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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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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Inside this issue The second issue of the Beckett Circle to be posted in the time of pandemic bears the scars of the community’s endurance of uncertainty and loss. As performance, in its normal sense has disappeared, we hear from practitioners Sarah Jane Scaife and Cathal Quinn about their attempts to overcome the restricted environment.…
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“This issue covers performances in the US (among them the Happy Days Renaissance Theaterworks production in downtown Milwaukee and Richard Sullivan Jr.’s Waiting for Godot in Providence, RI), Australia (Mark Byron reviews the Red Line Productions’ staging of Krapp’s Last Tape at the Old Fitz Theatre in Sydney), London, Paris and Dublin. We have rich resources to rethink the Beckett oeuvre in the context of contemporary music, as the Farmleigh Music and Arts festival and the What is the Word… concert organised by Benjamin Dwyer at the Centre Culturel Irlandaise in Paris show. A panel on the Battle of Ideas Festival at the Barbican, the role played by Beckett in shaping the “Fail Better” series of the Poet in the City at Wilton’s Music Hall in London, and an account of number of symposia keep demonstrating Beckett’s continuous cultural importance…”
— Extract from the joint President’s Address from Daniela Caselli (sitting president) and Laura Salisbury (president elect).
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Our new issue of The Beckett Circle is extremely rich. Professor Jim Knowlson talks to the well-known British actor David Neilson about the very different fates of two of Beckett’s most famous manuscripts: Murphy and Waiting for Godot. I had the great pleasure of seeing David Neilson act in Endgame here in Manchester, and the Society is delighted to host this dialogue. The ‘Happy Days: Enniskillen International Beckett Festival’ of 2019 takes centre stage in our issue. In its seventh edition under the guidance of Artistic Director Sean Doran, it has offered a rich programme: in this issue, Feargal Whelan’s interviews Clara Simpson’s bilingual production of Pas Moiand Not I, and Emma Keanie reviews her performance – both will speak to those among us interested in translation not only on the page but also on stage. Brenda O’Connell and Sean Walsh review what sounds like a spectacular interpretation of Come and Go, Catastrophe, and Quad by the Mark Morris Dance Group. I’d like to draw your attention also to Sheila Mannix’s review of How It Is (Part 2) by Gare St Lazare Ireland at The Everyman in Cork.
Read MoreEstudios Irlandeses.
A new special issue.
Samuel Beckett and Biopolitics.
Edited by Seán Kennedy.
Open access to all.
Read MoreThis volume aims to study Samuel Beckett’s style in the mirror of his letters. Since 2009, four volumes of his letters have been published by Cambridge University Press: Volume I, 1929-1940 (2009); Volume II, 1941-1956 (2011); Volume III, 1957-1965 (2014) and Volume IV, 1966-1989 (2016). They have also been translated into French and published by Gallimard between 2014 and 2018. In spite of an originally imposing corpus, only a selection of around 2 500 (L1, xx) have been reproduced, but these letters give an idea of the evolution of the epistolary style of the author of Godotand Molloy, from the 1930s through to the 1980s. Written in English, French and, to a lesser degree, in German, the letters are addressed to numerous correspondents: friends (Tom MacGreevy, Ethna MacCarthy) and collaborators (Jérôme Lindon, Robert Pinget); close relations (Barbara Bray) or occasional correspondents, like David Hayman or Matti Megged.
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Inside This Issue
We announce the upcoming Samuel Beckett Society conference, to be held in Spain from 9-11 May 2019; Catherine Fahy contributes an essay/review of György Kurtág’s operatic adaptation of Endgame; James Brophy reviews the recent Beckett and the Nonhuman/Beckett et le Non-Humain conference in Brussels, while Eleanor Green reflects on the most recent Samuel Beckett Society annual conference. José Francisco Fernández reviews Anthony Cordingly’s recent volume, Samuel Beckett’s How It Is: Philosophy in Translation; Amanda Dennis takes a look at Jean-Michel Rabaté’s Think Pig!; and Michael Coffey assesses James McNaughton’s recent monograph, Samuel Beckett and the Politics of Aftermath.
There are tributes to George Craig, who died in March of this year. His colleagues on the editorial team of The Letters of Samuel Beckett reflect on the loss of a dear friend and colleague, while Gabriel Josipovici shares the eulogy that was delivered at Craig’s funeral service.
Finally, this issue shares a rich number of theatre reviews from across the world.
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