30 January 2013

Please join us for the sixth seminar series of Inventions of the
Text 2012/13

Life-writing at the limits: dementia in

contemporary autobiographies and life-

writing projects

 
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Wednesday, 13th February 2013
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Department of English Studies, Hallgarth House Seminar Room
 
 
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Rebecca Bitenc, Durham University
Dementia, due to world-wide increasing incidence rates, has come to the fore of public awareness. Its alleged loss of self raises a number of ethical and thus social and political issues. Etymologically denoting a person who is “out of mind”, dementia today designates a specific syndrome and, together with other mental disorders, has undergone a process of medicalization, which influences the way we understand it. At the same time, a growing number of cultural representations have flooded the literary market – from novels, dramas and films to autobiographies by care-givers and people with dementia.
This paper will look at a number of autobiographies by people with early-onset Alzheimer’s as well as the published output of two arts projects by writers in residence in care homes, to analyse how these texts and their authors and co-authors negotiate and challenge the issue of selfhood and its loss in dementia.
About the speaker:
Rebecca Bitenc is currently reading for a PhD in English Literature at Durham University. Her thesis on "Losing One's Self: Dementia in Autobiography, Biography and Fiction" (working title) explores how, in contemporary literature, the alleged loss of self in dementia is expressed across different genres - with particular focus on the ethics of literary form. Her PhD project is funded by the AHRC and supervised by Professor Patricia Waugh and Professor Corinne Saunders. She completed her M.A. at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg, Germany in English, French and Psychology in January 2011.
Please join us for the sixth seminar series of Inventions of the
Text 2012/13
 

Life-writing at the limits: dementia in

contemporary autobiographies and life-

writing projects

Rebecca Bitenc, Durham University
Dementia, due to world-wide increasing incidence rates, has come to the fore of public awareness. Its alleged loss of self raises a number of ethical and thus social and political issues. Etymologically denoting a person who is “out of mind”, dementia today designates a specific syndrome and, together with other mental disorders, has undergone a process of medicalization, which influences the way we understand it. At the same time, a growing number of cultural representations have flooded the literary market – from novels, dramas and films to autobiographies by care-givers and people with dementia.
This paper will look at a number of autobiographies by people with early-onset Alzheimer’s as well as the published output of two arts projects by writers in residence in care homes, to analyse how these texts and their authors and co-authors negotiate and challenge the issue of selfhood and its loss in dementia.
 
About the speaker:
Rebecca Bitenc is currently reading for a PhD in English Literature at Durham University. Her thesis on "Losing One's Self: Dementia in Autobiography, Biography and Fiction" (working title) explores how, in contemporary literature, the alleged loss of self in dementia is expressed across different genres - with particular focus on the ethics of literary form. Her PhD project is funded by the AHRC and supervised by Professor Patricia Waugh and Professor Corinne Saunders. She completed her M.A. at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg, Germany in English, French and Psychology in January 2011.

12 January 2013

Literature and Children


Please join us for the fifth seminar of the academic year:
Literature and Children:
Poetry for Play Hours: 
Victorian Poets & the Culture of Children's Verse
Professor Kirstie Blair 

University of Stirling

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Wednesday, 23rd January 2013
5:30 – 7:00 pm
Department of English Studies, Hallgarth House Seminar Room
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Speaker: Professor Kirstie Blair, Stirling University

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Professor Kirstie Blair has just moved to a Chair at the University of Stirling, after working for seven years at the University of Glasgow. She has also recently been employed as a visiting professor by the Armstrong Browning Library in Texas. Professor Blair is the author of two monographs on Victorian poetry, "Form and Faith in Victorian Poetry and Religion", which came out in 2012, and "Victorian Poetry and the Culture of the Heart". She has published a variety of articles and book chapters on Victorian literature, particularly in the fields of poetry and poetics, literature and religion, and literature and medicine. 

ABSTRACT


This talk provides an introduction to the new project I am starting, which will consider transatlantic poetry for children in the Victorian period, with particular focus on the involvement of major ‘canonical’ poets – primarily Tennyson, Browning and Longfellow – in writing for a child audience and participating in the emerging publishing culture of children’s literature. I will consider some of the possible directions that this research might take and highlight the peculiar investments of major Victorian writers in poetry for children. The talk concludes with a more in-depth consideration of Tennyson, and a reading of ‘The Brook’, in terms of its ambiguous status as a ‘children’s’ poem.

For more information, find us on facebook, follow us on Twitter (@inventionsSem) or check our blog: inventionsofthetext.blogspot.com