by Beckett Studies with modes of censorship, perceived and real, which have grown from restrictions and biases imposed on performance of his work. Topics for papers may cover, but are not limited to, the following:

• Beckett’s history of being read and performed inside correctional institutions.
• Beckett’s personal engagement with major failings of justice, from post-colonial Ireland, the rise of European fascism, the Holocaust, Algeria, and communist eastern Europe.
• The importance of Beckett’s work in relation to current political conditions.
• Political stagings of Beckett’s plays, such as Ilan Rohnen’s 1984 Palestinian setting, the Market Theatre, Johannesburg’s 1976 all-black production in apartheid South Africa and Paul Chan’s 2007 iteration in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
• The appropriations of Beckett by Cornell West, Susan Sontag, or others.
• Beckett and Politics
• Beckett and Disability
• Beckett and Neurodiversity
• Beckett and Gender Studies
• Beckett and Inequality
• Beckett and Censorship
• Beckett and Space
• Beckett and Freedom
• Beckett and Responsibility
• Beckett and the Ethics and Politics of Care

Presentations will be of 15 minutes duration. We invite abstracts of no more than 250 words to be submitted to beckettandjustice@gmail.com by December 8, 2023.

The conference will include the announcement of the winners of the Samuel Beckett Society Writing Contest, a performance of Happy Days, staring Monica Horan and Tim Durkin, and a Cal State LA student workshop performance of Beckett short plays, as well as opportunities to network and reunite.

The conference aims to promote a spirit of access and justice throughout all of its proceedings.  Consequently, there will be no mandatory conference fee and on-campus accommodation will be available at low rates.

The conference will be held on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles which serves many of the city’s economically challenged areas, including Boyle Heights, South Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. The area has a rich history of social activism in keeping with the theme and aims of the event.

Organizing Committee:

Katherine Weiss, Cal State LA

Foad Dizadji-Bahmani, Cal State LA

Colleen Jaurretche, UCLA

Rosaleen Maprayil, University of Reading

Feargal Whelan, Trinity College Dublin