We hope that this event might interest you:
Reciprocal Gazes on the Iberian/British Other
(Cultural Decline as "Raw Material" for Narrative Excellence)
Lancaster University, 3rd July 2004,10.30am to 4pm
Part of the Peripheral Identities Research Project
Guest speakers: the writers Lucia Graves and Matthew Tree, and the Catalan
scholar Miquel Berga who will be speaking about George Orwell and John
Langdon-Davies. (All sessions will be conducted in English.)
See www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/eurolang/peripheral/reciprocalgazes for full
details.
The authors Lucia Graves and Matthew Tree (both of British extraction but
immersed in Spanish/Catalan culture) each have their own unique
perspectives on their native and adoptive homelands, which are essential
factors in their published writings about their own lived experiences of
personal and 'national' periods of crisis. George Orwell and John Langdon-
Davies, the subjects of the paper by Miquel Berga, chronicled one such
period, the Spanish Civil War, from their own point of view as outsiders
who nevertheless had strong personal and political connections to the
events they describe. Some of the questions to be addressed in this
colloquium include:
- Issues of historical and personal 'truth': exploring the motivations
behind the writing of memoirs
- Transferences and mutual influences between the writing of fiction and
non-fiction
- Relationships between memoirs and other 'non-fiction' genres such as
journalism etc.
- The nature of the 'reciprocal gaze' on British and Spanish/Catalan
history and identities by writers who are fully immersed in all of these
cultures
- Education, class and ideology as factors in the works under discussion.
Each contributor will give an individual paper in the morning session,
while the afternoon will be dedicated to a round table discussion.
If you would like to attend, please use the booking form on the website
(address above) or email [log in to unmask] (phone 01524 593693),
before 16th June 2004. The conference fee of £20 includes refreshments and
lunch.
Kathryn Crameri and Frederic Barberą
Department of European Languages and Cultures
Lancaster University
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