Writing National Literatures

A joint British Academy/Oxford University Press Panel Discussion

6.30pm - 8.00pm, followed by a drinks reception
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1
(Please note change of venue due to ongoing building works at the
British Academy)

A panel of leading academic authors will discuss the writing of
national literatures.  What is a national literature? Can writing in
English represent cultural style and achievement? Can a national
literature be divisive?  Can literature define nationality? Is English
literature synonymous with literature? Is there such a thing as world-
literature? What is the role of translation in forming national
literary traditions?

Jonathan Bate, CBE, FBA, is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance
Literature at the University of Warwick. Among his many books are John
Clare: A Biography, which won Britain's two oldest literary prizes, the
Hawthomden and the James Tait Black. He wrote a best-selling book on
Shakespeare for the general reader, The Genius of Shakespeare and a
major intellectual biography of Shakespeare in the cultural context of
the Elizabethan Age. His VSI English Literature will publish in Autumn
2010. He is also chief editor of The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works,
and writer of the new play with Simon Callow The Man from Stratford.

Hermione Lee, CBE, FBA is a well-known literary biographer, author of
critical studies of Elizabeth Bowen, Willa Cather, and Philip Roth. She
has also written major biographies of Virginia Woolf, and Edith
Wharton.  From 1998 to 2008 she was the Goldsmiths' Professor of
English Literature and a Fellow of New College at the University of
Oxford. She is now President of Wolfson College. She is author of VSI
Biography.

Elleke Boehmer is Professor in World Literature in English at the
University of Oxford.  She is the author of the widely acclaimed
Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, as well as three novels set in
South Africa.  She has edited the British bestseller Scouting for Boys
by Robert Baden-Powell. Her work includes Empire Writing, and the
pioneering Indian lawyer Cornelia Sorabji's memoirs. Elleke is author
of the VSI Nelson Mandela.

Nicholas Boyle, FBA, is the Schröder Professor of German and President
of Magdalene College in the University of Cambridge. He was also Head
of the University's Department of German from 1996 to 2001. He has so
far published two volumes of his prizewinning biography, Goethe: the
Poet and the Age, and a study of the cultural implications of
globalization (Who Are We Now?, 1998).  His Sacred and Secular
Scriptures was based on the Erasmus Lectures which he delivered at
Notre Dame University.  His most recent book is  2014: How to survive
the next world crisis (2010). Professor Boyle is a Fellow of the
British Academy, holds an honorary degree from Georgetown University in
Washington DC, and was awarded the Goethe Medal of the Goethe Institut
in 2000. He is the author of German Literature: A Very Short
Introduction.

Attendance is free and registration is not required for this event.
Seats will be allocated on arrival. Please visit our website for full
details of our forthcoming events.

The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH
Tel: 020 7969 5200, Fax: 020 7969 5300, Web: www.britac.ac.uk


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