Literature Wales Newsletter
News Archive
Spaces of Comparison:
Welsh Writing in English in Comparative Contexts
Association of Welsh Writing in English (AWWE)
Annual Conference
Friday 27- Sunday 29 March 2009
Gregynog Hall, Newtown
The focus of the twenty-first annual conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English will be ‘Spaces of Comparison: Welsh Writing in English in Comparative Contexts’. In recent years ‘postnationalism’, ‘transnationalism’ and the ‘transatlantic’ have become influential paradigms in a variety of academic fields. This conference aims to explore the applicability of these concepts to Welsh writing in English. Is it time that we moved beyond the ideological and political requirements of the nation state? Or does ‘Wales’ remain a politically fragile entity that needs to be continually reimagined and reinforced by literary texts? What other peoples, nations and literatures may shed light on the histories and literatures of the Welsh people? Panel papers of a broadly theoretical nature are welcome, as well as papers that compare the literatures of Wales, that place Welsh writing within European and Transatlantic contexts, and that relate comparative approaches to colonial, postcolonial and global contexts.
The three keynote speakers are pre-eminent figures in the field of comparative cultural studies. Peter Lord’s work will address Wales directly, while Professors Susan Manning (Edinburgh) and Marc Shell (Harvard) are leading figures in the fields of transatlantic and comparative literatures respectively.
This year’s conference was organised by Dr. Daniel Williams and Sarah Morse of the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales (CREW), Swansea University. For more information on CREW visit: www.swansea.ac.uk/CREW/ / http://crewswansea.blogspot.com
Jeff Towns of Dylan’s Bookstore, Swansea will run a bookshop at the conference on Saturday. Plus the AWWE / Welsh Books Council conference bookshop will be open throughout the weekend. The attendance of the Keynote Speakers was made possible by generous support from The School of Arts, Swansea University.
This is the twenty-first annual conference of the Association of Welsh Writing in English to be held at Gregynog Hall in Powys. From the outset, AWWE’s aims have been to stimulate interest in Welsh writing in English in universities, schools, colleges, among the people of Wales and beyond. The Association has been active in arranging for the republication of texts long out of print, encouraging students to discover and analyse this rich body of writing and promoting awareness of Wales’s literary heritage.
Click on the links below to download the full conference programme and booking form.
