Writing for The Irish Times, Emilie Morin cites Samuel Beckett as a politically active citizen who was concerned with cultural and societal change
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International Symposium to be held on Beckett’s How It Is
On 23 February 2018, Gare St Lazare Ireland and Le Centre Culturel Irlandais will host a symposium on Samuel Beckett’s 1961 novel Comment C’est/How It Is. The Symposium will feature a number of international Beckett scholars and artists including Daniela Caselli, Peter O’Neill, Jean Michel Rabaté, Judy Hegarty Lovett, Anna McMullan, Dunlaith Bird, Dan Gunn, Mel Mercier and Pim Verlhurst and the event will conclude with a reading from How It Is by actor Conor Lovett.
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New Exhibition: Beckett in Germany
‘When it’s coming up to Xmas I get the German fever’, Samuel Beckett wrote to his friend Thomas MacGreevy in 1932. This exhibition examines Beckett’s life-long engagement with German art, literature and language. It sheds light on Beckett’s extensive reading of classical writers such as Goethe, Schiller and Hölderlin, his engagement with German visual artists from Albrecht Dürer to the Expressionists, as well as his observations on the reality within National Socialist Germany. The exhibition also tells the story of his famous productions at the Schiller Theatre in Berlin from the 1960s to the 1980s – in particular of Waiting for Godot (1975) – and his works for television at the Süddeutscher Rundfunk in Stuttgart. Furthermore, the exhibition documents Beckett’s close relationship with his publisher Siegfried Unseld, his German translator Elmar Tophoven and the important role played by the Suhrkamp Verlag in introducing the writer’s work to German readers.
Read MoreEmilie Morin: New Insights into Beckett’s Politics
Cambridge University Press: “In this interview with Emilie Morin, author of Beckett’s Political Imagination, we discuss what prompted Emilie to write a book on Beckett’s politics, and why Beckett traditionally is not considered to be a political playwright. Emilie also explains how Beckett’s political outlook is reflected in his writing, and she tells us what has surprised her the most when researching for this new book.”
Read MoreCall for Papers: Beckett’s Faces
Beckett Research Group in Gdańsk: The seminar provides ground for discussing Beckett as faced with other artists and thinkers. We are open to proposals that confront Beckett with his contemporaries, or pursue those who are inspired by his work. Tracing the masters of the past that are reflected in his work is yet another option.
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Pop Beckett: Calling for Submissions
A new edited volume of essays from Ibidem Press, to be published Spring 2019: The first objective will hopefully demonstrate that Beckett was embedded within popular cultural forms of his day – particular in the early stages of his career – be it in the form of film, advertising or song, and that these cultural units are refracted through the works themselves.
Read MoreEimear McBride becomes University of Reading’s first Beckett Creative Fellow
A multi-award-winning author will set out to create a new piece of creative work inspired by Samuel Beckett after being confirmed as the University of Reading’s first Beckett Creative Fellow.
Read MoreSamuel Beckett and the End of Literature
How it would be possible for future writers to formulate the future of literature and literary ‘expression’ after Beckett’s literary revolution? If Beckett introduces a kind of writing that attempts to suspend all talking, all imagination in literary language which opens up literary inventiveness, and at the same time offering an ‘obligation to write’, how we can even think about the possibility of modern literature in the post-Beckett era?
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Samuel Beckett and Technology
The conference will explore the manifold intersections of technology with Beckett’s oeuvre throughout the years, and will consider their future trajectories. This includes the development of modern technologies in the fields of communication, broadcasting, medicine, and transportation in the beginning of the 20th century and their influence on Beckett’s early writing; his employment of new media such as film, radio, and television; and contemporary uses of digital, medical, and other technologies in new approaches to staging, performing, and interpreting Beckett’s work in various genres and fields.
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The London Beckett Seminar, 2017-2018
The London Beckett Seminar at the Institute of English Studies will bring together national and international scholars, researchers and postgraduates to discuss issues arising from the prose, theatre and poetry of Samuel Beckett that pertain to aspects of literary, philosophical and historical analysis with particular attention to translation studies, performance and practice, digital humanities and visual cultures. Inherently interdisciplinary in approach, the seminar will establish a vibrant research network for postgraduate students, early-career researchers, and established academics on a national and international level.
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