Department of Geography workshop, Durham University

16^th November 2012, W007 – sponsored by Politics-State-Space research cluster

If you wish to participate in this event, please register with Andrew Baldwin w.a.baldwin@durham.ac.uk.

The aim of this workshop is to engage with the recent resurgence of interest in literary geographies, and to think about how this works in a political register. While there have been many debates about the texts of theory in geography, here the emphasis is on literary texts—plays, poems, and novels. The aim is to examine how literary texts shed light on the complex interrelations between politics and space in ways other sources may not allow. Papers will look at how texts raise questions about the war on terror and responses to it; responses to trauma through testimony; postcoloniality and affect; territory and other political spaces.

12noon lunch available for speakers and Durham participants

1.00-2.00pm

Introduction

James Kneale (University College London) and Sheila Hones (University of Tokyo, ‘Literary geographies: in the space between’ (presented by James Kneale)

2-3.30pm

Angharad Closs Stephens, ‘Politics, Aesthetics, Affect’

Carolyn Pedwell (University of Newcastle), ‘Affective Translation: Empathy and The Memory of Love’

Cheryl McEwan, ‘Violence, Gender Justice and the Politics of Representation’

3.30pm coffee

4-5.30pm

Stuart Elden, ‘Shakespearean Territories’

Paul Harrison, ‘Without Redemption: Shattered Figures’

General discussion

Background Reading on Literary Geographies

A selection of papers on this topic from Society and Space have recently been made available as a ‘virtual theme issue’

And a comprehensive website with multiple bibliographies has recently been launched as Literary Geographies