Literature and Landscapes Study Day Event

Talks include:

Dr Marianne O'Doherty, ‘Somewhere beyond the sea: Europe's Imagined Indies in the late Middle Ages'
This talk investigates changing manuscript illustrations of the continental and maritime Indies in travel accounts. This will illustrate how the region was re-imagined as a locus of crusade during times of crusading fervour, as an abode of monsters when crusading fell out of fashion, and, as the fifteenth century begins, was re-imagined again, this time as a commercial space, but still one with undertones of wildness, menace and environmental hostility.

Dr Stephanie Jones, 'Pirate Havens, Reproductive Fantasies, Mythical Birds and Tidal Waves'
How has the Indian Ocean been imagined within English Literatures from the Early Modern period to the present day? This talk will consider the changing depiction of the region, moving from the work of Henry Neville to Daniel Defoe, to H G Wells to Amitav Ghosh.

Dr Barry Sloan, ‘Forty Shades of Green: Landscapes of History, Memory and Imagining in Irish Writing'
The Irish landscape occupies a prominent place in the work of many writers, whether it recalls events from the past or the country's complex cultural heritage, or prompts visionary imaginings and longings. This talk will consider some of the ways in which landscape features in the work of writers such as William Carleton, Elizabeth Bowen, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, among others, and will suggest how landscape has provided metaphors for healing and inclusiveness as well witnessing to division and loss.

Dr Will May, ‘The Country House Novel'
The English country house novel has often reflected political, social and national upheavals, from the continual threat of improvements in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814) to the ever-present possibility of the workhouse at Woodview in George Moore's Esther Waters (1894). Yet in the twentieth-century, the allegory becomes literal: troops take up residence in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1989) finds appeasement talks taking place in the drawing room. This talk will consider our continuing fascination with the country house novel, exploring how contemporary works by Alan Hollinghurst or Ian McEwan extend or subvert the genre. 

Places are limited, so book your place early to avoid disappointment.

Charges are:

£30 full rate

£20 loyalty rate (Harbour Lights Members, Friends of Parkes, English Teachers Network, university staff and alumni)

£10 discount rate (students/sixth form & college students and those in receipt of income-based Job Seeker's Allowance, Income Support, Working Tax Credit, Council Tax or Housing Benefit)

All prices include lunch and refreshments

Payment:

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