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Galway and Irish Writing

Historicising Beckett

Ten speakers have been selected for the "Historicising Beckett" panels:

Panel Convenor: Sean Kennedy (NUI Galway)

Panel 1: Reading Beckett Through Beckett's Reading

S.E. Gontarski (Florida State): Reading Beckett through Beckett's Reading
Everett Frost (NYU) and Jane Maxwell (Trinity College, Dublin): Ireland Writing Beckett: Cataloguing Beckett's Student Notebooks at Trinity College Dublin
Sinead Mooney (NUI, Galway): Beckett Reading "Recent Irish Poetry"

Panel 2: Postcolonial Beckett

Margot Gayle Backus and Rachel Duhon (Houston): "The last of my foul brood, neither man nor beast": Historicizing the Grotesque in Beckett's Molloy.
Mark Quigley (UCLA): Unnaming the Subject: Samuel Beckett and Colonial Alterity.
Patrick Bixby (Claremont McKenna): Watt Kind of Man are You?: Anthropology, Cultural Authenticity and Irish Identity.

Panel 3: Historicising Beckett

David Hatch (Brigham): Beckett in Transition: "Three Dialogues," Little Magazines and Post-War Parisian Aesthetic Debate.
Sean Kennedy (NUI, Galway): "Life lay smiling before us": Beckett and the end of Ascendancy.
Rina Kim (Warwick): Severing Connection with Ireland: Women and the Irish Free State in Beckett's Writing.
James McNaughton: Beckett, History and German Fascism

The original call for papers follows:

Papers are sought for a panel, due to be held at the IASIL Annual Conference at the National University of Ireland, Galway 20-24 July 2004, addressing the need for historical readings of the works of Samuel Beckett.

Beckett's writings can seem particularly resistant to historical readings, an observation that is especially true of those written after the Second World War. Set at a nameless crossroads or in strange, unfamiliar cities, Beckett's texts seem to depict everywhere and nowhere. Papers are invited that examine Beckett's work in historical context, and that deal with Beckett's work before and after his departure from Ireland. Papers that deal with Beckett's post-war work are especially welcome. Topics might include:

Beckett and the ends of ascendancy
Beckett and the birth of the Irish Free State
Beckett and Irish Protestantism
Beckett and the Second World War
Beckett and Exile
Beckett and Irish Poetry
Beckett as reviewer


Proposals for papers of 15 minutes' duration should be sent by e-mail attachment to Sean Kennedy, Department of English, NUI, Galway sean_dc_kennedy@yahoo.co.uk by 20 December 2003.

IASIL 2004 is hosted by The National University of Ireland, Galway