Easter Term Timetable

We have the titles for papers to be presented over the Easter term. As usual, we will meet in the seminar room at Hallgarth House at 6:15pm. Looking forward to seeing you all there for more stimulating papers and discussions.

Monday 11 May

Richard Moss (Durham University): "Thomas Pynchon and Waste: Thoughts on the nature of the discarded in Gravity's Rainbow"

Monday 18 May

Ann-Marie Einhaus (Durham University): "Cultural Texts and Functional Memory: Aleida Assmann on Canonisation"

Monday 25 May

Naomi Banks (Durham University): "'Images and symbols adequate to our predicament': Seamus Heaney and the development of Northern Irish Elegy"

Monday 1 June

Clara Dawson (Durham University): "The Meaning of Sound: The Hidden Life of Voice in Tennyson's Poetry".

Monday 8 June

Marc Botha (Durham University): "Exemplarity - The Real: Autopoiesis and a Para-ontology of the Example"

Monday 15 June

Maebh Long (Durham University): "Fragments of a Life: Derrida, Aphorisms and Autobiography"

Epiphany Term Timetable

We have the titles for the papers to be presented over the next term. As usual, we will meet in the seminar room at Hallgarth House at 6:15pm. Looking forward to seeing you all there for more interesting papers and discussions.

Monday 26 January

Amy Jordan (Durham University): '“The body’s state stable & labile”: Crises of Self and Society in John Berryman’s Early Poetry'

Monday 9 February

Dr Alexander Regier (Cambridge University): "Wordsworth and Repetition"

Mondary 23 February

Eleanor Chatburn (Durham University): "'In Search of Home': Form and Quest in the Poetry of Derek Mahon"

Monday 9 March - CANCELLED
George Selmer (Anglia Ruskin University): "Paper or Wordsworth? The Medium is the Message"

Monday 16 March

Matthias Mosch (Durham University): “'Can Faustus Earn Redemption Still?' – Myth and Ideology: A Theoretical Approach"

Speakers for Michaelmas Term

All papers are delivered in the Seminar Room at Hallgarth House:

Monday 17 November 6:15:

Maddy Callaghan (Durham University): “'This soul out of my soul': The Trial of the Hero in Shelley's Epipsychidion"

Monday 1 December 6:15:

Paige Tovey (Durham University): "Wordsworth, Thoreau and Ecoromanticism"

Monday 15 December 6:15:

Professor Michael O'Neill (Durham University): "'Mournful Ditties and Merry Measures': Feeling and Form in the Romantic Short Lyric and Song"

Speakers' Expenses

We are also pleased to announce that funds are available for speakers’ expenses. Three speakers per year (academics or postgraduates) will be awarded funds from the Department of English Studies. One speaker will be invited without the requirement of application to the forum (at the discretion of the panel) and two by open application to the panel. If you would like to apply for funds, please attach a copy of your CV, an abstract of 250-500 words, and indicate your interest in the email. Funds will be awarded to the applicants that are deemed by the panel most conducive to discussion in the context of the chosen themes of the year. We encourage additional speakers to apply to speak at the forum without funding by following the previously outlined guidelines.

Staff and students may present a 20 minute paper (2750 words), which will then generate 20 minutes worth of questions, leading on to a general discussion about key issues raised by the paper. Sessions will last around one hour and will foster an atmosphere of informal intellectual debate.

Themes for 2008-9

Romanticism: “Like a dome of many-coloured glass…”

Speakers are invited to send abstracts that discuss any element of Romanticism. There will be a particular interest in papers that discuss the legacies of Romanticism to later poets, novelists, playwrights etc. and the concept of pluralities of Romanticism.

Papers on any form of European Romanticism are welcomed. Please send all abstracts of 250-500 words on Romanticism to Maddy Callaghan at m.f.callaghan@dur.ac.uk.


Transatlanticism: “Views from the other side.”

Speakers are invited to send abstracts that discuss the issues and exchanges of Transatlanticism. Particular attention will be given to papers that address British and American literature; however, papers on any area of Transatlanticism will be considered.

Please send all abstracts of 250-500 words on Transatlanticism to Paige Tovey at paige.tovey@dur.ac.uk

“Theory”: “A transgression should always know what it transgresses, which always makes the transgression impure, and compromised in advance with what it transgresses.”

Speakers are invited to send abstracts that discuss transgressions, digressions, contaminations, quotations, and their effects on the mark, the text, the event, the -ism….

Please send all abstracts of 250-500 words on Literary Theory/Cultural Theory to Maebh Long at maebh.long@durham.ac.uk

Welcome to the "Inventions of the Text" Blog!

Hi All,

Welcome to the "Inventions of the Text" blog! This blog aims to provide information for the "Inventions of the Text" seminar and discussion forum at the English Department at the University of Durham. There are three organisers:

Maebh Long (marketing)
Paige Tovey (finance)
Maddy Callaghan (general organiser)

Below follows a list of the themes of the year, and any prelimary funding information. Please email our gmail account if you would like any information that you haven't found online. We hope you visit us again!