News

The programme of the day symposium Decadence and the Fairy Tale, organised by the British Association of Decadence Studies (BADS) and the Goldsmiths’ Decadence Research Centre In association with the Centre for Comparative Literature has been published.

Registration is now open at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decadence-and-the-fairy-tale-tickets-583149053517.

See https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/decadence-and-the-fairy-tale/ and https://bads.gold.ac.uk/decadentfairytale for all information.

The symposium is free to attend and will take place in person, on 24 March 2023 at Goldsmiths, University of London, Richard Hoggart Building, Room 137. (Directions to Goldsmiths and a campus map can be found at: https://www.gold.ac.uk/find-us/.)

We hope you can attend!

 

Applications are invited from creative writers and practice-led researchers to present on and around the themes of autofiction, biofiction and their neighbouring forms.

Auto / Bio / Fiction is a series of events hosted by Goldsmiths Centre for Comparative Literature exploring the formal, aesthetic, ethical, political, historical and philosophical concerns surrounding biofiction, autofiction and neighbouring genres and art forms.

To conclude our 2022-23 programme, on 8th June 2023 we will host a special half-day digital symposium dedicated to the practice and practice-led research of autofiction, biofiction and other literary forms worrying the boundaries between truth and fiction, life and art, self and character.

The Keynote Speaker will be Jarred McGinnis, author of The Coward, in conversation with Natasha Bell. 

Our hope is that this will be a playful and productive afternoon of creative and critical exchange. Presentations could take the form of, but are not limited to: 

• readings from creative works in progress,  
• critical papers,  
• led exercises or workshops. 

If you are interested in taking part in this event, please submit a 250-word abstract/proposal for a 20-minute presentation, along with a short bio, to Natasha Bell. These should be sent as a single word document, with name and any affiliation included. The deadline for abstract/proposal submission is 3^rd April 2023. 

Participants will be notified by Monday 17^th April and registration will open shortly thereafter. 

The Symposium will take place online.

We are sorry to announce that Barbara Graziosi’s talk “‘The chancy story of the Phoenician woman’: Reading Homer with Virginia Woolf”, part of the  Sing in Me, Muse series, has had to be rescheduled to 2 November 2023 due to UCU industrial action on the original date of 16 March 2023.

If you had already booked to attend, whether online or in person, the ticket remains valid.

For more information, see https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/the-chancy-story-of-the-phoenician-woman-reading-homer-with-virginia-woolf/.

We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you understand that we cannot ask our speakers to cross (even virtual) picket lines. Thank you.

 

 

The next seminar in the Auto / Bio / Fiction series will take place this week, on Thursday, 9 March 2023, at 5.30pm (London time), with

Lorenzo Marchese, ‘A Brief History of Italian Autofiction’

and

Julia Kritsikokas, ‘The Writing of Trauma in French Women’s Autofiction: Annie Ernaux and Nina Yargekov’

The seminar will be online. Click here for more information and to register (registration is required to receive the zoom link).

 

 

A reminder that on Friday 24 February 2023, at 6pm GMT, the London Beckett Seminar welcomes Clara Simpson (Théâtre de la Manufacture), “Performing Not I”

To attend, please register by email.

 

We are sorry to announce that the next event in the Sing in Me, Muse series, Emily Hauser’s talk ‘Recovering the Women of the Trojan War‘ and reading from her novel For the Most Beautiful, initially scheduled for Thursday 16 February, has been postponed to Thursday, 23 March 2023, at 6.00pm (London time), due to UCU strike action.

If you had already booked to attend, the ticket remains valid, and you will receive the zoom link the day before the seminar, and again about 1 hour before the start.

We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you understand that we cannot ask our speakers to cross (even virtual) picket lines.

We are sorry to announce that the Auto / Bio / Fiction seminar with Guido Mazzoni (“Like everyone else. Annie Ernaux’s The Years“) and Jarred McGinnis (“Alchemizing the self for fiction”), which was scheduled for Thursday 9 February 2023 at 5.30pm UTC, has had to be cancelled due to UCU strike action.

Guido Mazzoni will be rescheduled to a new event dedicated to Annie Ernaux in the next academic year.

Jarred McGinnis will be keynote speaker at a new Auto / Bio / Fiction event in June 2023, focused on auto- and biofictional creative writing.

Full details will be announced as soon as we have finalised them. Keep an eye on the Auto / Bio / Fiction page on our website!

The seminar on 9 March 2023, 5.30pm UTC, with Lorenzo Marchese and Julia Kritsikokas is not affected by the strike and should go ahead as normal. Please join us for that!

We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you understand that we cannot ask our speakers to cross (even virtual) picket lines.

 

A reminder that the next seminar in the Sing in Me, Muse series is this Thursday, 2 February 2023, at 6.00pm (London time):

Michael Simpson and Barbara Goff, “‘Votes for Medea: The British women’s suffrage movement and the classical franchise”. 

The talk will be in Room 144, Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths (Lewisham Way, New Cross, London SE14 6NW). (Click here for directions to Goldsmiths and for a campus map.)

Note that this event will be in person and will not be recorded.

Click here for more information and to register.

A reminder of the next seminar in the Auto / Bio / Fiction series:

Thursday, 26 January 2023, at 5.30pm (London time):

Anna Borgarello, “Of Adventurers and Storytellers: Narrations of the Self and the Other in Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone and Limonov by Emmanuel Carrère”

and

Riccardo Castellana, “Biofiction in Italy: typologies, traditions and reception”

The seminar will be online. Click here for more information and to register (registration is required to receive the zoom link).

 

With many apologies: due to unforeseen circumstances, Marina Warner’s Annual Lecture, “Viral Spiral: Multiple Shape-Shifting from Ovid to Covid”, due to be delivered tonight at 6.15pm UK time, has had to be postponed to a date to be confirmed.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Very best wishes from the CCL