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The University of Southampton
EnglishPart of Humanities

Poetry and Happenstance Event

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Time:
09:30 - 17:00
Date:
4 April 2014
Venue:
English Faculty University of Cambridge

For more information regarding this event, please email poetryandhappenstance@gmail.com .

Event details

A poetry event co-organised by English at the University of Southampton in collaboration with English departments at the University of Cambridge and Plymouth.

Literary criticism has usually taken verse to be intentional and purposive. As such, it has furnished us with a richer language for talking about the poem as a historically conditioned artefact, rather than the happy accidents that went into the creation of it, and the chance consonances bound up with reading it. In a cultural climate that valorises known outcomes, might a more contingent language help redefine the way we explore and understand poetry? This one-day symposium aims to explore the various ways we might think about serendipity, contingency and the unexpected in reading and writing poetry.

Organisers: Will May, Vidyan Ravinthiran and David Sergeant.

Attendance is free, though the number of delegates is limited; to reserve a place please email the address below.

For further information, visit the University of Cambridge English website.

Speaker information

Professor Daniel Brown,Professor of English

Professor Peter Middleton,Professor of English

Dr Ruth Abbott,University of Cambridge,Lecturer in English

David-Antoine Williams,University of Waterloo,Assistant Professor

Dr Ewan Jones,University of Cambridge,Lecturer in English

Dr Erica McAlpine,University of Oxford,Robin Geffen Career Development Fellow in English

Dr Rod Mengham,University of Cambridge,Reader in English

Dr Anne Stillman,University of Cambridge,Lecturer in English

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